On Blue Star, Chu Xuan took out the Psionic Cube and immersed his spiritual sense into it. As expected, Ma Nanshan hadn't been mentioned for a long time.
After a brief moment of mourning for the unfortunate soul, Chu Xuan was about to reactivate the soul transmission matrix when something caught his eye.
"Hey, what's this little light point? I've never noticed it before," he mused, surprised.
As he extended his spiritual sense towards it, he quickly came across a message.
"Do not believe! Do not believe! Do not believe! Rectitude Hall has long been destroyed! Only Eternal Hall remains on Soul Star! Anyone claiming to be from Rectitude Hall of Soul Star is a liar! A liar! If you are fortunate enough to see this message, it means your soul is strong enough—escape! Never touch the Psionic block again!"
Chu Xuan raised an eyebrow in intrigue. It appeared that someone had already seen through the tricks of the people from Soul Star. Unfortunately, unless one's soul was of a certain strength, this hidden message would remain undetected.
"Newcomer, welcome," a weary voice suddenly resonated.
"My name is Yun Ming, Soul King of Rectitude Hall on Soul Star. Our planet has suffered..."
Yun Ming appeared again, his tone as tired as before, recounting the disasters of Soul Star. His speech and tone were exactly the same as before; even the emotional inflection remained unchanged.
Yun Ming did not care who Chu Xuan was; he simply relayed his message and then disclosed a method to activate the soul transmission matrix before disappearing.
At this point, Chu Xuan roughly understood the situation. Yun Ming was likely indeed from Rectitude Hall of Soul Star. However, his stored message had been intercepted by those from Eternal Hall and turned into a trap to deceive the ignorant.
Chu Xuan shook his head and immediately employed the "Soul Division Technique," separating about ten percent of his soul. Then, much like before, he activated the soul transmission matrix.
But this time, his soul was not the insignificant wisp it had been previously. It was akin to a colossal entity, and within this vast expanse of his soul, he carried his life-bound magic treasure, the Sky-Shielding Umbrella.
As Chu Xuan had transformed the Sky-Shielding Umbrella into his life-bound magic treasure, he could envelop it within his soul, allowing both to travel through the soul transmission matrix together to Soul Star.
The world spun dizzyingly around him, and in the blink of an eye, he was once again confronted with the dim, dark expanse of Soul Star.
"Uh? Another fool has arrived, just in time for my meal," a sinister laugh echoed from behind him.
A massive hand swooped down towards him. However, the laughter abruptly stopped as the owner of the hand realized that his powerful slap was merely tickling Chu Xuan. The aggressor was stunned to find that Chu Xuan's soul form was more than ten times larger than his own!
"You... you!" he stammered, utterly shocked.
Chu Xuan turned around, looking down from his towering stance at the corpulent and bloated soul before him. The remnants of numerous soul fragments scattered around the grotesque figure indicated the unfortunate souls he had devoured over the years.
"Great Soul King! Please, have mercy! Spare my life!"
The creature did not hesitate to kneel and beg for mercy, sending a pleading thought directly to Chu Xuan.
Conversations between souls required no spoken language but were communicated through thoughts, eliminating any language barriers. This also explained why Chu Xuan had previously understood the words of Ma Nanshan and Yun Ming without issue.
Chu Xuan reached out and grasped the pleading soul in his hand, instantly employing a soul-searching technique.
In a moment, he sifted through the soul's memories, turning them upside down. After reviewing these memories, he quickly grasped the language used by the people of Soul Star.
"This fellow's mind is deeply imprinted with memories of devouring souls, while his other memories are pitifully scarce," Chu Xuan remarked, shaking his head in disbelief.
It seemed that even the infallible soul-searching technique could meet its match in a mind with nothing but thoughts of consumption.
However, he managed to extract some useful information from the creature's memories. These beings, having abandoned their physical forms and calling themselves the Soul Race, distinguished themselves from those on Soul Star who still possessed bodies.
Unfettered by physical shells, members of the Soul Race grew stronger, but their rationality diminished over time.
The stronger the soul, the lesser the sanity, ultimately degenerating into soul beasts driven only by the instincts to kill and feed.
Not only did their personalities devolve to that of wild beasts, but their soul forms also began to morph from human to bestial.
Within the Soul Clan, some exceptionally powerful individuals retained a semblance of clear spiritual sense. As a result, the Soul Clan was divided into three factions:
The Slaughter Faction: Their goal was to exterminate the surviving people of Soul Star, completely transforming it into a world dominated by the Soul Clan.
The Husbandry Faction: They aimed to farm the surviving inhabitants of Soul Star, slaughtering them periodically so they could continually feast upon them.
The Ascendant Faction: They believed that Soul Star was beyond redemption, viewing both the people of Soul Star and the Soul Clan as unreasonable vermin. Only outsiders, they posited, might have a chance to save this fallen planet.
Furthermore, a hierarchy existed among the Soul Clan and the people of Soul Star:
The Soul Clan was categorized into three levels: Spectre Masters, Great Spectre Masters, and Spectre Kings, which corresponded to the Soul Star people's ranks of Soul Masters, Great Soul Masters, and Soul Kings.
The entity Chu Xuan encountered was merely a Great Spectre Master from the Slaughter Faction.
Chu Xuan turned to look behind him, where the remains of once-flourishing structures lay in ruins. Amid these ruins, a matrix still emitted a faint blue glow—it was the soul transmission matrix. The souls of those who possessed Psionic Cubes had emerged from here.
"The closest Slaughter Faction stronghold from here houses three Great Spectre Masters and ten thousand Spectre Masters. This matrix is but a minor one; the major one lies elsewhere," Chu Xuan mused.
"You may eat now," he casually remarked, throwing aside the befuddled creature.
Two Armed and Four Armed, emerging from the Sky-Shielding Umbrella, moved quickly. Four Armed, with arms flailing, tore the soul into pieces and devoured it greedily, even passing the tastiest bits to Two Armed, who, while feasting, pulled out a divination board to begin divining.
Chu Xuan chuckled, "What does the divination say?"
Two Armed, glancing at the board pointing to the sky, swallowed hard, "Dad, the board says this place is heaven!"
Chu Xuan gave a thumbs up, "Indeed, it is heaven. Eat your fill and don't hold back."
Two Armed bit into the soul, tears of joy in his eyes.
It's been so long since they have had such delicious souls! They're rich in nutrients! Succulent and juicy! They burst with flavor!
"Stay close, I'm about to set up a formation," Chu Xuan said with a smile. "Once the formation is complete, you can feast every day."
"Roar, roar, roar!" Four Armed bellowed excitedly as four ferocious ghostly artifacts appeared, brimming with malevolent energy.
Two Armed, wielding his divination board, declared solemnly, "Anyone who wants to harm my dad will have to step over my body!"
Four Armed growled a few times, his four arms gesticulating wildly as if drawing something in the air.
Two Armed, annoyed, retorted, "I know I don't have a body; no need to point it out."
Four Armed chuckled mischievously a few times, reveling in the situation.