Shen Yi spread his hand slightly, and the golden body dissolved back into a pearl, settling into his palm. The divine spirit returned to his qi sea.

Only Lady Qinghua's demon soul remained where it stood.

The woman's eyes were faintly red, her red lips bitten together, her gaze clearly somewhat adrift — she could only maintain the most basic of lucidity.

"..."

Shen Yi shook his head with genuine feeling. The sensation of wandering wills forcing their way into one's mind really was deeply unpleasant.

For the golden body to keep growing stronger, he'd need another demon soul to take on some of the burden.

Fortunately, he'd just acquired two more demon king lingering consciousnesses.

The fox was probably better suited to helping derive techniques — turning it into this sort of lovesick, grievance-soaked mess would be something of a waste.

The white dragon looked stronger. That one it would be.

Shen Yi tucked the golden pearl back into his qi sea, then turned and walked off into the distance.

Beneath a collapsed boulder, he found the young fox demon, its upper body shoved into a crack in the rock, trembling.

He dragged it out without ceremony and broke its skull with a palm strike.

Then opened the panel and tallied the harvest.

【Mixed-Origin-realm Fox Demon slain — total lifespan 16,000 years, 8,200 years remaining — fully absorbed】

【Mixed-Origin-realm White Dragon slain — total lifespan 19,000 years, 2,800 years remaining — fully absorbed】

【Core-Nurturing-realm Fox Demon slain — total lifespan 8,200 years, 5,500 years remaining — fully absorbed】

...

Over sixteen thousand years of demon lifespan collected.

Perhaps because the Song Prefecture trip had yielded so much, Shen Yi found this feeling somewhat meager.

Though to accumulate vast amounts of demon lifespan, the prerequisite was something sufficiently attractive to bring the demons in — and that typically meant human lives as the price. Shen Yi would rather take a few extra steps. It wasn't as though riding the Red Cloud was tiring.

He piled the three demon corpses together.

Shen Yi opened his mouth and transmuted them all into…