The Magus Era

In another broad hall next to the secret hall, Feng Qi was sealed in a blue-purple ice with a twisted face.

A beautiful woman in a colorful, luxurious dress was standing beside the ice block. She was breathtakingly beautiful, like a goddess in heaven; her beauty could make anyone have a sense of inferiority and dare not to come close to her. She stood beside the ice block with her pair of eyes sparkling brightly with a splendid multicolored light, which had been transforming into extremely thin and flowing beams of light and ceaselessly injecting into Feng Qi’s widely opened eyes.

A sizzling noise was coming from around Feng Qi’s body, followed by a raging fire blazing on her body, burning the ice block and evaporating it into puffs of white steam and dissipating in the air. It seemed like Feng Qi could break out from the ice anytime. Within that fire, streams of golden light had been shining. Occasionally, these golden lights would shake, and the ice block would let out muffled rumbles, and next, countless hair-thin cracks would appear in it.

Hundreds of Maguspreists in long black robes were standing in the hall. They all had long snakes coiling around their waists, necks, arms or legs.

Their eyes were all shining with a cold light while chilly and strong power vibrations had been releasing from their bodies. Every one of them had been concentrating on the ice block which had Feng Qi sealed in it and gathering all their powers in that ice. Hundreds of them joined hands and cast a sealing magic, but they only managed to narrowly suppress that dazzling fire blazing on Feng Qi’s body.

All these Maguspreists were from different large and powerful Northern Wasteland clans, under the Water God, Gong Gong’s command. They were all at the same power level as Feng Qi, some were even a lot more powerful than her. However, the ice they could manipulate was only ordinary dark ice that started to exist after the world was created, while the fire burning on Feng Qi’s body was divine phoenix fire, one of the most powerful ones amongst many different types of fires, which existed even before the world was created.

Confronting a pre-world divine fire with post-world ordinary dark ice was same as confronting a sharp blade with a piece of wood. Therefore, by joining hands, hundreds of Maguspreists could only barely suppress Feng Qi’s power and keep her from breaking out of that ice block which had her sealed.

When Emperor Shun and a group of human ministers walked in, the beautiful woman abruptly let out a long breath and slowly took a few steps backward.

Emperor Shun walked up to the beautiful lady, cupped his hands and saluted to her while he said, “Elder Feng San, is anything wrong with elder Feng Qi?”

Feng San’s breathtakingly beautiful face was now deeply darkened and cold as if it was covered in a layer of frost. She then said coldly, “Anything wrong? Too many things are wrong. Hm, what a smart soul spell, it actually managed to leave a noetic seed deep in Feng Qi’s soul hundreds of years ago!”

Emperor Shun, Si Wen Ming, and other human ministers were badly confused by Feng San’s words.

Human Magi only cultivate their bodies and never put much attention to their souls. Therefore, their knowledge regarding the soul and spirit were extremely limited. Even though Si Wen Ming was now the leader of the Magi Palace, the most profound, soul-related magic he learned was only the one for raising and manipulating ghosts.

Unlike the humankind, the phoenix-kind were born with an incomparably great and pure soul power. The accomplishments they achieved in the area of soul-related magics were literally top of the heap that not a single kind could ever defeat the phoenix-kind in studies of souls and soul-related magics.

Therefore, the concept of ‘noetic seed’ mentioned by elder Feng San just now was way too strange for Emperor Shun and Si Wen Ming, as well as the other human ministers. Not only them, but even the large group of Magi Palace elders standing behind them were also badly confused.

Feng San looked at these confused human leaders, helplessly shook her head and said, “Simply speaking, hundreds of years ago, when Feng Qi wasn’t as powerful as she is now, someone had left a bad thought deep in her heart.”

“During all these years, this thought was nourished by Feng Qi’s emotions and desires and had been growing in her heart. As this thought grew stronger and stronger, Feng Qi became prouder and prouder, more and more extreme and unreasonable. Correspondingly, as Feng Qi’s personality became more and more unstable and her greedy desires became greater and greater, this thought grew faster and faster.”

