Chapter 413 Mass-Produced Evil Souls (6000, First Update)

"Go!"

Facing Su Zhou, who displayed strength far exceeding that of an ordinary commander-tier, the two remaining evil spirits didn't hesitate. They turned and fled with all their might.

--Instant kill? Even if this person's strength was indeed one or two minor realms higher than theirs, it was still too exaggerated. Judging from the神通 (shentong, divine power) and imposing manner of his summoning wind and rain, he was as terrifying as the ancient immortals and gods, completely impossible to contend with!

In an instant, two ice-blue streams of light turned into Y-shaped forks, fleeing in different directions.

Strangely enough, although these two evil spirits were clearly different in height and size, their details of turning around and running away were inexplicably similar, as if they were carved out of the same template.

But Su Zhou didn't care about these things. Regarding the evil spirits that had already run thousands of meters away in an instant, he, floating in mid-air, had a blue-green spiritual light flashing in his eyes, and then raised his hands, aiming at their fleeing backs, and grasped in the air.

*Buzz!*

A low electromagnetic hum sounded, and lightning flashed between heaven and earth. Instantly, all the mud and rocks in the mountains trembled, and then burst apart. Countless iron sands gathered from all directions, surging towards the sky above.

The 御五极神雷真法 (Yu Wuji Shenlei Zhenfa, Five Extremes Divine Thunder True Art), in the Awakening and Extraordinary stages, was only relying on the mutual generation and stimulation between spiritual energy to create the ‘阴阳相激之炁’ (yin yang xiang ji zhi qi, Qi of Yin and Yang Stimulation), which was the Dao technique of 'Thunder', used to create and guide this powerful force.

However, upon reaching the Commander stage, the essence of this Thunderous Righteous Art began to gradually deepen, no longer simply using it as a destructive force, but beginning to attempt to control this electromagnetic power that he created.

Along with the movement of Su Zhou's mind, a huge electromagnetic attraction unfolded, and the evil spirits who had already escaped a considerable distance away suddenly felt a strange pulling force. At first, they didn't know what was happening, but soon, as the Dao Armor on their bodies suddenly stopped, and a large number of metal structures stopped operating, not only did their speed directly stagnate, but even their entire bodies were 'sucked' backward.

Naturally, this wasn't a solution, and the evil spirits' reactions were also extremely astonishing. Facing the crisis, the evil spirit holding the bow immediately turned around. It aimed at Su Zhou, gathered all its strength, and shot an arrow, intending to interfere with Su Zhou. On the other side, the evil spirit holding the sword had its Dao Armor automatically collapse and fall off, revealing the Qingqiu (name of a mythical race) human form with black lines all over its back, and then continued to flee with all its might, without any pause.

*Swoosh!* As an arrow shot out, a vast white shockwave instantly tore through the atmosphere, and the cold metallic clanging sound rang out -- this evil spirit's arrow did indeed display the level of a Commander tier. Its speed not only exceeded twenty times the speed of sound, but also contained a terrifying intent that shook the mind and destroyed the soul.

The team of twenty evil spirits that were dispatched this time actually had mutual cooperation, especially the three Commander-tier evil spirits, all possessed cold attribute shentong, namely Xuanbing (Mystic Ice), Yinhun (Yin Soul) and Mingtu (Nether Earth), mutually complementing each other, they could form the most basic 'Red Lotus Hell' magic array, and exert magical powers far exceeding their strength.

However, because Su Zhou killed too quickly, the evil spirit originally holding the Mingtu shentong was instantly killed, the formation was broken, and they completely lost the ability to resist head-on.

But even so, this arrow from the bow-wielding evil spirit holding the 'Yinhun' shentong was a killing move aimed at the soul. That cold clanging sound, even if ordinary people heard it, would have their fighting spirit and will to resist taken away. There was no need to hit them, it could wither their souls and weaken their spirits.

The arrow light arrived in an instant, flying towards them. All the flowers, plants, and trees along the way withered and died. Tang Yuan, in his spirit form, immediately left the spirit world, restored his body, and was covered in cold sweat -- he had sensed an extremely terrifying premonition just now. This attack specifically aimed at the mind and soul was extremely effective against him.

