"Quickly... next round of stone projectile attack... short-sword fighters, prepare!"
The centurion shouted excitedly. He could tell that the dark red rays contained in Zhou Ziwei's alloy suit were almost exhausted. He estimated that if Zhou Ziwei stood there still, those strange dark red rays on his body would not be able to withstand this wave of attacks. As long as there was another wave of stone projectiles, the dark red rays on Zhou Ziwei's body would be completely worn away. Without the protection of the dark red rays, he would be a fish to be slaughtered.
"Boom—" With the centurion's order, more than a hundred stones came flying from all directions. With victory in sight, all the Blue Armor Army soldiers were eager to use every ounce of their strength.
These spearmen have trained in spear throwing for a long time, so their arm strength is quite amazing. Now, when they throw stones at close range with all their might, the destructive power they cause is even more astonishing.
Countless stone projectiles flew closer and closer, with the fastest ones almost striking Zhou Ziwei's body. Yet, not a single dark red ray was emitted. It seemed... the protective ray on his body had truly been completely exhausted...
Countless Blue Armor soldiers who had just launched their stone projectiles couldn't help but cheer. However, at that moment, Zhou Ziwei's eyes, which had been slightly narrowed, suddenly opened. In an instant, a deep, almost invisible light, like the light of the sea, emanated from his profound gaze. And in the next moment, the hundreds of stone projectiles that had been flying around Zhou Ziwei abruptly stopped in mid-air...
Volume 2 The Assassin's Nightmare Chapter 411 The Grim Reaper
Even when the invisible barrier of the Sea of Souls was bound by the source of divine power and could no longer expand, a large amount of purified soul power still surged into the Sea of Souls like a tide, causing the misty soul power within to churn incessantly.
Gradually, the increasingly dense, misty soul power began to condense within this limited space due to pressure from both inside and outside. Just like water vapor rising into the air, it continuously condensed into clouds. Then, these clouds became even more solid due to their collisions. Finally, the water vapor turned into raindrops, which drizzled down from the illusory sky. In the blink of an eye, the misty soul power transformed into condensed liquid soul power, dripping into the small pond in the center of the Sea of Souls, which was entirely composed of liquid soul power.
A large amount of misty soul power was transformed into liquid soul power, which greatly reduced the pressure in the sea of souls. After tens of thousands of misty soul power were transformed into a dozen or so drops of liquid soul power, the sea of souls, which had almost been burst apart, finally stabilized completely.
Although the intense pressure was gone, the misty soul power did not stop condensing. It was like a chain reaction. Initially, it would be quite difficult to form this situation, but once a certain trend was established, it would be easy to complete the change without the need for external forces.
The nearly 60,000 units of misty soul power, after transforming into liquid soul power, amounted to only about 50 drops of liquid. In its misty state, this 50,000 units of soul power nearly caused Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls to burst, but after completely transforming into liquid, it occupied only a small handful of space.
Only when all the misty soul power permeating the Sea of Souls was completely transformed, leaving only a few hundred scattered pieces of misty soul power floating in this empty space, did this space finally become completely quiet.
Only at this moment did Zhou Ziwei's soul consciousness slowly regain its autonomy.
I'm still alive? And the Sea of Souls hasn't exploded?
Zhou Ziwei was slightly stunned, then startled by the empty sea of his soul. He thought that during the time he was in a daze, his soul power had been completely drained away.
But then he saw that in the very center of the Sea of Souls, the small lake that was about to dry up suddenly grew much larger.
A quick scan with his soul consciousness revealed that there were over seventy drops of liquid soul power stored here, which was equivalent to more than seventy thousand units of soul power...
Just as Zhou Ziwei was secretly marveling at his miraculous survival, he suddenly sensed a dangerous aura coming from the outside world. He was abruptly awakened and opened his eyes wide. Then he saw countless large and small stones raining down on him like a deluge.
Slightly startled, Zhou Ziwei sensed the message from the independent soul within his alloy suit, learning that the energy contained within the suit had been almost completely depleted. Now, the suit could only provide negligible protection through its ordinary physical properties, and he had to rely on himself for everything.
Without the slightest hesitation, Zhou Ziwei immediately mobilized the soul power within his body. However, he only had a few hundred units of his misty soul power left, which was far from enough to effectively release the soul covering effect.
It seems that he can only use liquid soul power. Although using liquid soul power to cover his soul in order to deal with a hundred or so stone bullets is a shameful waste, he has no other choice at the moment.
However, just as Zhou Ziwei mobilized a dozen drops of soul power with his soul consciousness to prepare to unleash them and form a soul cover, he suddenly had a strange feeling. He felt that these liquid soul powers had completely merged into his soul consciousness, and he could change their form at will.
