Zhou Ziwei stared blankly in the direction where the giant bats had disappeared for a long time before he could only give a helpless bitter smile and give up the idea of giving up the pursuit.
Anyway, even if he catches up now, there's nothing he can do about these ghost bats. He might as well spare their lives for now and wait until his sea of souls expands before he can devour these ghostly things as nourishment.
At this moment, Zhou Ziwei's soul sea was filled with soul power, and he felt an unprecedented spiritual energy. Naturally, he no longer felt drowsy. He immediately jumped into the car, helped Liu Xiaofei and Li Yifeng up, and checked on them.
Although the two were still unconscious, their breathing and heartbeats were relatively stable. It seemed that their souls had only been affected by the aftershocks of the bat souls' roars. Since their souls had not dissipated after so much time, there should not be any major problems.
Zhou Ziwei breathed a slight sigh of relief, then gently laid the two of them down under the seats so they could get a good night's sleep. He figured they would be fully recovered by the time they woke up the next day.
After settling the two people in, Zhou Ziwei sat back down in front of the car and began carefully sorting through the scattered memories that had come with the immense power of those souls.
Zhou Ziwei soon discovered that the fifteen ghosts parasitizing the giant bats were actually all human in life. This was evident from their strict discipline and shrewd, cunning reactions. If they were the souls of other creatures, they probably wouldn't have had so many "ghostly thoughts."
From the scattered memories of these fifteen souls, Zhou Ziwei learned that they had been traveling together on a bus about a dozen years ago. When they passed through this area, the bus overturned and fell into a deep ravine due to slippery roads caused by rain, and all the people on the bus perished.
Below the cliff lies an extremely rare and yin place, with a huge cave that runs almost through half of the mountain. Because of this extremely yin place and the cave with its heavy yin energy, the ghosts of those who perished were preserved and were not decomposed into nothingness under the scorching sun.
However, these ghosts discovered that as soon as they left a certain area at the bottom of the cliff, they would quickly become weak, and they would feel the same way at night or during the day when there was no sun.
It seems that if they don't want their souls to dissipate, the only way is to never leave the cave below the cliff!
Of course, they wouldn't accept this. If they could never leave that damp and dark cave area, they would rather just perish.
Later, a ghost, driven mad by its pent-up frustration, wandered aimlessly through the cave, emitting mournful screams... Somehow, it suddenly entered the body of a blood bat living in the cave, successfully suppressing the bat's original soul and gaining control of the body, thus becoming a strange ghost bat...
With one example set, the other ghosts immediately followed suit. After all, although becoming a ghost bat still meant they dared not roam during the day, at least at night they could fly out at will and experience the feeling of flesh and blood again. This completely tempted these ghosts who had long been tired of the boring life of simple souls.
Of course, there are also those who find bats disgusting and therefore plan to find another creature, or even a human, to take over their bodies.
However, for some reason, although they understood the method of burrowing into other creatures, apart from bats, if they invaded the body of other creatures, even if they could suppress or even devour the original soul of that creature, they could not control its body and could only watch helplessly as the flesh slowly rotted away in front of them.
Left with no other choice, all the ghosts who perished in the past had to transform into ghost bats. They could only suppress the original souls within the bats to coexist with them in one body. If they wanted to completely destroy the bats' souls, the bats' corpses would slowly rot and would not be under their control.
For the past ten years, all the ghost bats have lived in caves at the foot of the cliffs. Every night at midnight, they would intentionally inhale and exhale the yin energy emanating from the extremely yin place. Over time, this caused the bodies they controlled to become larger and larger, and their souls to become stronger as well.
Inside, there was an extremely clever and ambitious ghost who gathered all the ghost bats together and drilled them frequently, as if training an army. He also invented an attack method called "soul roar." In the last two years, he has often led this group of ghost bats out to wreak havoc, killing many passersby and causing widespread panic. Eventually, no one dared to cross this road anymore, and so the road was finally abandoned.