However, facing this imposing arrow, Su Zhou simply stood in place, and then exhaled.

*Boom!*

This breath was exhaled from the lungs, and then accelerated layer by layer along Su Zhou's already spiritual-energy-organized throat. It transformed its nature, and was endowed with the three attributes of 'Thunder', 'Flame' and 'Gale'. Then, in the oral cavity, it received the blessing of runes such as 'Condensation', 'Acceleration', 'Burst' and 'Empowerment', which were also already extraordinary and engraved on the tongue and teeth. Finally, it burst out from the youth's mouth.

At this time, it had already turned into an incomparably condensed white light.

The white light collided with the soul-destroying arrow. In the instant before the sound could even propagate, the arrowhead directly exploded, turning into light spots that spread across the sky. The bow-wielding evil spirit couldn't figure out what was happening at all. From its perspective, its full-strength arrow automatically exploded after Su Zhou made a 'sighing' motion.

But soon, it didn't have time to think more -- because a hand stretched out from the flames of the spiritual arrow explosion, pierced through its Dao Armor and body, grabbed its spine, and then crushed it as easily as snapping a banana.

*Crack* -- Spiritual energy from Su Zhou permeated its entire body, causing this evil spirit to completely lose its ability to resist, becoming a pile of soft, rotten flesh on the ground.

Afterwards, Su Zhou raised his head. He looked at the sword-wielding evil spirit who had taken off his Dao Armor and had escaped far away. He helplessly took out the Blade of Annihilation from his personal space.

"Go, bring that guy back to me."

After giving such instructions, Su Zhou launched the Blade of Annihilation, which was emitting an excited 'clang' sound, with the 'Heavenly Thunder Sword Control True Art' -- which was a railgun in a sense.

Five seconds later, the evil spirit, who had been turned into a human stick and whose wounds were all charred, was sent back with the Blade of Annihilation piercing through its chest.

"*Clang clang!*" Making such sounds, shaking the half-dead evil spirit, the divine blade seemed like a dog bringing back a frisbee, showing off its achievements to Su Zhou.

"Good job."

Su Zhou pulled the Blade of Annihilation out of the sword-wielding evil spirit's body. He stretched out a finger, and starting from the root of the blade spine, stroked it all the way to the tip of the blade. The youth smiled gently and said, "You're getting smarter and smarter."

"*Clang~*"

Being stroked by Su Zhou like this, the entire Blade of Annihilation seemed to be trembling. Even though it was quickly stuffed back into its scabbard by its master, and sent back to its personal space to accompany the silent World Tree Spear and the Wisdom Tree who was diligently sealing the 'Soul of the God of War', the Blade of Annihilation was still very intoxicated.

Qingqiu Star.

Su Zhou landed on the ground, and in front of him was a pile of rotten flesh and a human stick.

And from the appearance of the evil spirits, to the instant kill of the first human immortal realm evil spirit, it didn't take more than twenty seconds from beginning to end.

Tang Yuan, who revealed his original form, and Gu Zechuan, who had already drawn his sword and was preparing to fight, stared blankly at this side.

"This is too much of a difference..."

Putting the short knife, which was only about two chi (Chinese measurement unit, roughly 2/3 of a foot) long, back into its sheath and hanging it behind his waist, Tang Yuan had long known that his immediate superior was very strong, but he hadn't expected that Su Zhou could actually crush an enemy of the same Commander tier to this extent.

And Gu Zechuan was even more incredible.

An evil spirit in the Human Immortal Realm might just be ordinary. As long as an average shelter worked together, resisting the opponent wouldn't be a problem.

However, a team like this, with three Human Immortal evil spirits and seventeen Innate Realm evil spirits, was enough to easily break through any shelter. Even an old shelter like the Gu Clan would be in a bitter battle, and might not be able to last too long.

After all, evil spirits weren't powerful in single combat, but once their numbers increased, forming formations to complement each other, they would be very terrifying.

However, this team of evil spirits, which was enough to make the Gu Clan issue an emergency and ask all the surrounding shelters for help, was directly wiped out in ten or twenty seconds?

"Is this the foundation of the Central Divine Court..."

