Chapter 2 Soul Split, One Soul, Two Bodies:
There was good news and bad news.
The good news was that he clearly remembered that before being taken away by that hundred-ton truck, his phone, filled with countless study materials, was also crushed under the wheels, physically formatted.
Otherwise, if some passerby had accidentally picked it up… the thought of that social death made his scalp tingle.
Even in death, he wanted to leave behind a good name.
The bad news was that his shameful system was indeed gone, because it couldn't withstand the host's good fortune, its energy overload caused its core to collapse, and it completely vanished.
Before the system's sudden demise, of the ten-draw lottery rewards, only the five golden legends that caused the disaster survived the explosion.
He was able to awaken his martial soul innately without going through the martial soul awakening ceremony, precisely because of one of the golden legends that merged with his soul.
It was a being from a two-word open-world game in his previous life who controlled time, "The Ruler of Time," Ishtar.
She has now become Yin Chen's martial soul.
He clearly sensed that two golden legends had merged with him. One had transformed into his martial soul, Istaru, but the other was like looking at flowers through a fog; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find any definite trace of its existence or its function. It seemed to have completely disappeared, or existed in some way he couldn't understand.
The other three golden legends that had been swept away and whose whereabouts were unknown were closely connected to the half of his soul that he had lost.
Although they were extremely far apart, initially sensed to be at least thousands of kilometers away, they had not lost their connection.
Thinking of the predicament his other half of the soul, which was originally one with him, was facing thousands of miles away, Yin Chen felt a strange sense of irritation and powerlessness. He subconsciously raised his small hand and rubbed his furrowed brow in frustration.
This subtle movement did not escape the notice of Uncle Hui, who had been watching him closely.
The old man's heart tightened immediately, assuming he was overwhelmed with grief or uncomfortable from the chilly wind of the cemetery. He quickly stepped forward, his withered yet warm hand gently pressing on the boy's thin, heartbreakingly frail shoulder, his voice hoarse and choked with emotion:
"Xiao Chen... please accept my condolences, we... should go back."
That calloused hand conveyed a dry warmth, a rare tenderness in this world.
Yin Chen raised his head, his golden eyes seeming somewhat distant.
His gaze seemed to pierce through the tall, cold black tombstone before him, beyond the low, sturdy walls of Yuming City, finally landing in the distant west, on the dark mountain range that stretched across the horizon like a sleeping dragon under the dim light—the Mingdou Mountains.
There, his adoptive parents in this life had died in battle.
At the same time, in his soul's perception, that was also the direction of another version of himself, the half of his soul that had been torn apart and taken away.
"Let's go, Uncle Grey, let's go home."
Yin Chen finally shook his head helplessly, temporarily suppressing all his chaotic and complicated thoughts.
At this moment, he was just a six-year-old child, penniless and powerless, and could only hope that his other self wouldn't be too unlucky.
After all, he was just a six-year-old child with no powerful background. His family only had Uncle Grey, a Soul Master, and at most, the commander of the Eighth Soul Master Legion might take care of him a little out of consideration for his deceased parents.
But to ask someone to risk going thousands of miles away to save someone was simply a pipe dream.
His parents, members of the Eighth Soul Master Legion, possessed Soul Master-level cultivation and had long served the renowned Duke White Tiger, guarding the Mingdou Mountain Range.
This time, they tragically perished at the hands of the enemy during another small-scale conflict with the Sun Moon Empire.
Their sacrifice for their country likely only ensured that their two orphaned children wouldn't be easily bullied or have their family fortune seized by unscrupulous individuals in the short term. After all, their years of military service had amassed a considerable, if not enormous, fortune that would make others envious.
However, even the most greedy nobles had to consider the consequences of offending the entire military system before taking action.
Neither the notoriously tough Duke White Tiger, Dai Hao, nor the Golden Spear Douluo, renowned for his powerful attacks and command of the Eighth Soul Master Legion, were easy to deal with.
Occupying the orphans of the military would, if exposed, draw not only the wrath of the Eighth Soul Master Legion, but also the united attack of the entire Star Luo Empire's military.
Just as Yin Chen felt powerless, thousands of kilometers away, within the territory of the Sun Moon Empire, deep within the infamous Demon Forest, a place where light could never penetrate, was shrouded in countless twisted, gnarled, and bizarrely shaped giant branches and a perpetually thick miasma, creating a realm of eternal night.
The air was thick with the cloying sweetness of decaying plants and the stench of deep soil.
This was a paradise for powerful soul beasts, but also a graveyard for the weak and intruders; ordinary soul masters dared not set foot here.
Yet here, in this perilous forest, where silence and howling mingled, a petite figure, so out of place with her surroundings, moved cautiously and laboriously among jagged rocks and exposed, writhing, black tree roots.
She appeared to be about six years old.
Her once exquisite purple-white dress was now torn in several places, the soft hem ripped open by sharp thorns and stones, revealing glimpses of her fair, almost translucent, delicate skin.
She possessed an exceptionally rare head of silky silver hair, like moonlight itself, reaching her waist, its ends grading a mysterious pale purple.
Even more peculiar were two small, pointed ears perched among her silver hair, trembling slightly with her alertness, desperately trying to detect even the slightest rustling of the wind.
What's most striking are her eyes, like those sculpted from the finest amethyst, clear and pure, seemingly containing the stars.
Yet, at this moment, these beautiful eyes are filled with a frustration completely at odds with her youthful appearance.
"Damn it, where the hell did this shameful system blast me to?"
The girl's clear, childlike voice carries a hint of irritation.
Indeed, the consciousness within this body is Yin Chen. Although the body belongs to someone else, it is controlled by Yin Chen's other half of his soul; he can now be said to have one soul in two bodies.
(End of Chapter)