All of the souls in that area were in the middle of howling and charging toward the Great Wall. However, in the blink of an eye, their howls were cut short. Meanwhile, expressions of wide-eyed astonishment suddenly appeared on the faces of the Skin Flayers up on the wall.
Within that 300-meter area, all of the vengeful souls were suddenly sucked beyond their control in the direction of the exploded pill, and in the blink of an eye, the entire area was empty!
From a distance, there was a now a large, 300-meter hole in the middle of the soul tide, something completely eye-catching that everyone was looking at.
To the astonishment of everyone, after the souls were sucked together, they became a head-sized soul sphere that dropped down onto the ground. From the look of it, there were over 10,000 vengeful souls inside of it, all screaming and struggling to no avail to free themselves.
Not only were the cultivators on the Great Wall shocked, the savages on the battlefield were completely astounded. There were also many nearby vengeful souls who instinctively stopped in place and looked over.
Even some of the soul emperors looked over in surprise.
“This… this….” Li Hongming said, his mind spinning. Earlier, he had assumed that Bai Xiaochun was pulling out a medicinal pill simply to get some face, but what had actually resulted left him completely and utterly shocked.
Zhao Tianjiao’s eyes were wide as he looked at the newly-emptied 300-meter circle in the middle of the battlefield, and the more than 10,000 vengeful souls struggling in the soul sphere. Gasping, he turned to look at Bai Xiaochun, his expression one of slight confusion.
Chen Yueshan, as well as the others in their group, were standing there with hearts pounding as they suddenly remembered Bai Xiaochun’s actions in the cyan trial by fire back in the sect.
After a moment of silence, the Skin Flayers on the wall erupted into chaos, their eyes shining with disbelief and shock as they looked over at Bai Xiaochun.
“Heavens! What just happened!?”
“What… what magical item did he throw out just now!?!?”
“This is unheard-of! I can’t believe this! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that works so well against vengeful souls!!”
“Who is that guy!?!?”
Seeing that not only had his pill worked quite well, but he had also attracted quite a bit of attention, Bai Xiaochun was immediately enlivened. Therefore, he pulled out a whole pile of Soul Convergence Pills and, with a mighty shout, threw them out over the wall, and then began to perform an incantation gesture.
Booms began to ring out on the battlefield, and soon, vast numbers of vengeful souls were screaming in anguish. Even one of the soul emperors was caught up, and ended up being sucked away into a soul sphere….
The crowd of cultivators on top of the wall stood there in stunned silence.
Bai Xiaochun was more excited than ever by this development. Clearing his throat, he happily stuck his chin up and waved his sleeve.
“Who said I was scared? With the snap of a finger, I, Bai Xiaochun reduced all those souls to ashes! You think I’m scared of them?”
1. Footnote: A quick note that “necromancer” has a Chinese character in it that is relatively common in AWE and in xianxia stories in general, and that is 炼. You will often see this characters translated as “refine” because that is the most common dictionary definition for the character on its own. However, when combined with other words, that “refine” character doesn’t necessarily mean refine. For example, 炼丹 is literally “refine pill” but is a real-world Daoist term that means to concoct or make pills of immortality. That’s why I translate 炼丹 as pill concocting. In AWE, the terminology (in Chinese) is slightly different, so we have medicine concocting instead of pill concocting, with the verb being the same, but the noun part changing from the “pill” character to the “medicine” character. Anyway, I digress.
If you remember way back in chapter 4 of AWE, there was a line that talks about the main skills relevant to immortal cultivation, those being medicine concocting, equipment forging, and spirit enhancement. All of those terms use the character 炼 as the verb. I chose early on not to try to have all those verbs match, since the former two were holdovers from ISSTH, and clearly should not use the “refine” definition. Furthermore, I felt that spirit “enhancement” was a more accurate description of that skill. In the case of the necromancers, we find that same Chinese character used again. As for what exactly it means (refine/concoct/forge/use/manipulate souls), you can’t tell from the context. In any case, they practice some sort of technique/skill/magic that has to do with souls.
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Chapter
471: Do You Really Want To Join The Skin Flayers?
“Bai Xiaochun? Scared?” Feeling very pleased with himself, Bai Xiaochun tried as much as possible to flaunt his veins of steel, as if the slightest word of provocation would cause him to throw all caution to the wind and fight it out to the death with his enemies.
The shocking result of him throwing out so many Soul Convergence Pills led to more silence as virtually all of the Skin Flayers on top of the wall looked over at Bai Xiaochun, their jaws hanging open and their eyes shining with ardor.
Even Zhao Tianjiao could barely breathe. His words earlier had been casually spoken, and he had never imagined that Bai Xiaochun would react the way he did. With the mere wave of his hand, he eradicated a huge number of vengeful souls.
He wasn’t the only one. In addition to the Skin Flayers in the area, someone had been watching unseen from the huge coffin off in the distance. That gaze seemed to be completely fixed on Bai Xiaochun for a long moment before retracting back into the coffin.
“I’ve gone through just about everything you can imagine,” Bai Xiaochun declared. “Back when the Spirit Stream Sect and the Blood Stream Sect were about to go to war, I was the one who single-handedly stopped it. After the sects joined forces, we went on to subjugate the entire cultivation world of the Lower Reaches!” Looking off into the distance, he tried to look as heroic as possible.
“Later on, I charged into battle with a million other cultivators, including those from the Pill and Profound Stream Divisions. In fact, I was the one who came up with the name of the River-Defying Sect!” As he swished his sleeve, the wind blew his hair, making him seem even more impressive than before.
“When the River-Defying Sect fought the Sky River Court, I led the charge, cutting down countless enemies. I even took control of the body of the Blood Ancestor to fight the Sky River Court’s reserve power, the Dire Skybanyan!
“Fellow Daoist Li, now do you understand why I wasn’t very shocked by the sight of the battlefield earlier? On my path of cultivation… I’ve already experienced far too many wars.” There was a tenacity visible in Bai Xiaochun’s expression, and something in his eyes that seemed both profound and ancient.
Because of that, he seemed more than ever like he had veins of steel, and lacked any fear of death. Anyone who saw him at this moment would be shocked, and even Li Hongming was panting a bit.
These weren’t stupid people; none of them knew Bai Xiaochun, and since this was their first time meeting him, he seemed completely and utterly impressive. Plus, his Soul Convergence Pill truly had shaken the entire battlefield, and left everyone’s’ minds spinning.
On the battlefield beyond the Great Wall, the savages were trembling in fear, and none of them even dared to advance. As for the remaining vengeful souls, they were already backing up.