Spirit Realm

Cang Ye’s group quickly left the battlefield with Diga leading the way.

Not long later, they had arrived at the back of a gray brown–colored mountain.

This mountain was about several hundred kilometers away from the battlefield.

Suddenly, Diga came to a stop and sat on the ground. His face was riddled with shock and disbelief.

The God Race clansmen didn’t understand what was going on, but they were wearing serious expressions on their faces as well. They all noticed that something strange might have happened to Qin Lie, and looked to Diga for answers.

Diga kept breathing deeply as if he was trying to calm himself down. A while later, he finally began, “Qin Lie wanted to kill me just now.”

“You’re an Abyss Devil, and he’s a God Race clansman. What’s so strange about that?” taunted Mia coldly.

“That’s not it.” Diga shook his head and paid no heed to the ridicule and scorn in Mia’s tone. “His killing intent had nothing to do with racial bias. It’s because of my bloodline. I could sense his desire for my bloodline!”

“What do you mean?” asked Cang Ye curiously.

“I can sense the Nether River inside him, the real Nether River is somehow inside him!” growled Diga.

“The Nether River…”

The God Race youngsters clearly had no idea what he was trying to say.

“Do you guys know how the Nether River came to be in the first place?” asked Diga.

Everyone shook their heads in response.

“A long, long time ago, the Nether River didn’t exist in the Eight Purgatories.” Diga took his time to think before explaining seriously, “At the time, Devil Monarchs weren’t even the strongest existence in the Abyss. There was an even stronger ruler above them, and that ruler was called the Abyss Master!”

“Abyss Master?”

Everyone’s faces changed greatly when they heard this.

They were all God Race clansmen, and most of them held important positions in their race.

For example, Mia was the daughter of Han Che, the Profound Ice Family’s patriarch. Han Che had told her some of the secrets of the Abyss.

In the ancient times, there was a legend that spoke of the strongest and most terrifying Abyss Devil to ever exist, the Abyss Master!

It was rumored that the Abyss Master was the strongest Abyss Devil of all the Eight Purgatories. Even the Devil Monarchs had to kneel before them.

That wasn’t all. Every Great Lord of the Abyss residing in the one hundred Abyss levels above the purgatories must obey the Abyss Master’s orders as well.

The Abyss Master was the one ruler that could rule the entire Abyss and make all Abyss Devils submit!

Naturally, the Abyss Master’s bloodline must have transcended rank ten bloodline!

“In the past, the Nether River didn’t exist in the Eight Purgatories. It was said that the Nether River—the river of death that flowed across all Eight Purgatories—only came to be after the Abyss Master had passed away! It is said that the Nether River was made of the Abyss Master’s flesh, blood, and soul!” told Diga.

“What?” Gan Xing screamed. “The Nether River is made up of the Abyss Master’s remains? Does that mean that the Nether River is the Abyss Master?”

“You can say that, but that isn’t completely correct.” Diga shook his head and explained, “The Abyss Master is definitely dead. The Nether River is just the natural aftermath of his remains.”

“How did an Abyss Master that transcended rank ten bloodline perish in the first place?” exclaimed Xuan Luo.

A powerful Abyss Devil had almost eternal lifespan. Even an average Lord of the Abyss could live for over hundreds of thousands of years.

In general, every rank ten Great Lord of the Abyss had several million years of lifespan.

Therefore, the average rank ten Great Lord of the Abyss was almost immortal unless they were killed before the end of their lifespan.

In fact, a powerful Devil Monarch could apparently live for over tens of millions of years!

Logically speaking, an Abyss Master that transcended rank ten bloodline should be able to live ten times longer than that!

If the Abyss Master’s lifespan was billions of years long, and they couldn’t be killed by any other Abyss Devil because they were practically invincible, then how did they pass away in the first place?

Something clearly didn’t make any sense!

“I’m not sure how he died either. I only know that he is definitely dead, and his flesh, blood, and soul had transformed into the Nether River.” Diga smiled bitterly before continuing, “Maybe this is a secret I would know only after I had become a rank ten Devil Monarch just like my father. All I can tell you is that Qin Lie was brimming with an ancient and bleak aura of the Abyss after killing Bardeen instantaneously, and I am one hundred percent certain that it is the aura of the Nether River! If my guess is correct, then Qin Lie is probably using some sort of unknown method to gain the Nether River’s power and inheritance bit by bit.”

“In other words, he’s inheriting the dead Abyss Master’s power!”

Cang Ye’s expression moved a bit. “Why did he want to kill you?”

Diga thought seriously for a moment before answering, “I have two guesses. One, my father had something to do with the Abyss Master’s death, and the reason he felt like killing me is because I’m my father’s son. Two, my father’s bloodline is beneficial to Qin Lie’s study of the Nether River.”

“I understand why you want to avoid him, but… why do we need to avoid him?” asked Gan Xing in a displeased tone.

“Didn’t you see? He was already losing control over himself while we were there. He knew that something strange had happened to him, which was why he told us to leave before he completely lost his reason,” yelled Diga.