In the next moment, those dozen or so drops of soul power exploded in Zhou Ziwei's sea of soul power, transforming back into wisps of misty soul power.
Just as I thought... Zhou Ziwei was secretly delighted. At this moment, he didn't have time to consider why he had inexplicably gained the ability to transform the form of his soul power. He quickly released a portion of his soul power, which instantly formed a small soul coverage within a ten-meter radius around him.
After the soul enveloped the area, Zhou Ziwei suddenly felt a wonderful sense of control over everything within this small region.
He didn't even need to use any techniques to manipulate the force field in the space to form a protective force. With just a thought, the hundreds of stone projectiles were instantly captured by invisible hands and frozen in mid-air, eerily still.
These people all deserve to die.
Zhou Ziwei originally felt that he was not a person of this world, and he did not have much goodwill or hatred towards the two sides in the battle. So even when the two sides clashed, Zhou Ziwei only absorbed the souls floating in the air. As for the living people, he could only cause them minor injuries and temporarily disable their ability to fight. He never actually used the means to kill them.
But just now, Zhou Ziwei was almost killed by these guys, although by accident, he was able to better control his soul power.
But when Zhou Ziwei thought about how his soul sea had almost burst, he couldn't help but get furious.
Moreover, these guys seemed determined to destroy him, relentlessly pursuing him all the way to the enemy's camp.
Those men from the Red-Clad Battle Camp were all cowards. When they saw that a thousand or so men had been killed in an instant by the volley of ten thousand spears fired by this thousand-man force, they were all so frightened that they ran as far away as possible.
Otherwise, Zhou Ziwei wouldn't have been so easily cornered and attacked by this thousand-strong force.
People are always prone to anger. Zhou Ziwei hadn't encountered any real danger to his life before, so he didn't take the provocations of those Blue Armor Army soldiers to heart. But now that he was almost killed by these guys, how could he remain indifferent?
Zhou Ziwei snorted coldly. In the blink of an eye, a powerful, attribute-less energy surged from his dantian, instantly transforming into a ball of wind-attribute energy, which then shot out from his palm.
This time, Zhou Ziwei did not condense the wind-attribute energy into a large vortex. Instead, he instantly cut it into a hundred small air clusters. Then, under the guidance of his soul consciousness, each small air cluster enveloped a stone bullet floating in mid-air. Thus, these stone bullets were completely controlled by Zhou Ziwei through the air clusters.
"Go—" Zhou Ziwei suddenly roared. With a thought, he first withdrew all the soul power that had been released outside his body and was being consumed over time back into his body. Then, he used the hundreds of energy balls to drive the stone projectiles, which flew towards the group of blue-armored soldiers surrounding him like cannonballs.
The stone projectiles were extremely fast, and enveloped by those small air masses, they became even more agile, like butterflies flitting through the forest. In the blink of an eye, they shot towards the nearest hundred blue-armored soldiers who had just thrown the stone projectiles.
These blue-armored soldiers were all wearing heavy armor, with their vital areas protected by thicker plates. Ordinary swords and blades would hardly cause them much harm.
But these stone projectiles were different. Under the control of the air mass, each stone projectile seemed to have eyes, aiming specifically at the vital points of the blue-armored soldiers' faces exposed outside their armor.
Even if someone tried to dodge or block with their arms, it was useless. The stone projectiles would change direction in an instant, pass through the opponent's obstruction, and without exception, smash heavily into everyone's face.
Each stone projectile was already quite heavy, and with the added acceleration from the air mass, the damage it could cause was naturally increased even more significantly. More than half of the Blue Armor Army soldiers were immediately killed by having their brains splattered after being hit by the first wave of stone projectiles.
A few who were lucky enough to survive an attack were not even allowed to turn around and run away before the stone projectiles that hit their faces would bounce high into the air for tens of meters before falling heavily again. In short, they would not stop until they smashed the head of the blue-armored soldier they had identified.
After smashing another person's head, the stone projectile, having completed its mission, would bounce up again to find the next target and continue attacking. The thousand blue-armored soldiers surrounding Zhou Ziwei were all on Zhou Ziwei's kill list. As long as there was one person still alive, these stone projectiles would never stop.
The frenzied barrage of stones first completely stunned the heavily armored spearmen, who watched helplessly as their comrades fell one after another before their eyes, while the blood-stained stones seemed tireless in their endless barrage. The scene was like the end of the world. When the centurion of the unit was also smashed in the head by a stone the size of a watermelon, the mental defenses of these well-trained soldiers finally collapsed completely.
It's unclear who shouted "Run!" first, but all the hundreds of surviving heavily armored spearmen immediately scattered like headless flies, unable to distinguish east from west or north from south.
