Don't Be So Relieved Just Yet

An extreme experience: a sense of loss.

Shi Yueyi crouched down and temporarily put away the thousand-year soul bone.

"Take this soul ring with us and absorb it somewhere else." Qian Renxue waved a hand. "So no other groups of soul beasts come looking."

Shi Yueyi nodded. "All right, I'll listen to you."

Seeing this, Stingray Douluo directly released a wave of Soul Power and carried Qian Renxue and Shi Yueyi away together.

"Wait!" Shi Yueyi hurriedly called out. "Take the big cat's body too. It was still a thousand-year soul beast, after all. If we clean it up, we might be able to sell it for some money."

Stingray Douluo could not help but laugh at that, then temporarily stored away the thousand-year soul beast's corpse. "Leave it with this old man for now. It's a corpse, after all. It won't exactly be clean."

They arrived several miles away.

"Plop—"

Shi Yueyi dropped straight onto the ground.

"Brother Xue, Senior Stingray, please stand guard for me." She took a deep breath and adjusted her condition.

"All right. If anything goes wrong, I'll step in and interrupt this absorption." Qian Renxue's expression was grave.

She exchanged a glance with Stingray Douluo, and he nodded as well.

"Don't worry. Just think of it as an experiment for the soul master world." Shi Yueyi shrugged. "If I succeed, it'll be a small step for me and a giant leap for human soul masters."

Perhaps infected by her relaxed tone, Qian Renxue jokingly reminded her, "But you still need to be careful. It wasn't easy for me to pick up such an interesting little follower. Finding another one won't be easy."

"If anything happens to me, just press one... I mean, count one, two, three when you go to sleep at night." Shi Yueyi slowly closed her eyes. "Maybe I'll come find you while you're counting."

Before Qian Renxue could answer, she entered a meditative state and began absorbing the thousand-year soul ring.

Qian Renxue: "..."

This girl—this was a matter of life and death. How could she talk about it so lightly?

It felt as though she did not value her own life very much. She could not possibly be someone who had already died once and come back, could she?

She had acted relaxed to match the other girl's positive attitude, but she still could not quite set her mind at ease.

"Young Master." Stingray Douluo patted Qian Renxue on the shoulder. "If there really is a problem, I'll save her. Then we'll ask that old gentleman from the Ye Family to treat her. Rest assured."

The old gentleman he spoke of was Ye Lingling of the Nine Heart Begonia's grandfather.

"Mm." Qian Renxue nodded, calming down slightly.

If I'd known this would happen, I should have gone and... studied how the Pope absorbed soul rings beyond her rank.

Shi Yueyi was not particularly nervous.

Because she knew there were living examples of this.

Ten thousand years later, there were mainly two factions that possessed soul rings beyond the limit: one was the Holy Spirit Cult, and the other was the Body Sect.

The Holy Spirit Cult had secret methods, while the Body Sect did not.

Because she knew Du Busi, the Body Sect Master of that generation.

Du Busi's first few soul rings followed the normal yellow-purple configuration. If the Body Sect had a secret method for obtaining soul rings beyond the limit, there was no reason for this sect master not to use it on himself, as the Holy Spirit Cult's higher-ups did—at the very least, it would have helped him reach the Ultimate level sooner.

Moreover, members of the Body Sect who absorbed soul rings beyond the limit were not particularly common, and they had only appeared recently. Only a few strong and sturdy younger members were like that.

If their martial souls were mental-type ones such as the brain, they still had the normal two yellow, two purple configuration.

Therefore, she remembered very clearly that there truly were people whose First Soul Ring was at the thousand-year level. There was only one explanation—enduring it by force.

At that moment, Shi Yueyi's figure began to blur slightly, as though a halo had enveloped her.

It was a ring of light like pale fire.

It was late autumn night, and the moonlight in the sky seemed to receive some sort of guidance and summons as it slowly descended upon the girl.

"Is that... the power of the moon?" Stingray Douluo asked uncertainly.

"She said her attribute leaned toward darkness, but I don't think that's entirely accurate." Qian Renxue frowned, then transmitted her voice softly. "She may be more inclined toward... the night?"

"Then what is this pale light surrounding her?" Stingray Douluo felt that he really should have read more when he was young.

"Thus, the ruler of the tides, her pale wrath, shall eventually cleanse the entire sky. That maiden wreathed in white flame is called the moon by mortals." Qian Renxue closed her eyes, as though recalling something.

"These are two passages from ancient books, from A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Clouds respectively."

"You really are different after reading ancient texts, Young Master." Stingray Douluo said admiringly. "If it were She Long and that old fellow, we'd probably only know how to say—oh, moon, you're so beautiful."

Qian Renxue did not respond to Stingray Douluo. She merely watched Shi Yueyi quietly.

Qian Renxue was the sun.

She was the moon.

Perhaps this was a kind of fate ordained in the unseen?

"Speaking of which, why do the ancient texts call the moon the ruler of the tides?" Stingray Douluo asked softly.

"Because the ocean's tides are drawn by the moon." Qian Renxue smiled casually.

"If this little girl had appeared a few decades earlier, perhaps absorbing Sea God Island back then wouldn't have been so painful," Stingray Douluo remarked offhandedly.

Qian Renxue was slightly stunned.

That did seem to be true.

But she had not even been born at the time. As for what exactly had happened, she had only heard a rough account from her grandfather.

In any case, Spirit Hall had suffered heavy losses that time.

The Angel and the Sea God could be considered the two great faiths of Douluo Continent today. However, the continent was basically under Spirit Hall's influence, while the Sea God was out at sea and could at most influence a few coastal cities.

To distinguish themselves, the soul masters and soul beasts under the Sea God even had slightly different forms of address. They insisted on adding a prefix, as though that made them superior to other soul masters and soul beasts.

The reason the Sea God could stand almost on equal footing with the Angel was mainly because ninety percent of Poseidon's followers were Sea Soul Beasts.

Soul beasts naturally lived much longer. Some of the generation that had once accompanied Poseidon into battle were still alive even now.

But what about the generation of soul masters who had accompanied the first Angel?

They had long since been laid to rest in Douluo Hall.

Less than half an hour passed.

"What were you two plotting so loudly just now? I heard everything!"

Shi Yueyi opened her eyes and looked at Qian Renxue and Stingray Douluo.

"Hm? What did you hear?" Qian Renxue looked at her. "No, wait—you've finished absorbing it already? That quickly?"

Shi Yueyi said confidently, "Of course. I specialize in dealing with disobedient fellows like that. Soul master or soul beast, one beating is all it takes!"

Qian Renxue knew she was referring to the former owner of the soul ring she had just absorbed.

Perhaps she had also heard the part about the Sea God?

Helplessly, she said, "The Sea God is not so easy to deal with. Still, I'm very relieved—you wouldn't be impulsive enough to charge straight onto Sea God Island and kill him, would you?"

A trace of ruthlessness flashed through Shi Yueyi's eyes.

But she hid it well. On the surface, she seemed to be joking casually.

"Don't be so relieved just yet. Sooner or later, I'm bound to have a fight with the Sea God and his lot."