C2156 Soul Fragments
As the cyan prisma materialized, even a Ninth Level Demon God like Mitts momentarily regained clarity of mind.
"Lord Beilstein!"
The Ninth Level Demon Gods gazed upon their venerated patriarch, feeling a deep sense of shame for the malevolent thoughts that had recently surfaced in their hearts.
They had believed that Saka should have triumphed over Beilstein in their battle.
When Saka condemned Beilstein, they found themselves agreeing with him, viewing Beilstein as the adversary of their soul's origin.
"How did we come to this?"
"How could we dare to doubt Lord Beilstein?"
The Ninth Level Demon Gods, with their Devil Souls in disarray, whispered to themselves, struggling to reconnect with their authentic selves.
"That object..." Zhong Chichen was taken aback.
"Why does it resemble the top tier of Yu Yuan's Soul Altar?" Loong Jie pondered, scratching his head in bewilderment.
Lvliu remained silent.
"It has always been yours; I was merely its custodian for some time, and now it returns to its rightful owner," Beilstein said, his face beaming with joy. "I've spent many years trying to understand it, yet I never quite grasped how to refine such an item with my soul."
"Now, I too possess a body of soul crystal, and a layer of what one might call a Soul Altar."
Beilstein regarded Yu Yuan with open admiration, the kind of respect one shows a peer, a fellow traveler on the same path, rather than a mere disciple.
"It's a fragment of the Soul Altar that broke apart when I perished," Yu Yuan realized with sudden clarity.
"Indeed. After they besieged and slew you beyond the heavens, I endeavored to reunite your soul. Regrettably, I failed to locate your original soul mark, and you were untraceable in the vast depths of the Yin Meridian. I surmised that you must have found a way to be reborn."
"Back then, you had already successfully forged the first layer of the Soul Altar. After your demise, I couldn't find your original soul mark, but I did find these two fragments of the Soul Altar."
"I spent a considerable amount of time extracting these two fragments from the void's fissures."
A hint of melancholy crossed Beilstein's face.
With a resounding boom, the meteorite encasing the green prisma finally crumbled under the relentless pounding of the armored devil body.
Beilstein, having crafted the armored devil body, carefully cradled the fist-sized green prisma, eager to deliver it to Yu Yuan.
There was no need for such bewilderment.
Yu Yuan merely glanced at it.
The small green prisma in the palm of the armored devil body swiftly soared toward him.
"It was always mine, a fragment of my soul."
As a Dragon Slayer, he had awakened fragments of the Abyss Lord's memories, leading him to reconstruct the Soul Altar, starting with the first tier.
Under the combined efforts of Han Miaoyuan and the Demon Phoenix, or rather, under the guidance of the Space-time Dragon, he met his demise.
His original soul imprint, along with the Dragon Soul from the Dragon Slash Platform, lay hidden, only to be reborn years later as Hong Qi.
In that life, he forged a single tier of the Soul Altar, which was shattered, leaving behind two fragments.
Both fragments were retrieved by Beilstein, who now returned them to him.
Amidst the increasingly fragmented meteorite sea, Saka watched the green prisma drift away.
Saka, too, was a dark green Devil Soul, exuding a sense of loss and longing as he exclaimed, "It's mine! It belongs to me!"
Saka stood abruptly, undeterred by the icy look in Beilstein's eyes, and pursued the green prisma.
"With this object, you could maintain your intelligence and spirit for an extended period. If I'm not mistaken, you intended to present it to Him, didn't you?"
"Regrettably, it will be of no use to Him."
Beilstein's body shimmered like amethyst, his eyes ablaze with a perilous flame. Above his head, the vast, murky sea of black souls spun slowly, like a world in motion, forming a colossal, deep cavern.
Saka, in pursuit of the green prisma, suddenly found his main Devil Soul uncontrollably drawn into the swirling black sea of souls above Beilstein's head.
His scattered Devil Souls, dispersed across the meteorites, were also engulfed.
Whoosh! The main soul of Saka and his dispersed Devil Souls, cluster by cluster, merged into the dark-green sea of souls above Beilstein's head, vanishing as silently as a stream into the ocean.
Before long, the ancient Devaputra's presence and all traces of his existence had vanished without a trace.
Not a single corpse remained amidst the scattered meteorites, and the towering mountain of corpses was obliterated.
The green prisma, rightfully Yu Yuan's, landed with a "plink" on the highest tier of the Soul Altar, crafted from jade.
The moment was fleeting as it became an integral part of the jade platform. Fragmented memories from the era of the Dragon Slayers, along with some forgotten mystical techniques, were stirred awake by the return of the green prismatic crystal to the Soul Altar. Yu Yuan's mind was a whirlwind of thoughts as he rapidly integrated these memories.
