Chapter 240: Soul Searching and Soul Seizing, the Master Behind the Scenes

At this very moment, no words could describe the terror in the heart of True Monarch Huanglong.

A Great Cultivator capable of reaching the Nascent Soul Realm is, without exception, a person of vast experience and profound foundation; there is basically no strange treasure or secret technique they have not seen or heard of.

Yet the Supernatural Power Lu Yuan displayed just now, which could actually freeze his Nascent Soul in the void, was truly vast in power and unheard of!

Nascent Soul teleportation is already the final life-saving measure for a Nascent Soul Great Cultivator; normally, even a True Monarch of the same rank could not stop it without a rare Dharma Artifact possessing void power. If it were a Return to Void Great Ability who controls the void and can solidify it to prevent Nascent Soul teleportation, he could understand it, but Lu Yuan's cultivation and Dharma Power aura were clearly only at the Nascent Soul level, so how did he manage to solidify the void?

However, facing True Monarch Huanglong's horrified question, Lu Yuan only smiled and did not answer.

He first seized True Monarch Huanglong's physical body and stored it into the newly opened cave-heaven world of his own, then immediately scanned with his divine sense and reached out through the air to scoop up the severely wounded and dying Real Person Liuyun from a mountain hollow, then also used the Seal Spirit Absolute Array to seal his cultivation, divine sense, and Dharma Power.

This was, of course, not a sudden burst of kindness, but to him, Real Person Liuyun, this disciple of True Monarch Huanglong, also had some use, so he naturally needed to bring him back as well.

And True Monarch Huanglong, whose Nascent Soul was in his hand and who had witnessed all of this, was already chilled to the bone in body and mind, and immediately said with a fierce expression but a cowardly heart:

"This fellow Daoist, it was this old man who misjudged you this time. You and I have had no prior dealings, no grievances or enmity, why must you push things to the absolute limit?"

"No matter what your purpose is for Longshan Immortal City, we can discuss it, and you can make any demands you have!"

Lu Yuan threw the completely sealed Real Person Liuyun into his own cave-heaven world, then looked at True Monarch Huanglong with a smile that was not quite a smile:

"Oh? What if I want the entire Huanglong Immortal City?"

True Monarch Huanglong was startled and immediately said:

"Fellow Daoist, are you joking? Although my Huangpu Family has ruled the Immortal City for generations, the Immortal Alliance now coordinates the entire Xiyan region. The appointment of City Lords for major Immortal Cities, especially those on the front lines of resistance, can no longer be inherited by families as it was in the past; it can only be decided by the Immortal Alliance. Even if this old man were willing to give up this position of City Lord, the Immortal Alliance would absolutely not allow someone of suspicious origin and no foundation to become the master of an Immortal City!"

"That is true."

Lu Yuan smiled slightly:

"The Immortal Alliance certainly would not agree, but I, Lu, am determined to have this Longshan Immortal City of yours. What do you say should be done?"

Lu Yuan's gaze was playful and indifferent, as if he had already made plans, and True Monarch Huanglong felt extreme unease:

"What do you mean, fellow Daoist? What exactly do you want to do?"

Lu Yuan did not answer: "You will know soon."

After speaking, he added another layer of seal to the Nascent Soul in his hand and threw it into the cave-heaven world, then performed the Flying Body Tracking technique, left the Yin Corpse Mountain Range, and returned to his own cave dwelling at the station.

The great battle in the Yin Corpse Mountain Range was two or three hundred miles away from here, so the cultivators in this area had not noticed anything from beginning to end.

After returning to the cave dwelling, Lu Yuan first released the severely wounded and unconscious Real Person Liuyun from his portable cave-heaven, then pressed a hand onto the top of the other's skull and whispered:

"Soul Absorption!"

Hum.

A grand and echoing ripple of Dharma Power spread out. The body of Real Person Liuyun, who had been unconscious under his palm, suddenly trembled violently, and his face became twisted and ferocious, as if his entire soul were being fiercely extracted by some overbearing power, while he himself was struggling hard to resist.

If this were before Lu Yuan broke through to the mid-stage of Refining Qi into Spirit, a Jiedan Late Stage cultivator could indeed resist his Soul Absorption Supernatural Power to a certain extent, but now, under the crushing force of his cultivation, Real Person Liuyun had no power to resist and was immediately subjected to soul extraction and memory searching.

And this search lasted for two or three hours.

Because he did not intend to leave any survivors, Lu Yuan activated the Soul Absorption Supernatural Power extremely violently, causing Real Person Liuyun's soul to scatter and his memories to be continuously extracted in just an instant.

Of course, time was limited, and the memories of a Golden Core Real Person spanning three or four hundred years were vast; he did not examine them carefully, but only focused on the nodes he was concerned about.

Even so, this check took several hours. It was not until the ink-black night outside the cave dwelling began to brighten slightly that he finally ended the Soul Searching and released Real Person Liuyun, whose soul had already flown away and scattered, leaving only a shell:

"No one else knows? Very good, Heaven helps me."

