Battle Against the War Drum Toad King, Part 1 (10k, Please Vote, OTZ)

Battle Against the War Drum Toad King, Part 1 (10k, Please Vote, OTZ!!!)

As his Spiritual Power increased, Ye Wen became increasingly adept at controlling his martial soul and Soul Skills.

Once, he had encountered a Soul Douluo while out and about, and recklessly pulled all sorts of flashy moves right in front of him. Relying on his resurrection skill, he tested the limits without caring about the consequences. In the end, that Soul Douluo did not notice a thing.

That was also where Ye Wen found the confidence to bring Ah Yin along on his expeditions. As long as they remained under the cover of his Nab Cloth and did not approach anyone who obviously looked like a major powerhouse, there was practically no risk at all.

If they truly ran into danger, he could simply put Ah Yin into the Nab Cloth and then use Inner Space to escape.

He might not be the strongest in a fight, but when it came to running away—hmph, everyone in Douluo was beneath him.

The two of them were now both eighteen, in the prime of their youth. This time, they approached their hunt for the Sixth Soul Ring with the mindset of taking a trip, enjoying the sights while properly exploring this world.

Their target this time was relatively close to the sea, so they spent much of their time traveling.

After about a month, the two finally arrived at the Great Star Dou Forest where their target was located.

The air here was damp, and a thin layer of white mist shrouded the dense forest as far as the eye could see.

"This really is an environment toads would like," Ah Yin remarked.

Ye Wen surveyed the area as well, then frowned after a while.

He had just used Between Mimicry to scan the region. Though the forest appeared like a paradise on earth, the mist was mixed with miasma and other subtle substances.

Ordinary people would easily fall unconscious after inhaling too much of it. Even soul masters would be poisoned over time if they did not take proper precautions.

Ah Yin also sensed the condition of the forest, then frowned and said, "There are so many poisonous soul beasts here. No wonder this place is so sparsely populated. Living somewhere like this for too long, even a healthy person would get sick."

"Isn't that the truth? Still, it makes things easier for us."

"I found that toad. Huh, this aura... its cultivation seems to be more than sixty thousand years," Ah Yin said in surprise.

Naturally, soul beasts did not judge one another's strength as humans did, based on external features. They judged by each other's auras.

Ye Wen was delighted upon hearing that. If this type of soul beast were not so rare, he would not have lowered his requirements for its cultivation age. Naturally, it would be better if he could obtain a stronger soul ring and Soul Skill.

"How many years?"

"Hmm..." Ah Yin frowned and carefully sensed it. After all, they were still a great distance apart, and it was indeed difficult for ordinary Blue Silver Grass to sense a Soul Beast King that was tens of thousands of years old.

"Eighty thousand—no, this fellow's aura is somewhat unstable. It should be between seventy-nine and eighty thousand years. It seems to have eaten some kind of heavenly treasure, and its cultivation is currently unstable."

Hearing such a high cultivation age, Ye Wen's expression turned somewhat grim. Soul beasts between eighty and ninety thousand years old could already rival powerhouses who had just broken through to the rank of Titled Douluo.

If it were merely a sixty- or seventy-thousand-year-old Toad King, Ye Wen was confident he could kill it through a sneak attack and the aid of certain drugs. That was because soul beasts around sixty to seventy thousand years old were equivalent to human Soul Saints or beginner Soul Douluo.

It mainly depended on the species, just as humans depended on the quality of their martial souls.

And the War Drum Toad was unquestionably a top-tier soul beast.

It possessed potent poison by nature, while its innate Empty Roar Cannon could directly affect an enemy's insides, leaving them battered inside and out.

Combined with its absurd jumping ability, ordinary soul beasts could only wait to die once it set its sights on them.

And that was not all—the War Drum Toad's defense was also incredibly absurd. The skin of a thousand-year War Drum Toad could rival ordinary rock. An ordinary ten-thousand-year one was no weaker than the Thousand Jin Ant King they had hunted before, let alone this creature, which was already qualified to become king. Its defense would only be even more outrageous.

"This is troublesome. We can't handle a monster like this with just the two of us," Ye Wen said, scratching his head in frustration.

What should they do?

Find another soul beast of equal standing and let it fight the War Drum Toad King while they reaped the benefits? That was completely unrealistic. Even ordinary wild beasts had their own territorial boundaries, much less soul beasts nearing one hundred thousand years of cultivation. Only an unparalleled heavenly treasure could possibly provoke such a conflict.

