After confirming that the zombies in the room had been cleaned up, Lu Yan finally had the mind to examine these ethereal wandering souls stripped from the zombies.
Reaching out to grab one soul, it had a muddled expression, lacking the spiritual wisdom displayed by Gongyang Xuanming's soul in the urban version.
With a slight activation of magical power, Lu Yan could clearly see these souls separated from their decaying flesh, as fragile as a piece of paper.
Not even needing to use a spell, just a few strands of magical power would be enough to disintegrate them.
"How can there be such fragile souls?"
Lu Yan frowned slightly and took out a lower-grade Spirit Eye Talisman from his storage pouch.
Under the activation of magical power, the spirit talisman transformed into spiritual light, merging into Lu Yan's eyes, making everything around vividly detailed, even the flowing trajectory of spiritual qi faintly visible.
Lu Yan gathered his focus, looking at the murky wandering souls before him.
At a glance, Lu Yan immediately discovered the reason for the souls' fragility.
"Among the three souls of heaven, earth, and human, the souls of heaven and earth are missing, only the human soul and seven spirits are trapped within the decayed body.
Even when the flesh perished, the human soul and seven spirits could not escape the body. Over time, as the flesh decayed and the soul sank, it caused them to turn into zombies.
The decaying flesh of zombies binds the human soul and seven spirits, but in a different aspect, the presence of the human soul and seven spirits slows down the decay of the zombies' flesh.
Otherwise, after so many years, a normal corpse should have completely decayed long ago.
This is also why once the wandering soul is stripped away, the zombies' flesh would rapidly decay into a pile of white bones without the support of their soul."
The Spiritual Eye Technique in his eyes slowly dissipated, and Lu Yan's eyes sparkled as if discovering a new continent.
Lu Yan never imagined that behind the birth of zombies, there was such a "cultivation" explanation hidden.
"Since this is the case, where have the heaven and earth souls of these zombies gone? Why is the human soul trapped in the dead flesh? What exactly is the source of the apocalypse?"
A series of questions arose in Lu Yan's heart; however, since he had just entered this apocalypse version, the current information was insufficient to answer these questions.
With the spiritual light in his eyes dispersing, Lu Yan looked at the fifteen wandering souls in front of him lacking the heaven and earth souls, already calculating in his mind.
These wandering souls, having decayed with the zombie bodies for decades, have long fallen into a stupor, their heaven and earth souls unknown, not even qualified to reenter reincarnation.
Once detached from the body, these weak wandering souls would completely dissipate in the world in a few days.
Rather than letting these wandering souls naturally dissipate, it's better to use them to assist Lu Yan in refining the Soul Refining Banner.
With this thought, Lu Yan did not hesitate and directly used the Soul Banner to start refining.
Slaughtering the innocent on a large scale for soul refining might not be something Lu Yan could do, but ritualistically refining zombies' wandering souls, who were already dead, did not trouble his conscience.
With the already refined lower-grade Soul Banner undergoing further refinement, there was no need to redraw the array. The ghost fog within the Soul Banner engulfed the entire room in an instant.
Fifteen murky zombie wandering souls, under the ghost fog, dissolved like snow melting into the Soul Banner.
Holding the Soul Banner, Lu Yan sensed the changes within.
Normally, once the Soul Banner is refined, subsequent refinements would be much easier, not like before, where it took over twenty qi cultivation cultivators to barely refine four grievance souls.
The problem was that the zombie wandering souls were too fragmented and weak. After refining a dozen wandering souls, the fifth grievance soul within the Soul Banner barely formed a rudimentary shape, far inferior to the soul quality of Gongyang Xuanming and those bodyguards.
By this estimate, it might take a hundred wandering souls to completely refine the fifth qi cultivation level one grievance soul.
In an urban or Xianxia version, this speed would undoubtedly lead to despair. Refining a level one qi cultivation grievance soul requiring the sacrifice of a hundred wandering souls; even the most insane demonic cultivators wouldn't dare to harvest souls recklessly.
Urban modern armies and Xianxia sect law enforcement teams would chase demonic cultivators to the ends of the earth.
In the apocalypse version, however, in this city long turned desolate, there's no shortage of zombies.
Refining a grievance soul with a hundred wandering souls is a profitable endeavor for Lu Yan, with the only limitation being the speed of harvesting wandering souls!
Lu Yan immediately showed a look of joy, not caring about conserving magical power, he waved the Soul Banner and commanded the four grievance souls:
"Explore the upper floors, kill all zombies and bring their souls to me!"
With the words leaving his mouth, the four grievance souls phased through the walls to explore other rooms and floors.
Pulling a Spirit Stone from his storage pouch to maintain a supply of magical power for the Soul Banner, Lu Yan headed towards the upper floors already explored by the grievance souls.
Before long, angry howls and loud wall banging sounds came from upstairs.
Lu Yan performed a Seal Technique, and his gaze became extraordinarily profound. Through the grievance souls' vision, Lu Yan could see clearly that the top floor of the building was filled with dozens of zombies.
They varied in size, surrounded by decayed tools and remnants of rotted food.
Some zombies even clutched fire axes and iron hammers, clearly indicating they were survivors who used the top floor as a defense line to fend off zombie invasions.
But they ultimately failed to survive, possibly being infected without warning during a hunt or being targeted by a more formidable zombie. In short, the unexpected event led to all survivors dying and turning into zombies, with none on the top floor spared.
Driven by instinct, those zombies continued to grasp their weapons tightly, launching attacks on the grievance souls, but to no avail.
Ignorant of physical attacks, the grievance souls didn't even need to dodge. A ghost claw would strip a zombie's wandering soul, turning these decaying creatures into a heap of bones.
As one zombie after another fell, their muddled wandering souls manifested, glowing with a pale, eerie light.
When Lu Yan reached the top floor, all the zombies had been slaughtered, and the hallway was crowded with numerous wandering souls.
The black mist from the Soul Banner in Lu Yan's hand spread, instantly enveloping all the wandering souls.
As the black mist churned, many wandering souls became refined by the Soul Banner. Lu Yan could clearly feel the fifth grievance soul taking shape.
Moments later, as the black mist receded, the fifth grievance soul appeared before Lu Yan.
This grievance soul was entirely refined from weak wandering souls, yet it still reached the realm of qi cultivation level one.
Embedded in the soul body were pale, listless faces, making the grievance soul appear more terrifying and grotesque.
Lu Yan glanced over the ruins of the top floor, pointing the Soul Banner to the unexplored bottom floors.
"Continue!"