The arrival of the green prismatic crystal and its fusion with the Soul Altar had notably enhanced the potency of the Soul Cleansing Brilliance. "My soul has been purified!" he exclaimed. "I no longer sense any remnants of its presence."
Yuv Qian and Andrea regained their sense of self in mere moments, the soul knots belonging to the other being cleanly dissolved by Yu Yuan's Soul Cleansing Brilliance. The radiance subsided, and the Soul Altar, summoned above Yu Yuan's head, receded back into his forehead.
He moved from beneath the Dragon Slash Platform to sitting atop it, absorbing the fresh memories the green prismatic crystal brought with it. "Just a moment," he said.
Below the murky, cyan-black sea, the Devil Soul within Beilstein's amethyst dimmed, seemingly amassing power in another void. "Soon, another fragment of your soul will be delivered," Beilstein said, a smile in his voice.
"Father, are you... confronting Sable?" Andrea inquired, her voice tinged with astonishment.
"He, like Saka, has failed to meet my expectations. He couldn't deliver the items I entrusted to him to the Evil God Temple, nor cast them into the vastness," Beilstein responded icily.
"Why didn't you keep them yourself, or entrust them to me?" Andrea questioned, puzzled.
"He's watching me too closely, monitoring my every move. Evading his mental intrusion and acting without his knowledge is far from easy," Beilstein explained. "Besides, the two items from Yu Yuan can only be used once; they are not mine to keep."
"I had hoped that Saka and Sable would be able to assist me with external forces at the critical moment when I was infected and unable to escape on my own."
"But they have let me down profoundly."
"As for you, our Devil Souls are too alike; you are not the right choice."
After Beilstein finished speaking, he turned his gaze back to Yu Yuan on the Dragon Slash Platform and said with a smile, "Prepare to receive the second piece."
At that moment, the Dragon Slash Platform beneath Yu Yuan served as a unique Galaxy Crossing. With a swift whoosh, a second prismatic crystal, identical in size, crossed through space, arriving from an unknown origin.
It materialized above the Dragon Slash Platform!
The moment it appeared, it actively sought out Yu Yuan's brow, penetrating into the Soul Altar within his sea of consciousness and integrating into the first layer of the green jade platform.
The second fragment of Yu Yuan's soul from his days as a Dragon Slayer was under the control of another Devaputra, named Sable.
The arrival of this soul fragment suggested that the ancient Devaputra known as Sable was likely in dire straits.
"The Serene Starfield is under my command, and the world where Sable roams is also Devaputra territory, complete with a Galaxy Crossing," Beilstein said cryptically. Noticing Yu Yuan absorbing the memories and Soul Arts from the two green prismatic crystals, he suddenly declared in a grave tone, "Secular Bird!"
Chen Qinghuang's brow furrowed.
The presence of the green Divine Bird above her, along with the emergence of the two green prismatic crystals belonging to Yu Yuan, had roused her once more.
Yet, deep within her soul, the desire for death and the fixation on leading all beings to their demise continued to grow and intensify.
"You do not belong in the Origin Realm. You could explore the abyss or venture into the Desolate Realm."
Beilstein regarded her with a steely gaze and continued, "The Origin Realm is a domain I have painstakingly cultivated. I do not wish to see it transform into an eternally silent galaxy. Take advantage of your current lucidity, while you still possess your own spirit and will, and choose between the Abyss and the Desolate Realm."
He was compelling the Secular Bird Queen to depart from the Origin Realm.
Having freed himself from the soul contamination and possessing a miraculous demonic form, he had efficiently dealt with Saka, another Great Demon God.
As for the Secular Bird Queen, had it not been for her significant connection to Yu Yuan, he wouldn't have afforded her the privilege of choice.
Chen Qinghuang remained silent.
She could sense that Beilstein, now inhabiting a body of purple crystal, had become so formidable that he could extinguish her existence within the Serene Starfield.
The horrifying waves emanating from the murky soul sea above Beilstein's head seemed capable of crushing her soul, turning all symbols of death to dust—even as her own powers of death were amplified by those eerie talismans.
Yet, until she ascended to the rank of Supreme Being, she dared not contend with Beilstein.
She had this undeniable sensation that her frenzied dissemination of death's power, transforming vibrant starfields into desolate, withered realms, was an essential path to her ascension.
It was this intuition that convinced her she must embrace a world-ending act to surge to unprecedented heights with the power of death.
This is why she insisted that Yu Yuan not stand in her way.
Now, fully lucid and under the harrowing threat of Lord Beilstein, she understood the consequences of her recklessness. Should she dare to sow chaos in the Serene Starfield or continue to unleash death within the Origin Realm, she would face Lord Beilstein's ruthless retribution.
It was possible she might meet her end for a third time.
With this in mind, she cast a glance at Yu Yuan and, remembering he was known as the Abyss Lord, she nodded in agreement. "Then I shall head to the Desolate Realm."