“What shocked me…the stronger this thought became, the faster Feng Qi could improve in the cultivation of our secret soul magics, and the greater her soul power became. This is just like a snowball running down from the mountaintop; the more achievements she made in her cultivation, the faster she could improve, the stronger this thought became, and Feng Qi’s personality became more and more twisted and strange.”

Emperor Shun and other human leaders were struck speechless simultaneously. Elder Feng San’s words were truly terrifying.

According to elder Feng San, Feng Qi’s personality was twisted by someone else a very long time ago, and she wasn’t herself anymore! For all these years, she had been controlled by a noetic seed left by that controller, and gradually changed into someone else, who was completely different from her true self, as the controller designed.

“And not long ago…” Elder Feng San gnashed her teeth and continued with a darkened face, “Not long ago, this thought of Feng Qi was triggered, like a nestling bird which finally gained the strength to rise into the sky… And after that, Feng Qi has entirely…”

“What happened to elder Feng Qi?” Emperor Shun asked.

Elder Feng San remained silent for a while, then suddenly raised her hand and slapped on Feng Qi’s free hand.

Following a thunderous bang, large streams of blood gushed out from Feng Qi’s eyes, nostrils, mouth, and ears. Feng Qi was killed immediately by the heavy slap launched by Elder Feng San, after which, her body began burning speedily, and in the blink of an eye, only an egg-shaped, fist-sized thing that looked like a piece of art carved out of Ruby remained, slowly rising from the dark ice block.

“She is no longer Feng Qi… or, she could be anyone but Feng Qi.” said elder Feng San in a deep, a bit twisted voice, “I could only kill her and take her soul back, and see if we can bring her back with the secret magic of Nirvana of our phoenix-kind.”

Before Elder Feng San finished her talk, this ruby-like, egg-shaped thing remaining from Feng Qi’s body suddenly transformed into a raging fire and began burning. Next, a clear phoenix song rang out, and Feng Qi’s soul flashed across the air in the form of a light beam, leaving a fist-sized phoenix silhouette, which soon disappeared without leaving a trace as well.

Elder Feng San thrust her hand out, intending to grab that hazy phoenix silhouette. Yet, she caught nothing.

“What?” This happened so suddenly that none of these powerful human beings on the scene managed to react timely. Most importantly, the changes and movements of souls were way too unpredictable and dimly discernible, and human Magi truly lacked the grasp of soul powers. If just now, instead of the escaping of Feng Qi’s soul, someone suddenly showed up with sharp weapons and launched a surprise attack, Emperor Shun and the other human leaders would have rushed up and thrown their punches long ago, instead of standing without any reaction.

“Feng Qi…Feng Qi’s soul…was snatched away!” Elder Feng San stared at the place where that small phoenix silhouette disappeared with a stunned look while saying tremblingly, “Someone has… has actually snatched the soul of one of our phoenix-kind…from my hand!”

“Ba-bastards!” Elder Feng San’s body began shaking intensively, as a five colored, dazzling divine fire swooshed up from her body. Even Emperor Shun and Si Fen Ming were forced to step back quickly. No one dared to come close to her for less than five meters.

“I know who that is!” Elder Feng San screamed out in an extreme fury, “The one who has this power to do this to the souls of our phoenix-kind and is shameless enough to actually do this…I know who you are!”

“The pre-world spirit, a flower, and a tree!” growled Emperor Shun in a deep voice.

“The pre-world ghost, a ratty flower, and a rubbishy wood! You have offended our phoenix-kind! I will hunt you till you die!”

Once these few words, ‘the pre-world ghost, a ratty flower and a rubbishy wood,’ came out of elder Feng San’s mouth, the air in front of elder Feng San’s face abruptly twisted. A scrawny large hand that had a completely transparent, jade-smooth skin and golden shining bones seeming to be cast from pure gold, reached out, slapping directly towards elder Feng San’s forehead.

Elder Feng San subconsciously and hurriedly stepped back, while Emperor Shun roared out ragingly and dashed up, throwing a heavy punch straight on that large hand.

Following an earth-shaking boom, Emperor Shun staggered backward for a series of steps while that large golden bone was shattered into bits.