When he performed the Soul Searching, the first thing he searched for was how many people knew about him and True Monarch Huanglong coming to the Yin Corpse Mountain Range.

The result was as he expected: because of concerns about the impact, True Monarch Huanglong did not let the other True Monarch stationed in the Immortal City know, and apart from Real Person Liuyun, his other two disciples also did not know.

In this way, the execution of Lu Yuan's subsequent plan would undoubtedly be much easier.

He looked at the physical body of Real Person Liuyun, as if sizing up some high-quality material:

"Occupying the magpie's nest, let's start with you."

After saying this, his heart stirred; he took a strand of hair from his head and blew on it gently. The hair bloomed with intense immortal light and immediately manifested into a hazy human figure.

This was naturally the clone manifested by his 【Cloning】 Supernatural Power.

The clone was previously only of Earth-rank, but it was a very important part of his plan. Not long ago, after harvesting enough Merit Power in the Yin Corpse Mountain Range, he promoted this Earthly Fiend Art to the level of a Supernatural Power.

【Cloning】: Can split into multiple clones, can also split other things; those with heaven-reaching Dharma Power can even split into billions.

In the simple annotations of the Heavenly Book, it seems that even if this technique is upgraded to the level of a Supernatural Power, it only increases the number of clones, but in reality, the wonderful uses of the Cloning Supernatural Power are far more than this!

Seeing that Lu Yuan had manifested a hazy clone with his own hair, he then pinched a Dharma sword and turned it into streams of light that struck into the clone, making the light on this body brighter and more solid.

After an unknown amount of time, sharp light burst from Lu Yuan's eyes, and at the same time, his Dharma Power aura surged, and he whispered:

"Go!"

Under his command, the hazy clone light-shadow followed closely and walked toward the fallen Real Person Liuyun in front of him, then turned into a stream of light and merged into the other's body.

Lu Yuan cast several more Dharma seals. After a long time, he saw Real Person Liuyun stand up abruptly, then bow slightly toward him and say:

"Poor Daoist Liuyun, greets the original body."

The Real Person Liuyun who bowed to him had expressions and manners exactly the same as the real Real Person Liuyun. Lu Yuan was overjoyed:

"Good, good, good."

That's right. After the clone advanced to a Supernatural Power, it was no longer limited to splitting clones from oneself. At this very moment, Lu Yuan had already developed the means to use this Supernatural Power to possess other living beings and refine them into his own clones!

Although the clone in front of him now was manifested from a wisp of his divine sense, it possessed a certain degree of autonomous consciousness. It was clear that the first time the Supernatural Power was used, it was a great success!

Lu Yuan examined the clone in front of him with great satisfaction, finding no obvious flaws, and then smiled:

"You should have inherited the memories of Real Person Liuyun; do you know his Dharma Techniques?"

This clone manifested from a strand of hair was actually formed by the power of the Supernatural Power absorbing a wisp of his divine sense and the memories of Real Person Liuyun himself. Facing the inquiry, it nodded immediately:

"Replying to the original body, I understand everything that Real Person Liuyun learned. However, I still need to grind with this physical body and refine its Qi Sea True Core to fully possess its cultivation and means. This will likely take some time."

Lu Yuan was not surprised and nodded with a smile: "Very good. Since that is the case, I can proceed to the next step."

As he spoke, he took out the tightly sealed Nascent Soul and physical shell of True Monarch Huanglong from his cave-heaven world.

At this moment, True Monarch Huanglong's divine sense and Dharma Power could not be used at all; he could barely perform the most basic divine sense transmission. As soon as he came out, the first thing he saw was Real Person Liuyun standing respectfully before Lu Yuan, and his expression was immediately horrified:

"What have you done to him?!"

The Liuyun Cloning fully inherited Lu Yuan's personality; he smiled slightly and bowed to the Nascent Soul, saying:

"The True Monarch truly has eyes like torches; you saw at a glance that I am not the real Perfected Master Liuyun."

A look of intense horror appeared on the tiny Nascent Soul of True Monarch Huanglong. He looked at the smiling Lu Yuan sitting cross-legged, then at the Cloning bowing to him, and shouted sternly:

"Soul shifting, possession? Impossible, impossible! The method of possession is extremely dangerous; performing it below the Nascent Soul stage is a life-or-death gamble, and even if one succeeds by luck, it requires a long time to harmonize."

"What exactly are you!?"

The method of possession is a technique where a cultivator uses their own soul and memories to occupy the physical body of another cultivator and live a second life; from its inception, it was listed as a forbidden technique by the cultivation world of Yuanling Heaven.

First, it is because this method is exceptionally dangerous. At a minimum, one must be a cultivator at the Golden Core level to perform it. Aside from needing a physical body that is extremely compatible with the caster's soul, one must also be a full major realm lower to perform it. Even so, the success rate is extremely low, with at most a twenty or thirty percent chance of success.