Staring at the two evil spirits who had completely lost their ability to resist under Su Zhou's feet, the fox-eared youth couldn't help but mutter to himself: "No wonder the elders and ancestors can't forget..."

Because of Su Zhou's previous outburst, a torrential rain was pouring down from the sky, washing the earth and dispersing all the ashes of the evil spirit corpses that were previously instantly killed by lightning.

In the heavy rain, Su Zhou didn't drag things out or talk nonsense. After landing on the ground, he walked directly forward and grabbed the evil spirit whose spine had been broken and had the 'Yinhun' system shentong.

Taking off the helmet of the Dao Armor, behind it was indeed a Qingqiu fox person. It had a handsome appearance, but a large number of black spiritual light veins like blood vessels flashed on its face, and its eyes were extremely dull, as lifeless as a dead person.

*Puchi.*

Su Zhou naturally didn't care whether the other party was alive or not. He raised a slender finger, and then directly crushed the evil spirit's forehead skull, penetrating deep into the brain.

Soon, spiritual lines spread from Su Zhou's finger as the center, and then covered the entire head of the evil spirit. In the youth's eyes, data streams similar to those of Yan Sheng (a character name) appeared, emitting a cold blue light.

This was a very ordinary little trick. According to Yan Sheng, it was 'physical soul-searching technique', which could control spiritual power and neural micro-currents to simulate brain signals, use physical contact as a port, directly hack into the human brain, and search the other party's memories and thought patterns.

Back in the Typhon Domain, Su Zhou was very curious after seeing Yan Sheng do this to the Summoner, and Yan Sheng didn't mind teaching Su Zhou this trick -- in fact, facing a genius of Su Zhou's level, any old man couldn't help but want to teach him a trick.

Maybe he wanted to be his disciple? Although it was unlikely, it didn't cost anything to try.

Although, if he wanted to maximize the effect of this technique like Yan Sheng, he needed to implant cybernetic implants such as nano-needles, but Su Zhou didn't need to probe every detail of the enemy as meticulously as Yan Sheng.

"Interesting."

He said calmly. In the horrified eyes of Tang Yuan and Gu Zechuan, Su Zhou pulled out his finger, and then performed this physical soul-searching technique again on the sword-wielding evil spirit who had been turned into a human stick.

After doing all this, Su Zhou frowned slightly.

"Interesting -- just as Gu Zechuan said, these 'evil spirits' are essentially normal Qingqiu people, and they also have the memories of when they were born as humans."

"However, their thought patterns have been completely tampered with -- whether it's timidity and cowardice or arrogance and conceit, whether it's caution and prudence or carelessness and recklessness, these specific behavioral patterns are all a person's self-characteristics, and these characteristics are essentially human memories, habits, and thought patterns, which are reflected in external actions."

"However, these two evil spirits, except for the fact that their memories from when they were born as humans are different, the underlying thought patterns and action tendencies are almost completely the same!"

When a person's thinking essence is worn away and changed, even if they still have their original memories, it is basically equivalent to death.

What's more, the Qingqiu people possessed by evil spirits, what is changed is not only the essence of thinking.

Noticing this, Su Zhou couldn't help but narrow his eyes. He fell into thought: "Is it a thought imprint? Or some kind of very powerful brainwashing? Demonic possession and heart demon invasion are also not impossible... but on Earth, the so-called 'heart demon' is actually a kind of spiritual energy virus, and heavenly demons..."

Such thinking was meaningless, because there were simply too many possibilities.

Making a decision in his heart, Su Zhou stretched out his hand and swept it across the two evil spirits in front of him. Instantly, the cyan-purple Devouring Demon Fire burst out, engulfing the two dying Commander-tier evil spirits, causing them to slowly turn into charcoal in painful wails and struggles.

Afterwards, two evil souls also emerged from the corpses.

Those were two dim and tiny, but 'pure black' evil souls.

"How can there be such evil souls?!"

This evil soul had no light at all. Even Su Zhou showed a different color. It was the first time he had seen an evil soul that was so thoroughly black that he couldn't see any 'conscience' at all.

The Devouring Demon Lord had free will. For an evil soul to turn into complete darkness in Su Zhou's eyes meant that this person was completely incompatible with him from any point of view, and was an absolutely irreconcilable enemy who could never be understood or forgiven -- in fact, most of the evil souls of the many enemies Su Zhou had killed in the past were colorful, proving that although Su Zhou had to kill them for various reasons, they weren't completely hostile.

