How Much For Your Soul?

Shen Yue had spent the last few days training with his new demon spirits. With his upgraded eyesight thanks to his cat eyes perk, he was able to react fast enough to counter most of his training partners moves. Now that he could integrate with high-level demon spirits, he was able to counter most of the attacks directed at him with ease.

Without any prior fighting experience, Shen Yue had been using his time in the spacial realm to improve his combat experience. He also planned to use his trip to the Heavenly Fate Plateau to kill demon beasts to train himself in live combat. Training with a friend in a controlled environment was completely different from a savage beast hell-bent on tearing your throat out.

During his relaxing days in Glory City, he had also been mulling over the problem of how to banish the slapper yet still keep the child growing inside of her. The first problem was her not killing it outright as soon as she found out, which must be very soon. Shen Yue was not sure if cultivators experience morning sickness, but if they do, she would be starting to show signs.

The best plan he could come up with was using public sentiment to force her not to abort the child. If she did anything to the baby after the City found out about it, the discovery would destroy her already tattered reputation. With Nie Li thinking it was his, and her parents wanting an heir, it should be enough to stay her hand. Otherwise, she would face dire repercussions. Funnily enough, the outcry of a thirteen-year-old having a baby paled in comparison to a girl aborting her child, especially a noble!

With his minions given the order to disseminate rumours throughout the City, he was ready to leave on his hunting trip. Most of his men had already headed to the plateau in preparation for the hunt, so it was just a small team that headed out in the morning. As a peak 5-star legend, Shen Yue was not too worried about injury from low-level beasts. Even though they were physically larger with teeth and claws, his cultivation technique made him impervious to harm from anything below the rank of legend.

This hampered his life or death fighting experience, but let's face it, you would have to be a complete retard to actually put yourself into a life or death situation in the first place! What are you exactly hoping to achieve? The knowledge that you could survive overwhelming odds? Forcing yourself to squeeze out all your potential? It was conveniently overlooked just how many people actually survived this training regime. How about just training harder and bringing a gun to a knife fight!

Shen Yue thought it was absurd that so many protagonists threw themselves into danger to achieve breakthroughs or training benefits. He was a blue-collar slob that had only been in a few bar fights before, there was no way he was going to put himself in a shitty situation just to train! Although it would put him at a disadvantage when fighting the beserker nutjobs inhabiting this universe, Shen Yue much preferred fighting smarter than like a retarded lemming, charging into battle.

With his aversion to killing dulled from the massacre at the Sacred Family, Shen Yue found it easier to fight and kill. The terrifying beasts trying to rip him apart took getting used to though. It was certainly an eye-opener when he faced his first demon beast.

His men faced him off against a bronze ranked Giant Blue Armed Ape, but gave the restriction that he was unable to use weapons. With the assurance that there was no possible way for him to be harmed, he fought against the massive ape barehanded.

The Giant Blue Armed Ape howled with rage, before charging towards Shen Yue in a lumbering gallop. With his legend strength and speed, it was easy to dodge the seemingly slow swings of its massive fists, but Shen Yue was urged to feel what an attack would feel like. Forcing himself to ignore his reflex to dodge, he braced himself and was struck by a fist the size of a car tyre.

Shen Yue was expecting to be launched backwards by the blow, but somehow, only slid back slightly, feeling no pain at all from a hit that would cripple an average adult! After receiving the first blow, Shen Yue continued to block the fists that were striking at him as the enraged ape continued its frenzied assault. Losing his fear, Shen Yue started to fight back and attacked with a heavy right hook against an incoming fist.

His hand looked tiny compared to the Giant Blue Armed Ape's fist, but he was shocked when they collided. With a loud crunch, the ape's fist exploded in a shower of gore as Shen Yue's fist continued forward destroying up to its elbow! Shen Yue nearly lost his balance as there seemed to be no resistance to his punch.

Shen Yue was astounded as he stared at his blood covered fist in awe while the massive ape was howling in agony. Sick of the noise, Shen Yue jumped up and punched it in the head, bursting it like a melon. After his first fight, he was covered head to toe in gore and wondering how he had not killed everything he touched before! Looking up he saw Shen Tzu approaching with a smile on his face.

Shen Tzu was from the Sacred Family and had been arranged by Shen Xiu to train Shen Yue in combat. He was her teacher when she was younger and was a peak gold rank expert before he joined Shen Yue's team, now he was a Heavenly Fate expert. Shen Tzu had been experienced in fighting both humans and demon beasts. He had been training Shen Yue ever since the takeover, encouraging him to take hits to lose his fear of injury.

