All Things Are Contracts

Chapter 145: Cause and Effect

Zhanyue felt his entire body submerged in water, jostling along, his mind hazy.

When he regained consciousness, he found himself tied to a wooden frame, bound by chains made of flowing water. Was his captor an expert in water control?

As he opened his eyes, he saw a tall figure in a black robe standing before him, speaking in a deep male voice.

“Don’t move. Don’t struggle.”

“Who are you?” Zhanyue pretended to be panicked.

“Kid, you did well on Ghost Island,” the black-robed figure said.

Zhanyue’s body tensed. The other person knew about his activities on Ghost Island? Was it someone else from there? Mad Blade, who had tried to capture him before, was also someone he had encountered on Ghost Island.

“Sir, let’s talk this over,” Zhanyue pleaded.

“Hehe, you think you disguised yourself well, but you can’t fool us. Those treasures couldn’t be taken out without some ability,” the black-robed man said calmly. “Enough talk.” The man began placing formation flags and strange objects around Zhanyue, clearly setting up a formation.

“I have no obligation to explain your death to you,” the black-robed man was very cautious, unwilling to reveal his identity even with 100% confidence.

“This formation is the Soul-Stealing Memory Search Array? Wasn’t it lost?” the Illumination Goddess was surprised. It seemed this black-robed person wanted to search Zhanyue’s soul to obtain information from his mind.

“Sister, you know this formation?” Zhanyue was surprised. He wasn’t worried about his safety because the Illumination Goddess was nearby.

“I’ve read some formation texts. These special tools are definitely materials for the Soul-Stealing Memory Search Array. This formation will suppress your soul power, allowing him to directly search your memories through your soul,” the Illumination Goddess explained.

“What should we do?” Zhanyue asked urgently.

“Don’t panic. Although the formation text I read didn’t include setup instructions, it did have breaking methods. Let me think… if your soul power is higher than his, you can reverse the formation and obtain his memories instead,” the Illumination Goddess said.

“Uh, how could my soul power possibly be higher than his?” Zhanyue said helplessly.

“Don’t you have me?” the Illumination Goddess thought for a moment. This person’s background was mysterious and related to Ghost Island. This might be the best chance to understand Ghost Island, so she decided not to hold back anymore.

In the depths of Zhanyue’s soul, his own soul was a small, pure white light ball that could take human form if desired. Beside the small light ball was a huge sun, which was the Illumination Goddess’s soul. Due to their contract, they had always shared soul space, though their souls remained independent.

At this moment, the huge sun began to merge with the small light ball. Zhanyue felt a wave of pleasure, an indescribably wonderful feeling. His entire being seemed to ascend, the sun gentle and warm, making him incredibly comfortable.

Soon, the entire sun entered the small sphere, completely hibernating within.

The Illumination Goddess’s feelings were no less intense than Zhanyue’s, but to successfully ambush the man, she endured her shyness. Strictly speaking, this was a higher-level soul union than physical intercourse, though Zhanyue didn’t know this at the moment. Goddess Xixuan naturally wouldn’t point it out. Their souls were now one, ready to counterattack at any time.

Zhanyue’s strained expression was misinterpreted by the black-robed man.

“I haven’t even started yet, and you’re already in such pain? What a coward,” the black-robed man said disdainfully.

However, he didn’t know that Zhanyue was actually suppressing feelings of pleasure, afraid he might cry out in ecstasy. The sensation brought by the Illumination Goddess’s soul was incredibly comfortable, as if his entire being was wrapped in warm cotton, every cell of his body exuding pleasure. This was an experience he had never had before.

“Kid, let me see what benefits you got from Ghost Island,” the black-robed man said, placing a finger on Zhanyue’s brow, then activating the formation to begin the soul search.

However, soon the black-robed man’s eyes became unfocused, as he was unexpectedly backlashed by the formation! For a soul search to succeed, a crucial condition was that one’s soul strength had to far exceed the target’s, even with the formation’s assistance. The black-robed man never imagined that the Illumination Goddess was hiding within Zhanyue at this moment.

