Chapter 713: Reunion with Heaven and Earth

"No...""No!! How is this possible?!"

Brand, maintaining his massive alchemical array, watched in disbelief as millions of souls, on the verge of being condensed and refined, began to break free from his control. His eyes widened in shock.

As the master of the Path of the Witch God, Brand understood human souls intimately. Souls were ethereal, existing in another dimension to some extent. Without special methods, the human eye couldn't even perceive them.

Even the most powerful individuals in life possessed no strength as souls after death. Therefore, Brand's alchemy essentially controlled souls through pain, forcing them to converge and contort themselves.

But now, these souls were breaking free from his control?

The absurdity of this situation, in Brand's eyes, was akin to cured meat about to be cooked suddenly reanimating, growing wings, and flying out the window.

"The souls' suffering has been purified... Damn it! Is it that song? What in the world is that thing?!"

Brand was almost frantic. He frantically poured his mental energy into the alchemical array. The red lightning streaking through the sea of souls grew denser, attempting to intensify the pain and drag the souls back.

The souls, which had begun to dissipate, were now frozen in place, calm one moment, twisted the next, as if two massive hands were wrestling in the invisible void.

*Crack—*

Red lightning flashed repeatedly, fully illuminating the souls beneath the sky. All survivors in the main city instinctively held their breath at this sight.

Then, their gaze fell upon the red-robed actor ascending to the heavens.

Chen Ling's gaze was calm.

He ascended to the clouds using Cloud Steps; he spread his voice across the entire city with True Words; he soothed the pain of all souls with the Requiem, freeing them from the alchemical shackles and returning them to the world.

He had already employed three of the four fundamental secret arts learned from the Ancient Opera Trove... and Chen Ling's reserves extended beyond these.

This was Chen Ling's first time singing the Requiem in actual combat, but the moment he uttered the first line, he seemed to grasp something profound. The weeping clouds in reality resonated with the words of the song, and a familiar sensation surged within him.

Chen Ling took a deep breath, recalling the scene in the Aurora Realm where his second senior sister, Luan Meige, sang the Requiem to soothe millions of souls who had frozen to death.

He flicked his red sleeve, and his figure gradually overlapped with that of his second senior sister at that moment. Two distinctly different timbres resonated simultaneously from his throat.

"O, weeping people,"

"Please gently close your eyes..."

With a flick of his sleeve, he stirred the heavens!

Although Chen Ling did not use any substantial attacks, under the enhancement of this secret art, his mental strength had reached an unprecedented peak. The resonance with the souls was extreme; purely concerning the Requiem, he was in no way inferior to any of his senior brothers and sisters who mastered the Sheng, Dan, Jing, or Mo roles.

The moment these two lines of the song rang out, all the souls confined beneath the clouds seemed to have their ethereal shackles shattered by a sword, utterly transcending the mortal world.

*Bzzzz—!!*

The struggle in the void concluded with the collapse of the alchemical array.

The next moment, the ocean formed by millions of gathered souls, illuminated by the lingering red lightning, surged towards the crimson opera robe, appearing from afar like a magnificent and vast current that engulfed Chen Ling.

*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—*

Countless souls brushed past Chen Ling, making his crimson opera robe flutter.

Aided by the red lightning, Chen Ling could see faces wet with tears, casting grateful glances at him. These were ordinary people burned, torn apart, and buried alive in the war; they were mothers, fathers, children, and common folk.

Among them, Chen Ling recognized a few familiar faces: the reluctant Yang Muquan, the abstract-faced Second Temple, and even a member of the Witchcraft Association who had been squashed to death by the Shadow Toad during the recent melee.

Their expressions varied, but all of them, carried by the torrent of souls, swept past him like a gust of wind, finally dissipating without a trace.

At the very back of the sea of souls, Chen Ling saw a familiar figure.

It was a girl in an elegant long dress, holding a small leather suitcase with both hands in front of her, scurrying over as if a bit flustered.

Perhaps due to her being a soul, Chen Ling couldn't clearly see her face; only when red lightning occasionally flashed could he vaguely discern a hint of a familiar outline.

Unlike the other souls, she didn't simply sweep past Chen Ling but gently paused.

Chen Ling didn't know if she was speaking, only that time seemed to slow down during those brief seconds. The girl raised her translucent, jade-like hand, reached for Chen Ling's wrist, and gently caressed the blood-stained golden bracelet.

Chen Ling didn't dodge, merely gazing at where her eyes would be. After a long silence, he softly sang:

"When twilight falls in the darkest age,"

"I shall promise you the dawn and the blue sky."

Hearing the last two lines of the song, the girl's form trembled slightly.

The corners of her lips curved upward, as if she were smiling... Then, with both hands, she lifted her flowing skirt and bowed deeply to Chen Ling, as if in thanks and farewell.

Then, she gently stepped forward, and a gust of wind, like a tender hand, brushed past Chen Ling's cheek before she vanished without a trace.

*Bang—!!*

The instant the last wisp of soul-wind dispersed, the already crumbling Fourth Wall around Chen Ling finally emitted a crisp burst and completely shattered into nothingness.

In that moment, long-lost emotions surged like a tide, wildly sweeping into Chen Ling's mind.

In a daze, he saw people in the throes of war, collapsing in despair; he saw angry fire rain pouring down like an apocalypse; he saw some returning to the mortal world without hesitation; he saw others fighting in a sea of blood; he saw some battling valiantly under their ancestors' banners... All that he had once not understood, all that he had once observed with indifference, returned with the surge of the soul-wind.

These emotions, like a flood after a dam's collapse, overlapped and crashed against Chen Ling's mind.

When he finally regained his senses, tears streamed down his face.

The gentle breeze slowly ceased...

Two million suffering souls finally returned to the world.

The crimson lightning no longer flashed, and the alchemical array among the clouds had vanished. Beneath the deathly still dark clouds, only a solitary crimson opera robe remained standing.

But the next moment, winds surged and clouds churned!!

The pressure of an Eighth-tier being, like a mountain descending from the sky, carrying immense rage and killing intent, crashed down with a bolt of crimson lightning into the void before Chen Ling!

Brand's eyes were bloodshot. He clenched his fists, glaring at Chen Ling as if he wanted to devour him alive.

"You... seek death???"