Once possession fails, not only is the shell destroyed, but the caster's soul will also suffer heavy damage. In severe cases, the soul will scatter and the True Spirit will be extinguished; in mild cases, memories are lost, leaving one a blank slate or an idiot.

If one succeeds by luck, this method cannot be performed again, otherwise, the soul will immediately collapse.

Second, this method violates the harmony of Heaven. Most importantly, before the Corpse Demon Catastrophe, some active evil and demonic path great cultivators, when nearing the end of their lifespan or when their physical bodies were destroyed, would often seek out talented disciples of righteous sects and then use the method of possession to occupy their shells, like a cuckoo occupying a magpie's nest.

Precisely because of these various chaotic phenomena, the method of possession was listed as forbidden by the righteous path. All righteous sects joined forces to investigate and destroy it without sparing any effort, causing this method to gradually disappear.

True Monarch Huanglong had not expected that Lu Yuan would actually master this method and allow an unknown soul to occupy his disciple's physical body!

Facing the extremely angry and shocked questioning of True Monarch Huanglong.

Lu Yuan was completely unconcerned and just said flatly:

"No need to rush, it will be your turn soon. I must trouble Fellow Daoist Huanglong to let Lu use your body and identity."

Having said that, he opened his large hand and pressed it onto the top of True Monarch Huanglong's Nascent Soul, simultaneously activating the Soul Absorption Supernatural Power again.

"Soul Searching technique?"

As soon as the Supernatural Power was activated, True Monarch Huanglong let out a roar that tore at his liver and gallbladder:

"Don't even think about it!"

A massive suction force descended, as if to suck out his three souls and Seven Souls, and even all his memories. He tried his best, mobilizing his sealed divine sense to desperately resist the strange power invading his Nascent Soul, putting up a final struggle like a trapped beast.

Normally, cultivators of the same rank basically cannot perform Soul Searching on each other. However, True Monarch Huanglong now only had his Nascent Soul body without the protection of a physical form, and his divine sense and Dharma Power were completely sealed by the Seal Spirit Absolute Array, so resisting Lu Yuan's Supernatural Power was naturally exceptionally difficult.

Lu Yuan had long anticipated that he would not break through True Monarch Huanglong's mental defenses in an instant, so he continued to perform the Soul Absorption Supernatural Power without any impatience, constantly delving deeper into the other's Nascent Soul body.

This tug-of-war lasted for about an hour. Under the invasion of the powerful Supernatural Power, True Monarch Huanglong's resistance soon reached its end. Finally, a look of heavy regret and despair clearly appeared on his face, and he roared:

"No—"

Amidst his roar, Lu Yuan remained expressionless and pushed with all his might. The power of the Soul Absorption Supernatural Power fiercely broke through his divine sense defenses, completely scattering and devouring his consciousness!

After breaking through True Monarch Huanglong's divine sense defenses, the other's vast memories of nearly seven hundred years surged out like an erupting volcano or a bursting flood. Lu Yuan could not examine them one by one in detail for the time being, so he could only glance through them cursorily, using the Soul Absorption Supernatural Power to roughly view these memories in chronological order, then condensing them all into a crystal to be used later.

Even so, it took him a full day and night to roughly organize this vast sea of memories.

During this period, Lu Yuan's second cloning had been guarding nearby. After organizing the memories, he held only a blurry-faced, glowing Nascent Soul in his hand. Although it still had tyrannical Dharma Power fluctuations hidden within, that sense of liveliness had completely vanished.

This was naturally because Lu Yuan had used soul techniques to completely strip away the True Spirit consciousness of True Monarch Huanglong from the Nascent Soul.

Causing this result was not something he uniquely created. In fact, before the Corpse Demon Catastrophe, there were extremely tyrannical demonic path great cultivators who would ambush righteous Nascent Soul True Monarchs, capture their Nascent Souls, and after using cruel means to wipe away the True Spirit consciousness within, they could use secret methods to refine the blank-consciousness Nascent Soul into their own Second Yuan Ying, greatly increasing their Supernatural Power and means.

What Lu Yuan is using now is actually a similar method.

"Finally finished half of it."

The day and night of Soul Absorption to conquer the memories consumed Lu Yuan greatly in all aspects. Although he was extremely exhausted, he looked at the Nascent Soul in his hand, which had lost all its intelligence, with eyes full of joy:

"Next is to see if the cloning Supernatural Power can be effective on this Nascent Soul."

Having said that.

He first took a Pill and sat in meditation to regulate his breath. After recovering for a long time, he faced the blank Nascent Soul and cast Dharma spells:

"Lingbao Heavenly Venerable, soothe the body and form. Disciple's soul, five viscera mysterious darkness."

That's right, Lu Yuan's true plan was to completely refine True Monarch Huanglong, this master of the Immortal City, into a cloning, thereby taking control of the entire Longshan Immortal City and becoming the master behind the scenes of the Immortal City!!