Crocodile Tyrant

Xu Wenlong deactivated Form One and calmly continued forward, but then suddenly remembered something.

"Ah, I haven't absorbed the Soul Ring yet."

Xu Wenlong suddenly remembered that he had been so busy showing off that the Soul Ring was still in the flames. He hurried back into the blaze.

"Cough, cough!"

Because Xu Wenlong had undone his transformation, he was immediately choked by the smoke rising from the burning grass.

However, Xu Wenlong knew that the grass would not burn for long, so he waited calmly until the flames died down before going in.

Just as Xu Wenlong had expected, the Giant Locust had died on the spot from that Rider Kick, while its remaining physical body had been burned into a pile of ash.

Though the Giant Locust was dead, its Soul Ring remained.

The yellow Soul Ring stood quietly there, as though it were waiting for Xu Wenlong to arrive.

Xu Wenlong walked up to the Soul Ring and brushed aside the Giant Locust's bone ash on the ground.

After clearing out a clean patch of ground, Xu Wenlong decisively sat down and began absorbing the Soul Ring.

On the outskirts, after hearing that tremendous commotion, Zhen Jianwu had been praying for Xu Wenlong the entire time.

Of course, when it came time to strike, he would not go easy either.

Xu Wenlong's battle ended quickly, and Zhen Jianwu's battle was also drawing to a close.

"This thing is way more useful than a Martial Soul!"

Zhen Jianwu fought with extreme flexibility. He first used his Martial Soul to control several locusts and make them attack the others, while using the DJ Gun to fire shot after shot into the swarm.

Thus, through Zhen Jianwu's efforts, the remaining locust swarm had gone from covering the entire sky to looking like nothing more than scaffolding.

Pong! Pong! Pong!

Zhen Jianwu spun the Disc, producing bursts of pleasant sound, followed by continuous explosions in the sky.

In the end, only two or three locusts remained in the swarm, and they consciously flew away.

"Wenlong... still hasn't come out?"

Zhen Jianwu looked toward the place Xu Wenlong had gone and wondered.

After waiting for a while, Zhen Jianwu finally saw a figure emerge.

It was a figure draped in a Trench Coat, making a series of ticking sounds as he walked.

The person took out a device and twisted it slightly. The device made the sound of a bottle shattering.

"Tenka!"

The figure raised the device slightly above his head, then viciously inserted it into the Belt around his waist.

"Crocddile!"

A purple crocodile symbol appeared on the Belt.

The figure lightly pressed the Wrench on the right side of the Belt, and the slanted Container on its left was filled with an unknown purple liquid.

"Rip, devour, crush to nothing!"

A Glass Cover Container appeared on the ground, enclosing the mysterious figure within.

The Container was continuously filled with that unknown purple liquid. Finally, huge crocodile jaws emerging from both sides of the Container clamped down.

At last, the glass Container shattered.

The mysterious figure had transformed into a mysterious purple Armored Man.

However, red patterns had been clamped into the Armored Man's black head by the Crocodile Clips on either side of his face, and his eyes were blue.

Of course, what Zhen Jianwu could not understand most was why there was a Quilt-like symbol behind this purple Armored Man's head.

"You... who are you? Where's Wenlong?" Zhen Jianwu asked, raising the DJ Gun and aiming it at the mysterious Armored Man.

"Me? Me, you ask?"

The mysterious Armored Man raised both hands and slowly walked toward Zhen Jianwu.

"I am, of course..."

Just as Zhen Jianwu was about to activate it—

"I'm Xu Wenlong, of course!"

The mysterious Armored Man dismissed his armor, revealing the true operator within: Xu Wenlong, whom Zhen Jianwu had been worrying about.

That was right. This was the newest ability awakened by Xu Wenlong's Kamen Rider Plug-in.

For each of Xu Wenlong's Soul Ring abilities, he could choose a Kamen Rider and transform into them.

And it did not matter how strong they were in the original work—he simply picked whichever one looked the coolest.

Once Xu Wenlong reached the level of a Titled Douluo, the strength he displayed whether transformed into the overused Oma Zi-O or Faiz would be the same.

In other words, if Oma Zi-O manipulated time, then Faiz would become that black priest's Made in Heaven.

Thus, for his first transformation form, Xu Wenlong chose one of his favorite suits: Crocodile Tyrant, transformed into by the honest man in Kamen Rider Build. It looked imposing from the moment it appeared, and it even had that never-loses scissor kick.

"Ah!"

Zhen Jianwu let out a long sigh of relief.

"Welcome back, Wenlong!"

Zhen Jianwu smiled and held out his hand to Xu Wenlong.

"Yeah, Smile Smile!"

Xu Wenlong smiled as well and walked over to clasp Zhen Jianwu's hand.

"Yeah, Smile Smile!"

Zhen Jianwu answered with a smile, and in the end, the two of them burst out laughing.

After they had laughed enough, Xu Wenlong and Zhen Jianwu sat down on the ground, taking in the beautiful night—the lone moon and countless stars in the sky, the chirping of all kinds of insects by their ears.

"Jianwu."

"Hmm?"

"There's something I want to tell you."

Xu Wenlong looked at Zhen Jianwu as he spoke.

"Hmm? Is it about your motorcycle and what happened this time? There's no need. I said I'd keep it secret, so I won't tell anyone. Don't look so worried. Smile!"

Zhen Jianwu used his hand to pull the corners of Xu Wenlong's mouth into a smile.

Of course, the stiffly forced smile on Xu Wenlong's face only made him look even funnier.

"Fine, it is about that, but there's no need to keep it secret anymore. Jianwu, I want to invite you to join our Great Shocker organization!"

Xu Wenlong stood up and extended his hand toward Zhen Jianwu.

"I agree!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Zhen Jianwu grabbed Xu Wenlong's outstretched hand and smiled at him.

"You..."

Xu Wenlong had thought he would need to say more before the other party agreed. He had not expected Zhen Jianwu to agree so quickly.

After all, in his previous life, Xu Wenlong had basically been half a Bocchi-chan. As someone with mild social anxiety, it was indeed difficult for him to open up to others. Moreover, this was the first native member of Great Shocker he had developed on the Douluo Continent, so he naturally did not know what to say.

Of course, the main reason was that Xu Wenlong had not treated them like the mindless, thoughtless NPCs of other novel protagonists. After living on the Douluo Continent for so long, he had truly come to regard the people here as real human beings.

They were no different from the people of his previous life. Aside from Martial Souls and such, which arose from living in a different place, they were all living, breathing human beings.

Xu Wenlong himself did not have particularly grand dreams, but seeing the people living here, he did not mind lending them a hand while completing the system's missions, allowing them to truly experience a genuinely happy life.

"If it's an organization Wenlong is joining, then it definitely won't hurt me, right? So of course I'll join."

Zhen Jianwu spoke with that same smile on his face.

"Yeah!"

Xu Wenlong nodded and smiled along with him.