Chapter 439: Soul Brand
Translator: KurazyTolanzuraytorEditor: Jay
Right when Duan Ling Tian stretched out his hand to wipe the dust on the stranger brand, when his palm touched the strange brand.
Whoosh!
Something flashed before Duan Ling Tian’s eyes, it was the strange brand that had completely manifested itself, and is suddenly exploded out with gold lights, like it instantly transformed into a scorching sun that was incomparably dazzling.
Subsequently, this small scorching sun gradually dimmed out…
Instantly, Duan Ling Tian felt an extremely strange energy sweep out from the wall and pour into his palm with a speed so swift that it caused him to be terrified.
At the same time that Duan Ling Tian’s expression went grim, that strand of extremely strange energy directly swept towards his soul.
"Sh*t!" Duan Ling Tian experienced a wave of panic in his heart.
The soul was the foundation of a person.
If the soul was destroyed, then it would also mean the end of the person's life, and only a lifeless shell would remain.
Without any hesitation, Spiritual Force swept out within Duan Ling Tian’s soul, attempting to stop the extremely strange energy.
However, this energy instead completely disregarded Duan Ling Tian’s Spiritual Force, charging violently all the way as it swept towards Duan Ling Tian’s soul, seeming as if it wouldn't stop until it destroyed Duan Ling Tian’s soul.
Bang!
At the instant the extremely strange energy collided onto his soul, despair arose in Duan Ling Tian’s heart. "Am I going to die?"
In the next moment, his soul shook, causing Duan Ling Tian to feel a wave of dizziness.
"I… I didn't die?!" When Duan Ling Tian recovered his senses, he noticed that his consciousness was still intact, and his soul wasn't destroyed.
"Big Brother Duan, what happened earlier? Why is that inscription gone?" A wave of a pleasing and graceful voice entered into Duan Ling Tian’s ears, pulling Duan Ling Tian back from his agitated state of mind.
Duan Ling Tian looked once again at the wall before him, and he noticed that the gold colored strange brand had vanished, as if it had never appeared in the first place.
When he recalled the incident from before, Duan Ling Tian asked curiously. "Tian Wu, you didn't see anything earlier?"
"No." Feng Tian Wu shook her head. "I saw Big Brother Duan wiping the dust off the gold coloured inscription, then the inscription vanished… Could it be that the inscriptions was painted on the wall? And Big Brother Duan wiped it off with the dust?"
"Perhaps." At the same time that he nodded, Duan Ling Tian’s mind surged.
He didn't have the slightest clue what exactly that gold coloured strange brand was, and it was because of this that he realised that the brand wasn't simple.
"Tian Wu said she didn't see anything? In other words, the bright light that was like a scorching sun emitted by the strange brand earlier, only I was able to see that scene…" Duan Ling Tian thought in his heart, then he looked at Feng Wu Dao and Elder Kong who were at the other side.
Feng Wu Dao and Elder Kong were obviously not alarmed by it.
"What exactly is that brand?" Duan Ling Tian caught his breath, then fused his Spiritual Force into his soul and he started to search…
In the end, he noticed that there seemed to be something within his soul…
Although the current strength of his Spiritual Force was insufficient to replace his eyes, and he was unable to see what was in his soul.
But his Spiritual Force still told him that his soul had become different from before.
"This feeling…" Duan Ling Tian closed his eyes and used his Spiritual Force to sense the changes in his soul to the best of his spiritual Force’s ability.
In the end, Duan Ling Tian obtained an answer. "According to the memories of the Rebirth Martial Emperor, a similar thing would only appear in the souls of those demon beasts that possessed extraordinary natural talent… This thing seemed to be slightly similar to the soul brand in the souls of those demon beasts."
Soul Brand!
Some demon beasts with extraordinary natural talent were able to awaken their own soul brand before becoming a Demon Emperor, and awaken the inherited memories related to soul skill.
These demons beasts relied on the soul brand to be able to utilize soul attack of in other words Spiritual Force Attacks in advance!
Whereas as a Jade-eyed Heavenly Mouse, Little Gold was one of these demon beasts with extraordinary natural talent.
"But, according to the memories of the Rebirth Martial Emperor, it was impossible for soul brands to appear in humans… Human martial artists were only able to achieve elementary mastery of the soul and control their Spiritual Force to battle an enemy once their cultivations broke through to the Martial Emperor Stage.
"Moreover, it wasn’t every human martial artist that was able to easily control Spiritual Force in combat, and more than 80% of human martial artists that were able to easily control Spiritual Force in combat were Inscription Masters. The other portion of people able to easily control their Spiritual Force in combat were existences that innately possessed souls that were stronger than ordinary human martial artists.
"Ordinary human Martial Emperors had to put in hard work that was much more than the two types of people before to control their Spiritual Force in combat! After all, their starting point was far inferior to the other two types of people. Moreover, even if they devoted themselves to study Spiritual Force Attacks, it would be difficult for these type of human Martial Emperor to have any great accomplishments." The memories of the Rebirth Martial Emperor flashed within Duan Ling Tian’s mind.
"But, why would a thing similar to a soul brand appear within my soul?" Duan Ling Tian was unable to wrap his head around it.
"Could it be that it’s related to the strange brand that appeared on the wall earlier?" Duan Ling Tian couldn’t help but recall this.
