Soul of the Revered Banner
Chapter 21: Killing

“How dare you!”

Li Qingfeng bellowed in rage.

Just moments ago, the bandit had been kneeling, begging for mercy. So why did he suddenly turn violent and attack after seeing Li Qingfeng collapse?

Li Qingfeng had been moved.

His heart’s balance had already tilted toward giving them a chance to repent and start anew.

Clang!

A sharp metallic clash rang out.

A ghostly green hand blocked the long blade. It pierced through the burly man’s head and yanked out his living soul.

The green-faced fiend opened its gaping mouth and gave a powerful suck.

The burly man’s body shriveled rapidly, turning pale and lifeless, crumbling like a dry, collapsing mud wall.

Crash-

What remained was just a pile of bones and ash.

The red-haired ghost stretched its body and the sluggish aura around it seemed significantly restored.

Li Qingfeng’s eyes widened as he stared at the red-haired ghost. His voice trembled with excitement, almost uncontrollably emotional.

“I’m not dreaming… Brother Ghost… you’re alive!”

The red-haired ghost was none other than Tu Shanjun.

He tilted his head slightly, casting a glance at Li Qingfeng with his blood-red eyes, but said nothing.

He and the soul banner were one and the same, he was both the main soul and the banner itself.

As long as the soul banner remained intact, the ghost would not perish.

The battle with that young immortal master had gravely wounded him. He hadn’t even been able to manifest in dreams, only to slumber deep inside the banner to recuperate.

He hadn’t expected a fresh living soul full of baleful energy to arrive on its own.

When Li Qingfeng had harvested the soul of the short bandit earlier, the influx of baleful energy had awakened Tu Shanjun.

With Li Qingfeng’s use of spiritual power, Tu Shanjun was able to draw upon it to manifest his physical form.

Because he had seen Li Qingfeng hesitate.

People cannot be taught into goodness. Eliminating the root is the best solution.

Just as now when Li Qingfeng grew weak, the bandit once again gave rise to murderous thoughts, hoping to seize his magical artifact.

Tu Shanjun’s expression was cold as he extracted the remaining bandits’ souls, absorbing their blood and baleful energy completely.

His previously translucent figure became more solid.

While Zhao Shixian had used a large formation to refine souls, Tu Shanjun, having obtained the seed of the Blood Fiend Grand Method, could perform the process on his own.

Of course, these free souls were not nearly as strong as those cultivated within an array.

Within such an array, resentment boiled, baleful energy thickened, and the weakest souls shattered immediately, only the strong ones remained, capable of directly evolving into yin ghosts.

Even if these yin ghosts were unranked, they were far superior to raw, unshaped souls.

Now, with limited resources, he had to make the best of what he had, using the baleful energy in the banner to forge raw yin ghosts.

Li Qingfeng cried out joyfully:

“Brother Ghost, you’re still alive!”

He hurriedly scrambled to his feet, ran toward Tu Shanjun, eyes misting with emotion.

“I thought you were dead.”

Tu Shanjun was slightly moved, even a bit at a loss.

He wouldn’t die, as long as the soul banner remained with Li Qingfeng, he would endure.

But he had never expected his reappearance to bring such heartfelt joy to Li Qingfeng.

“I’m not alone,” Tu Shanjun murmured inwardly.

Yes, in this unfamiliar world, he was no longer alone.

Li Qingfeng wasn’t particularly talented, but he had tenacity and wasn’t a fool.

Soft-hearted at times, perhaps too much so but that only made him more genuine.

Lack of talent didn’t matter; the soul banner was the greatest stroke of luck.

Tu Shanjun didn’t believe that the soul banner only had a few tricks up its sleeve.

As he advanced, new powers would surely emerge, perhaps even ways to change one’s aptitude or speed up cultivation.

All in all, Li Qingfeng was a banner master that satisfied Tu Shanjun greatly.

If fate allowed, they still had a long road to walk together.

After a while, Tu Shanjun finished absorbing the blood and baleful energy from the four corpses.

