King of Creation
Chapter 485 - 479: Strange Changes in the Demon Soul Hall

Chapter 485: Chapter 479: Strange Changes in the Demon Soul Hall

The blood-colored stones, blood-colored grass, blood-colored ground, and blood-colored sky—even the green blades of grass were veiled in a layer of blood. Inside the Battlefield of Demon Souls, everything was identical to when Ye Zhen first entered five years ago.

However, Ye Zhen quickly noticed a change!

That was the Demon Soul Soldiers, the Demon Soul Legions!

Five years ago, shortly after Ye Zhen entered the Battlefield of Demon Souls, he encountered the Demon Soul Soldiers. It wasn’t long before he could find Demon Soul Legions of various sizes scattered throughout.

But now, having been in the Battlefield of Demon Souls for an hour and covered a thousand li, Ye Zhen had not seen so much as one Demon Soul Soldier, let alone a Demon Soul Legion.

Five years ago, there were Demon Soul Soldiers within the Battlefield of Demon Souls. Now it more closely resembled a dead realm!

Apart from Ye Zhen and Wang Xiaomao, the Cloud Winged Tiger King Kitten, there wasn’t the slightest hint of life.

"These changes may be due to the War Soul Blood Flag not having returned..."

That was the only logical guess Ye Zhen could make. He had wanted to hunt down Demon Soul Legions to obtain Demon Soul Blood Crystals to replenish the consumption of the War Soul Blood Flag, but now it seemed that idea was not going to pan out.

After wandering around the Battlefield of Demon Souls for over two hours without any discoveries, Ye Zhen headed straight for the very center of the Battlefield of Demon Souls—the Demon Soul Hall.

The gates of the Demon Soul Hall, as always, stood towering, ancient and majestic. The eight grand doors of the Demon Soul Hall were positioned in all eight directions, looking extremely cumbersome.

Ye Zhen was quite curious—how could such cumbersome objects serve as the so-called war fortresses?

The grand doors of the Demon Soul Hall remained tightly closed—under normal circumstances, opening these gates would require ten thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals. Demon Soul Blood Crystals were the guarantee for passage within the Demon Soul Hall.

Now, Ye Zhen did not have any Demon Soul Blood Crystals, but he did have the War Soul Blood Flag.

According to the information in the primal imprint within the War Soul Blood Flag, it was the control center of the Demon Soul Hall. As long as he could fully tame the War Soul Blood Flag, entering and exiting the Demon Soul Hall would be as easy as walking into a place devoid of people.

The next instant, the War Soul Blood Flag flew out from Ye Zhen’s embrace. A stream of blood light shot out, and the grand doors of the Demon Soul Hall creaked open, allowing Ye Zhen to step inside unhurriedly.

A radiant blood-colored passageway led straight into the distance, seemingly endless. On both sides of the corridor, a scene of a blood-colored starry sky unfolded, dreamlike and fantastical.

According to previous experience, as long as a Martial Artist followed this blood-colored corridor forward and randomly stepped to the left or right, they would enter various rooms and begin their luck-based treasure hunting.

In fact, based on the information from the primal imprint of the War Soul Blood Flag, this radiant blood-colored corridor was actually an extremely powerful Illusion Array. Once fully activated, let alone warriors of the Vein Forging Realm, even Kings of the Establishment Realm would be affected by this Blood-colored Starry Sky Illusion Formation.

Because the Demon Soul Hall was uncontrolled, the Blood-colored Starry Sky Illusion Formation remained in a dormant state; otherwise, no matter how many Spirit Summoning Realm Martial Artists from the Black Dragon Domain were sacrificed, they would fear exploring the Demon Soul Hall.

Making a random left turn, Ye Zhen stepped towards the blood-colored starry sky, and his figure disappeared into the blood-colored corridor.

In front of Ye Zhen, a single door appeared that was three meters tall and two meters wide. To the left of the door, there was a Blood Crystal Slot—where Demon Soul Blood Crystals were used to unlock the room.

