Chapter 337: Soul Searching Technique
“Something bad has happened to the Secret Realm.” Elder Bai Gu vanished in the blink of an eye, and Elder Mo Hua followed him in a hurry.
The pair noticed a violent wave of energy coming from the entrance to the Dahuang Mountain. It was as though someone had forcibly ripped open a hole in space.
“It’s not the time for the Secret Realm to open yet. Why has it opened?” The look on Elder Bai Gu’s face was very unpleasant.
The Secret Realm was extremely important to the Yin Corpse Sect. Thus, the forefathers of the Yin Corpse Sect, who had attained the Nascent Soul stage, had worked together to place restrictions on the Secret Realm so that only their specially designed amulets could open it.
“This is bad. The restrictions placed on the Secret Realm have all disappeared. Even the coordinates are gone.” The look on Elder Mo Hua’s face changed as she inspected the state of the Secret Realm in her mind.
With the restrictions and coordinates gone, even the forefathers of the sect would not be able to enter the Secret Realm ever again.
Elder Bai Gu was like a cat on hot bricks. He desperately wanted to know what was going on, but he did not dare to rush into the Secret Realm recklessly with the space around them being warped this badly.
At this moment, the hole before their eyes became bigger and bigger in size. It puffed out a stream of red air, and countless Yin Corpse Sect disciples were spat out from within.
“Lang Ya!”
“Bai Lan!”
Elder Bai Gu and Elder Mo Hua saw their disciples who had been appointed as the leaders for the expedition to the Secret Realm before them.
“Master.” Both Lang Ya and Bai Lan had only just landed on the ground. Their heads were still spinning and they felt like vomiting.
“What on earth is going on?” Elder Mo Hua went up to Bai Lan and delivered a powerful slap across her face. There was so much force behind her slap that it sent Bai Lan flying.
Bai Lan went on her knees reflexively after landing on the ground. “Please don’t be mad, Master. I don’t know what happened either.”
Elder Bai Gu was much kinder to his disciple. He examined Lang Ya and made sure that he was not injured before he asked, “Where are the Human-faced Peaches? How many did you pick?” They were not going to find the Secret Realm ever again, so they had to make sure that they got their hands on the Human-faced Peaches at the very least.
“Master, the Human-faced Peaches were all devoured by a blood red vine. We only managed to pick a few with great difficulty.” Lang Ya took out his sack, but quickly realized that the Human-faced Peaches within it had all disappeared without a trace. All that was left was some red powder.
The Han Brothers and the other leaders all checked their sacks hastily, realizing that the same thing had happened to them as well.
Elder Bai Gu looked at the red powder that was left behind in the sack before he cast the Cognitive Imprint on the disciples.
Elder Mo Hua immediately followed suit.
Not all the disciples were able to handle the Cognitive Imprint cast by two cultivators who had reached the Core Formation stage.
Several Low-rank Disciples passed out due to a splitting headache. The other disciples who remained standing all broke out in cold sweat, with their faces contorted in pain.
Yun Jiuge stood amongst the crowd with her head lowered. The surge of energy sent out by Elder Bai Gu and Elder Mo Hua did not affect her in the least since she had Zi Shang next to her.
“Bai Lan, I want you to tell me exactly what happened.” A look of fury emerged on Elder Mo Hua’s face when she failed to detect any trace of the Human-faced Peaches on the disciples.
“Yes, Master. We realized that the Secret Realm was very different from what we were told by the sect after we made our way in. The Demonic Beasts were extremely ferocious, and they killed over half of the disciples…”
Bai Lan narrated everything that had happened in the Secret Realm quickly. She specially emphasized how the Demonic Beasts had given them a hard time, and how they had tried to speed up the ripening of more than twice the amount of Human-faced Peaches collected in the past just so they could complete the mission entrusted to them. However, their efforts ended in vain because a lot of the Human-faced Peaches were devoured by a blood-colored vine.
“It… It was the Human-faced King Peach.” A feeble voice suddenly rang out from the side.
Elder Mo Hua recognized the voice as being that of Su Junqing’s, and she immediately flung a Light Chain towards where the voice came from and dragged him towards her.
However, before Su Junqing could make his way next to her, Elder Mo Hua viciously hurled him to the side.
