Chapter 30: Who Is He?

An invisible shockwave erupted through the air.

The eyes of the Yao Yang Soul Beast turned blood-red: it seemed intent on shattering Lu Jin completely!

At this moment, Wang Min, who had already retreated, turned to look back. Her eyes were filled with terror.

The Yao Yang Soul Beast! It should be the guardian of the Soul-Breaking Fruit. It didn’t appear before, yet it actually tracked him all the way here from Jiuyou Mountain?

Beyond her shock, she retracted all her aura and remained deathly still. In her view, no matter how powerful Lu Jin’s methods were, he could not possibly be a match for this soul beast. The destructive power of this creature was enough to sweep away any Jindan cultivator! Even as a sixth-grade Jindan, she was trembling.

Meanwhile, Lu Jin had activated the Heaven Burial Coffin to devour the mental power enveloping him, yet his expression grew increasingly grave. The mental power was layered and dense: it was impossible to swallow it all in a single instant!

Even though the coffin backfed a surge of mental energy to reinforce his Niwan Palace, he still felt a piercing agony sweeping through his entire body. The tearing pain was almost identical to the suffering of a heavenly tribulation! It was fortunate that he had already experienced the lightning tribulation of the Spirit Pearls: the strength of his physical body was far beyond that of a normal man. Otherwise, he likely would have been crushed by a single strike from the Yao Yang Soul Beast.

“Heaven Burial Coffin, keep moving!”

The overwhelming mental attacks of the Yao Yang Soul Beast were like a hurricane, and Lu Jin was like a small boat in a storm: he was in constant danger of being capsized. With his current strength, pushing the coffin to its limit was meeting a ceiling due to his cultivation level. To neutralize the violent mental offensive, he had to break through that limit!

Empress Qinglian had warned him before: if he forcibly unleashed the true power of the Heaven Burial Coffin, he might suffer an even greater backlash.

I can’t worry about that now! Devour!

Buzz!!!

Following Lu Jin’s command, the brilliance of the Heaven Burial Coffin surged, and its devouring force spiked!

Lu Jin could confirm that the coffin was capable of devouring mental power and backfeeding it to him, but he knew nothing about mental cultivation. Receiving such a sudden influx of mental energy left him momentarily at a loss. But in the face of the soul beast’s assault, he could not sit and wait for death.

Can the Heaven Burial Coffin backfeed a mental cultivation technique?

The thought flashed through his mind, but it was immediately replaced by a surge of agony that made his face twist! This backfed mental power came from within: he couldn’t even use external defensive arts to block it.

The pain surged through his soul. A wave of dizziness hit him, and Lu Jin felt an illusion as if he were placed in a dream. When he forcibly stabilized his mind, the scene before his eyes had changed.

Wait… where am I? Am I hallucinating?

Lu Jin was startled. As far as his eyes could see, a massive wheel was grinding down from the void above. His body felt tiny and insignificant. Under the crushing pressure of that wheel, his footsteps faltered: he couldn’t even run. He could only watch as the wheel prepared to roll over him.

The pain was heart-wrenching; his soul trembled!

“That is a mental pressure wheel. The thing being crushed is your soul,” Empress Qinglian’s voice finally rang out.

“Is this meant to temper my soul strength?”

“Correct.” Empress Qinglian continued: “Know that this wheel was forged by a certain Rune Emperor of the past. It is one of the premier treasures for cultivating mental power in heaven and earth. This is a rare opportunity; how far you can go depends entirely on your own fortune.”

Lu Jin grit his teeth. “But I have no mental martial arts to support me. Am I supposed to just endure it?”

“Correct. Just endure it.”

Lu Jin was speechless.

“In your current state, even if I gave you a technique, you wouldn’t know how to use it,” the Empress added. “The initial stage is for building a foundation. It is all about endurance. I hope you can last a bit longer.”

After saying this, Empress Qinglian vanished again.

Fine! I’ll endure!

Lu Jin gritted his teeth, feeling the wheel grinding back and forth over his soul body. His only belief was that he had to survive every single rotation! The mental power powering this wheel was the very energy being backfed by the Heaven Burial Coffin. And the source of that energy was the Yao Yang Soul Beast!

He didn’t know how long he could last, nor did he know if the beast’s attack would change. All he could do was hold on. The more energy the coffin backfed to the wheel, the more the soul beast’s attacks seemed to intensify in a desperate bid to kill him.

Seeing its mental power being continuously consumed, a trace of human-like disbelief appeared in the beast’s eyes.

Roar!!!

It suddenly roared toward the heavens, and its terrifying mental power spiked again!

In that split second, Lu Jin could clearly feel the horrific aura erupting from the mental wheel. If even a sliver more power was added, his soul body might actually explode! Yet, if he didn’t use the coffin to devour the power, his physical body would be crushed instantly.

“Vile beast!”

At this critical moment, a thunderous shout echoed through the air. A horrific force swept across the void for a hundred yards, and the mental power of the Yao Yang Soul Beast was instantly shattered!

Such terrifying power!

Lu Jin was surprised and shaken by the newcomer’s strength. His soul was instantly pulled back into the physical world, though the mental energy within that inner space remained. This was a surprise to Lu Jin: he hadn’t expected his mental awareness to be able to detach so easily.

“This is a mental cultivation space. You can enter whenever you wish to train,” Empress Qinglian’s cold voice echoed.

I see…

Lu Jin nodded and looked toward the sky. A tall man stood proudly in the void. His aura was billowing; his long hair whipped back in the wind. However, he wore a black mask that concealed his true face.

Lu Jin frowned. For some reason, he sensed a trace of a familiar scent coming from this man.

Roar!!!

With its mental power shattered, the Yao Yang Soul Beast roared again. It unleashed another mental offensive, forming a colorless vortex that surged toward the masked powerhouse!

“The Soul-Breaking Fruit ripens once every century. You may return and wait another hundred years! If you persist in your stubbornness today, I will take your life!”

Boom…

The moment the man’s voice fell, a horrific wave of spiritual energy roared out, covering five hundred yards. Under this pressure, it felt as though everything would be ground into powder in the next second!

That is Spiritual Power!

Lu Jin’s eyes widened. What this man unleashed was pure Lingli—Spiritual Power—rather than the ordinary spiritual Qi fluctuations of a normal cultivator. There was a world of difference between Qi and Lingli! A major reason why Lu Jin’s progress was so rapid was that the Heaven Burial Coffin could refine objects containing Qi into Lingli to feed him.

This man’s cultivation is unfathomable. Just who is he?.