Zhou Ziwei obtained some fragmented memories from the soul energy of those fifteen souls, which allowed him to roughly understand the whole experience.
After all, most of these ghosts were just ordinary people in life and didn't have many obsessions. In comparison, their memories as ghost bats after death were more profound, which is why Zhou Ziwei was able to successfully read this part of their memories.
However, this part of the memory is still very vague. Zhou Ziwei has obtained most of the memory of the soul power vibration frequency of the soul roar and the specific methods of entering other life forms, which he needed most. Only a little bit is incomplete.
This is probably related to the fact that the soul power surged to exceed the critical limit that the sea of souls could contain. Last time, when Zhou Ziwei devoured the old ghost that possessed Gu Xiaoli, his soul power exceeded the critical point, and he basically didn't retain any memories at all.
This time, his soul power had exceeded the critical point of the sea of souls, and under such circumstances, he was still able to retain a part of Zhou Ziwei's memories, which was an unexpected surprise.
Although that part of the memory was only slightly incomplete, Zhou Ziwei still spent almost the entire night before he finally managed to successfully channel his soul power into the body of a ladybug and create an independent soul within the ladybug's body.
Although the ladybug was extremely small, it still took Zhou Ziwei nearly a hundred remnant souls' worth of soul power to finally condense into an independent soul entity.
The soul power of a full one hundred remnant souls! This is roughly equivalent to one-sixth of Zhou Ziwei's current soul power reserves, which shows how difficult it is to build an independent soul body within a living being.
After all, the complexity of a living organism's body structure is far beyond what ordinary non-living things can compare to.
This is just a ladybug the size of a grain of rice with a relatively simple body structure. You can imagine that if Zhou Ziwei wanted to create an independent soul inside a larger animal like a cat or dog, with his current amount of soul power, he wouldn't even be able to think about it!
Zhou Ziwei initially felt he had gained a lot by increasing his soul power threefold this time, but now that he saw how much soul power it took to capture just a ladybug, he realized that his soul power was still far from enough!
The ladybug's original soul was extremely weak. Almost the instant the independent soul created by Zhou Ziwei was generated, the tiny soul was immediately suppressed by this much stronger soul and fell into a deep sleep.
Zhou Ziwei did not attempt to let the newly formed independent soul devour the ladybug's original soul. From the memories of those ghost bats, he knew that if a soul invades another life and the original soul of that life has disappeared, then its body will instinctively and strongly reject the foreign soul, and its body will quickly wither and die.
Even aside from special creatures like blood bats, ghosts, even if they burrow into someone's body and do not devour their soul, still cannot prevent the body from perishing.
Zhou Ziwei was also worried that the ladybug would also be unable to withstand the invasion of the external soul and die immediately.
Fortunately, his fears did not come true. After being possessed by the newly formed independent soul, the ladybug not only did not die, but became even more energetic.
It spread its wings and flew around Zhou Ziwei a few times before finally landing on Zhou Ziwei's fingertip, showing a look of great dependence on him.
What surprised Zhou Ziwei the most was that, although the soul power that constituted the soul of the independent soul within this ladybug was still gradually dissipating over time, the rate of dissipation was significantly slower than that of an independent soul created within a non-living entity.
Zhou Ziwei observed carefully for a long time and finally came to a rough conclusion: it took almost a full day for this independent soul to be generated and completely destroyed.
This is much longer than the fleeting life of an independent soul in a non-living body!
After pondering for a moment, Zhou Ziwei guessed that this was probably because a living being's body itself was a kind of outer garment for the soul, which had a protective and nourishing effect on the soul. In this way, even if it was just an independent soul that he temporarily created, once it resided in him, its lifespan would be greatly extended.
Moreover, the independent soul within this ladybug is significantly more spiritual and intelligent than any other independent soul Zhou Ziwei has created before, and it can even clearly express some simple emotions and information to Zhou Ziwei.