“The formation has reversed. Now you’re the butcher and he’s the fish on the chopping block. Quickly search his soul!” the Illumination Goddess urged. Wasn’t this why she had made such a sacrifice? Otherwise, she could have appeared and killed the opponent with a single strike.

“But I don’t know how!” Zhanyue said helplessly.

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to search specifically, just invade his soul directly!” the Illumination Goddess urged. She had already discovered that this black robe wasn’t the main body, but a part of the soul.

“Alright!”

Zhanyue felt countless pieces of information instantly flood into his brain. Unable to search specifically, he obtained what the black-robed man considered the most important information.

On Ghost Island, in a secret chamber, Ghost Shark Elder Meng Ao’s face showed great alarm.

“Not good, the formation has reversed. He’s searching my soul in return!” Meng Ao knew his plan had backfired, but he acted decisively, immediately severing all connections with his external incarnation and abandoning that body. A hundred years of effort, wasted. As he abandoned the external incarnation, the soul fragment in that body returned to the main body, escaping Zhanyue’s continued soul search.

The water chains binding Zhanyue’s limbs instantly dissipated. Zhanyue looked at the fallen black robe on the ground with regret. “The soul search was interrupted.”

“Yes, this black robe was that person’s incarnation. He abandoned it to save himself. How much knowledge did you obtain?” the Illumination Goddess asked. Their souls had now separated.

“Quite a bit. At least I know who he is and why he wanted to capture me,” Zhanyue sat cross-legged, beginning to organize the new information in his mind. The ‘person’ under the black robe had turned into a section of purple divine wood, clearly no ordinary object.

In the memories, Zhanyue saw a huge turtle. Its head had been cut off, its limbs bound by massive chains. On its back was a piece of land – the legendary ‘Ghost Island’. The true name of Ghost Island was actually ‘Turtle Island’, named after the island on the divine turtle’s back.

As the memories unfolded, Zhanyue saw a magnificent golden palace deep under the sea, all its structures incredibly huge. Inside the palace, countless Ghost Shark clan members were busy working. Deep within the palace was an exceptionally powerful aura that the memory’s owner both respected and feared greatly.

“Is this the Ghost Shark clan’s lair? That aura is terrifying, even… even not inferior to sister’s. The Ghost Shark clan has such formidable foundations,” Zhanyue pondered.

Then, the memories took him above the sea surface to a vast, boundless world – a world not belonging to the Myriad Spirits Realm.

“This… is this the real world?” Zhanyue knew he was seeing the world outside the Myriad Spirits Realm, the complete world. The Myriad Spirits Realm was just a remote corner of this complete world.

In the memories, Zhanyue also obtained a cultivation technique called “External Incarnation”, as it was one of the Ghost Shark elder’s deepest memories. However, when he tried to search further, it suddenly stopped, yielding nothing more.

Zhanyue looked at the mysterious purple wood on the ground, revealing a smile. “The difficulty in cultivating an external incarnation isn’t the technique itself, but the materials for the incarnation. This Ghost Shark elder’s hundred years of effort has ultimately benefited me, haha.”

“Don’t be too happy yet. Aren’t you afraid of his revenge?” the Illumination Goddess reminded.

“Sister, you don’t know. He violated the so-called Patriarch’s rules by secretly coming out with an external incarnation. Now that I know many of his memories, which are secrets the Ghost Shark clan absolutely cannot reveal, if this gets out, he’ll be the first to die without a burial place. I think he can only swallow this bitter pill and pretend nothing happened. After all, outsiders don’t know he cultivated an external incarnation, and his main body never left Ghost Island. Any leak from Ghost Island would be unrelated to him.”

“Is that so? Quickly tell me, what did you learn?” The Goddess was extremely curious about Ghost Island, otherwise she wouldn’t have let Zhanyue take such a great advantage.