The Grand Dark Night Palace was the place of residence of the Dark Kirin, the ruler of the Dark Plane. Without the Dark Kirin’s order, no one would be allowed to casually enter. When Chen Feng arrived at the gate of the palace, two Gold Immortals stopped him. 

Following the increase in his strength, the Dark Kirin’s majesty was also becoming increasingly great. Chen Feng recalled that there were no Gold Immortals guarding the gate when he last left. 

“Let him in. Next time, Longevity Celestial will be allowed to enter and leave as he likes.” The Dark Kirin’s voice rang out and the two Gold Immortals quickly backed away. At the same time, they also revealed an apologetic smile at Chen Feng. 

After entering the palace, Chen Feng was able to swiftly locate the Dark Kirin. Chen Feng was initially shocked to see the Dark Kirin, who was in his original form. His colossal body exuded an impactful and formidable atmosphere of power. The Starlight Overlord Beast, who entered together with Chen Feng, shuddered and a look of dread appeared within his eyes. 

Chen Feng, however, ignored that. His gaze made its way through layer after layer of space to reach the central area of the Dark Plane. There was also a Dark Kirin there. However, this Dark Kirin was much smaller. 

“You stay here,” Chen Feng instructed the Starlight Overlord Beast before swiftly disappearing from sight. 

The Starlight Overlord Beast found a corner and waited obediently. The Dark Kirin before him was simply too terrifying. On the other hand, he was also incapable of going against Chen Feng’s order. Thus, all he could do was to stay there while shaking in his boots.

In truth, Chen Feng himself was feeling somewhat surprised. It had only been a short time since he left, but the Dark Kirin’s strength had risen greatly. But while his fleshly body remained fine, something had happened to his soul. 

Quickly, Chen Feng arrived before the Dark Kirin. Or more accurately, the soul of the Dark Kirin. 

This smaller Dark Kirin was lying on the ground, absorbing the essence power of the Dark Plane non-stop. Even so, Chen Feng could tell that the Dark Kirin was in a weakened state.

“What happened? Who did you fight to become like this?” In Chen Feng’s opinion, the Dark Kirin must have suffered from some injuries while facing some formidable character.

“The Soul Lodge Clan,” the Dark Kirin said calmly. 

“What?! The Soul Lodge Clan?!” Chen Feng cried out in shock before utilizing his eye technique. As expected, there were peculiar strands of energy wriggling within the Dark Kirin’s body. 

“The other party had wanted to take over my body, but was defeated. Only, there are still some remnant streams of energy here.” The Dark Kirin assumed his human form and stood up. 

“I’ll help you!”

Chen Feng extended a finger, which made contact with the Dark Kirin’s glabella. Next, his soul flame entered the Dark Kirin’s body and the Dark Kirin shuddered. The Dark Kirin could feel the remnant streams of energy left behind by the Soul Lodge Clan member disappearing at a furious rate.

Although the Dark Kirin did feel surprised to see that Chen Feng had become so powerful, he knew that this was not the time for that. He complemented Chen Feng’s efforts and they were able to swiftly wipe out the remnant streams of energy from his body. 

Even so, Chen Feng did not stop. His soul flame continued circulating around the Dark Kirin’s body. Chen Feng’s soul flame possessed not just a highly formidable offensive power but also a highly formidable power of life. Under Chen Feng’s control, his soul flame helped hasten the recovery of the Dark Kirin’s weakened soul power.

After some time, Chen Feng retracted his finger. His soul flame also returned to his sea of wisdom. 

“In your shoes, I would have been able to devour the guy’s soul power and make it my own. A pity, you had to fight the other guy all this time. Even though you managed to defeat him, you ended up exhausting a great deal of your soul power.” Chen Feng sighed. While the Dark Kirin had managed to deal with this problem, there was no telling how long it would take before he could replenish his exhausted soul power.

“You know of the Soul Lodge Clan?” Hearing the way Chen Feng talked, the Dark Kirin was able to deduce it. 

“Naturally.” Chen Feng then informed the Dark Kirin about what happened to his eldest brother, Longevity Soul.

“So, that’s how it is. In the past, I only knew about them from the records in the Dark Scripture. However, I never knew they were so powerful. If it weren’t for the fact that I was here in the Dark Plane, where I could borrow the power of the Dark Scripture and the Dark Plane’s essence power, the other party would have succeeded in taking over my body long ago,” the Dark Kirin said, a lingering note of dread in his voice. Since becoming the ruler of the Dark Plane, the Dark Kirin’s strength had been rising swiftly. There were rarely any opponents that could match his strength. This encounter with the Soul Lodge Clan member, however, ended with him taking serious damage. 

“In other words, even someone like you almost fell in the face of their attack. But if the other cultivators were targeted, would they not end up having their bodies taken over?” Chen Feng considered the situation. 

So far, Chen Feng had encountered a total of two members from the Soul Lodge Clan. Longevity Soul’s whereabouts was unknown while the Dark Kirin’s soul was damaged. Additionally, these two characters were experts within the Gold Immortal circle. In Chen Feng’s opinion, with enough members on their side, the Soul Lodge Clan would become a disaster to whichever force it decided to attack. 

“Truth be told, the situation is not as dire. First, the number of people from the Soul Lodge Clan should be limited. Second, I do not believe everyone from the Soul Lodge Clan is an expert. Third, according to some reliable information, the Soul Lodge Clan will not normally attack using their main bodies. Generally speaking, they would mobilize their clones to take control of some weaker cultivators. Unluckily for me and that brother of yours, we had likely ended up encountering the main bodies of some formidable members of the Soul Lodge Clan,” the Dark Kirin said. 

“I also hope that the situation is not that dire, but the Soul Lodge Clan is simply too peculiar. If even characters like us are in danger, what about those below us?” Chen Feng said. 