Su Junqing landed on the ground with a loud thud. He was already in a lot of pain and the impact of the fall made him feel like his bones would fall apart anytime.
He struggled to get back onto his two feet. He desperately wanted to tell Elder Mo Hua about how he had encountered the Human-faced King Peach in the Secret Realm and how the b*tch Ye Yunzhi had betrayed him.
However, the moment he raised his head, he saw a look of utter disgust in Elder Mo Hua’s eyes. It was as though she was looking at a piece of trash.
“Junior Su, what happened to you? Why do you look like that?” Bai Lan could not help but retreat backwards as well.
Everyone around Su Junqing took a few steps back hastily, like they were trying to avoid the plague.
“W-What happened to me?” Su Junqing had no idea what was going on at that moment.
Ye Yunzhi might have ruined his Spiritual Root and Cultivation, but he believed that he could easily get a Spiritual Root transplant as long as Elder Mo Hua was willing to help.
“Take a look for yourself!” Bai Lan cast a Crystal Mirror before Su Junqing helpfully.
Su Junqing raised his head to look at his reflection in the Crystal Mirror. To his horror, he saw a deformed face covered with yellow and green pustules looking back at him. The pustules were oozing pus, and they gave off a nasty stench.
He lowered his head in disbelief and saw that those pustules were all over his hands and body as well.
“This is impossible. This is not me. This is definitely not me.” Su Junqing shook his head vigorously and tried to distance himself from the mirror. However, as he moved backwards, he tripped over a pebble behind and fell to the ground.
The disciples near him all had looks of revolt upon their faces as they quickly backed away from him.
The Liu Sisters said in a soft voice, “How disgusting!”
“Exactly! The sight of him makes me want to throw up.”
Su Junqing was on the verge of going crazy.
He had always taken pride in his looks, and gained numerous benefits from women due to his appearance.
He could not accept how ugly he looked now.
“Master, please save me!” Su Junqing stretched a hand towards Elder Mo Hua in fear.
“Where’s your Life’s Origin Yin Corpse?” Elder Mo Hua looked around him and realized that his Cultivating Corpse Bag and sack were nowhere to be found.
“She betrayed me.” Hatred emerged in Su Junqing’s eyes when he thought about how Ye Yunzhi was to blame for his current predicament.
“Has she been controlled by someone else?” Elder Mo Hua was puzzled. The strongest disciple who entered the Secret Realm was only in the Foundation Establishment stage. It was impossible to snatch a Yin Corpse that belonged to a cultivator of the same cultivation level as one’s self.
“No, she turned into a living corpse.” Su Junqing shook his head.
“A living corpse?!” Elder Mo Hua was astonished.
“Tell us what happened in greater detail.” There was a fascinated look in Elder Bai Gu’s eyes.
A Yin Corpse with the Yin Spiritual Body that turned into a living corpse? That meant she was definitely one of the strongest Yin Corpses in the world!
I’d be willing to fight with Elder Mo Hua just to get my hands on it, Elder Bai Gu thought to himself.
“She…” Before Su Junqing could continue, a look of ruthlessness gleamed in Elder Mo Hua’s eyes and she stretched a hand out towards him.
Thereafter, a surge of ink-black Yin Qi congealed into a hand and wrapped itself around Su Junqing’s head. It forced itself into his body and spread throughout his veins.
Su Junqing’s eyes protruded outwards and became bloodshot. The veins on his face and neck bulged, and the pustules all over his body burst open.
Yun Jiuge was surprised by this sight. She’d initially assumed that Elder Mo Hua was going to save Su Junqing, but it turned out that she had actually unleashed the Soul Searching Technique on him!
The Soul Searching Technique was an extremely brutal technique used by the Black Magic practitioners to collect information.
It was said that a person who had the Soul Searching Technique cast on them would feel as though their brain was being stirred by knives repeatedly. They would suffer from immense pain and usually end up as a disabled person after the entire process.
Elder Mo Hua was truly a ruthless woman. She used such a brutal technique on Su Junqing without even a shred of hesitation.
Yun Jiuge finally understood what Ye Yunzhi meant when she said that someone would finish Su Junqing off.
Being tortured by the Soul Searching Technique was definitely a thousand times more agonizing than being beaten to death by her.