Trying to run? Too late.
Zhou Ziwei snorted inwardly, patted his waist, and immediately twelve silver beams shot out, like twelve scythes of death reaping lives, flying to the outermost edge of the thousand-man team, cutting down the blue-armored soldiers who tried to escape from the outside in.
In addition, Zhou Ziwei also released a ladybug and a dozen highly venomous mosquitoes that he had been controlling. In the midst of the fear of almost dying and the overwhelming rage, Zhou Ziwei was about to use almost all his means. At this moment, he had only one thought in his mind, which was to kill.
Under the combined attack of these various methods, the heavily armored thousand-man squad was completely wiped out by Zhou Ziwei in less than half a minute.
Then Zhou Ziwei recited the Six-Syllable Mantra again without hesitation, devouring all the newborn souls of the thousand people in one breath.
More than 20,000 units of soul power surged into Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls. This time, with just a slight thought, Zhou Ziwei instantly transformed most of the misty soul power into liquid, which dripped into the small lake at the center of his sea of souls.
"Your Highness, the Grand Elder of the Temple has issued a decree, requesting that Your Highness immediately enter the Main Temple of Xianjing City. The battle on Wolong Mountain is protracted and will likely not end anytime soon. We urge Your Highness to return to the Ostrich Beast and come back to the capital with us!"
Zhou Ziwei had just completely absorbed this wave of soul power when a huge shadow descended from above. The ostrich beast flew more than a hundred meters above him, and the old swindler was perched on the ostrich beast's neck, shouting at him with a hint of anxiety in his voice. He had obviously seen Zhou Ziwei disappear into danger and was afraid that Zhou Ziwei might accidentally perish here, which would make him a sinner for all time.
Zhou Ziwei raised his head, waved at the old charlatan, and loudly replied, "Old man, please wait a moment. These bastards actually tried to kill me, so I must make them pay a price first..."
Without waiting for the old charlatan's agreement, Zhou Ziwei immediately moved, instantly increasing his agility tenfold, and transformed into a dazzling silver light, rushing straight into the endless ranks of the blue-armored army.
Like a drop of cold water splashed into a boiling oil pan, the once orderly Blue Armor Army was thrown into chaos as Zhou Ziwei charged in.
Zhou Ziwei wielded a gleaming alloy blade, while hundreds of stone projectiles around him, enveloped in a whirlwind, hurtled through the enemy like cannonballs with eyes, unstoppable in their path. Meanwhile, the twelve new-style cross-shaped darts and the dozen or so insects were like the dead, felling blue-armored soldiers wherever they went, and the thick stench of blood quickly enveloped the entire blue-armored army camp.
"Kill!" Although the men of the red-clad battle camp seemed less aggressive than the blue-armored army, when they saw that a large group of blue-armored soldiers had been slaughtered by Zhou Ziwei alone, they immediately realized that there was an advantage to be gained. Several generals immediately gave orders, leading their troops to follow closely behind Zhou Ziwei and charge forward madly, quickly expanding their gains.
Zhou Ziwei didn't care at all whether the Red-Clad Warriors were following him to take advantage of the situation. He was just frantically slaughtering the Blue-Armored Army soldiers while constantly chanting the Six-Syllable Mantra and absorbing the newborn souls floating in mid-air.
When he recited the six-syllable mantra again, he felt the more than ten thousand soul energies surging into his body act like a powerful catalyst, instantly merging with the misty soul energies floating in the air and the liquid soul energies deposited in the central lake in his sea of souls, thus generating a powerful force.
Zhou Ziwei knew this was because the total amount of soul power in his sea of souls had exceeded 100,000, which... should be a sign of another advancement!
The orange soul power gradually deepened, turning into a deep yellow color. Then, Zhou Ziwei felt that his soul consciousness suddenly became much clearer. The maximum detection range of his soul power was originally only sixty meters, but at this moment it extended by more than double, reaching a range of one hundred and twenty meters.
His connections with various Kun pets and the independent souls within those new-style crossbows also suddenly became much closer.
This close connection not only means that he can effectively remotely control these independent souls from a greater distance, but also that the precision of his control has been further improved.
This change is not very noticeable for ordinary Kun pets, but it is crucial for independent souls within non-living bodies.
At least now Zhou Ziwei can directly launch the new cross-shaped darts from a kilometer away without worrying that they will go out of control due to exceeding the range.
After Zhou Ziwei once again transformed the misty soul power he had just absorbed from his sea of souls into liquid and injected it into the small lake at the center of his sea of souls, he hesitated slightly before reciting the Six-Syllable Mantra once more.
Based on past experience, once the range of his soul power exploration increases, the area covered by the halo formed by the Six-Syllable Mantra will inevitably increase as well.
