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Chapter 146 - Soul Search
🕑 Added 2024-10-17 07:00:05 +0000 UTCSo, when Luna rejected the General Level Demonic Tiger, he became resentful and harbored a deep grudge because she destroyed his newfound dream of creating the strongest Demonic Beast Clan.
However, all of that didn't matter to Luna because she was just a lazy cat. What do you mean by creating the strongest Demonic Beast Clan? To hell with that! She wants to sleep all day.
Luna dashed forward and arrived in front of the hunched old man in a blink of an eye where she slashed at his throat using her claws. After awakening her White Tiger bloodline, she could use Metal and Wind Qi. Therefore, her claw attack infused with Metal Qi was extremely sharp.
However, to her surprise, her claws failed to hit anything, but the force of her swipe destroyed all the obstacles in its path a kilometer away.
The outcome surprised Luna and Caterina, not because he dodged her attack, but because her attack simply passed by him.
Luna swiped again multiple times but none of them landed, only more destructions ahead from her powerful swipes.
Caterina also joined the attack, throwing wind blade after wind blades, but nothing worked. She even used her strongest area of effect attack. The weird thing was she could feel his presence there and everything was real, but somehow their attacks couldn't land.
"Rina! This is all your fault! You pretended to be a ghost, now an actual ghost has come, causing trouble!" Luna complained.
"Kikiki. Useless! Nobody here will be able to do anything to me."
Caterina focused her spiritual sense on the hunched old man and exerted a concentrated spiritual pressure on his body, but it was instantly countered and nullified by the old man's own spiritual pressure.
Based on this, she verified that the hunched old man was indeed here, but he did something to phase himself from all attacks.
It wasn't just him. The creepy giant bird cage floating above him remained unharmed by all of their attacks.
Caterina frowned. It seemed like she wouldn't be able to finish the fight as soon as possible because the phasing ability was too amazing. They probably had to use a mental attack.
"Guards! Warn the people in the city to be prepared to fight because something might happen soon. Also, tell all the Nascent Soul experts in the city to spread themselves around the city and protect the people from harm!"
She didn't know what the dark Qi would do, but there was no doubt that something bad was about to happen.
"Rina, I'm going to use that. Block your perceptions." Luna reminded Caterina and then inhaled massive air into her body.
Caterina nodded. This was what she had in mind, too. She immediately retreated quite a distance and called back her spiritual sense. She then used her Qi to seal off her perceptions.
"ROAR OF THE KING!!"
ROOAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!
Luna's thunderous roar shook the air, sending shockwaves to the surroundings. All the animals and demonic beasts within the shockwave radius passed out instantly!
Somewhere within the woods, the thunderous roar also affected the dark-robed man, who was observing the battle from afar, causing him to pass out.
"Dammit...not... again...." The dark-robed man said as he fell from a tall tree.
The Roar of the King was the strongest ability Luna inherited when she awakened her White Tiger bloodline. The roar sends shockwaves that inflict fear and stun the enemies' consciousness, effectively paralyzing or making them unconscious.
Fortunately, the people inside the city were being protected by the Grand Kitty Nine Layer Formation or they might have been affected by the roar too. However, the people outside the city, such as the patrol squad, might have fainted if they were nearby.
After the roar stopped, Caterina unsealed her perceptions again and came closer to check on the hunched old man.
The next moment, a white cat wearing a tiara landed on her shoulder.
"Meow Rina, I exhausted all my power. I hate using that skill. My throat is sore. You take care of the rest while I rest," Luna complained and quickly entered the spirit beast bag.
Caterina didn't reply to her. She was focused on inspecting the hunched old man. She noticed that the dark Qi had stopped flowing while the old fart was unconscious on the ground.
Caterina smiled. It looked like Luna's strongest ability worked very well. After all, he was the nearest to the roar, and it wasn't a physical attack he could just phase through.
Caterina flicked her finger, shooting a wind bullet to kill the hunched old man and put an end to this chaos.
However, her wind bullet still phases through him and only hits the ground. Surprised, she tried to grab him, but her hand just went through his body.
"What? How is this possible? He is unconscious, so his ability shouldn't be working." Caterina frowned.
"Whether it is his martial skill or spirit artifact, both required his Qi to activate. Since that's not the case, then it could only be a formation. Tch, this is going to be troublesome. No wonder he hasn't moved at all from this area." Caterina looked up and stared at the giant bird cage, which was likely to be the annoying formation.
"So, how do I disable this formation? If I can't disable it, I won't be able to kill him." She contemplated.
She recalled the reports regarding the recent incidents. They were definitely related to the hunched old man, meaning he must have tons of spirit stones to operate all these formations. So, this birdcage formation could definitely last for a long time, too.
The problem was that nobody invited by the Bureau of Investigation could decipher any of the formations the hunched old man erected so far, which show how good he was.
"Oh yeah, there's another person with him just now. Let's see if I can obtain any information from him." Caterina flew towards a direction and spread her spiritual sense into the woods.
A few minutes later, she found the unconscious dark robed man.
"Ah...too bad for you. You should have run far away because now you will die miserably. Let me see what I can learn from you," Caterina said.
She controlled her spiritual sense and invaded his body. She intended to do a soul search on him while he was unconscious.
Under normal circumstances, a cultivator couldn't sense another cultivator's spiritual sense.
However, if a spiritual sense invaded a body, the owner of that body could sense the invader's spiritual sense and attack it. If a cultivator's spiritual sense got damaged, its range and perception would decrease.
This was the main reason cultivators didn't dare to invade and inspect other cultivators' bodies using their spiritual sense. It was already hard enough to enhance their spiritual sense. They wouldn't take the risk of injuring it because of some curiosity.
Of course, there were exceptions to this. If the body was unconscious, it wouldn't be a problem.
Caterina could try soul searching on the unconscious hunched old man, but he was under the mysterious formation, so she didn't dare to try it. Who knows what other functions the formation had? So, her only option was the dark-robed man.
The other exception was that if someone learned a proper spiritual sense cultivation method. They claimed that by learning this method, one's spiritual sense would be strong enough to invade anyone's body without fear of retaliation.
Some even said that cultivators might not even notice that a spiritual sense invaded their bodies, spying on their secrets.
However, all of this was just hearsay and nobody could provide proof of it. After all, if someone could really use this ability, they would end up hunted by everyone, obviously. Nobody would let someone who could peer into their secrets be alive.
So, the soul-searching technique used by Caterina was just the most crude and barbaric way that every cultivator could use.
Her spiritual sense that entered his body quickly moved toward his Nascent Soul in the dantian because this was where a cultivator's sea of consciousness resided after they advanced into the Nascent Soul realm.
To become a Nascent Soul cultivator, one must merge their sea of consciousness, which contains all their memories and where their spiritual sense came from with their developed core in the dantian.
The successful merger resulted in the formation of a Nascent Soul. It was the very first step of transitioning from a mortal to an immortal.
This was the reason a Nascent Soul cultivator could survive and live even if their body got destroyed. The Nascent Soul itself contained the identity and the life of a cultivator.
Although they would be very weak without their physical body, they would be able to survive and remake a new body or possess something else.
ARRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
A soul-piercing long scream was suddenly heard coming from the woods. If one were to hear this scream, one wouldn't be able to imagine how much pain the person screaming was experiencing.
Caterina didn't care about the scream. Her focus was on gathering as much useful information as possible before the dark-robed man died.
Due to her crude and barbaric way of exploring his sea of consciousness, it was quickly being destroyed and crumbling.
A few minutes later, the soul-piercing scream stopped. The dark-robed man's Nascent Soul had dissipated and indicated his death.