He walked over to Li Qingfeng and patted him on the shoulder.

Then, from under Li Qingfeng’s collar, he retrieved two Storage Talismans.

He swallowed the one from Hou Boxu, then handed Zhao Shixian’s one to Li Qingfeng.

Li Qingfeng stared blankly at the worn-out talisman in Tu Shanjun’s palm and hesitantly asked:

“For me?”

Tu Shanjun nodded and stuffed it into Li Qingfeng’s hand.

He had promised Hou Boxu he would return his belongings to the Hou family in Yang City, so he couldn’t touch that one but Zhao Shixian’s was a different matter. Giving it to Li Qingfeng was perfectly fine.

Li Qingfeng got the storage talisman and assumed it was some kind of movement talisman, like the one that had let him run so fast before.

But after injecting a sliver of spiritual power into it and activating the talisman, he was stunned to find a compact storage space inside.

It was filled with miscellaneous items.

“Sumeru pocket-space¹?” Li Qingfeng’s jaw dropped.

Inside lay a rolled-up piece of beast hide, bottles and jars, three glowing, thumb-sized cyan stones, a hairpin, and various other trinkets.

He pulled out the beast hide to examine it.

On it were inscribed techniques, breathing methods, and stances for the Demon Ape Focus Fist.

The hide was old and tough, seemingly mundane but Li Qingfeng could feel it was a treasure.

“What’s this?” he asked, taking out the cyan stones.

These neat, thumb-thick stones were brimming with spiritual energy, clearly valuable items.

“You’re giving all this to me?”

He was still stunned. These were true treasures and yet his Brother Ghost had just handed them over.

Tu Shanjun nodded. These items would serve Li Qingfeng better. As a soul banner, he had no use for them.

Tu Shanjun then picked up a few silver coins and pointed at them, then at the spiritual stones, placing them side by side.

“You mean… this is immortal money?” Li Qingfeng suddenly realized.

The general compendium from the Blood Fiend Grand Method seed had passed Zhao Shixian’s broad cultivation knowledge to Tu Shanjun, so he naturally recognized most things related to Qi practitioners.

Li Qingfeng lifted the hairpin next.

It looked ordinary, nothing special at first glance.

Tu Shanjun simply pointed at the hairpin, then at the soul banner and placed them together.

Li Qingfeng understood immediately.

“A magical artifact?”

He channeled a thread of spiritual power into it.

With a shimmer of light, the hairpin transformed into a three-foot flying sword that hovered at Li Qingfeng’s side.

Its blade hummed with crisp, metallic resonance. It was a truly beautiful sound.

“Wow!”

“A flying sword!”

Li Qingfeng lit up like a child with a new toy, clutching the sword lovingly.

No one could resist the allure of both martial and scholarly excellence.

And no cultivator could ever resist the temptation of a flying sword.

Even though he had the soul banner, he had long dreamed of a flying sword slicing enemies from a thousand li away.

He tied his hair up with the sword-pin and straightened his head with satisfaction.

Tu Shanjun wanted to laugh.

Young people were always like this.

Whenever they got something good, they couldn’t wait to wear it proudly or carry it openly.

Seeing that his spiritual power was no longer enough to maintain his form, Tu Shanjun dissolved into mist and returned to the soul banner.

With five bandit souls and their baleful energy, his injuries had stabilized. As long as he continued collecting more, he would not only heal but become stronger.

Zhang Gui’s soul surprisingly held the strength of the third layer of Qi Refinement, something Tu Shanjun hadn’t expected.

But even so, such a level was no match for him.

With this soul’s supplement, plus a bit more baleful energy, Tu Shanjun would soon break through to the fifth layer of Qi Refinement.

Li Qingfeng was delighted.

Not just because of the flying sword or the storage talisman, but because Brother Ghost wasn’t dead.

Even if he had gotten nothing at all, just that one thing made him happy enough.

All his earlier disappointment vanished and his fighting spirit surged anew.

(Chapter End)

¹ Sumeru pocket-space; A mystical storage space that uses the concept of "a world within a grain of sand."