After all, understanding wasn't equal to forgiving. They still had to be killed.

Taking a closer look, Su Zhou began to analyze these evil souls.

Then, he couldn't help but let out a soft exclamation.

[Soul Derived from a Heartless Demon]

[A Void Soul with No Heart, No Soul, No Body, No Thought, Nothing at All]

[Use to Increase a Small Amount of Soul Strength]

[It is as if staring into a mirror, the pupils reflecting each other, layer upon layer, never-ending]

Su Zhou hadn't encountered such a simple evil soul for a long time.

When his strength was still weak, the objects from which evil souls were obtained included the strong and ordinary cultivators. The quality of their evil souls naturally varied greatly. For example, the evil soul of the National Preceptor, although it was only a soul at the peak of Awakening, the legacy it left behind was still being used by Su Zhou today. And the evil souls of other high-level Awakening Demon Generals were just to increase a little physical fitness. For the current Su Zhou, the cultivation base increased by taking an extra breath could surpass it.

When he became strong, because the spiritual energy in all the heavens and myriad worlds was recovering, the strong who could take the lead in cultivating to the forefront before the era, each had their own experiences, their own pursuits and dreams. The holders of those evil souls were certainly evil and were Su Zhou's enemies, but they were indeed strong, and each one was of high quality.

Therefore, it was really a surprise to Su Zhou that the evil spirits were like this, clearly cultivated to the middle stage of the Commander tier, but were inferior like miscellaneous soldiers.

However, what really surprised Su Zhou wasn't the weakness of the enemy.

It was the 'similarity' of the evil souls.

"These two evil souls... are completely identical!"

What shocked Su Zhou was this fact -- the evil souls of these two evil spirits were completely identical, from the effect to the name, and the description of the evil soul, all were completely the same.

Unable to understand, Su Zhou immediately turned back and looked for the evil soul of the Commander-tier evil spirit who was instantly killed by his electromagnetic cannon at the beginning... Sure enough, it was also completely black, a completely consistent evil soul! The three evil souls were completely consistent, without any difference!

"What the hell? What kind of miscellaneous soldier setting is this?"

Instantly, Su Zhou couldn't understand: "The shentong are mass-produced and simplified, and the strength of the Commander tier is also forcibly stuffed with spiritual energy based on the original Qingqiu human foundation -- this kind of Commander tier is simply the miscellaneous soldier among miscellaneous soldiers... but even so, why are even the evil souls this kind of stuff?"

No wonder he killed them so easily. It seemed that the manufacturers of these miscellaneous soldiers also knew this, so they let these Commander tiers launch a joint attack, because only in this way could their shentong complement each other, and could barely be considered a complete Commander tier.

"After fighting all the way, the enemies are all kinds of inhumane, strong to the point of being abnormal monsters. Usually, I'm mostly in contact with the strong. I'm about to forget what it feels like to cut grass with miscellaneous soldiers..."

After complaining, the doubts in Su Zhou's heart were still tumbling. After thinking for a moment, he directly opened his mouth and ate an evil soul.

The black evil soul entered his mouth. It felt like drinking a can of sugar-free, iced, and diluted several times over, with all the bubbles gone, that light to the extreme, but still with a faint taste... making Su Zhou, who was always unscrupulous and ate everything, rarely showed a disgusted expression.

--What the hell is this!

He endured his displeasure, began to close his eyes, calmed down, and analyzed the essence of this evil soul.

Soon, Su Zhou got the answer.

"I see... if the human brain is hardware, the soul is a virtual machine in a sense, and the original human thinking, will, and cognitive methods are software, then the so-called evil spirit invasion is to invade the brain through the soul, completely delete the original 'thinking and cognitive methods', forcibly replace the software, and then connect to the 'hardware'. Although on the surface it still looks like the original person, and still has the original memories, the real self has long been erased, and the person has long been dead."

"I understand, is it an evil ghost controlling the body in a sense... but it needs similar soul fluctuations to start the first step of invasion and rewriting -- and because it doesn't involve the essence of the soul and brain, which exist objectively, the manufacturing cost is very low, even there is no cost at all..."

