Inside the Fog Fortress…

Yun Zahir watched Xia Fei retreat and snorted coldly, appearing very smug. “A mere human tried to take my Fog Fortress! Truly overestimating his power!”

He returned to his study, where Yuntian was still kneeling in the same place. Yun Zahir shut the door and said, “Look what you’ve done! A lowly human has the guts to attack my Fog Fortress! What sort of terrible thing did you do?! If you don’t talk now, I will have to discipline you according to the clan’s laws!”

Thump!

Yuntian’s heart thumped madly. He was still very afraid of his father. The Cebu Clan had dominated dark space for ages, and Yun Zahir was even known as Black King Yama! It meant that his rule over dark space was absolute, his methods ruthless.

Helpless, Yuntain explained what had happened today, though he kept quiet about the fact that he was laundering stolen goods for the Dark Spiritualists.

Yun Zahir was so angry after hearing this that his blue face turned green! It appeared entirely like Xia Fei was causing trouble without reason, using his power to plunder his son’s store.

“That scoundrel! This is clearly that human’s mistake! Why did you run!? You should have immediately notified me so that we could have killed him on the spot!” Yun Zahir had nowhere to vent his rage, bellowing, “Shameless! Shameless thing! When other people are stealing from your store, don’t you know to throw them out!?”

Yuntian had run off so quickly and hadn’t dared to act openly all because he had an ambiguous relationship with the Dark Spiritualists and a guilty conscience. But Yun Zahir did not know about this, so he ranted on and on about how Xia Fei had gone too far.

His face cold, he paced back and forth in the room, spouting resentfully, “A puny human is one thing, but even the Zadin Clan is joining in! They’re just bullying my Fog Fortress, as if it’s completely uninhabited!”

Turning around, Yun Zahir shouted out the door, “Go and find Snake Ghost!”

Yuntian was shocked and said hastily, “Father, what are you calling Snake Ghost for? We can’t mess with the Zadin!”

Yun Zahir glared at his incompetent son and said sinisterly, “We can’t touch the Zadin, but you think we can’t deal with a puny human!?”

…

The Silver Specter, the command deck.

Xia Fei stared at the Dark Gem Spirit Gathering Tower and repeated, “This thing is a soul cannon!?”

Xia Fei was completely speechless. After all this time… The top-class soul cannon Merry was speaking of was the Dark Gem Spirit Gathering Tower!? He had believed this entire time that this thing wasn’t very useful, at most serving as an energy battery, and it seemed to do well when installed in the Silver Specter’s energy system. With it, the Silver Specter was able to run even faster.

It seemed like he had been hanging a cannon up in his command deck this whole time! Fortunately, it had been very stable and hadn’t shown any problems. The consequences if it suddenly misfired one day would have been unimaginable!

Merry nodded. “Sir, this truly is a soul cannon. Humans, Bluebloods, Fiends, and other races might all have Spiritualists, but the lineages are very different. The Dark Gem Spirit Gathering Tower is a powerful soul cannon made by Blueblood Spiritualists that has ended up in your hands. You do not understand our race much, so it is very normal that you do not recognize it. Our Zadin Clan has a very strict education system that starts from childhood, and one subject it covers is recognizing various weapons and soul weapons. This Dark Gem Spirit Gathering Tower just so happens to be something that I recognize.”

Xia Fei nodded. Xia Fei had stolen this weapon from Shu Yuhe. At the time, Shu Yuhe had been holding it in his hand and been using its energy to restore himself, which was why Xia Fei had taken it for some kind of energy tool. It wasn’t strange for Shu Yuhe to have such a thing, as Yuntian peddling stolen goods for the Dark Spiritualists indicated that the Dark Spiritualists were in close collaboration with some Bluebloods.

It was now evident that the Dark Gem Spirit Gathering Tower was no mere energy tool. Rather, its function was to mindlessly spew out energy, obliterating everything!

He took the tower down and held it in his hand. The black crystal tower wasn’t very large, and it looked quite different from what Xia Fei understood of soul cannons.

“Blueblood Spiritualists emphasize on creating multifunctional tools, so many soul weapons also carry additional functions. For example, the first function of this Dark Gem Spirit Gathering Tower is that of a soul cannon. The second is an energy storage device. The third is a self-destruct device. When activated, it can annihilate everything within one hundred thousand kilometers of it. The fourth is an energy propulsion device, and it can be installed on a warp engine. The fifth…” Merry began to talk like he was a walking textbook.

Xia Fei waved his hand and cut Merry off. “I’m also a Spiritualist, but I’ve never liked multifunctional devices. A soul weapon should focus on doing only one thing successfully! If you have the energy to develop second and third functions, it would be better spent on increasing the offensive power! Right up until the very pinnacle of the limit!”

Merry pursed his lips and said nothing.

Xia Fei had always been a very stubborn person. The Silver Specter, which had been a perfectly fine ship, had been crammed full of additional equipment by Xia Fei, making it the farthest thing from comfortable. But it was also Xia Fei’s stubbornness which made the Silver Specter very fast, extremely fast! Xia Fei had sacrificed comfort to obtain the fastest ship in the Alpha Universe!

