Beside the Nether River in Yellow Springs Purgatory.
Qin Lie, who had completely turned into a Lord of the Abyss, stood tall like a brown mountain.
The calm Nether River suddenly raged due to his arrival.
"Woo woo wooo!"
Billions of phantoms and ghosts screamed as though they were cheering.
The ear-piercing sounds could pass into any soul, and rid it of life, causing it to become one of the many dead souls of the Nether River. That was their unique power..
Like a mountain, Qin Lie's deep purple eyes flashed with intimidating light. At this moment, the influence from the God Race’s Flesh Filling Tombstone had already weakened, causing his body to no longer emit faint presence of the God Race.
"Whoosh whoosh!"
The water of the Nether River rose in increasingly vast waves.
"Poof!"
Qin Lie's eyes were bright as he fell toward the Nether River.
A moment later, half of his enormous body was in the Nether River.
Only his head wasn’t submerged. The savage light in his eyes grew brighter.
"Zzt zzt!"
Purple lightning flew out of his eyes like the bloodline crystal chains that appeared in his blood.
The chain-like purple lightning fell into the Nether River like crystal tentacles.
A strange suction force pulled at the Nether River through the crystal lightning.
The billions of phantoms and ghosts in the black Nether River cheered in happiness.
Dots of minuscule purple light flashed from hidden places deep in the Nether River.
Yet when the purple lightning coming out of his eyes displayed its attractive force, those miniscule specks of light were attracted.
The specks flashed like small schools of fish to gather from all over the Nether River.
Each purple light was imprinted with a fragment of the art capable of wielding the power of the dead souls, and scattered secret inheritances of various Lords of the Abyss.
The purple lights were sucked in Qin Lie's eyes after being attracted by the lightning and merged into the purple crystal inside Qin Lie's Soul Altar.
.
The purple crystal came from Xillin and was the core of the secrets of dead souls hidden in the Profound Yin Nether Sea of Nether Realm.
The originally quiet Nether River started to roil as he absorbed the fragmented secrets.
He used his bloodline to stir up the waters of the Nether River.
It seemed that gathering the fragmented dead souls’ power in the Nether River was really taxing on him.
When his bloodline had been at rank eight, he didn’t have enough power so he couldn't obtain anything from this Nether River.
When he reached rank nine bloodline, he completely turned into a Lord of the Abyss, and killed several other Lords of the Abyss, he seemed to gather enough power.
"Whoosh whoosh!"
Many purple lights were attracted to the purple lightning in his eyes. The lights rained into his Soul Altar's purple crystal.
The finger-sized crystal seemed to grow bigger after those lights merged in.
At this time, Qin Lie was like a piece of petrified stone, his gaze emotionless.
He seemed to be passively accepting all this.
The purple crystal that merged into his Soul Altar seemed to urge him to gather all the scattered secrets.
Over on the other side of Nether River.
Lawton, Daley, and Afra shone with light as they gathered the dense Abyss Devil energy.
They were digesting the hearts of the Lords of the Abyss.
Not long ago, they imprisoned the five Lords of the Abyss with "Nine Purgatories" and passed through the Nether River.
They successfully seized the hearts of the Lords of the Abyss who had been fully consumed by the dead souls and fiends of Nine Purgatories.
With these, they were busy increasing their power.
They attempted to break through to rank ten as soon as possible, as only as Great Lords of the Abyss would they be able to fight their fate.
They knew they could only have a breakthrough to rank ten bloodline when the God Race was invading and the Yellow Springs Monarch had no attention to spare for them.
This was their only chance.
However, high rank Abyss Devils like them did not have an easy way to reach rank ten even with ample energy in the five hearts.
Other than enough bloodline power, they had to comprehend the core power of their bloodline when reaching rank ten.
They must have a deep understanding of the secrets of dead souls in order to use the energy to successfully become Great Lords of the Abyss.
It clearly was not an easy matter to gain deep comprehension of the dead souls in such short time frame.
So as they digested the hearts, they grew restless, afraid their father would find a moment to find and kill them.
"Something is strange with the Nether River!"
Afra suddenly stood up and looked at the roiling Nether River with surprise.
Daley opened his eyes and felt. He said, "I can hear the phantoms in the Nether River cheering."
"Other than the three of us, I fear only Father and that person are unaffected by the power of the Nether River in Yellow Springs Purgatory and able to control the souls of the Nether River." Lawton looked into the sky and said with a dark expression, "If Father had time to spare, he would immediately act against us, and ignore the change in the Nether River. Then this abnormality must have been caused by that person."
"Let me look," Afra said.
Her fingers tapped the Nether River lightly.
A black stream of water flew out of the Nether River and burrowed around her fingers like a snake.
Afra used her bloodline latent ability. Light flashed through her eyes as though numerous dead souls were undergoing reincarnation.
A beat later, Afra's body shook. She shouted, "He is gathering the dead souls’ secrets that had been hidden in the Nether River!"
Lawton and Daley were shocked.
"How is it possible? Not even Father can gather the fragmented secrets. How can he do it?" Daley didn't believe it.
"It is possible," Lawton said.
Daley and Afra looked suddenly towards him.
"I went to other purgatories, and heard that one needs a special item to gather the fragmented secrets in the Nether River." Lawton took a deep breath and said, "I do not know what that special item is. I only know when the Abyss Master died, that item was mysteriously lost outside the realm. Father has occasionally traveled to find that item but he has never found any clue. Because he lacked that item, he was unable to gather the secrets scattered in the Nether River."
"You say that that person has something that Father has always wanted?" Afra said in surprise.
Daley's eyes shone suddenly with greed.
"It is possible," Lawton said.
"If we steal that item, maybe we reach rank ten bloodline!" Daley flew towards the Nether River.
Afra also realized and said, "We can fight for it!"
She also charged toward Nether River as though she had completely forgotten how terrifyingly powerful Qin Lie had become and that he had killed Dabinett.