This independent soul is like a newborn baby, showing great curiosity about everything in the world. Even a blade of grass or a flower can make it feel ecstatic.
As for Zhou Ziwei, it behaved with the same affection and closeness as a naughty child with its parents.
This feeling inexplicably gave Zhou Ziwei a faint sense of helplessness and sadness. After all, this independent soul was so spiritual, almost like a little child, and so attached to him. The thought that this lovely and lively little life would turn into nothingness again in a day made him feel a sour and sad feeling in his heart.
However, Zhou Ziwei thought about how many such independent souls he would create in the future. Perhaps if his soul power reserves were to expand further, he would create independent souls that were even more spiritual than this little ladybug. If he could be so easygoing every time, would he even want to live? If that were the case, he might as well give up this ability as soon as possible.
Thinking of this, Zhou Ziwei resolutely hardened his heart and stopped thinking about such troubling matters. Instead, he began to focus on the fish that had escaped the net at the bottom of the cliff.
He had just used up one-sixth of his soul power to capture this little ladybug, which would probably be enough to swallow the souls of five or six ghost bats.
However, the memory fragments he had just obtained from the souls of those ghost bats were incomplete. He was not quite sure how many ghost bats lived in the cave below the cliff. If there were only a dozen or so ghost bats left in Xiayang, Zhou Ziwei would not be afraid to risk going down and take a gamble. But if there were too many ghost bats, it would be more troublesome. He would not be able to swallow so many, and fighting them would be dangerous.
Looking up, he saw that the sky was already beginning to lighten, while the two people in the car were still fast asleep. So Zhou Ziwei gently stroked the ladybug that had landed on his finger and, through the transmission of his soul power, conveyed his intentions to the independent soul within the ladybug, instructing it to fly down the cliff to investigate how many ghost bats were still there, whether there were any other dangers, and whether there was a path that would allow Zhou Ziwei to descend the cliff.
Even if Zhou Ziwei doesn't bother those ghost bats today, once he has a clear understanding of the details of their lair, he can still seek revenge on them when he returns from Tengchong.
While eliminating harm for the people, one can also replenish one's own spiritual power.
However, if the cave is too dangerous, he wouldn't risk his life for a little bit of soul power!
Anyway, this little ladybug has already been created. After the independent soul within the ladybug disappears a day later, I wonder if it will leave a soul imprint like a non-living thing and be able to revive again.
It would be a waste not to use it now!
The little ladybug seemed somewhat reluctant to leave Zhou Ziwei's side, but under Zhou Ziwei's repeated urging, it reluctantly flapped its thin wings and flew away.
As the ladybug flew further and further away, Zhou Ziwei was surprised to discover that the independent soul within the ladybug maintained a unique connection with his own soul. Through this wondrous connection, he could clearly "see" and "hear" everything happening in the distance through the ladybug's senses.
Moreover, the effective range of this feeling was much farther than the distance that his soul power could transmit. It wasn't until the ladybug flew more than a hundred meters away that this feeling gradually became extremely faint, until it finally disappeared.
Although he could no longer see or hear anything through this connection between souls, the faint sense of connection between souls still existed. Although in this state, Zhou Ziwei could no longer sense where the ladybug had flown to or what it was doing, he could still sense its general direction.
It seems that because of this pure connection between souls, no matter how far the ladybug flies, as long as it doesn't die, this feeling will always exist!
Just as Zhou Ziwei was anxiously waiting for the ladybug to return, a loud shout suddenly came from behind him: "Wow... so many strange birds! They scared me to death..."
As the strange cry rang out, Li Yifeng scrambled out of the car, fists clenched, looking ready to fight. But when he saw Zhou Ziwei smiling at him from outside, and there wasn't a single strange bird in sight, he paused, scratched his head sheepishly, and said, "Hehe... I think I had a nightmare... I saw a bunch of smelly, strange birds swarming at me... Ugh... It scared me to death!"
