Chapter 44: Soul Capture

Really unable to hold it, a few people couldn't help but let out their breath, taking big gulps of air. Hiss, hiss, the movement was completely covered by the strong wind.

But the hundreds of vengeful souls wandering in the air suddenly stopped and looked over in unison.

These few unlucky ones hadn't even taken two comfortable breaths before they saw the vengeful souls rushing over, crashing directly into their heads.

With a "poof," the three life fires on their bodies extinguished instantly.

In such a situation, who dared to take action to stop it?

In the eyes of the bystanders, after the vengeful souls burrowed into their ears and noses, these people were briefly sluggish for two or three breaths, and then they held their heads and screamed endlessly. Their eyes were red, and saliva flowed from the corners of their mouths. They looked like they were having a rabies attack, but they didn't attack the humans around them like the puppets possessed by Three-Corpse Insects, but ran around blindly, or rolled on the ground, or bumped into walls everywhere.

Dozens of vengeful souls argued and pulled in the same consciousness; the feeling was like dozens of firecrackers exploding in the head at the same time. Who could stand that? After only ten or so breaths, these people fell to the ground and died, bleeding from their seven orifices.

Everyone watched, their hearts jumping with fear.

The trouble is that the faster the heartbeat, the shorter the breath-holding. Now most people couldn't hold it anymore, their faces swollen blue and purple, but the vengeful souls were still erupting endlessly; when would this end!

It's either suffocating to death or being pierced by vengeful souls. Only a few breaths later, another five or six people had to choose the former.

He Lingchuan and Nian Songyu were still fine; the lung capacity of martial artists is naturally powerful, while He Chunhua's face had turned sauce-purple, and he was about to be unable to hold on.

He Lingchuan couldn't care about anything else, grabbed Sun Fuping's sleeve, and used his mouth shape to say to him: "Think of a way!"

He practiced martial arts, and the tricks in his hands were useless against vengeful souls.

Sun Fuping probably felt the time was right, shook off He Lingchuan's hand with a wave of his sleeve, walked to the army, and raised his magic staff.

He stuffed something into the beast's mouth, and then raised the magic staff and poked it on the ground! With the beast head as the center, a protective cover emitting yellow light appeared, just covering everyone inside.

Barrier!

Sun Fuping said loudly: "You can breathe!"

Everyone felt like they had been granted amnesty, and even their waists bent down; some coughed endlessly from inhaling too hard.

This time even He Chunhua was a bit angry: "Why did the National Master take action only now?"

If he had taken action ten or so breaths earlier, those five or six people wouldn't have had to die.

Sun Fuping's face was solemn: "The duration of my illusory barrier is very short, and the effect is not as good as the life fire. I used it only as a last resort. Can you predict how long the vengeful souls will erupt?"

No one could.

He Chunhua had nothing to say. The expressions of the many soldiers looking at Sun Fuping were hard to describe.

But he didn't take it to heart.

"Protecting the lives of the majority is the most important thing." Nian Songyu asked, "What now?"

"Keep waiting." Sun Fuping stared at the pool surface without letting go, "Only when there are no more vengeful souls running out of it will we have the next step."

Everyone was shocked and settled, and only then did they have time to observe the vengeful souls wandering in the sky.

Situ Han gave an "eh" and said: "Now there are the most humanoid vengeful souls, and there are large batches of armored cavalry."

These dead souls galloped and roared, as if they were still on the battlefield where they fought endlessly.

"The dead soldiers on the battlefield are the most numerous, and their resentment is also the greatest." He Lingchuan was shocked, "Look at this!"

The vengeful souls rushing out of the pool were strange-shaped at first, then mainly human souls, and now the size was very shocking. Although vengeful souls have no weight, the one He Lingchuan saw was like a combination of seven or eight vengeful souls, not only with seven hands and eight feet, but also pairs of eyes on its chest and shoulders.

Ordinary vengeful souls stood in front of it like ordinary people standing in front of an old banyan tree; the volume was simply incomparable.

The pressure on the living was also not comparable.

Seeing this monster, Sun Fuping felt relieved instead: "Sure enough, it is like this."

He Lingchuan: "Like what?" Always speaking in half-sentences, it's easy to have urinary incontinence at night.

"After a long time in the pot, some vengeful souls began to devour and fuse with each other, forming new powerful individuals, like raising Gu." Sun Fuping pointed to this monster, "Sure enough, the order of vengeful souls appearing is from weak to strong, so our persistence is coming to an end."

This seven-handed and eight-footed monster was crawling out, originally wanting to follow the main force up, but Sun Fuping had just finished speaking when it suddenly turned its head, sixteen eyes blinking together, actually staring straight at the barrier!

He Lingchuan was terrified by its stare; this thing's eyes were much scarier than Nian Songyu's: "Can it see us?"

"Hiss!" Sun Fuping interrupted him quickly.

But it was too late. The sixteen-eyed monster made a sniffing action, then moved out of the pool and crawled toward the barrier.

The sixteen-eyed monster's movements were funny, its limbs were uncoordinated, and it was a bit staggering. But Sun Fuping knew this was because it had just entered the human world and hadn't fully adapted.

The illusory barrier didn't have real defensive power—nor could it, otherwise it would trigger the aggressiveness of the vengeful souls—it just hid the characteristics of the living, making these dead souls unable to smell the breath of flesh and blood.

However, among the strange vengeful souls, there will always be a few with special abilities that are not easily deceived. Judging from the actions of this sixteen-eyed monster, it didn't see through the illusory barrier completely, but it was suspicious and decided to come over to check.

In its eyes, there was no breath of living people within the range covered by the illusory barrier, but it could vaguely feel a little bit of vitality, like sparse fireflies occasionally lighting up at night; when it wanted to look closely, it was blurred again.

This undoubtedly aroused its curiosity, wanting to get closer to look.

Just as it was about to hit the barrier, Sun Fuping whispered: "Baishan, Qingshui! Use the Soul-Fixing Banner!"

Two young and strong attendants behind him rushed to the front of the team, standing at the edge of the barrier, not knowing where they pulled out a huge white cloth banner, shaking it at the sixteen-eyed monster.

The banner was covered with dense black and red talisman characters. When the white cloth banner shook against the wind, the talisman characters also floated out, slowly rotating, and there was a faint sound of Sanskrit singing in the air.

This banner looked like just an iron wood pole plus a piece of white cloth, fluttering, but the attendants danced it very hard, and it had to be held by two people and four hands.

The way they shook the white banner was also like drawing "∞" repeatedly and at a constant speed in the air.

At the same time, Sun Fuping also walked to the front of the crowd, signaling them to close their eyes.

But this order was given a bit late. As soon as the white cloth banner appeared, everyone's eyes naturally followed its movement. After it shook twice, several people had straight eyes, as if attracted by a magnet, lifting their legs and walking toward it.

One walked past He Lingchuan, who pressed his shoulder hard, helping him close his eyelids.

This person struggled twice and then stopped.

Others followed suit, controlling the companions who were soul-captured.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 45 =====