As the War Soul Blood Flag, floating before Ye Zhen, sent out a beam of blood light, the door automatically opened in front of Ye Zhen, who stepped through once more.

Nothing of interest was found within the single rooms of the first level. However, these rooms did have transport passages. Ye Zhen didn’t step into the transport tunnel; instead, he headed straight for another single door. A beam of blood light flew out, the door opened, and Ye Zhen once again entered to explore.

After merely a glance in the next room, a flicker of blood light on the War Soul Blood Flag, and Ye Zhen stepped into another room.

"Two hours!"

"I have only two hours. Otherwise, all my efforts will be wasted. Or in other words, the endless luck-based treasure hunting begins..." Ye Zhen sighed with a wry smile and quickened his pace.

There was a reason for Ye Zhen’s room-by-room method of searching.

It wasn’t that Ye Zhen wanted to sweep through the Demon Soul Hall for potential treasures. In fact, during the Five Countries Conference, the treasures found within the Demon Soul Hall were often rewards given by the various Empires to the exploratory Martial Artists, which the Sects did not demand for themselves.

The treasure, Secret Manuals, and Martial Skills found in the rooms of the Demon Soul Hall were largely suitable for Martial Artists of the Spirit Summoning Realm or Spirit Transformation Realm. Once a person’s Cultivation broke through to the Spirit Transformation Realm, the treasures in these rooms became essentially useless.

The main goal of the various countries was still the War Soul Blood Flag.

That being said, if Ye Zhen had wanted to plunder the treasures inside the Demon Soul Hall, it would have been simple—once Ye Zhen controlled the Demon Soul Hall completely with the War Soul Blood Flag, acquiring the remaining treasures within it would be simply a matter of intent.

The real reason for Ye Zhen’s room-by-room exploration was to seek the Cardinal Hall!

The Demon Soul Hall was an ancient mobile fortress of the Demon Clan’s military. The place where high-ranking officers handled military affairs. The most important place was the Commander Hall on the ninth floor, where officers deliberated. The War Soul Blood Flag mostly hung there.

But aside from the deliberation Commander Hall, there was another extremely important location, which was presently what Ye Zhen was seeking—the Cardinal Hall.

In terms of importance, the Cardinal Hall was several levels more critical than the Commander Hall.

That was because the Cardinal Hall was the control center for the entire Demon Soul Hall. As long as one held the War Soul Blood Flag and left a Divine Soul Imprint in the Cardinal Hall, they could control it.

On the flip side, if the Cardinal Hall were destroyed, the entire Demon Soul Hall would be paralyzed and reduced to junk.

As the most critical area of the Demon Soul Hall, the Cardinal Hall was protected by the Hall’s most powerful Formation. It also had another defensive Secret Technique—involving shifting locations.

Every two hours, under the operation of the Formation, the Cardinal Hall’s location would automatically shift, ranging anywhere within more than a thousand rooms across the nine floors of the Demon Soul Hall.

Perhaps it was in the center of the first floor, or maybe on the ninth floor, or the fifth floor...

Under such circumstances, if the enemy were to obtain the information from inside the Demon Soul Hall, even if they managed to storm in, it would already be outdated.

As long as the Cardinal Hall remained defended, they could respond with ease.

What Ye Zhen needed to do now was to find the Cardinal Hall within two hours. Otherwise, after two hours, the Cardinal Hall would change its location, forcing Ye Zhen to start his search all over again.

The only thing Ye Zhen could do was to use the dumb method, searching each room quickly one by one.

It was also fortunate that the rooms were opened with the War Soul Blood Flag. If they had been opened with the Demon Soul Blood Crystal, not even slaughtering an army of a hundred thousand would be enough for Ye Zhen.

As he searched from room to room, Ye Zhen occasionally found some items.

Low Grade Precious Armor, several secret martial arts cultivation techniques of the Lower-grade Earth Level, but he never found another Mid-grade Precious Armor like the Black Wind Armor.

Even though Ye Zhen was using a dumb method, things were not as smooth as he had imagined.

