429 Defeated

The power of this Soul-devouring Art was terrifying; it directly dropped Shen Fei into an abyss of eternal damnation.

The flame in his sea of consciousness also began to shake violently. If even his soul flame was disturbed, Shen Fei would really be finished.

This Soul-devouring Art was a forbidden technique of soul-devouring cultivators. Its lethality was legendary. All martial artists who were attacked by the Soul-devouring Art and lived to tell the tale described their window of opportunity to escape as “extremely narrow”. It did not matter how strong the cultivator was.

Judging by the list of past victims, the general consensus was: once attacked by the Soul-devouring Art, there was only one thing left for the target—death.

This Soul-devouring Art was a forbidden technique developed by the predecessors of the soul-devouring cultivators. At the cost of burning one’s spiritual power, one could use the powers of the mortal world to attack the enemy. Moreover, the more power it absorbed, the stronger the effect.

However, the soul-devouring cultivators had a long history. Their Soul-devouring Art had been lost long ago, and only an incomplete version was left. This resulted in a weaker form of the Soul-devouring Art that the soul-devouring cultivators of today were using. Regardless, the power of the Soul-devouring Art that Lear displayed was still quite terrifying.

Lear’s face twisted unpleasantly as he roared. “I want you to live a life worse than death!”

At that moment, he had completely fused with the dark soul pearl. Inside him, the pearl then transformed into a soul-devouring pearl. Lear then controlled the soul-devouring pearl to fight for him, and his one goal at the moment was to eliminate Shen Fei as cruelly as possible.

Rumble… The soul-devouring pearl released a terrifying black light that enveloped Shen Fei’s entire body. Immediately after that, the black light turned into an invisible force that threatened to shatter his body and bone marrow. A lot of frightening noises came from Shen Fei’s body. It was as though his entire being was about to collapse from the pressure.

Meanwhile, the black runes that were already in his body continued to spread despite the system’s countermeasure. As mentioned before, the black star could not completely eradicate the black runes.

When Aloy saw this, her expression changed drastically, and panic appeared in her eyes. “Shen Fei!”

Lear watched Aloy and laughed, “Hahaha, Shen Fei, you have been defeated now! I’m the only one who’s truly worthy of Aloy!”

Aloy glared at Lear, and her eyes were filled with determination. She waved her fist and smashed it at Lear. Lear casually moved his body to the side and easily avoided her attack.

Aloy’s eyes then filled with hatred as she glowered at Lear.

She attacked him again, but this time, Lear did not intend to resist at all, allowing his niece to bombard his body. Aloy’s fist landed on Lear’s body, but she could not even hurt him. She had already consumed too much of her energy before arriving here.

The corners of Lear’s mouth curled up, revealing an evil sneer. “You can only be mine!”

“I would rather die than be yours! I will always belong to one person, and that is Shen Fei!” Aloy screamed. In the next moment, she charged at Lear again.

Lear sneered. “Is that so? Then I’ll make you watch the man you love die!”

He activated the soul-devouring pearl, and in his mind, it released endless black light. The black light enveloped Aloy and she was suddenly rooted to the spot.

“Hahaha!” Lear could not help but laugh when he saw this. His eyes were filled with excitement. He then urged the soul-devouring pearl to target the seed of flame in Shen Fei’s mind.

As the pearl entered Shen Fei’s head, his entire body began to tremble violently. The soul-devouring pearl had rushed straight into Shen Fei’s sea of consciousness. A terrifying devouring power erupted as the soul-devouring pearl began to devour Shen Fei’s soul and memories, absorbing everything inside him.

Shen Fei fainted and Aloy’s expression turned solemn. Her eyes were glistening with tears. At this moment, Aloy’s heart was in turmoil.

“What should I do? What should I do?… Shen Fei, I won’t allow you to die. I absolutely won’t allow you to die!” Aloy cried.

Suddenly, Aloy’s gaze swept over and she saw that Shen Fei’s seed of flame was hovering above him. Her gaze suddenly zeroed in on it.

Aloy immediately summoned her nascent soul and charged at the seed of flame with the last of her strength. She intended to borrow the power of the seed of flame to deal with the soul-devouring pearl.

Rumble…

Immediately, the soul-devouring pearl devoured half of Aloy’s Nascent Soul’s power and continued to work on devouring the rest of her power.

“Argh!” Aloy could not help but scream. Her expression became dispirited and pale. Her eyes widened as she gazed at the seed of flame.

As for the soul-devouring pearl, it released a dazzling black light. The black light emitted a great murderous and destructive aura. Then, it enveloped Aloy’s entire consciousness. It pressed down on Aloy’s soul body until she knelt on the ground, unable to move.

Seeing this, Lear clenched his fists. “Shen Fei is a dead man anyway. Why do you insist on being so stubborn?”

“If Shen Fei dies, I will definitely make you pay with your life!” Aloy roared. However, she could not stop the soul-devouring pearl. Aloy continued to scream at her fiancé, “Shen Fei, you can’t die. You absolutely can’t!”

She knew that if Shen Fei died, then she would never be able to change the future. Deep down inside, she also truly did not want him to die! But at this moment, Aloy was so restrained that she could no longer speak.

…

Shen Fei’s physical body was suddenly enshrouded in black flames, while he woke up in some kind of white space.

“Where is this place?” Shen Fei muttered to himself, puzzled.

Suddenly, a cold and emotionless mechanical voice chimed up. [Host, this is your sea of consciousness.]

“Sea of consciousness?” Shen Fei repeated in surprise.

He remembered that Lear had used the soul-devouring pearl to devour him, and then he lost consciousness. When he woke up, he found himself in this place.

The mechanical voice of the system gave an explanation. [This is an independent space created by the soul-devouring pearl.]

“What? The soul-devouring pearl could do such a thing?” Shen Fei was shocked.

Inexplicably, he began circulating the Soul-devouring Mantra, and his eyes flickered with a strange green light.

A scene appeared in the depths of his sea of consciousness. He saw his body lying on the ground and a bloody skeleton stood in front of him. It was his own corpse.

Shen Fei’s expression changed again. “That’s my corpse?”

Then, another scene appeared in his mind. He saw that he was fighting with Lear, but he was seriously injured by the other party and almost died. His soul, however, managed to escape.

Still, he did not expect his body to be destroyed instead.