If Xia Fei had made the Dark Gem Spirit Gathering Tower, he definitely would have sacrificed those useless auxiliary functions and put all the power into the lethal weapon! Propelling a ship? Using a soul cannon as an engine? Xia Fei saw such ideas as complete nonsense.

Killing intent glinting in his eyes, Xia Fei demanded sternly, “Now tell me, how do I use this Dark Gem Spirit Gathering Tower!?”

…

Dark space…

Xia Fei returned, Merry trying to persuade him to try something else the entire way.

“Sir, you can’t use this soul cannon! The Fog Fortress is the fortress we Bluebloods have established in dark space! If something happens to it, the clan will blame me!” Merry pleaded. He was already regretting his talkative nature helping Xia Fei realize the true function of the Dark Gem Spirit Gathering Tower.

Xia Fei smiled. “Don’t worry. So long as they obediently hand over Yuntian, I won’t waste the spirit energy needed to blast it down.”

Merry’s face went white. His meaning was clear. So long as they refused to hand Yuntian over, he would definitely start firing!

Unfortunately, Xia Fei refused to consider the opinions of others. No matter how much Merry worked his mouth, Xia Fei ignored him. His mind was made up. He didn’t care about the weapons lost from the Collapsed Expanse of the Founders, but he definitely cared about the Fiend Clan’s relics!

“Lead the way!” Xia Fei said to Little Goldie. In dark space, humans couldn’t tell direction, and Xia Fei wasn’t an exception, but Little Goldie could easily accomplish that.

Little Goldie nodded and quickly led the way. Xia Fei found Little Goldie too slow and was about to pick him and have him only give directions when a bitter wail suddenly came from his side!

Dark space opened,and a black arrow rushed out!

So fast! The enemy had opened up dark space and released the arrow with only a gap of a thousandth of a second! Only a master was capable of this! A master of dark space, someone who had thoroughly researched this bizarre realm!

“Out!”

Xia Fei was of the speed type, and that didn’t just mean that he could move his body quickly, but also that he could react quickly! He raised his arm, aiming to push away the arrow.

Xia Fei gasped. Just now, he had been able to sense that it had not been an arrow, but a pitch-black snake, its scales flashing. It was clearly venomous down to its bones!

He turned his palm into a fist. Even though he could see those fangs dripping with venom, he only punched faster!

Bang!

The snake was pulped and sent back through the air, a ball of blood going back where it had come from!

An air punch!

Merry gasped in surprise. This was purely the power of air! The air pressure created by the punch alone had been enough to obliterate the snake!

When he looked closer, he saw that Xia Fei had a weird half-gloveon his hand. This was the close combat soul weapon, the Twin Wing Roar!

After the last fight, Xia Fei had been somewhat apprehensive about the poison used by the people of the Fog Fortress, so he had equipped these close-combat weapons.

The Twin Wing Roar could dispense energy from the fists. While it appeared like air pressure had destroyed the snake, some of Xia Fei’s spirit energy had been mixed in. It was a classic combo attack, but it was much harder to see since Xia Fei’s punches were absurdly fast.

After killing the snake, Xia Fei rushed up to the spatial passage and punched with both hands! This time, it was with the Law of Primal Chaos!

The enemy had fired the arrow through the passage, meaning that he was inside it. Thus, Xia Fei didn’t plan to fight them, instead using the Law of Primal Chaos to destroy the passage! If the enemy was still in the passage, then that was just their bad luck! Float around in Primal Chaos! The Law of Primal Chaos didn’t care, for it had never been reasonable!

Rumble!

The reversal power of the Law of Primal Chaos was without comparison, and the spatial passage quickly collapsed. Anyone inside would never be able to survive!

Xia Fei’s string of counterattacks were sharp and seamless! For the first time, Merry was seeing Xia Fei’s true strength.

Xia Fei’s expression was unmoved, showing no joy. On the contrary, his murderous intent only increased.

Xia Fei turned in Merry’s direction and coldly said, “This person is from the Zadin Clan. The one you’re looking for is me.”

Merry was shocked, wondering what Xia Fei meant. But then he turned around, and his face paled!

A snake had somehow made its way up behind him, an enormous King Fog Snake several kilometers long, staring at him with golden eyes, its giant fangs already near him. If Xia Fei hadn’t told it who Merry was, the snake might have already torn him apart!

Xia Fei’s words had saved Merry’s life!

Merry quickly moved to the side, but it was only then that he realized that this snake was different from the others. Only part of its body was on the outside, the other half was in the darkness, inside a spatial passage!

“A King Fog Snake that can freely travel through space!?” Merry was aghast, his brow furrowing. He sternly said to Xia Fei, “Sir, this must be Snake Ghost! The Cebu Clan’s strongest snake tamer! A top-class Soul Eater!”

Merry thought some more and then decided that he should state Xia Fei’s true identity. After all, when two experts clashed, one of them was bound to die. Xia Fei was a Neophyte Dragoon, so if something happened to him, Merry would take some of the blame.

Just when he opened his mouth, Xia Fei interrupted in a soft and sinister tone, “If you say any more, I’ll kill you.”

At the same time, a voice even colder than Xia Fei’s hissed from the darkness, “Talkative people will die.”