The woman’s voice lingered in hesitation before letting out a sigh and saying, “Several years ago while your majesty slept, the prince had sent his incarnation to the surface, intending on drawing the power of moonlight in order to refine the treasure. But just as he was about to conduct the master recognition ceremony, a group of mortals suddenly intruded from the outside. Because the prince was absorbing the power of moonlight, a majority of the palace’s restrictions remained dormant. As a result, the cultivators went as far as to intruding upon the prince’s main room. Helpless, the prince could only temporarily halt the ceremony and activate the corpse puppets to help dispose of the cultivators. However, one of them was rather clever and had seen through the prince’s ident.i.ty as a corpse monarch and immediately pleaded to be placed under any restriction in exchange for his life. The prince saw some potential in taking him in and placed him under the restriction.”

“And what does this have to do with the vajra relic?” The middle-aged man’s voice asked impatiently.

“Please calm yourself, your majesty,” the woman hurriedly explained, “The point is that the old man gave the prince an idea. The old man said that he would be able to easily collect the primal souls of cultivators from the outside world. There would be no need for us to go through the effort of looking for them ourselves.”

“Oh? Tell me how he would do this!” The middle-aged man’s voice said with a curious tone.

“It’s quite simple. That person mentioned that the prince should hand over a rare strange treasure over to him and hide a strand of spiritual sense inside of it. Afterwards, he would sell the item to lone vagrant cultivators and lure them to take the initiative to find the prince’s tomb.

Naturally, this would be leading them to their own demise, but in case they don’t go to the tomb, the prince’s thread of spiritual sense will find an opportunity to activate the hidden restrictions on the treasure, exterminating the person who is holding it and trapping their soul in the treasure before being brought back to the tomb. However, the treasure must be rarely ever seen and we would have to completely conceal any trace of the prince’s spiritual sense thread or the corpse flame it contains, or else it would be all for nothing.”

The middle-aged man coldly interrupted, “There is no need to continue. Surely the prince handed over the vajra relic over to this old man before the treasure was refined to recognize the prince as its master. It is only with the relic’s Buddhist nature that the prince was able to conceal the corpse Qi.”

“That’s right, it is truly as your majesty thinks. Because once the prince is recognized as its master, the vajra relic would no longer be able to conceal the corpse Qi and given the large number of cultivator souls that the prince currently requires, he took the risk and handed it over. However, I intentionally instructed the old man to not provoke any cultivators above Core Formation stage and risk having others see through the act, and over the past few years, we’ve had many cultivators delivered to us without mishaps, but now it appears that person has disobeyed, causing the treasure to be seized and the prince’s thread of spiritual sense to be destroyed. We’ll later activate the restriction on this person’s primal soul and properly interrogate him.”

The middle-aged man coldly snorted and said, “How many cultivator souls did you acquire in this minor scheme? I already have General Ge scheming something. Once he is done, we will have a steady supply of cultivator souls delivered to us. There will be no further need to lure those cultivators in.”

“Is that the reason why your majesty brought General Ge outside a few years ago and returned alone?” The woman said with shock.

“Yes. General Ge is now impersonating someone, controlling a cultivator clan, and having them work for us. In order to conceal himself, General Ge even manipulated an alliance of clans to exterminate a clan of Buddhist origins. The Buddhist clan elders saw that something was amiss and wanted to inform a nearby Buddhist sect, but I personally exterminated their Core Formation cultivators. Then, General Ge led the other cultivator clans to ma.s.sacre the rest of their members.” The man’s voice sinisterly chuckled with a trace of satisfaction.

With a tone of shock, the woman said, “Then your majesty’s plan is...”

“Hehe! This isn’t anything complicated; you were bound to figure this out sooner or later. This was an idea that the Heavenwind Monarch of Fangjian Mountain gave me when he last visited. He had done the same and had yet to be discovered. So long as we are careful, we’ll have no worry for cultivator souls in the next three hundred years. Even if things go awry, we can simply move the tomb and make ourselves scarce. Apart from a few old eccentrics in the Great Jin, who could possibly stop me?”

“The Heavenwind Monarch? He definitely isn’t a simple character. Why would he tell such a secret to your majesty? Could it be he is scheming something?” The woman’s voice now held a tone of worry.

“A scheme? Of course, he was scheming something!” The middle-aged man angrily said, “He took away three Heartblood Pills as payment for what he told me!”