“That is why I will need to investigate carefully. As it so happens, you are here now. By the way, why did you come?” The Dark Kirin then grew curious. 

“I’m just passing by. I won’t be staying here long.” Chen Feng then gave the Dark Kirin a brief account of the situation in the Celestial Longevity Plane. 

After listening to it, the Dark Kirin sighed. “To think that you would end up encountering so many incidents. Also, I didn’t think that the Immortal Plane would already start attacking the Celestial Planes. More, I never expected the inner affairs of the Celestial Planes to be so messy.”

“There’s no helping it. That said, the Immortal Court may have made a mistake. Although it did get some allies, it is stretching itself somewhat thin. The foundation of our Celestial Planes is quite deep. If we can mobilize a few of our forces, we should be able to overcome this danger. Of course, this is just my personal opinion,” Chen Feng said after a moment’s consideration. 

“I still haven’t managed to stabilize the situation on my end. The number of Slaughterers does not seem to be decreasing. If it weren’t for that, I would be able to help you out.” The Dark Kirin shook his head.  

“It’s fine. We still don’t know what will happen. By the way, what’s the situation in the Demon Plane and the other worlds?”

“It’s around the same as our Dark Plane. Both sides are fighting one another, both sides getting exhausted. The Slaughterers might be able to keep doing this, but we won’t be able to. The reason the Immortal Plane released the Slaughterers is to turn them into cannon fodders to exhaust our strength.”

“That’s the most concerning issue here. The number of Slaughterers is simply too high. I truly wonder how the Immortal Court is able to do this. Or could the stories be true? That the Slaughterers are from another universe entirely? The strength of an entire universe is indeed not easy to deal with, unless the Paramount Gold Immortals take action. However, who can guarantee that the other party does not have Paramount Gold Immortals as well?”

“My current strength is enough for it, but comprehending the grand dao of paramountcy is not that simple. Even the Dark Scripture requires a very long time to make contact with just the edge of the dao of paramountcy. But with my current strength and a geographical advantage, I can face a Paramount Gold Immortal.”

The two of them discussed for a while before taking action. The Dark Kirin first summoned around ten Gold Immortals over. All of them were the descendants of the Dark Kirin. By working together with Chen Feng, they swiftly scanned their souls. They did not find anything that could indicate that the Soul Lodge Clan had taken over their bodies. 

Next, a second batch and a third batch of Gold Immortals were brought over. In the end, they scanned the thousand plus Gold Immortals within Dark Night City. Chen Feng and the Dark Kirin then became perturbed. As expected, they found that two cultivators had lost their bodies to the Soul Lodge Clan. One of them was a human while the other was a unique creature native to the Dark Plane. Seeing as their soul imprints had been completely devoured by the members of the Soul Lodge Clan, the Dark Kirin simply killed them. 

Although they only found two, this meant that the Soul Lodge Clan had begun a secret invasion. The loss of the two Gold Immortals caused the Dark Kirin some heartache. Chen Feng, on the other hand, considered it from a bigger perspective. This time, they had only investigated Dark Night City. What of the entire Dark Plane? How many cultivators have had their bodies taken over? Additionally, for those below the Gold Immortal stage, would the number of cultivators taken over be higher?

This was the situation of the Dark Plane alone. What of the other worlds?

Having thought of that, Chen Feng immediately utilized a secret technique to contact Longevity Edge and Divine Prince Iceform to inform them of what was happening here. Back then, as Longevity Soul was the only one they found, they did not investigate the other soldiers in the Boundless Corps for the Soul Lodge Clan. Thinking back about it, Chen Feng felt a thorn pricking him. 

After receiving Chen Feng’s message, Longevity Edge and the others quickly took action. The Boundless Corps now had another important matter to attend do, to investigate and search for any member of the Soul Lodge Clan that might be lurking around. 

“Alright, I should take my leave now.” After having learned about what was happening in the Dark Plane, Chen Feng knew that this would be a very long war. Concluding this war quickly was simply not possible. As he would not be able to help out much by staying behind, he mounted the Starlight Overlord Beast and left the Dark Plane. Naturally, he also fought his way out on his own. 

Charging into the army of Slaughterers, Chen Feng started a bloodbath. Only after killing off over 100,000 Slaughterers did he enter the endless starry space. In truth, Chen Feng would sometimes feel the urge to go investigate the origin of the Slaughterers. In the end, however, he knew that he would not succeed. 

Interestingly enough, after Chen Feng left the Dark Plane, several Slaughterers emerged from the distance to pursue him. With a sweep of his divine sense, Chen Feng found out that all those Slaughterers were Gold Immortals.

He had not encountered any Gold Immortals back when he was charging out. Thus, he believed that these Gold Immortals must have only just arrived. 

In the past, Chen Feng would have stopped to finish off the Slaughterers. At present, however, he was in a hurry. So, he simply tossed out a formidable great array. Whether or not he could kill off one or two of the Slaughterers with it would be up to luck. 

The Starlight Overlord Beast flew quickly. While flying, he could also continuously absorb the power of stars from the surrounding starry space for his cultivation. Naturally, the power that Chen Feng devoured earlier was not something that could be recovered any time soon. 

Back then, Chen Feng had actually wanted to kill off the Starlight Overlord Beast. But he then reconsidered it. This giant interstellar creature possessed a very high cultivation base, a great amount of blood energy and formidable combat power. Moreover, he was also very big. Subduing and making this Starlight Overlord Beast his mount was not a bad idea. 

And so, Chen Feng made a promise with the Starlight Overlord Beast. He would serve Chen Feng for a million years, after which he would regain his freedom. 

For the Starlight Overlord Beast who had cultivated up to the Gold Immortal stage, a million years was simply too short. And so, he readily agreed and worked harder after that.