An Ethereal Soul Realm was a remarkably mystic concept in the world. It was something that he had in fact not properly seen in action within the context of the story that he had read.

Chu Xuan did not possess one after all, and the ancient nether demoness did not volunteer the explanations of it.

Ouyang Qianye had only encountered the information about it because of spoilers. From those spoilers, because he could not contain his curiosity about the existence of such a thing he had decided to just give in to himself and read more about it.

The ethereal soul realm was an exceptional anomaly amongst the types of the soul seas, a mutation.

One’s soul sea, as a concept, no matter how one cultivated, never should change, after all it was woven into the fabric of their spiritual existence.

Cultivation of the soul did not change the soul sea. It developed and matured it, and the soul core, soul body and consciousness that it housed.

To attempt change it demanded a fundamental reconstruction of every modicum of your soul’s existence and even then, it would only become a different soul sea. That was the case of what happened in the overwhelming majority of those who attempted to develop a soul transfiguration.

It was such a near certainty that for anyone that truly understood the soul sea mutations that existed, let alone attempting to induce an ethereal soul realm, they did not even bother attempting with the others.

However, there were always deviations to the rules, and he happened to be one of them.

At the same time that he had been entertaining her conversation, stalling for time to think about his next course of action, Qianye had been filibustering so that he could understand and connect with his ethereal soul realm better after seeing that he possessed one—something that he realised before she had mentioned it.

Anyone without the appropriate knowledge would have not understood the implications of possessing such a mutation.

His apparent ignorance on how to heal his crippled body, and the fact he was only a mortal despite his soul, created a contrast that told anyone that did understand such intricacies that while he might have this extraordinary true soul sea and some understanding of divine races, he was ultimately ignorant to wider nuances of the world.

However, he, by the graces of being an outlier to what should have been conventional, understood why she had been so evasive and quick to negotiate.

Qianye’s body, through time that felt as if it stretched extremely long, gradually fell limp.

His soul body at some point, could no longer keep up the regeneration that his ethereal soul realm afforded it.

His bloodfall lessened and fell thinner. His body remained clutched in her maw, being drank dry of its blood, and her wings embraced them in a cocoon that was skewered by millions of red spears.

Within her fallen winged cocoon, their blood collected, drowning them in its golden red mixture, and her crimson eyes glowed brighter with each passing moment.

He could no longer attempt to scream in agony only to cough more blood. His soul body had been reduced to a desiccated shadow of itself.

His hair had long fallen off, and those eyes, hardly more than the hollows of a long dead skull gradually withered from their amethyst shine. Each faint, gurgle for breath rippled his thin sheets of cheek skin, ripping them free from the bone they had pressed to only for the blood to braze them back

And in this wilting, Qianye cracked through the leaves of skin that remained, bleeding trickles to draw a feral, fallen and shining grin, right as the mixture of golden, red blood sank all that remained of him beneath it.

Beyond the cocoon, the white ocean surged feverishly, thrashing seismic tsunamis against it. The mist writhed and droned like millions of starving locusts drawn to fields.

Then, suddenly, it began to gather with the urgency of the damned escaping death.

The swirls of red and white diffused through the mist, coalescing into large, streamlined forms. Part way through their manifestations, before they were entirely solid, the thousands of giant koi fish of myriad patterns of red and white opened their mouths wide and an extreme suction began.

The crashing waves died down, the red spears drew back to the flowers carpeting the calming sea. Then, brutally, the fallen winged cocoon was torn apart, feathers being drawn into thousands of directions.

The golden-red blood ball burst and was drawn as well into the now physically tangible koi.

And simultaneously, the ancient nether demonesses soul body, wide eyed, was mutilated by the suction. Within fractions of the moment, she was had been off of his body, chunks of her flesh, blood and black skeleton were drawn into the myriad koi fish’s wide maws.

Qianye’s body was released to fall, and the thick mist carried his shrivelled soul body, gradually and carefully lowering him until he laid resting over the bed of blood flowers and their white ocean.

The soul realm began to quake, and his soul body flashed between solidity and translucency.

At the same time, cracks began to spread throughout it.

He could feel it, that familiar, encroaching cold, as the light of his amethyst eyes faded, watching the koi settle as their forms as well-developed cracks. He had managed to kill her and win the battle, however, he had ultimately lost the war.

His soul, and ethereal soul realm, were collapsing.

And yet, although faint, blood choked through his throat, barely releasing the wisps of a laugh.

How could he not? Even if she had been severely weakened through hundreds of thousands of years being sealed in an artifact designed to erode at her soul, regardless of the fact that she had weakened herself even more seriously to break through those extraordinary seals to invade his ethereal soul realm in attempt to take over his body, he had won against her!

How could he not feel triumphant and glorious?!

And yet at the same time, the fact remained that he was dying.

The most luminous stars burnt the shortest, and thus, despite his consternation, he could say with certainty, that he had enjoyed his flash fire.

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