Immortal-Exterminating Divine Venerable

"Lu Dingyuan's Daoist Ring?"

Ye Wanqing looked on with curiosity.

She had seen it earlier. After Yang Xiao cut Lu Dingyuan in half with a single sword strike, his entire body—flesh, blood, and all—had transformed into a stream of Blood Qi that surged into that strange longsword.

The only thing that had dropped was this ring.

She figured it had to be Lu Dingyuan's Storage Daoist Ring.

However, she hadn't tried to pick it up.

Instead, her first priority had been to check on Yang Xiao.

And it was a good thing, too, that she hadn't.

The instant Yang Xiao picked up the Daoist Ring, he sensed a terrifying Devouring Power hidden within. If Ye Wanqing had rashly tried to take it earlier, she likely would have fallen for the old bastard's trap.

And if he hadn't just gained the Devouring Secret Pattern from the Bloodthirsty Divine Sword, he never would have been able to get what was inside. While the Devouring Power might not have harmed him, it would have kept the contents beyond his reach.

This was because the Devouring Power was not only a trap for others but also a self-destruct mechanism.

One had to admit, that old fox Lu Dingyuan had devised a practically foolproof scheme.

Unfortunately for him, he had run into Yang Xiao.

No matter how carefully he had plotted, he could never have predicted that Yang Xiao would obtain the Devouring Secret Pattern from him. Nor could he have guessed that Yang Xiao would, in a single instant, achieve Triple Perfection with it. Even though Yang Xiao's mastery in this aspect still fell short of his own, it was more than enough to open this Storage Daoist Ring with ease.

So, when Ye Wanqing looked at him with curiosity,

Yang Xiao had no intention of hiding anything. He nodded and said, "That's right. It's the old bastard's."

With that, he absorbed the Devouring Power and scanned the contents of the ring.

As he did, his expression changed.

"What's wrong?"

Noticing the change in his expression, Ye Wanqing asked immediately.

"This damned bastard actually refined this many Soul-Catching Jades! Damn him! He really deserved to die!"

Yang Xiao was furious.

A Soul-Catching Jade was a container used to capture the souls of the dead. It was similar to how Xuan Tianzhan had killed the Earth Fire Qilin Beast, divided its soul into several pieces, and locked them away in flag-shaped Magical Artifacts.

The principle behind the Soul-Catching Jade was the same.

Though considered a low-grade Magical Artifact, its sole purpose was to capture souls.

Inside Lu Dingyuan's Storage Daoist Ring, there were over a thousand of these Soul-Catching Jades.

His fury intensified when he saw that the jades were not empty—each one held a captured Soul.

As a rule, no matter how deep the hatred, killing one's enemy should be the end of it.

Even taking it to an extreme, as Yang Xiao had just done by using a Blood Sacrifice to completely devour a soul and obliterate a person's existence, was already considered quite cruel.

But Lu Dingyuan, by refining these Soul-Catching Jades, clearly had intentions beyond simple murder.

He wanted to torture them.

He wanted to torture their souls even after death. Why else would he have refined so many Soul-Catching Jades?

"Soul-Catching Jades? That man… he's simply abominable! Yang Xiao, let's release the souls from these jades, shouldn't we?"

Ye Wanqing was even more indignant than Yang Xiao.

In the eyes of Martial Cultivators, only the most irredeemably evil Demons would do such a thing.

Ordinary Martial Artists would never commit such a cruel act.

Naturally, Yang Xiao did not refuse her suggestion.

However ruthless he might be, he would never torture the souls of the dead. At most, he would kill them and let the Bloodthirsty Divine Sword devour them, and that would be the end of it.

But now, among these nearly one thousand Soul-Catching Jades,

a staggering seven or eight hundred of them pulsed with the fluctuations of Soul Power.

It was utterly horrifying.

Worse, the auras emanating from a significant number of the jades felt ancient; the Souls within had likely been trapped for over a thousand years.

To kill someone, only to then rip out their soul, trap it in a Soul-Catching Jade, and torture it for a thousand years…

This was simply not the act of a human being.

Only the most psychopathic Demons would do such a thing.

So, upon hearing Ye Wanqing's words, Yang Xiao immediately took all the Soul-Catching Jades out.

Each piece was a standard size—two fingers wide and three inches long. They were small, but nearly a thousand of them formed a considerable pile before they were all laid out.