At the same time, for the sake of getting to the bottom of it, Duan Ling Tian’s Spiritual Force coiled around the additional existence in his soul that seemed to be a soul brand.
Om!
His Spiritual Force swept out, and pierced into it.
In practically an instant, Duan Ling Tian felt his soul tremble, then an incomparably hollow voice sounded out within his mind. "Fortunate one of the younger generation, when you hear these words of mine, you ought to have already acquired the soul brand I left behind…"
This unfamiliar voice caused Duan Ling Tian to be as if struck by lightning.
At this moment, Duan Ling Tian vaguely guessed who the owner of the voice was.
"I’m an Inscription Master from the Foreign Lands, yet I sought different things than ordinary Inscription Masters. I devoted all the energy in my life to the study of soul brands… Those demon beasts didn’t have to break through to become a Demon Emperor before being able to utilize Spiritual Force in combat through their soul brands, and it frequently caused our human martial artists to be unable to guard against it!"
"My studies were because I wanted to allow human martial artists to be able to possess soul brands that belonged to themselves… But unfortunately, the facts prove that I was too naïve! I walked through more than half of Cloud Continent in my life, and when I arrived here, I was already old… So what if I was at the Void Transformation Stage? After a 100 years, I still have to transform into a pill for earth in the end, and return to the heaven and the earth."
"Old people are always more long-winded, I hope you don’t mind… In this lifetime of mine, although I didn’t successfully research a soul brand to allow human martial artists to execute Spiritual Force Attacks before breaking through to the Martial Emperor, I couldn’t be considered to have had no results. I used the seed of the Nether Soul Fruit as the catalyst, then relied on my attainments in the Dao of inscriptions in this lifetime, and I was finally able to leave behind a special soul brand…"
"Or in other words the soul brand you’ve acquired now. These words of mine were left behind within the soul brand using a Void Transmission Inscription. When I left behind this soul brand, my lifespan was at its end and I’d decided to leave, to go find a calm and peaceful place to live the remainder of my life."
"Although this soul brand isn’t able to allow you to execute Spiritual Force Attacks that are able to destroy another’s soul, according to my estimations, it ought to be able to help you utilize some special Spiritual Force abilities. As for how exactly, you’ll have to rely on yourself to find out."
"Besides that, since you’re able to fuse with the soul brand I left behind, I presume there something special about your Spiritual Force, and you’re almost surely an Inscription Master… I’ve left behind my lifetime worth of experience in the Dao of inscriptions on the walls of this abode, and I hope it’s able to help you." The voice completely went out at this point, passing into silence.
Duan Ling Tian returned to his sense, and his pupils constricted as shock emerged within his heart.
"This Inscription Master is truly amazing!" Duan Ling Tian took a deep breath.
He who’d fused with the memories of the Rebirth Martial Emperor deeply knew what the deeds of this Inscription Master meant.
Even during the time of the Rebirth Martial Emperor, although he was extremely interested towards the soul brand of those demon beasts with extraordinary natural talent, he’d completely given up after conducting research for a few years.
Because, the Rebirth Martial Emperor felt that continuing the research was only doing something of no use.
Moreover, the Rebirth Martial Emperor of that time completely didn’t need a soul brand, so he didn’t care about it much.
As an expert at the Martial Emperor Stage and a formidable Inscription Master, so long as he condensed his Spiritual Force and swept it out, then there wasn’t a single Martial Emperor in Cloud Continent that was able to block his Spiritual Force Attack without being injured.
"Compared to the Rebirth Martial Emperor, this Inscription Master was much more persistent… He spent his entire lifetime and in the end, he’d researched a type of soul brand after all." The shock in Duan Ling Tian’s heart gradually calmed down.
After it calmed down, Duan Ling Tian’s heart jerked. "I nearly forgot something… According to the words left behind by that Inscription Master, he himself seems to not know what functions that soul brand that has fused into my soul now had, right? Then wouldn’t I have become his lab rat?"
Suddenly, Duan Ling Tian realized that unknowingly, he seemed to have become the test subject of that Inscription Master.
"I hope that there’s no problem with the soul brand left behind by that Inscription Master… Otherwise, I would really be played to death by him." Duan Ling Tian couldn’t help but laugh bitterly in his heart.
"According to the Inscription Master, the soul brand within my soul is unable to directly utilize my Spiritual Force to battle an enemy… Looks like I have to research it for some time to find out exactly what use this soul brand has." Duan Ling Tian thought in his heart.
At the same time, he recalled another thing the Inscription Master mentioned earlier. "According to that Inscription Master, the soul brand that has fused into my soul seems to be created from inscriptions combined with the seed of a Nether Soul Fruit as the catalyst. A seed of a Nether Soul Fruit… He really recklessly wasted god’s gifts!"
"Looks like the Nether Soul Fruit that grew within this abode was very likely grown from the seed that was left here that time." Duan Ling Tian was suddenly enlightened about many things now, and he completely understood them.
"But unfortunately, the plant grown from a Nether Soul Fruit seed is only able to develop a single Nether Soul Fruit in its lifetime. Otherwise, I could consider moving this Nether Soul Fruit plant to another place." Duan Ling Tian sighed to himself.