As an average human from Earth, Shen Yue was averse to being pummeled in a fight and tended to retreat or guard against attacks in fear of bodily harm. When Shen Tzu came onto the scene, this was quickly overcome with the same strategy as the fight with the ape just now. After taking a few hits and getting used to the flow of a fight, Shen Yue had soon learnt to hit back.

This wasn't to say that he was taught to disregard hits as he dished out attacks of his own. No, he was taught to fight smart and identify weaknesses instead of just striking out blindly. This training was just to conquer his fear and discover the power and resilience of his body. Unfortunately, he had always fought against opponents with the same or higher strength!

"What happened? Why did I not move when an obviously heavier beast attacked, and how did it explode?" Shen Yue questioned his combat instructor. He was baffled by the easy win, he didn't even integrate with his demon spirit!

"It's because of your body's toughness and the use of soul force. The reason why you didn't fly away when the ape hit you, is because you reinforced yourself with soul force. If you didn't, you would certainly have been sent flying even if you didn't take any damage." Shen Tzu replied.

"But when I spar with the men, they never explode from my attacks!" Shen Yue asked dumbfounded. Seeing his attacks destroy the ape had shaken his ability to touch things without them turning to dust!

Shen Tzu sighed, this new master of his was incredibly naive of his power.

"Again, using soul force either as an attack or in defence negates the laws of mass! Such an immense attack from a beast five times your size would usually crush you, but with the use of your internal energy, it was easily defeated. How do you think the human race has survived when our enemies are all physically stronger than us? Your sparring partners have just been able to defend against your attacks, I would not let you fight a newbie as they would be sure to die!" Shen Tzu explained.

Thinking about it, it made a lot of sense. Although he had physically gotten stronger, with the many hours in his personal training realm, he had time to adjust and get used to his new strength. He had never had a reason to use his soul force other than his training sessions, luckily avoiding embarrassing situations of exploding people!

Looking at the blood soaking his clothes, Shen Yue decided to carry on training with demon beasts, as cleaning up would be pointless until he had finished for the day. The next enemy was brought in and the day continued in slaughter.

Two days later, they arrived at the plateau ready to unseal a god. He had fought and killed over a hundred demon beasts in the last two days, his men had even found a black-gold demon beast for him to fight. With the experience from the battles before, the fight had been relaxed. The demon beast's frenzied assault had been more powerful, but under his eyes, it had seemed slow and predictable. The only challenge he could receive was when he sparred with his men, humans were much more cunning and took advantage of any openings he had.

The thousand or so men that he had sent ahead, had camped on the plateau awaiting his orders. After he unsealed Yu Yan, he would need these men to help trap and kill Zhu Long. With a quick check in to make sure his soldiers were ok, the small group headed to the black spring to unseal Yu Yan.

It was an easy trip, as the bullshit Nie Li had to deal with, such as poisonous gas from Black Oil Trees or swampland, was easily bypassed by flying over it! Even if they somehow became poisoned with their levels, their rings were full of antidotes for situations just like this.

Very soon, they reached a precipice with a stream of black water flowing down, creating a waterfall. At the bottom, was a deep pond of pitch black water giving off a terrifying aura. Just before the water, was a platform that had been built by human hands. Nie Li had to abseil down to reach it, but the benefits of being overpowered were that Shen Yue's group could simply float down without any drama.

Upon reaching the bottom, Shen Yue instructed his people to not walk in front of him or interfere at any time. There was three Lighting attribute sealing inscription patterns and six Sacred Flame offensive inscription patterns guarding the entrance to the fire spiritual goddess's resting place. Although Shen Yue had confidence in disabling them, he did not need his men interrupting him at a vital moment and triggering the traps.

The inscription patterns were quite intricate for something in the Tiny World, and Shen Yue was amazed to find this level of inscription safeguarding Yu Yan. With the help of his library, he finished breaking the three sealing inscription patterns after disabling the offensive arrays within an hour. It had been a good test of his abilities since he rarely got to use his inscription knowledge.

When he finished breaking the inscription patterns, the cliff wall started to tremble. The cliff face slowly opened up, unveiling a deep cave full of moisture. Shen Yue was unsure how droplets of water could fall to the ground, converge together and became a stream of water, but this cave managed to do it.

Looking at all the offensive inscription patterns covering the walls, Shen Yue knew it was going to be a bitch to reach Yu Yan.