The moment they were out, cries of anguish, roars of fury, and desperate pleas began to emanate from many of the Soul-Catching Jades.

Apparently, these weren't just simple Soul-Catching Jades; they had also been laid with torturous Arrays.

These tormented the Souls within day and night.

Even Yang Xiao felt a chill in his heart at the sight.

That old bastard was far too cruel.

"Yang Xiao, let's erase the Arrays in these Soul-Catching Jades. These poor Souls… they're too pitiful."

Ye Wanqing's heart trembled as she watched.

She couldn't help but think, 'If Yang Xiao hadn't been here, would I have ended up like these Souls? Killed by Lu Dingyuan, captured, and tormented day and night?'

'If that had happened...'

'It would truly be a state where I could neither live nor die.'

"Lu Dingyuan, you traitorous beast who betrayed your master and clan! What? You dare let me out now? I, Ye Tianqiu, must have been blind to take a monster like you as my disciple! I hate you so much!"

Just then, a clear fluctuation from a Divine Soul suddenly entered both of their minds.

Ye Wanqing's expression changed.

"Ancestor Tianqiu? It's really Ancestor Tianqiu! Yang Xiao, quickly, save him! He's a Demigod ancestor of our Ye Family—the younger brother of our True God ancestor, Ye Tianjue!" she exclaimed.

"Who? Who's calling me?"

The voice rang out again, having apparently heard Ye Wanqing's exclamation.

Hearing Ye Wanqing's words, Yang Xiao didn't dare hesitate for a moment. He had received too many favors from Elder Tianjue, and simply repaying that debt through Ye Wanqing was clearly not enough.

Now that he had encountered his brother, and under such dire circumstances, he naturally had to do his part to help.

So, Yang Xiao quickly located the Soul-Catching Jade that belonged to Ye Tianqiu.

The aura of this particular Soul-Catching Jade was the most ancient of them all; he estimated it had to be at least six or seven thousand years old. What's more, Yang Xiao discovered dozens of torturous Arrays carved upon it.

It had devastating killing tools like the Heavenly Heart Soul Destruction Array, as well as Arrays that could gather and preserve a Soul, like the Soul Gathering Array.

A single glance was enough to reveal the viciousness of Lu Dingyuan's intentions.

He was simultaneously destroying the soul and regathering it, ensuring he could torture the Ye Family ancestor named Ye Tianqiu not just day and night, but for all eternity.

It would prevent his victim from being able to die or even self-destruct his own Soul.

It was utterly monstrous.

And to top it all off, from what Ye Tianqiu had implied, he was Lu Dingyuan's master.

This was simply…

Worse than a beast.

"You… who are you?"

After Yang Xiao erased the Arrays within, the soul of a middle-aged man appeared before them. He didn't look old, but his form was etched with an air of profound, ancient weariness.

He looked at Ye Wanqing and Yang Xiao with confusion.

Ye Wanqing, however, was so moved she was on the verge of tears.

"Ancestor Tianqiu! This junior, Ye Wanqing, a direct descendant of the seventy-ninth generation of the Ye Family Main Lineage, pays her respects to Great-Granduncle Tianqiu!"

"This junior, Yang Xiao, pays his respects to Senior Tianqiu."

Hearing their words, Ye Tianqiu still seemed somewhat dazed.

Soon, however, he burst out laughing.

"Haha! Does this mean that little beast Lu Dingyuan is dead?"

Yang Xiao and Ye Wanqing nodded.

Ye Tianqiu's laughter grew even more unrestrained.

"Excellent! Excellent! This is karmic retribution! That beast Lu Dingyuan, that deranged monster, actually cultivated something as venomous as the Thousand-leaf Life-taking Willow and killed so many of our Ye Family's prodigies! Now, he's finally dead! And at the hands of a junior from the Ye Family Main Lineage, no less! Haha! A good death! A truly wonderful death!"

At these words, the expressions of both Yang Xiao and Ye Wanqing changed.

So, the disaster seven thousand years ago—the one that nearly annihilated the entire Ye Family Main Lineage and killed countless Mortal Martial Artists in the Eastern Domain—was actually the work of that old bastard, Lu Dingyuan.

The man was completely deranged.

To plot against the very family that had adopted him, to murder his own master and torture his soul day and night… He didn't even deserve to be called human!