Chapter 633: Two Birds, One Stone
Bai Xiaochun took Zhou Yixing with him as he left the area of the teleportation portal. After checking to make sure they weren’t being followed, they stopped in a random alley to catch their breath. Then Bai Xiaochun finally took a moment to think about how the three great clans had been buying so many souls that he was left with almost nothing to buy. In fact, they had even gone so far as to offer ten times the normal price for some souls just now.
“Complete bullies. Well... Bai Xiaochun is the type of person who knows how to be flexible. I’ll just have to sit back and hold tight!” Considering how terrifying the Bai Clan patriarch was, and the fact that he was temporarily stuck in the Wildlands, he realized that he had no other choice.
It was at this point that Zhou Yixing, aware he had just escaped a disaster, clasped hands and said, “Many thanks, milord. If you had come even a moment later, I... I probably would never have been able to see you again.”
“Sorry to have dragged you into it,” Bai Xiaochun said. “Oh, right. Did you get your hands on all the loot I messaged you about?”
“All of it!” Zhou Yixing replied. But then he grimaced. “Unfortunately... those people from the three great clans... they robbed me clean....”
“What!?” Bai Xiaochun said, eyes widening.
Bai Xiaochun was so angry he felt like exploding. “Complete and utter bullies!” he thought. “Bai Xiaochun is the type of person who knows how to be flexible, but this time, I can’t just sit around and do nothing! This is ridiculous! You big bullies! You’re obviously just trying to take advantage of how honest I am!! The Bai Clan, Cai Clan, and Chen Clan are all full of scoundrels!!”
The more he thought about it, the more angry and humiliated he got. After all, he hadn't robbed anything from the three great clans, and yet they had gone and robbed him! Well... he had robbed the Bai Clan to some extent, but that didn't give the Cai Clan and the Chen Clan the right to do the same.
Zhou Yixing was a bit taken aback at how angry Bai Xiaochun was getting. In recent days, he had often had certain suspicions about what exactly was going on. However, he had never been willing to put too much thought into the matter.
“It doesn’t really matter who this Bai Hao really is....” he told himself, ducking his head.
Anger burning, Bai Xiaochun muttered, “I'm not going to sit around and do nothing!”
Then he gritted his teeth and paced back and forth in thought for a moment. Finally, his eyes began to shine as he thought back to the soulgrounds in the Bai Clan. The so-called soulgrounds were specially-constructed areas filled with auras of death. Such locations were even more well-suited to keeping souls fresh than soulhoarding pagodas. In fact, not only did they keep souls fresh, but they could slowly improve their quality.
All-in-all, with the exception of a few special types of soulhoarding pagodas, there was nothing that could compare to a soulground. Furthermore, soulgrounds could hold more souls overall.
Obviously, it was natural for great clans to have more soulgrounds than average, and from what Bai Xiaochun could remember, the Bai Clan had possessed something like seven or eight. They were all protected by spell formations and guarded by soul cultivators. In fact, they usually contained something called soul sentries, which were special souls that had been transformed into guards. Because of all that, soulgrounds were very difficult places to get into.
Furthermore, even if someone got inside, the vast numbers of souls would usually consume anyone unfamiliar. Besides, stealing souls from soulgrounds would be provoking the three great clans, and no one would ever dare to do something like that.
“They stole my souls, so therefore, I’m going to steal theirs!” Having reached this point in his train of thought, Bai Xiaochun gritted his teeth and sent Zhou Yixing away with orders to find a place to hole up and keep his head down. Then he headed out of the city. Because he was a guard at Devil Penitentiary, he was allowed to temporarily leave the city if he wished. If he tried to flee completely, he would be brought back, but as long as he didn’t do that, he had a relative measure of freedom.
It was evening by the time he was outside the city, whereupon he carefully headed toward the Chen Clan. Upon arrival, he was able to spot their soulgrounds near the clan itself. However, the area was so rife with souls that he realized that the risk of being spotted was too high. After some thought, he decided it was too dangerous.