However, Zhou Ziwei himself was not entirely certain about the exact amount of this increase.
Meanwhile, in this chaotic battlefield, the ground was littered with corpses, while the sky was filled with newly born souls.
At this moment, for every 20 to 30 meters increase in the range of Zhou Ziwei's Six-Syllable Mantra, it is possible to absorb hundreds or thousands more souls.
Currently, Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls can only hold a maximum of about 50,000 units of mist-like soul power. In the past, when the range of the Six-Syllable Mantra was still uncertain, Zhou Ziwei would definitely not have dared to recklessly absorb soul power here.
However, now that he has mastered the ability to transform his misty soul power into liquid at any time, he naturally doesn't need to worry too much about this issue.
However, when the six enormous, deep yellow halos formed by the Six-Syllable Mantra spread almost instantly to a distance beyond the reach of the naked eye, Zhou Ziwei was still startled. Without hesitation, he first converted all the remaining few thousand units of misty soul power in his sea of souls into liquid. Then, he felt waves of the newly purified misty soul power surging in like a raging tide...
Volume 2 The Assassin's Nightmare Chapter 412 Corrosion of Vicious Energy
The once empty sea of souls was almost filled in a short instant, and almost endless purified soul power surged in from all directions.
Zhou Ziwei was terrified. Without hesitation, he stopped all his frantic killing and stood still. Just like before, he squinted his eyes and began to focus all his attention on the sea of souls, working to transform the misty soul power into liquid soul power.
This time, Zhou Ziwei's divine power still emerged in time, tightly binding the sea of soul that was expanding outward due to the excessive mist-like soul power, giving Zhou Ziwei a chance to catch his breath.
Fresh soul power surged in from the outside world in an endless stream, and in the blink of an eye, Zhou Ziwei used his soul consciousness to transform it into liquid soul power, which fell like raindrops into the small lake at the center of the sea of souls.
In the blink of an eye, the amount of soul power stored in Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls increased from 100,000 to 150,000, then to 200,000, 300,000...
It wasn't until the total amount of soul power in Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls exceeded 400,000 that it gradually calmed down, and no new soul power poured in.
Moreover, Zhou Ziwei discovered that after all this commotion, the space of his soul sea seemed to have expanded considerably without him even realizing it.
At this moment, there is still about 40,000 units of undiluted, mist-like soul power remaining in the Sea of Souls, but it seems to only occupy about half of the space within the Sea of Souls. This is more than half more than before...
Four hundred thousand units of soul power... Zhou Ziwei never imagined that he would become so wealthy so suddenly. If he wanted to collect so much soul power on Earth, unless he dared to risk going into the underground tomb below the Bat Cave to search for those souls that might have been hidden there for thousands of years, he probably wouldn't be able to collect so much soul energy even in ten or fifteen years.
Moreover, the underground tomb was already occupied by the Soul-Eating Flying Insects. Most of the souls inside had probably become food for these insects. So even if Zhou Ziwei had the guts, entering the tomb again wouldn't guarantee him much soul energy; at most, he'd only get some scattered Flame Hearts. Risking being eaten by the Soul-Eating Flying Insects for a few Flame Hearts... the gains and losses were hardly proportional.
War is good... especially war in the age of cold weapons. In just a short while, I've absorbed a full 400,000 units of soul power. This speed is truly exhilarating...
Four hundred thousand soul power, calculated based on the soul energy of an ordinary soldier in this world, means that in such a short time, Zhou Ziwei fused with approximately twenty thousand soul bodies in one go.
Even so, some soul entities still faintly lingered in the distance of this battlefield. If he absorbed them all, his soul power would probably at least double again, reaching seven or eight hundred thousand without any problem.
But what if all the hundreds of thousands of people on this battlefield were to die? How much soul power could I absorb then...? Well, a rough estimate would be that there are at least 500,000 soldiers on both sides here.
Five hundred thousand people... If they all died and were all transformed into souls and absorbed by others, wouldn't that be a full ten million souls?
Ten million... What an enormous astronomical figure that is... If I wait until I return to Earth, I'm afraid I'll never have the chance to absorb such a massive amount of soul power again in my lifetime!
If the level of soul power advances by one level for every tenfold increase in soul power within the Sea of Souls, then when my soul power reaches ten million, it can advance two more levels. At that point, the coverage area of my soul power can at least double again... What an enticing feeling that would be...
The more Zhou Ziwei thought about it, the more excited and happy he became. A faint blood-red light appeared in his eyes as he stared at the soldiers near and far like a hungry wolf. At this moment, in his eyes, both the Blue Armor Army and the Red Army were like delicious food, and he wished he could swallow them all in one gulp.
Die! These people all deserve to die, hahaha...