Extraordinary All-Rounder

Volume 1: The Rebirth of the Monstrous Talent Chapter 002: Fusing Souls

The intense and persistent desire to survive made Yang Hongtao unable to calm down at this moment. The more unable he was to calm down, the more Yang Hongtao felt that the seemingly omnipresent sunlight was constantly eroding his soul, and the originally cold bullet began to gradually heat up..

He couldn't wait like this anymore! Yang Hongtao knew that such passive waiting would ultimately lead to a dead end. However, he couldn't move now and couldn't run either. What else could he do if he didn't wait passively? Suddenly, Yang Hongtao thought of the six-syllable mantra again. Anyway, he had personally verified that this six-syllable mantra did have extremely magical power

Although the change this magical power brought to him might not be a good thing, for Yang Hongtao, who was bound to fall into a desperate situation sooner or later, no change would be more terrifying than the result of his soul being gradually melted in the sunlight until it completely vanished

In that case, what was there for Yang Hongtao to be afraid of? So under the increasing pressure of the sense of urgency brought by the sunlight, Yang Hongtao once again began to silently recite in the depth of his soul that six-syllable mantra that sounded simple but was actually full of the profound and mysterious principles of heaven and earth -

"Om Mani Padme Hum... Om Mani Padme Hum... Om Mani Padme Hum..."

Probably because he couldn't concentrate at the beginning, the first dozen recitations didn't have any effect. However, this six-syllable mantra, known as the most fundamental mantra of observing one's own mind in Buddhism, was not falsely praised. After reciting it for more than ten consecutive times, Yang Hongtao's originally impetuous and anxious state of mind gradually stabilized in this six-syllable mantra. Even under the unconscious influence of the six-syllable mantra, he felt that even major events like life and death were as ordinary as passing clouds

Strange white halos once again emerged with the silent recitation of the six-syllable mantra in Yang Hongtao's heart. Moreover, this time, the coverage area of the halos was even wider. Every time Yang Hongtao recited a word in his heart, a huge character flew out of thin air and turned into a huge halo with a diameter of about ten meters. Then this halo began to shrink from the outside to the inside at a constant speed until it shrank to the extreme and then drilled into the bullet, disappearing without a trace

Yang Hongtao was at the center of these endless halos, silently feeling those mysterious halos shrinking into his soul one after another

At first, he didn't have a too strong feeling. But when he found a fragmented and scattered remnant soul that had already been burned to pieces by the sunlight also compressed towards the center with a halo and eventually forced its way into his soul, he understood how powerful these halos that appeared with the six-syllable mantra were

When this first remnant soul forced its way into his soul, it really startled Yang Hongtao. This feeling was like someone forcibly attaching a bloody human hand or leg to his body, instinctively creating a sense of rejection in his heart

But when that remnant soul truly merged into his soul, he was surprised to discover that this thing was simply an extremely wonderful panacea for him

Under the powerful compression of the halo, that remnant soul that had long lost its independent consciousness was completely purified into a pure soul energy. Without the slightest resistance or waste, it all merged into Yang Hongtao's soul, making Yang Hongtao's soul feel much stronger all at once

Once he realized the benefits of absorbing remnant souls, Yang Hongtao quickly threw aside that psychological sense of rejection. Then, just like someone addicted to opium, he began to crazily like this feeling of devouring soul energy

The six-syllable mantra kept being recited in the depth of Yang Hongtao's soul, and those strange halos, like the tide of the Qiantang River, continuously shrank towards the location of Yang Hongtao's soul from all around, bringing along with them the fragmented remnant souls that were floating in the area covered by the halos

Whenever the pure soul energy transformed from a remnant soul was completely absorbed by Yang Hongtao, the intensity of his soul would quickly become stronger by a fraction. And when he recited the six-syllable mantra again, the formed halo would also become larger, making the area covered by the halo even wider

I don't know how much time passed. When the last remnant soul in the execution ground was also completely devoured by Yang Hongtao's soul with the shrinking halo, Yang Hongtao finally stopped reciting the six-syllable mantra. At this time, the halos transformed by the six-syllable mantra had already expanded from the initial diameter of about ten meters to about sixty meters, almost covering the entire execution ground

By this time, the sunlight had long passed through the gaps between the stones and directly shone on the bullet due to the deflection of the sun's angle. However, Yang Hongtao, whose soul power had invisibly increased by several dozen times, no longer felt that the sunlight was terrible

Originally, Yang Hongtao's soul, after the ultimate compression of the six-syllable mantra, was much more condensed than ordinary souls. Now, after crazily absorbing the remnant souls of more than twenty death row prisoners, his soul condensed as if it were a solid entity. How could ordinary sunlight harm it? It was only at this time that Yang Hongtao was surprised to discover that what he devoured seemed not only some pure soul energy but also the memories carried in those remnant souls before their lives