“Even so, I still feel ill at ease over the matter. There is nothing good to be said about Fangjian Mountain’s Devil Pair. Perhaps he wants to lure your majesty away from the tomb! Since our three souls are fused together with the tomb, there are few that would be able to defeat us so long as we remain inside it.” The woman said with a trace of worry.

The middle-aged man’s voice paused for a moment and then he solemnly said, “Beloved concubine, your words are reasonable and I’ll take action to prevent this. Whenever I leave, I will fully activate the restrictions on the tomb and will be careful when I travel. Neither will I allow the Devil Pair to know when I leave the tomb.”

“It will be fine so long as you are careful, your majesty,” the woman’s voice suddenly turned sweet, “In truth, there should be no reason for your majesty to personally take action. You can simply leave the matter over to me or your incarnations. After all, so long as your majesty is safe, I will be glad to encounter any formidable enemy.”

“Hehe! You might not know this but for this plan to work, I require all the n.o.ble clans of the Guanning Prefecture to be under my control,” the middle-aged man patiently explained to the woman, “When I last left, I had to deal with that Eccentric Kong without damaging his body. As such, I was lightly wounded and didn’t continue to involve myself. And while the other two n.o.ble clans didn’t have any Nascent Soul cultivators, they did come from unordinary backgrounds. They possess several rare treasures that are effective against heretics like ourselves. I reckon that the two clans had been established by their originating sects in an attempt to monitor me. But since I was dormant for over a thousand years, they had forgotten about me and I am now able to take care of all of them in one go. When these sects discover me and take action, several years will have already pa.s.sed and I will have broken through to the next realm with the aid of those cultivator souls, allowing me to refine a heavenly corpse body.”

“Then I must congratulate your majesty ahead of time. After refining a heavenly corpse body, your majesty will no longer be confined to this tomb.” The woman said with a happy tone.

The middle-aged man chuckled and said, “When the time comes, I will be able to cast a technique to free your soul and the prince’s from this tomb.”

“Your majesty, you must also remember we still have to find that vajra relic,” the woman reminded, “It is a valuable treasure that will be capable of turning you invulnerable for a short amount of time. Don’t forget that old monk when released his crystal relic, it took your majesty three days of corpse fire before he could exhaust the relic’s golden light and kill the monk within. Now that the relic has been turned into a vajra barrier, I fear its might will be even greater.”

“Beloved concubine, are you confused? The vajra barrier is something that only corpse monarchs at the age of ten thousand years are able to refine. It isn’t possible for human cultivators. And besides me, the only other ten-thousand-year-old corpse monarch is the Myriad Demon Valley’s Primeval Corpse Xiong. Human cultivators wouldn’t dare to go there. So long as the Myriad Demon Flag is present in the valley, I fear that none of the great righteous and devilish sects would dare to go near it.” The middle-aged man sneered.

“That is true! However, that rare treasure is extremely suitable to us. After it is made clear who acquired this treasure, let’s send men to reclaim it.” The woman gloomily said.

“Yes, even if you didn’t say it, I would’ve done it regardless. But since that person noticed the prince’s thread of spiritual sense in the vajra barrier, they must be unordinary. Once the whereabouts of the treasure are found, I will send two of my incarnations to fetch it. So long as he isn’t a mid-Nascent Soul cultivator, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I... I also... want to go!” The tall silhouette wrapped in black Qi suddenly broke his silence.

“How are you supposed to go out?” The middle-aged man’s voice turned sullen and he coldly rebuked him, “You aren’t able to withdraw the corpse Qi in your body. Any cultivator will be able to see through your true nature. Speak less rubbish and quickly enter the coffin to cultivate.”

The large silhouette grew depressed after seeing this and simply waved his furry green arm into the distance before lying down, but his eyes then pierced through the black Qi as they glowed crimson as if out of anger.

The stone coffin lid then flew back from the ground and sealed the coffin once more.

...

Over a thousand kilometers away, Han Li couldn’t have known that killing that meager thread of spiritual sense would provoke such a large problem. He was currently staring at the Weeping Soul Beast inside of the golden bubble as his expression wavered.

And at that same moment as Jin Yuan returned to his own room, his entire body was ablaze in grey flames and instantly blew away into the air as ash. His primal soul remained unharmed inside the flames but it was clearly struck with terror. Soon, he felt as if he were dragged by something, and his primal soul was wrapped in a ball of grey flames before shooting through the half-open window in his room, only to completely disappear without a trace.