The Origin Soul Scripture

It was the 29th day of the lunar month, with only one day left before New Year's Eve.

While Lin Xiao was waiting for the city formation to finish consolidating, the yin energy on Mount Changming had grown so dense that it was thick as ink, filling every nook and cranny deep within the mountain.

Yet under the strict control of Changming, the Tomb Keeper, everything appeared perfectly normal to the outside world.

The only sign that something was amiss was the stone stele at the mountain's entrance, which once bore the three carved characters "Changming Mountain". It was now completely swallowed by swathes of dark, eerie yin energy, a clear signal that the strange changes unfolding within the mountain were still ongoing.

Liao Pantu had lost track of how long he had stayed in this place.

At first, he had only thought that this spot was perfectly suited for cultivating his Soul Refining Art.

During his time on Mount Changming, he did not spend every moment solely on cultivation. He often tended to the grove of soul-nourishing saplings he had planted there.

All of them were still young, and even though they had been set in the soil, they would need quite some time to take firm root in this land.

Cultivating in the middle of this soul-nourishing wood worked in perfect harmony for both Liao Pantu and the trees.

Surrounded by so many soul-nourishing trees that exuded the purest yin energy, the environment was nothing short of ideal for Liao Pantu's practice of the Soul Refining Art.

In turn, the soul power he generated as he cultivated fed back to nurture the saplings.

Add to that the countless wandering dead buried deep within Mount Changming, and the mountain's very own formation that gathered yin energy from all between heaven and earth.

As Liao Pantu spent more and more time cultivating there, and the soul-nourishing saplings slowly took root and grew, a self-sustaining cycle of growth and generation rapidly formed inside Mount Changming.

Liao Pantu felt so at ease and immersed in his cultivation that he was completely spellbound, unable to tear himself away.

He had been sitting in meditation nonstop for this entire period, and his cultivation level was skyrocketing as a result.

This was especially true in recent days.

He could always sense a peculiar, indescribable feeling deep within his soul body.

It was that subtle, tantalizing sensation of something just on the cusp of breaking through, almost there but not quite, that made him feel an urge to venture deeper to explore what lay ahead.

Both the Soul Refining Art and the Original Heart Sutra, which he had known by heart for decades, were circulating at the same time within his soul body, though Liao Pantu did not notice this at the moment.

He felt as if he had wandered into a long, narrow corridor filled with endless black mist, with no end in sight.

Even though there was nothing but pitch blackness stretching out before him, it felt as if something was calling out to him, pulling him closer.

He could not tell if he was floating or stepping forward on solid ground, moving onward in a daze yet with unshakable resolve.

He traveled on like this for who knew how long, until the uniform darkness ahead of him finally shifted, and a blurry outline came into view.

He walked up to the dark shape and made out what it was.

It was a stone coffin.

A stone coffin he knew all too well.

This very stone coffin had sealed and suppressed his soul body for nearly a hundred years.

Though he could not see what lay inside, he could clearly sense the other half of his soul within the coffin, looking back at him through the stone.

Liao Pantu raised his hand and gently brushed the surface of the stone coffin. The seals carved on it suddenly flared to life, a clear reminder that the coffin would never open unless the seals were broken.

He let out a soft sigh.

The half of his soul trapped inside the stone coffin sighed right back at him.

That faint, wispy sound tangled in the surrounding cold, howling winds, and seemed to dissolve into the air.

In the next moment, a streak of golden-glowing yin energy shot out from Liao Pantu's body at lightning speed, heading straight for the stone coffin.

There was a sharp, clear "ding" sound.

The once unbreakable seals on the stone coffin shattered instantly, dissolving into tiny specks of light that scattered into the endless darkness.

Liao Pantu stared at the scene unfolding before him, completely stunned.

The stone coffin's lid, which had been tightly shut all along, was slowly pushed open from within.

The other half of his soul drifted out from the coffin.

Liao Pantu stretched out his hand, and the other wisp of soul also reached out. The moment the two souls made contact, they began to fuse together at a rapid pace.

In the blink of an eye, the two souls merged into one.

Liao Pantu, standing in the enveloping darkness, could feel his soul had finally returned to its peak state—no, it was far more powerful than his peak from all those years ago.

This was the accumulation of each separated wisp of his soul over the nearly hundred years since his soul had been split, not to mention the gains he had made during his years at the Lingxian Sect.

After savoring the long-lost wholeness of his soul for a good while, Liao Pantu suddenly thought of the dark golden light that had shattered the stone coffin's seal so easily a moment earlier.

He lifted his gaze, and spotted that dark golden light had condensed into a black-centered, gold-edged orb, floating quietly in midair.

It seemed to be waiting for him.

He reached out a hand toward the orb.

The moment his fingers made contact, the glowing halo dispersed.

A book with a jet-black cover rested gently in his palm.

Four large golden characters were emblazoned on its surface—*Original Soul Sutra*.

"Original... Soul Sutra?"

Liao Pantu was momentarily confused.

Seeing the scene before him, he quickly recalled what Lin Xiao and the others had told him before, about how Jiang Youfu had brought the *Original Heart Sutra: Immortal Food Chapter* into being.

But this *Original Soul Sutra* of his seemed different from that text.

It did not look like a branch derived from the *Original Heart Sutra* at all.

To resolve his doubts, he did not bother to wonder where exactly he was at the moment. He simply sat cross-legged on the ground and flipped open the *Original Soul Sutra*.

...

He had only read the very first chapter, and he could already confirm that this was definitely not a branch of the *Original Heart Sutra*.

This *Original Soul Sutra* was more like an entirely new cultivation method that had been born from the fusion of the *Original Heart Sutra* and the *Soul Refining Formula*.

What's more, he could tell at a single glance that this cultivation method was far superior to Earth-tier techniques. This was a Heaven-tier cultivation method that belonged to him and him alone.

Liao Pantu felt a joy he had never experienced before.

All of a sudden, in this endless expanse of pitch-black space, the pervasive yin energy howled in from every direction, surging straight into his soul.

He could feel his soul being stretched larger and larger, filled to the brim by the seemingly endless yin energy.

Until there was nothing else in this realm but him.

At some point, the endless dark yin energy all around vanished, leaving only a hazy void, where nothing existed save for himself.

The *Original Soul Sutra* transformed into a streak of golden light and flew back into his body.

Liao Pantu felt his divine soul begin to oscillate.

Streaks of indistinct sounds seemed to come from the edge of the horizon, and at the same time seemed to come from his own sea of consciousness, humming and spreading outward from within, then tightening inward again and again.

He felt as if he had fainted, yet at the same time he was strangely wide awake.

It was as if he was wandering the boundary between two realms: one step to the left, and he would stand atop a towering, steadfast mountain; one step to the right, and he would step into the vast, rolling ocean.

There was no shifting of stars, no sunrise or sunset here.

Everything was progressing and changing, yet he felt as if time itself had ground to a halt.

Then the rumble of thunder came from the distance, shattering this frozen stillness at last.

Liao Pantu lifted his head, and saw that in the firmament above, thunder dragons coiled around auspicious clouds, glowing with searing, dazzling light, appearing out of nowhere.

Across the entire universe, a silent command rang out. Massive bolts of lightning twisted together to form towering pillars, roaring as they charged straight toward him.

Struck by this lightning, he felt no different from a piece of iron waiting to be forged in a blacksmith's hands, hit hard by a single heavy hammer blow.

Once, then again.