Reopening his eyes, Su Zhou frowned tightly.

"This is the essence of evil spirits?"

He said to himself in his heart, and then shook his head: "No, this can only explain how the evil spirits operate, but what is its essence, and how did it invade in the first place, I don't know."

"However, I have indeed seen this method of covering and rewriting souls before."

This wasn't a false statement -- Su Zhou couldn't help but recall the second 'demon' he encountered in Hong City when he first stepped into the extraordinary world.

[Twilight True Demon].

That demon, which eroded a certain ordinary real estate manager, devoured his soul, leaving only a layer of skin made of memories as a 'protective shell', was very similar to this 'evil spirit' in terms of method of operation... only the Twilight True Demon devoured the soul, and the evil spirit rewrote the thinking and cognition.

Su Zhou had a little premonition about this from the very beginning, so he asked Gu Zechuan about this aspect earlier.

"...No, I need more examples. These evil spirits are too miscellaneous, there are too few places to study, and I can't touch the essence at all."

Thinking like this, Su Zhou turned his head and said to Tang Yuan and Gu Zechuan behind him: "Prepare to leave, we will continue to the Gu Clan Shelter."

Although the previous research seemed long, it had only been less than half a minute in reality. Both Tang Yuan and Gu Zechuan were immersed in Su Zhou's terrifyingly powerful strength and his extremely cold and ruthless actions... Especially Tang Yuan, poking his finger into the brain, even if it was facing the enemy, this kind of action was a bit too stimulating for a young man who hadn't had much actual combat experience.

"But, Captain Su, do you really not need to go back to the Yuanwang (Distant Hope) to take a look?"

After all, Gu Zechuan had been fighting evil spirits for many years, so he was only surprised at the beginning of this **** scene. At this time, although he was very worried about the Gu Clan Shelter, he still said to Su Zhou with a rational way of thinking: "The evil spirits are probably not going to give up..."

He was very clear that the only ones who could help them and help the Qingqiu people at this time were the Central Divine Court -- if the Yuanwang was completely scrapped, then facing the increasingly strong attacks of the evil spirits, the fall of the entire Qingqiu Star was only a matter of time.

"No need, I believe in Brother Lin and Brother Liu."

Gu Zechuan didn't have the Mind of No Thought, but Su Zhou knew that the evil spirit squad attacking the Yuanwang had already been completely wiped out, and they died very quickly and miserably. He also understood Gu Zechuan's kindness, so he smiled and said to the fox-eared youth: "A thousand kilometers isn't far for me. I'll accelerate to the outer atmosphere. It'll take me a minute or two to get there. If there's really a situation, I can go back to support at any time."

Su Zhou's tone was relaxed, and his words revealed the余裕 (yoyū, composure/room to spare) of being an extraordinary person.

So the group set off again.

At this time, it was not far from the Gu Clan Shelter.

Fifteen minutes later, the three of them saw that in a certain mountain range in the distance, there was a mushroom cloud that had risen for a long time and went straight into the sky, slowly dissipating in the rain.

"It's a burrowing thunder bomb! An siege weapon used by evil spirits to destroy the protective mountain formation of the shelter!"

Gu Zechuan's face changed slightly. He immediately drew his sword, and a burst of spiritual light rose up. He said in a deep voice: "Judging from this, it has been exploding for more than an hour... they are attacking the shelter!"

However, just as Gu Zechuan was preparing to burst out with all his strength and go to support his hometown.

--*Boom!*

Accompanied by a roaring explosion far surpassing thunder, setting off bursts of violent sound waves in mid-air, Su Zhou's figure turned into a stream of cyan-purple light and disappeared in place.

One could see that a straight trace of light extended straight to where the mushroom cloud was in the distance.

Then, a series of lightning bolts exploded in the distance, creating countless chaotic explosions in mid-air and on the ground, causing continuous screams from the evil spirits in the distance.

Gu Zechuan was stunned for a moment, but soon, in the reminder of Tang Yuan 'follow the captain', he reacted, and then gritted his teeth and flew towards Su Zhou's direction with all his strength.

First update, asking for monthly tickets~