This Young Master is not Cannon Fodder

Minister Everpast paused for a moment. His foe, the Black Tortoise, had stalled. It was as if his giant body had finally encumbered his soul. Of course, reality was different.

The immortal minister’s eyes caught sight of one particular causality string. He recognized that string. For the past few days, he had been studying that one string in an attempt to locate the exact coordinates of the person on the other end.

The person on the other end of the causality string disappeared, but the string itself did not disappear or dim. Quite the opposite. The string revealed a dazzling persistence, as if unwilling to fade, but the source of that persistence was the Black Tortoise’s soul. For each second the string remained, the Black Tortoise’s soul would weaken, decomposing into soul essence to fuel the causality string.

Because of the specific contract San Jiuling used when the Black Tortoise had first hatched, if he died, so would the Black Tortoise. The Demon Clan was helpless because the contract was deeply entrenched in the Black Tortoise’s soul. None of the demons could remove the contract without killing him. Their greatest hope was for the Black Tortoise to return to his peak and sever the contract himself. Still, even a divinity would have to pay a price for severing a spiritual contract.

Thanks to this, San Jiuling became the Black Tortoise’s greatest weakness. Hence the reason why the Immortal Court and Numinous Sword Sect were so willing to attack the Void Continent, just to eliminate this great threat. They didn’t think this could destroy his soul, though it could in theory. The humans have tried multiple times to destroy the divine beast’s soul, but it would always return eventually. They did not harbor the hope, only seeking to eliminate a portion of the Demon Clan’s high-end combat potential.

Perhaps if the Demon Clan had been willing to invest in San Jiuling, allowing him to become an immortal emperor, this would not have happened. But how could the Demon Clan be willing?

Once again, Minister Everpast grabbed a handful of causality strings and yanked them. The Black Tortoise released a cry of pain. He was already struggling to slow down the collapse of his soul from San Jiuling’s death, but the immortal sovereign’s attack was like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The Black Tortoise retracted its head and limbs back into its shell, but that did little to stop Minister Everpast’s attack. All signs of vitality disappeared from the turtle. The leaves on the tree growing from its back withered and turned yellow, orange, brown before falling off. The bark and branches shriveled, becoming a skeleton of a tree.

Still, the immortal minister did not stop his attack. He could sense that the Black Tortoise’s soul had not been extinguished. Even though his physical body showed all the signs of death, he had not truly perished yet. As long as he reintegrated his soul into his body, he would revive.