“I’ll go check out the other two clans....” Taking advantage of the darkness of night, he headed to the Bai Clan. However, an inspection of their soulgrounds revealed the sad truth that the Bai Clan actually didn’t have many souls stored up.
“If I rob them, they would realize it almost instantly. Besides, I want a lot of souls!” With that, he headed toward the Cai Clan.
It was deep into the night by the time he arrived near the Cai Clan’s soulgrounds. There, his eyes began to shine brightly.
The Cai Clan’s soulgrounds were different than the Chen Clan’s. Instead of being set up near the ancestral mansions, they were scattered around rather haphazardly. Some of them were very close to the residences, but others were many kilometers away. Bai Xiaochun even found two that were fully twenty kilometers away from any of the other buildings.
The two soulgrounds were both under the protection of a single spell formation, which glowed with bright light despite the darkness of the night. Based on the fluctuations of the spell formation, even a Nascent Soul cultivator would have a hard time breaking through it.
Furthermore, disturbing the spell formation in any way would alert the Cai Clan.
Inside the spell formation was a building that looked like a huge beehive, covered with countless holes that the souls could fly into and out of. The mere sight of how many souls were present caused Bai Xiaochun to gasp.
Furthermore, some of the souls were at the Nascent Soul level, and there were also some unique and special souls mixed in.... In addition, there were over 10,000 black-armored soul sentries, whose eyes glowed with bright light. The soul sentries were clearly waiting for any unrecognized person to enter the spell formation, whereupon they would attack with deadly force.
Also located within each of the soulgrounds were buildings occupied by Cai Clan soul cultivators. There were only a dozen or so, and they didn’t have very high cultivation bases, but considering that they had the power of the spell formation at their disposal, if anything happened, all they would have to do would be to hold out for a short time before reinforcements from the clan arrived.
Because these two soulgrounds were so close to each other, all of the clan guards had gathered in one of them.
Because of how everything was set up, the soulgrounds of the three great clans were the type of things that outsiders might be able to look at, but would never dare to mess with. However, Bai Xiaochun was different.... As soon as he was able to study the situation, his eyes began to shine.
“You rob me, I rob you right back! Measly soulgrounds. Other people might think it impossible to do anything to them, but for me, it’s going to be simple.... With the snap of a finger, I, Bai Xiaochun, will reduce them to ashes....” After making some calculations, he took a step forward and instantly pierced through the air. Completely ignoring the defensive spell formation, and not even attracting its attention, he appeared in the middle of the soulground!
It happened so quickly that the Cai Clan guards didn’t have time to react, and as for the patrolling soul sentries, they simply gaped in shock.
The clan guards’ eyes went wide, and they stared at Bai Xiaochun for a moment before one of them said, “You--”
However, before anything else could happen, Bai Xiaochun unleashed a fist strike!
A huge boom rang out as an attack blasted into the Cai Clan cultivators, sending them tumbling backward, blood spraying out of their mouths before they simply lapsed into unconsciousness.
By this point, the soul sentries began to react, letting out piercing screams as they shot toward Bai Xiaochun. However, that was when he stamped his foot down onto the ground, causing ripples to spread out like they would on the surface of a pond when a rock hit it. In reaction, the floating, beehive-like building erupted with screaming sounds as a tide of souls surged out.
Bai Xiaochun’s heart was already pounding at the sight of so many souls. Excited, he didn’t hesitate for a moment to toss out a Soul Convergence Pill.
“I need speed.... A blitzkrieg strategy!’
Rumbling sounds could be heard as he tossed out more Soul Convergence Pills, creating black holes which instantly sucked in the countless screaming souls, then transformed them into soul spheres.
“This is awesome!! What a goldmine!!” In his excitement, he looked over at the second soulground, and decided that he might as well kill two birds with one stone. After collecting all of his soul spheres, he flashed into motion, appearing in the second soulground, where a similar scene to what had just occurred played out.