I Can Merge Techniques

Chapter 458: Chapter 152: Fierce Soul Sacrificed to the Banner, the Ten Thousand Souls Banner Strengthens; Before the Red Flame Sect, Baili Bing Breaks the Siege and Displays Her Might

Inside the Five Elements Cauldron was a world unto itself, a hazy expanse of chaos.

Mo Daozi and the burly man of the Demon Race were each imprisoned in a separate domain, unable to see one another.

The Runes on the cauldron’s body transformed into bronze chains. One by one, they pierced the two men’s clavicles before wrapping around their limbs, locking them tightly within the void.

Both men were cultivators of the Acupoint Realm, yet now they were half-dead. No matter how they struggled, they could not break free.

Suddenly...

High above the void, black mist condensed into a giant face, slowly taking shape—it was none other than Chu Fan.

Like a god looking down on a lowly prisoner, Chu Fan silently watched Mo Daozi below.

"Just who are you?!"

His hair was disheveled and his feet were bare. Looking like a mad demon, Mo Daozi roared, his voice filled with indignation.

The void seemed to tear open.

Chu Fan strode through.

He said nothing, simply taking a single step forward. As if using Instant Teleportation, he appeared before Mo Daozi and unleashed three furious punches!

THUD! THUD! THUD!

A series of dull thuds echoed as Mo Daozi immediately vomited several mouthfuls of blood.

He was already severely injured and on the brink of death, and now he was suppressed by the Five Elements Cauldron. He couldn’t even muster the last shred of strength to resist. His eyes held nothing but ashen despair.

Seeing this, Chu Fan raised a finger.

As black energy swirled, a banner materialized out of thin air. The wails of ghosts and howls of fiends emanated from it—it was the Ten Thousand Souls Banner.

The Ten Thousand Souls Banner hovered over Mo Daozi’s head, and the opening of the banner suddenly produced an immense suction force.

A sinister wind howled all around them, and heaven and earth seemed to lose their color!

"You... you dare..."

Mo Daozi was terrified beyond belief.

He had never imagined that this youth from the Demon Suppression Bureau would be more of a Demon than he, Mo Daozi, was!

Not only had the young man refined such a wicked Soul Banner, but he hadn’t even killed him before extracting his soul. Instead, he had deliberately left him barely alive, intending to extract his soul while he was still living!

Mo Daozi had never witnessed such crazed viciousness in his entire life!

"AH—!"

Under the terrifying suction of the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, Mo Daozi let out a bloodcurdling scream as his soul was forcibly ripped from his body!

He tried to struggle, but he was completely powerless to resist.

Nearby, Chu Fan’s hands formed a seal, his fingers moving like butterflies flitting through flowers as he executed the Netherworld Soul Refining Technique to help the Ten Thousand Souls Banner rip the soul free.

Although he had taken an Essence Enhancing Pill, his Netherworld Soul Refining Technique was still at the Uninitiated stage, and controlling the banner with it was a struggle.

It would have been much easier if he had killed Mo Daozi first before performing the Soul Extraction and Spirit Refining.

However, after completing the Refinement of the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, he had obtained the memories of Lingkong Jade, the Divine Sacrifice Envoy of the Moon Worship Sect. From these memories, he knew that a soul extracted from a living body was more resilient, which was why he had chosen this path.

Before long...

Mo Daozi’s soul was devoured by the Ten Thousand Souls Banner and imprisoned within it.

Inside the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, the previously refined Fierce Ghosts and Evil Spirits swarmed forward like sharks smelling blood, frantically tearing at and devouring his Soul Body.

Chu Fan closed his eyes to perceive the situation inside the banner.

The soul of an Acupoint Realm expert was countless times stronger than the soul of that Heaven-Flipping Saber bandit he had killed before arriving in Qing Province.

Yet even a soul of this caliber was unable to resist the Ten Thousand Souls Banner and was quickly suppressed.

Having already devoured over a hundred souls, the Ten Thousand Souls Banner was now far more powerful than when he first obtained it.

Once Mo Daozi’s soul had weakened to the point that it could no longer cause a stir within the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, Chu Fan entered the other space. He repeated the process, crippling the burly man of the Demon Race with a punch and absorbing his soul into the banner as well.

However, the soul from the Demon Race was several times stronger than Mo Daozi’s.

Chu Fan had to expend considerable effort to suppress it with the power of the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, finally managing to erase its consciousness and subdue it completely.

With two powerful souls added to it, the aura of the Ten Thousand Souls Banner grew noticeably stronger.

The black mist on the banner’s surface grew thicker, and the shrieks of the souls became even more chaotic and frenzied!

Sensing the banner’s power growing, a flash of delight appeared in Chu Fan’s eyes.

He didn’t dare to use the Ten Thousand Souls Banner lightly just yet, but the more Fierce Souls it devoured and the stronger they became, the more terrifying a Bottom Card it would be for him in the future.

Without pausing, Chu Fan turned his attention to the two skeletal Demon Puppets.

But as the Ten Thousand Souls Banner extended its suction force once more, attempting to devour the Fierce Souls inside the Demon Puppets, something unexpected happened!

These two soul-like figures were not the Soul Bodies of ordinary cultivators or members of the Demon Race. Instead, they resembled two highly condensed, constantly churning masses of dark, violent energy—a pure embodiment of darkness and brutality.

The moment the Ten Thousand Souls Banner’s suction made contact, the two soul-like figures erupted with a resistance far greater than he had anticipated.

The spiritual pressure they emitted was even more tyrannical than the souls of Mo Daozi and the Demon Race member combined, and their ferocious aura was exceptionally pure!

Fortunately, the man and woman from before had sealed these two Demon Puppets with a Sealing Skill when they left, and now they were also being suppressed by the Five Elements Cauldron.

Otherwise, Chu Fan feared he would have been completely overwhelmed.

’The souls in these Demon Puppets are this powerful?’

Chu Fan was both shocked and delighted.

He was shocked that such powerful Fierce Souls would require a great deal of effort to subdue.

He was delighted because the stronger the Fierce Souls, the more his Ten Thousand Souls Banner would be enhanced!

In an instant, he recalled what Mo Yunzi had told him about Demon Puppets and understood the key to the situation...

This type of Demon Puppet was created with an extremely sinister Secret Technique: first, Fierce Souls and Spirits are sealed inside specially crafted skeletons, then driven to devour the souls of the living and the dead for sustenance, allowing them to grow stronger.

Over time, the soul inside a Demon Puppet becomes a fusion of hundreds, or even thousands, of other souls—a monster whose ferocity has been refined to its purest form.

Their terrifying nature was far beyond what any ordinary soul could compare to.

If it weren’t for the seal placed by that man and woman from the Acupoint Realm, combined with the current suppression from the Five Elements Cauldron, he feared he truly wouldn’t be able to subdue these two "Fierce Beasts" with his Ten Thousand Souls Banner alone, which he still couldn’t fully control.

Chu Fan’s eyes hardened as he made up his mind.

The Netherworld Soul Refining Technique was a top-tier Soul Refining Secret Manual. Although he hadn’t poured much effort into it before, he had practiced it for some time and was on the verge of reaching the Entry-Level stage.

Facing such Fierce Souls was the perfect opportunity to test the technique’s power.

"Netherworld Soul Refining!"

Chu Fan took a deep breath, and a faint light flashed at the center of his brow.

He no longer relied solely on the instincts of the Ten Thousand Souls Banner. Instead, following the Netherworld Soul Refining Technique’s method, he began to circulate his own Soul Essence.