Inside the sacrificial altar...
Noticing that all the cultivators had escaped, Jim became surprisingly calm and stared at Austin and the gnome with a poker face.
"What a grand and perfect Sacrifice Array I had set. But you ruined it.
If you hadn't messed up my plan, I would have had broken the hateful Soul-undermining Spell.
Now, the chosen hour had passed.
Forget it. I have to find another time to start the array again."
Dismay could be heard from Jim's voice.
Soul-undermining Spell?
Hearing that, both Austin and the gnome paused for a second.
'What is Soul-undermining Spell?
Is it the reason why he used the array and gulped down so many spiritual souls?' they thought.
"Ha! I bet you two have never even heard of the Soul-undermining Spell,"
Jim said triumphantly. He was being weirdly calm and collected.
His current expression was placid and his tone was mild, which made him seem like a nice old man. But in reality, he was not.
"Alas. I, Jim, was once the hero in the Prime Martial World. When I was in glory, I could make the Prime Martial World quiver under my feet.
If I was not cursed by the damn old bastard in the war between the two worlds, I would not have been down like this—being stuck as a weird thing that is neither a human nor a soul."
As Jim remembered what had happened to him, his face fell sad.
"Ha-ha. Young man, I intended to start the snatch after I had mitigated the 30% effect of the Soul-undermining Spell with the Sacrifice Array.
Look what you did though! You let them escape my array, so now I have to execute the snatch first.
Then I will choose another time to restart the array.
Young man, you'd better not work against me.
Even if you attack me with the gnome, there is no way you will survive the snatch,"
Jim said coolly.
Hearing that, Austin's heart skipped a beat.
He had thought that the old castellan would never be able to snatch his body, if he destroyed the Sacrifice Array to stop his spiritual soul from recovering.
However, now he realized that it was just his wishful thinking.
When he just battled the old castellan to win some time for the cultivators to run away, Austin had discerned that the old
m bounced off all the streaks of Spiritual Sword Aura.
When he spoke, he was calm.
His movement was neither hurried nor slow, almost peaceful.
At the time, by the virtue of his horribly powerful spiritual sense, Jim was winning this snatch.
Austin was like a sitting duck.
Under Austin's command, the three streaks of Spiritual Sword Aura were directed toward the old man again.
With a wave of his hand, Jim blocked the three streaks of Spiritual Sword Aura again.
Then Austin controlled the three streaks of Spiritual Sword Aura to turn around attacking the old castellan once more.
Jim frowned.
"Young man, you know that you can't hurt me with these streaks of Spiritual Sword Aura, why do you keep attacking me with them? You may as well just quit."
In fact, Austin still believed there was a glimmer of hope to defeat the old castellan.
He depended on the thread of the Sword Emperor's will that was hidden somewhere in his Soul Sea! He couldn't give up.
He knew that the spiritual sense contained in the thread of Sword Emperor's will was stronger than his, even if it was just a thread of will that was left centuries ago.
Therefore, Austin continuously gave everything he had to execute his Spiritual Sword Aura to attack the old castellan.
Meanwhile, he unnoticeably sent the beams of sword radiance and streaks of sword aura to the will of the Sword Emperor that hid in his Soul Sea.
He was trying to activate the Sword Emperor's will.