"Idiot, that wasn't a dream. If it really was a dream... then I had the same dream as you!"
As they were talking, Liu Xiaofei got up from the car. After sitting up, she first gave Li Yifeng a disdainful look, and then nervously looked down at her clothes. Seeing that there seemed to be nothing wrong, she breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's not a dream!"
Li Yifeng paused for a moment, then said, "Could those disgusting birds really be real... But... where are they now? Judging from their fierce appearance, I thought they were going to eat me!"
Liu Xiaofei looked at Zhou Ziwei with a strange expression and said, "Who knows... You'll have to ask Mr. Zhou!"
Zhou Ziwei shrugged and said, "They all flew away! Those strange birds seemed to be playing a prank. They probably saw how timid you two were, and how you fainted from fright, so they got bored and just flew away..."
"Uh..." Liu Xiaofei and Li Yifeng were speechless upon hearing this, especially Liu Xiaofei. She was responsible for protecting Zhou Ziwei, but when things actually went wrong, she seemed to only be a hindrance, not helping at all! Moreover, when she saw those strange birds flying over last night, she felt a strange fear, and then her mind went blank, and she fainted... Now that she thought about it, it was truly shameful that she, a top student who graduated from the police academy, was not even as good as an ordinary person!
Although Liu Xiaofei and Li Yifeng had some doubts about what happened last night, they could only accept Zhou Ziwei's ridiculous explanation since Zhou Ziwei didn't seem to have been in a fight and there wasn't a single dead strange bird in the vicinity.
By this time, it had been more than an hour since the ladybug flew away, but it still hadn't returned. Zhou Ziwei was extremely anxious. If he could still sense the ladybug's presence, he would have almost given up and gone down the cliff to find it himself.
So Zhou Ziwei had no mood to talk to Liu Xiaofei and Li Yifeng anymore. He just stared blankly in the direction of the cliff. The two of them shook their heads in confusion and started packing their things.
This little ladybug... could it be that it's too intelligent and has completely betrayed me? Otherwise, if it's not dead, why hasn't it come back after so long?
Zhou Ziwei couldn't help but start letting his mind wander...
Volume 1, Rebirth of a Prodigy, Chapter 110: The Underground Palace
"Hey...aren't you leaving yet? It's already dawn, what are we still doing here?"
After Li Yifeng and Liu Xiaofei packed up the remaining items from the car and the ground into two travel bags and slung them over their shoulders, they saw Zhou Ziwei still sitting in front of the car, staring blankly at the cliff. Li Yifeng went over and gave Zhou Ziwei a push on the shoulder, saying, "Hurry up! We might never get stuck here again. Let's turn back!"
Liu Xiaofei squatted by the roadside and quickly washed her face with half a bottle of mineral water. Then she came over and said, "Yes... this car can't be driven anymore. Once we get to Tengchong, I'll call the branch office and ask them to find a way to tow this Audi back. Let's go first! You didn't sleep all night, you must be very tired now! Let's get to Tengchong quickly so we can find a hotel and get some rest."
"Wait a minute... just a little longer... I think I sat on the cold ground all night, and my legs are still a bit numb. Please let me rest for a bit before you go..."
Zhou Ziwei gazed at the cliff, feeling an urge to go down the cliff to find the ladybug. However, he thought that the purpose of creating these independent souls was to help him do things that he couldn't do himself. If he, the creator of these souls, had to risk his life to save the ladybug that only had one day to live, then what was the point of creating these short-lived souls?
He secretly calculated that in another ten minutes, the ladybug would have flown away for two hours. If the ladybug didn't return after two hours, Zhou Ziwei would have no choice but to give up on it.
Fortunately, after waiting for less than five minutes, Zhou Ziwei felt the subtle connection between himself and the ladybug gradually becoming clearer. He immediately perked up and quickly walked to the front of the cliff. Sure enough, he saw a blurry little black dot flying rapidly towards him from below.
