Grand Ancestral Bloodlines
chapter-1935

Old Wan hardly had the time to react before he was completely taken off guard. He didn't even have the time to register the pain either before a black box within his spatial ring began to tremble wildly.

His expression changed.

This black box wasn't just a normal item; it was one of the treasures that he received from the Taboo Sect he happened upon the legacy of. It was known simply as the Soul Box.

The Soul Box was made of a special material that had long gone extinct, mostly because it had been wiped out along with the Soul Reaper Sect.

The material was known as Reaper Spirit Iron and it had two main functions.

The first was that the first soul it came into contact with, it was capable of replicating the fluctuations of and becoming an eighth Corporeal Soul and the fourth Incorporeal Spirits at the same time.

Essentially, it was like giving one's souls one extra life-saving grace, though it wasn't exactly like that. After all, each one of the seven Corporeal Souls and three Incorporeal Spirits had their own function. Losing one didn't necessarily mean that the others would step into their place like what had happened with Ryu.

However, with the special techniques of the Soul Reaper Sect, this was made possible.

The second function of this Reaper Spirit Iron was to form the Land of the Reaper, a plane all to a Soul Reaper's own where they could gather their strength through a secondary land. It was like having a second dantian and a second Spiritual Sea put into one.

It could be said that 90% of the techniques of the Soul Reaper Sect relied on the Reaper Spirit Iron, which was also why it was part of the inheritance in the first place.

This was the same with a lot of Taboo Sects; they usually had special requirements that their disciples had to meet, otherwise even taking the first step of cultivation would be impossible. The Inheritance that Isemeine and Eska received was the perfect example of this.

One could imagine then just how important this Reaper Spirit Iron was, and how much effort was put into protecting it as a result. Unfortunately, Old Wan had been unwilling to go the full extent needed to protect his own properly because he had to hide the fact that he was following the Legacy of a Taboo Sect.

Under normal circumstances, the Reaper Spirit Iron would be hidden within the body. If one managed to reach a high level of mastery within their cultivation technique, it would even become possible to hide the Reaper Spirit Iron in the same plane of your Spiritual Foundation, making it almost impossible to target directly.

However, doing so would taint your aura. The evil of the Reaper Spirit Iron would grow like a cancerous tumor on your Spiritual Foundation, and eventually it would leak into your Dao and your Qi.

Of course, this was a good thing to the former Reaper Soul Sect… but to Old Wan, until he was strong enough, that was nothing short of a death sentence. It would also expose him to the likes of Aika and the others, and that wasn't something that he could accept just yet.

It could be said that if Old Wan was willing to go so far, his control over the Reaper Spirit Iron would be so great that Ryu would have no choice but to give up on retrieving Hope's soul. Unless he grew to the point of having absolute power, it would simply be an impossible mission. No amount of control Hope had on her Primordial Yin would be enough.

But Ryu, while not knowing much about the Soul Reaper Sect, knew enough thanks to Selheira's mother that he was ensured of his success.

Old Wan could only watch his future crumble apart as the Reaper Spirit Iron cracked.

The material was too weak. It had such special, powerful effects, but it was fragile as a result. This was because it was a material that existed between the Real Plane and Ethereal Plane, making it inherently volatile and unstable.

The moment Ryu locked onto it, and Hope subconsciously followed suit…

CRACK.

Old Wan's expression changed and he moved to rapidly perform hand seals, only to remember that one of his arms was gone.

There wasn't enough time. He couldn't focus his mind fast enough to complete the technique he needed to, especially in the state of shock he was in, if he didn't have both hands to complete seals with.

This time, this wasn't a matter planned by Ryu but was instead a lucky spin. But the truth was that even if Old Wan had both hands, the likelihood of success on his end was pitifully small compared to the prepared Ryu.

CRACK. SHUUU!

At that moment, a beam of light left the Reaper Spirit Iron. Along with it, several more souls began to jet out in all directions, quickly escaping in an attempt to return to reincarnation. Some, however, were so savage that they pounced right for Old Wan.

Old Wan's expression changed once again. This was bad.

There was no time to consider anything else.

His aura pulsed and cast a wide net of suppression, stopping most of the souls from leaking out. Beads of sweat fell from his brows as he realized that this wasn't sustainable.

His jaw set and a cold light flickered in his eyes. He had made many enemies along the way, and with the method that this person had used to target him, they didn't necessarily need to know his identity in order to succeed. That made it harder to tell exactly who it was.

But…

If he had to guess it could only be one.

A boy with a cold set of silver eyes that seemed to stare at him loftily from above regardless of how much higher his cultivation was.

'Forcing me to make this decision… I guess it was about time, anyway.'

Old Wan's eyes flickered and the cracked Reaper Spirit Iron began to move toward his dantian.