In the blink of an eye, two hours, four hours, six hours, ten hours passed, and Ye Zhen had searched from the first to the ninth layer of the Demon Soul Hall five times, still unable to find the Cardinal Hall.

Even making marks on every room he had searched turned out to be useless.

Quickly, Ye Zhen found the reason!

Interconnected!

Many of the rooms inside the Demon Soul Hall were interconnected. Some had two, even three or more doorways leading to the next room, and the next room would be the same.

The entire Great Hall of Demon Souls was like a gigantic maze, where Ye Zhen would find an unmarked room every time he searched.

There were at least five hundred rooms with two doorways and over two hundred rooms with three doorways. Considering this, the room permutations could exceed tens of millions, and Ye Zhen couldn’t hope to explore them all one by one.

Thankfully, the total number of rooms was only over sixteen hundreds. If there had been four or five thousand rooms, Ye Zhen would have been truly overwhelmed.

Having found the reason but with no good solution, Ye Zhen could only use the dumbest method—relying on sheer luck!

Over and over again, he searched within these thousand-plus rooms, chancing his fortune!

Sometimes dumb methods have their own reason. Half a day later, as Ye Zhen stepped into an ordinary doorway, the world suddenly spun around him, as if he had entered an extraterrestrial starry sky.

Inside the room, there was blood-colored radiance everywhere. Under the radiance were intricate engraved patterns and a complicated array foundation. As the formation operated, it was nested within rings of arrays, and at a closer look, the array patterns could make Ye Zhen’s head spin.

At the moment, only a few of the array patterns had slow-moving blood light within them, clearly indicating that only part of the formation was activated.

However, the most eye-catching was the blood crystal platform at the center of the starry sky array pattern, with mysterious blood light flashing across it from time to time.

If one were to observe carefully, they would find that all the endpoints of the lines within the starry sky array, or rather, all the starting points of the array patterns, converged upon this blood crystal platform.

This blood crystal platform was the control center of the Demon Soul Hall.

According to the information in the origin imprint of the War Soul Blood Flag, by leaving a Divine Soul Imprint inside, one could control the Demon Soul Hall, this battle fortification.

Walking forward, Ye Zhen followed the method left in the origin imprint of the War Soul Blood Flag. With a push of his Divine Sense, a ray of blood light shot out from the War Soul Blood Flag, suddenly enveloping the blood crystal platform.

The previously inert blood crystal platform came to life in an instant as it was enveloped by the blood light of the War Soul Blood Flag.

An overwhelming Divine Soul Wave suddenly arose from Ye Zhen, and an invisible, intangible Divine Soul Imprint flew towards the blood crystal platform, instantaneously finding its mark!

Hum!

Ye Zhen felt a slight tremor in his Divine Soul, and a very strange sensation suddenly emerged in his mind.

With a single thought, the layout of all 1,608 rooms within the Demon Soul Hall, the details inside each room, appeared in Ye Zhen’s mind. Every passage and the function of every formation were clear to him.

"It was successful so easily..." Ye Zhen was somewhat surprised.

But just as Ye Zhen was reveling in his success, an unexpected change occurred.

The entire blood crystal platform shone brightly with blood light. All the surrounding blood-colored radiance rushed towards the blood crystal platform in an instant. At the same time, from the Demon Soul Battlefield outside the Demon Soul Hall, streaks of blood-colored radiance rose from all directions and autonomously surged towards the surroundings of the Great Hall of Demon Souls.

In an instant, the sea of blood-colored radiance gathered around the Great Hall of Demon Souls!

Whoosh!

A terribly terrifying blood-colored vortex suddenly formed and expanded in an instant!

Inside the Cardinal Hall, Ye Zhen was stunned!

Because through the blood crystal platform, Ye Zhen had a clear grasp of everything inside and outside the Demon Soul Hall!

"What’s happening?" (To be continued. If you like this work, feel free to come to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendation tickets, monthly tickets; your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users, please go to m.qidian.com to read.)