Originally, Edward Parker was worried that his painstakingly cultivated battle soul would not be able to withstand the thousand-year tyrannical might of the overlord of Western Chu, George Washington, and thus had never dared to release his battle soul. The Doumu Mysterious Spirit Incantation, once mastered, could summon countless ghostly souls to form the Dutian Ghost General, which acted as an external incarnation of oneself. In battle, it could more than double one’s power. Although William Carter had absorbed several hundred ghostly souls before and after, compared to the grand formation of ten thousand ghosts set up by Edward Parker, which bound hundreds of thousands of evil spirits and ghosts, this was still just a drop in the ocean. The Dutian Ghost General itself was condensed from tens of thousands of ghostly souls, and its absorption speed was far beyond that of the Soul Capturing and Ghost Commanding Technique. In just this short time, it had already forcibly retained countless ghostly souls, condensing them into a massive cocoon of energy, constantly writhing and swelling, as if it could burst forth at any moment.

All the while, William Carter watched the changes in the arena coldly, and no one knew who was actually in control within William Carter’s body at this moment. The Great Sun Dharma King and Edward Parker both had no desire to provoke this figure who had long since surpassed the bounds of common sense. Thus, things were temporarily left in peace.

Although George Washington was the greatest general under heaven, whose heroic spirit remained undying after death and whose resentment soared to the heavens, a vengeful spirit was ultimately not something with true intelligence. All that remained was an undying grudge that would never dissipate.

The Soul Capturing and Ghost Commanding Technique and the Doumu Mysterious Spirit Incantation were originally completely unrelated. The former was a demonic art that absorbed others’ primordial spirits and souls to enhance one’s own energy, while the latter was a profound secret technique for refining the Dutian Ghost General, allowing one to control it as an external incarnation. All the ghostly souls here had already been trapped by Edward Parker’s formation and refined for so long that they were now vastly different from ordinary ghosts.

William Carter, by accident, absorbed the ghostly souls refined by the Doumu Mysterious Spirit Incantation, and by a stroke of luck, turned himself into something akin to a Dutian Ghost General.

Edward Parker and the Great Sun Dharma King each exerted all their martial skills and magic, their battle turning the world dark and chaotic. Originally, although William Carter was outstanding among his fellow disciples, he could not discern the mysteries of the martial skills and magic of these two greatest masters of the age. At this moment, William Carter’s primordial spirit was fusing and interacting with George Washington’s ghostly soul. Countless figures flashed through his mind like a revolving lantern. With every move and technique the Great Sun Dharma King and Edward Parker unleashed, William Carter’s mind involuntarily pondered ways to counter and retaliate. In truth, it was George Washington’s martial wisdom instinctively reacting to the external energies.

The Soul Capturing and Ghost Commanding Technique itself could absorb the memories of the primordial spirits and souls it took in, so now William Carter could be said to have gained the abilities of a peerless master out of thin air.

Edward Parker’s Azure Chi Cold Light Whip flashed with rolling shadows, and the already cloud-churned sky, under the influence of this demonic weapon, was suddenly lashed by a torrential downpour. Countless streams of water gathered into dazzling white water dragons, sweeping across the sky and crashing down toward the Great Sun Dharma King on the ground.

Although the Great Sun Dharma King’s Buddhist cultivation was profound, and he had mastered one of the six divine powers of Buddhism, the Supernatural Foot, allowing him to soar on the wind and command the clouds, he knew he could not match this demonic priest’s speed. Thus, he stood firmly on the ground. The purple flames of the Great Sun condensed into a blazing sun-like brilliance, vaporizing each of the water dragons crashing down like a reversed Milky Way into mist.

Having absorbed a vast number of ghostly souls and evil spirits, William Carter’s primordial spirit was now extraordinarily powerful. A sense of oppressive might gradually spread out. The ghostly soldiers and generals who had been drifting about, still fighting their own battles, all sensed the chillingly domineering aura emanating from William Carter and instinctively avoided him.

Within William Carter’s body, it was as if heaven and earth had been turned upside down. A fierce and domineering true energy rose from his dantian, shot straight up his spine, broke through the major acupoints—Dazhui, Mingmen, Zhiyang—and finally burst through the crown of his head, connecting with the vast heavens above.

Carried by a mysterious force into midair, William Carter felt streams of ghostly energy continuously pouring into his body, and as the Baihui acupoint at the top of his head opened, the primordial energy of the nine heavens cascaded down from the firmament. The eight extraordinary meridians and twelve regular meridians within his body, all the acupoints throughout his body, were being opened one by one by this external force. His true energy surged like a hundred rivers rushing to the sea, flowing and circulating without pause.

“This is... this is the sign of the Innate Realm, the opening of the primordial apertures of heaven and earth!”

Suddenly coming to his senses, William Carter was overwhelmed with mixed emotions, both astonished and overjoyed.

Whether in martial arts cultivation or Daoist energy refinement, to open all the apertures of the body and freely absorb the primordial energy of heaven and earth to nurture one’s own true energy required decades of arduous effort, as well as talent, endowment, and fortuitous opportunities—all indispensable. Even after seventy or eighty years of bitter cultivation, there were still many martial artists and cultivators who had never reached the Innate Realm. In the world today, there were no more than a dozen renowned masters with such attainments.

William Carter thought to himself that although his talent was not bad, the martial arts and magic of the Wuji Palace were only average. Even among the elders of Wuji Palace, only one had ever reached this level—the founding patriarch of Qingping Mountain’s Wuji Palace, Liaoliao Daoist. He himself was young and had never received the most profound teachings of the sect; the Innate Realm was but a dream. Even if he worked ten times harder, he feared he would have no hope of reaching this realm before the age of seventy or eighty.

Now, with true energy surging through his body like the Yangtze River, the Great Sun Dharma King had opened his celestial eye, and he had absorbed the martial wisdom of George Washington’s primordial spirit. Coupled with today’s Soul Capturing and Ghost Commanding Technique, which had absorbed countless ghostly souls, his power had increased tenfold. With all these factors combined, William Carter had finally broken through to the realm that all martial artists dream of.