It has to be said that after this ladybug merged with an independent soul that was far more powerful than its original soul, its flight speed and agility were several times stronger than before. A typical ladybug flies so slowly that it makes people anxious, but this ladybug now seems to be able to fly at a speed comparable to that of an ordinary bird.
"Hey... bro, don't do anything rash!"
When Li Yifeng saw Zhou Ziwei suddenly run to the cliff edge, he was startled and hurriedly grabbed Zhou Ziwei's arm tightly. However, seeing that Zhou Ziwei wasn't acting like he was about to commit suicide, but instead was beaming as if he had just won the lottery, Li Yifeng was taken aback and said with a wry smile, "What are you doing, kid? Why are you grinning like an idiot at this empty cliff? Ugh... I almost thought you were going to jump off and commit suicide!"
Zhou Ziwei chuckled, and with a gentle wave of his hand, the ladybug landed on his sleeve. He then turned around and said, "It's nothing. I just suddenly remembered how in those old martial arts novels, the protagonist always finds a peerless martial arts manual after falling off a cliff, or encounters a half-dead old monster who imparts his life's worth of skills to him. So I was thinking... I wonder if there might be a martial arts manual or something at the bottom of this cliff..."
Upon hearing this, Li Yifeng made a gesture of wiping away cold sweat, and said with a wry smile, "I say, you haven't really gone mad with your cultivation, have you? You actually believe in that kind of nonsense written in novels... Well, look at the state of us all, even if we really want to go on an adventure, we should wait until another time and make sufficient preparations before we do!"
Zhou Ziwei waved his hand and said, "No need... I was just saying. Let's go!"
Once the ladybug flew up, it continuously transmitted memory information to Zhou Ziwei through the soul power released by Zhou Ziwei, like a live video recording.
The complex situation at the foot of the cliff far exceeded Zhou Ziwei's expectations. Through the ladybug's memory, Zhou Ziwei discovered that there were at least a hundred ghost bats in the huge cave at the foot of the cliff.
There couldn't possibly have been hundreds of people on the bus that fell off the cliff. The remaining ones were probably monsters created by the souls of those who were killed by the first ghost bats, combined with the blood bats in the cave.
The largest of these ghost bats was probably the king of all the ghost bats, as it was three or four times the size of an ordinary ghost bat. Even though it was hanging upside down from the cave ceiling with its wings folded, it still looked as big as a small calf.
This is no longer a bat, it's clearly a monster!
When the ladybug flew into the cave, it could clearly see that the ghost bats hanging upside down from the cave ceiling were almost all motionless, as if they were asleep. Only the nine blood bats that had participated in the attack on Zhou Ziwei were crawling in front of the giant ghost bat king, showing a look of fear and unease.
The enormous ghost bat king kept its eyes tightly closed, hanging upside down from the cave ceiling, not even glancing at the nine ghost bats. But when the ladybug flew close, the ghost bat king suddenly opened a pair of bloody eyes, like red lanterns, and stared intently at the ladybug, as if it had keenly noticed the strangeness of this seemingly harmless little insect.
Then, with a flap of its wings, it flew over like a bolt of lightning, extending its fan-like claws to grab the ladybug.
Fortunately, the ladybug had become infinitely more agile after being controlled by an independent soul. Seeing that the situation was not good, it immediately turned around and hid under the wing of a ghost bat that was crawling on the ground.
Ladybugs are too small to be considered fighters, but being small has its advantages. At least it's much easier for them to escape. Although tigers are fierce, if they encounter a mosquito, even the fiercest tiger will probably only be sucked blood by the mosquito. It's not going to be that easy for it to catch a mosquito!
The Ghost Bat King was clearly more ferocious than a tiger. Its enormous size, combined with its ability to fly and intelligence equivalent to that of a human, made even the clever little ladybug struggle to survive in its presence.