Of course, because Yang Hongtao absorbed remnant souls that had been tortured by the sunlight for a long time, the soul memories he obtained were also incomplete

However, generally speaking, the memories that could still be preserved under such circumstances were considered obsessions. For example, the most proud thing a soul did during its lifetime, the biggest secret buried in the heart all along, as well as the professional knowledge and skills that the soul was most proficient in during a certain field in its lifetime, Yang Hongtao could easily search them out from those messy remnant soul memories

After slightly organizing these scattered memories he just obtained, Yang Hongtao discovered that the twenty-five death row prisoners who were executed with him just now were not ordinary people. If really counted, except for four whose remnant memories were too little due to their souls dissipating too severely for Yang Hongtao to figure out their specific identities, he and a foreign language translator of a travel company were relatively lower in social status. The rest of those people were almost all elites in various industries before their deaths

And the combination of memory fragments formed by the obsessions of so many powerful people was definitely an astonishing wealth

In fact, the feeling of having countless knowledge and skills out of thin air was really good. Unfortunately, Yang Hongtao was now just a soul trapped in a bullet. Even if he had more knowledge, it was useless. However, Yang Hongtao's soul couldn't break away from that bullet and walk freely anyway. Having nothing to do, he began to slowly organize these countless memory fragments that suddenly appeared

Fortunately, there were these things to divert Yang Hongtao's attention and give him something to do. Otherwise, the feeling of the soul being imprisoned in a narrow range could easily drive a person crazy. However, no matter how many memory fragments there were, there would always be a time when they were all organized. I don't know how many days and nights passed. When all the accidentally obtained memory fragments had completely merged into his soul, Yang Hongtao finally deeply experienced the feelings of loneliness and despair

This was a fixed place for executing death row prisoners. Usually, no one would come here. So every day, Yang Hongtao could only blankly face a barren soil slope, with no response when calling to heaven or earth! Fortunately, it wasn't long before this execution ground usher in another batch of death row prisoners

This time, there were a total of seventeen death row prisoners being executed here, fifteen men and two women. Among them, a tall and thin man was clearly an armed bandit who had been wanted nationwide for several years and had more than ten murder cases on his hands. After the execution, the souls of these seventeen death row prisoners also remained on the execution ground, wandering aimlessly and refusing to leave for a long time. Until the sun rose, they were immediately shattered by the sunlight

Yang Hongtao only hesitated slightly before resolutely reciting the six-syllable mantra. The six mysterious characters shining with sacred light immediately turned into six white halos, squeezing all the broken remnant souls within the halos. In an instant, they turned into pure soul energy and messy memory fragments and merged into Yang Hongtao's soul

Yang Hongtao had no idea at all what the final outcome would be if those souls were not devoured by him. Would they be received into the legendary underworld, or would they completely vanish in the scorching sunlight? However, Yang Hongtao guessed that the latter possibility was more likely. Moreover, even if Yang Hongtao didn't devour the remnant souls of these death row prisoners, they had already lost their independent self-awareness under the burning of the sunlight. Yang Hongtao naturally wouldn't have many psychological barriers for devouring such remnant souls that basically had no consciousness

For every new soul devoured, even if it was only a small part of the remnant soul, Yang Hongtao would absorb a portion of pure soul energy, making his own soul become stronger and more condensed. At the same time, when he recited the six-syllable mantra again, the white halos transformed by the six mantras also became larger and larger. If he concentrated and recited with all his strength, he could even expand the white halos to a diameter of about one hundred meters

And this range was also the range that Yang Hongtao's soul could perceive. A soul entity had no eyes, but he could perceive every blade of grass and every tree within the area that could be covered by the dissipated soul energy. This soul perception was a hundred times clearer than what the naked eye could see and could simultaneously perceive the full 360-degree angle centered on himself, equivalent to having eyes all around a person

The drawback was that this soul perception couldn't reach far. Currently, Yang Hongtao could only perceive a range of about one hundred meters in all directions. Beyond that, because he couldn't extend the soul energy there, there was only darkness in Yang Hongtao's perception. Additionally, if the soul energy was dissipated too far, it would gradually lose control. When it was retrieved, it would inevitably lose a small portion of the soul energy

Although the amount lost wasn't much, it still made Yang Hongtao feel very distressed. So after devouring all the remnant souls left by this batch of death row prisoners, Yang Hongtao only tested the maximum range of soul perception once and no longer dared to easily dissipate the soul energy so far

This feeling of rapidly becoming stronger was really wonderful. Even if Yang Hongtao was just a pure soul entity, he could also experience an extremely pleasant feeling from it. However, relatively speaking, in fact, Yang Hongtao preferred to collect the scattered obsession...