“What should we do now?” Liu Yang was the one most worried for Qin Lie’s safety out of everyone. She said anxiously, “He’s going to go on a rampage after losing his reason, and even before this he had killed countless Abyss Devils including Dabinett’s subordinates and your brother Bardeen.There’s no way the powerful Abyss Devils of Yellow Springs Purgatory would let him go unscathed!”

“I… I have a feeling that he’s only going for Abyss Devils with bloodline like mine,” Diga replied with an ugly look on his face. “This means that he’ll only attack my brothers and sisters. He seemed to need my father’s bloodline.”

“Doesn’t that mean he’s dead for sure?” asked Liu Yang urgently.

But Diga shook his head and said, “Not necessarily, actually. The bloodline power he displayed just now scared even me. If my senses are correct, then there shouldn’t be any rank eight Abyss Devil who’s a match for him right now, and in general rank nine Lords of the Abyss like Dabinett shouldn’t deign themselves to kill a lower rank Abyss Devil.”

Before Liu Yang could ask anything further, Diga sucked in a deep breath and said, “I just can’t shake the feeling that your arrival is accompanied by a terrible scheme! I feel like a big change is about to transform all the Eight Purgatories!”

“If I’m correct, then Qin Lie is the fuse that will trigger that change!”

“He will trigger a terrible storm in the Eight Purgatories!”

……

“Ahhh!”

After Diga and the others had left the battlefield, Qin Lie roared at the sky as a huge amount of abyss devil energy became discharged from his body.

At this point, his dark purple pupils had become filled with bloodthirst, and his emotions were slowly but surely fading away from him.

Obeying his bloodthirsty instincts, he roared again before vanishing from his original spot in an instant.

Not long after, he arrived at the Nether River he had just left a moment ago.

The pitch black water that made up the Nether River boiled violently as he stood right next to it.

Somehow, the screams of the billions of wraiths and phantoms coming from the Nether River delighted him greatly.

The energy he had used up during the battle against Bardeen and his companions was recovering five times faster than normal while he was next to the Nether River!

In fact, the abyss devil energy flowing out of the Nether River and into his body was so thick that it was visible to the naked eye.

His second heart beat madly as the abyss devil energy was absorbed into his body.

“Swoosh swoosh!”

Three streams of blood suddenly flew out of Capus and his brothers’ dead bodies and entered his hand.

There were bits of odd purple light inside the blood streams. They were also mixed with various mysterious bloodline imprints.

Several seconds later, all the bloodline secrets had been absorbed into his Abyss Devil Race bloodline crystals.

“Whoosh!”

Qin Lie abruptly appeared above the Nether River after he was done!

Somehow, the barrier had no effect on him whatsoever!

“Eh? It’s my lord! It’s my lord!”

A low rank, bat-shaped Abyss Devil on the other side of the Nether River suddenly exclaimed in surprise.

The barrier surrounding the Nether River had returned to normal at this point.

Plenty of weak Abyss Devils were gathered around the riverbank once more.

After seeing the dead bodies of Lamont and other powerful Abyss Devils from the other side of the Nether River, countless Abyss Devils had jumped on the bodies and eaten to their hearts’ content.

“There’s an Abyss Devil on the Nether River!”

“He’s on the Nether River!? Could the barrier still be down somehow?”

A rank five Abyss Devil screamed and charged towards the Nether River like crazy all of a sudden.

Unfortunately for him, a powerful attraction force immediately caught him as he tried to fly across the Nether River.

Countless wraiths and souls feasted on his soul before he was even dragged to the bottom.

There were a couple more Abyss Devils who were thinking the same.

However, they hurriedly stopped in their tracks after seeing that poor rank five Abyss Devil being torn into bits.

“The barrier’s still up! The barrier’s restored, but somehow that guy isn’t affected by the barrier!”

The low rank Abyss Devils turned pale with shock and screamed.

“My lord! It’s me, it’s me!” The small bat-shaped Abyss Devil shouted on riverbank while flapping his wings, “Please take me away, my lord! Please!”

Filled with bloodthirst and killing intent, Qin Lie shot a glance at the little Abyss Devil and seemingly recalled something.

Then, for reasons he himself couldn’t tell, he suddenly made a grabbing motion at the little Abyss Devil and caught him with a ball of rich abyss devil energy.

The abyss devil energy seemed to contain a trace of the Nether River’s unique aura.

Just like that, the little Abyss Devil found itself being lifted across the Nether River in high speed.

The little Abyss Devil kept shouting as he stared at the Nether River beneath its feet in fear, but for whatever reason the boiling waters of the Nether River didn’t react to him whatsoever.

Still screaming in fear, he was carried away from the place he was born and dumped on the other side of the Nether River.

He might be the one and only Abyss Devil in  the past million years to have crossed the Nether River while still at rank four!

“Rank seven! Three dead rank seven high rank Abyss Devils!”

The little Abyss Devil immediately saw Capus and his brothers’ bodies the moment he arrived on the other side of the Nether River.

He shot a glance at Qin Lie first before doing anything. After realizing that Qin Lie was still standing above the Nether River and not paying attention to him at all, he immediately pounced onto the bodies and feasted heartily.

It was because he knew full well how valuable the flesh and blood of a high rank Abyss Devil was to him!