Kite the War Drum Toad King from a distance? No. Soul beasts at this level had extremely sharp senses. If Creation of Gravity was used from too far away, its power would instead weaken.

Setting traps and using high-intensity gunpowder could severely injure it. But the War Drum Toad King was not a cave-dwelling creature; it mostly wandered around. Besides, the air in this damned place was far too humid, so the gunpowder would need to be protected from moisture. Unfortunately, he had not brought enough materials, so that method could not be carried out either.

For a moment, Ye Wen fell into anxiety. With the equipment currently at hand, he truly had no way to take this creature's life.

"Does the War Drum Toad have any weaknesses? Its vision practically reaches three hundred and sixty degrees, so there's no such thing as a blind spot. Its external defense is even more flawless.

Shit! Why did I decide to hunt it without preparing more thoroughly back then?" Ye Wen frowned in annoyance.

Seeing Ye Wen so troubled, Ah Yin had no solution either. She could only spread her hands, looking utterly helpless.

Suddenly, a soul beast in the distance caught Ye Wen's attention.

Its body was smooth and pink, broad and round, with an adorably foolish appearance. Unfortunately, its face looked like that of a middle-aged man, and it even had a pair of rough tusks.

"That's a Big Mouth Hippo."

These soul beasts traveled in groups, and among them were several even pinker young cubs that appeared to have just been born.

Though they looked ugly in a cute way, the actions of one Big Mouth Hippo thoroughly disgusted Ye Wen.

Normal creatures defecated in lumps, but several of the hippos in this herd sprayed it everywhere like they were setting off firecrackers.

Ah Yin, who had grown accustomed to human life, clearly noticed the scene as well, and a look of disgust appeared on her face.

"Eww~ Do these hippos have diarrhea? That's disgusting, brother. Let's move farther away, or the wind will blow the smell over here later."

Without waiting for Ye Wen to react, she directly dragged him away.

At that moment, a flash of inspiration struck Ye Wen.

"Brilliant! No matter how absurd the War Drum Toad's external defense is, its insides are still fragile."

Although he could not currently make a poison that would kill it instantly, no one said poison had to be lethal.

"Hehehe—prepare to feel humanity's malice, War Drum Toad King—hehehehe!"

Over the next few days, Ye Wen began wandering through the forest. After all, he had not brought along the materials needed to make that kind of vile poison.

He also needed to understand the War Drum Toad King's habits, or unexpected changes during battle could prove troublesome.

To improve his chances of success in the coming battle, Ye Wen specifically captured a thousand-year War Drum Toad in the forest. From birth until reaching the ten-thousand-year stage, this kind of Soul Beast retained roughly the same habits, though its strength increased exponentially with age.

Thanks to the forest's uniquely advantageous poisonous miasma, ordinary Soul Masters simply would not come here to hunt Soul Rings. There was not even anyone living within a thousand miles, unless they had a death wish.

As a result, the forest had nurtured a vast quantity of high-grade medicinal herbs. It was only because this world had not deeply studied medicine that these herbs had not long since been harvested clean.

War Drum Toads were not picky eaters, but they seemed especially fond of preying upon Soul Beasts with abundant life force.

Since that was the case, Ye Wen catered to its preferences. After putting in considerable effort within the forest, he caught a thousand-year Green Pouch Beast—the very same kind of Soul Beast that had granted Ye Wen his First Soul Ring. This type of Soul Beast had no other notable strengths, but it made excellent bait for nurturing life force.

He also sprinkled medicine powder that attracted Soul Beasts into the Green Pouch Beast's fur and stuffed its belly full of medicinal herbs.

Because of the Green Pouch Beast's ruminating nature, the herbs it ate would not only fail to affect it, but would even be enhanced within its body for a period of time.

He released the thousand-year Green Pouch Beast in the area where the War Drum Toad King most enjoyed hunting.

The simple-minded Green Pouch Beast had yet to recover from the despair of being captured by humans when it suddenly found itself back in the forest where it lived, leaving it utterly bewildered.

It instinctively chewed a few mouthfuls of tender Blue Silver Grass, but before it could figure out what was happening, a tremendous force yanked at its waist and pulled its entire body off the ground.

"Baaah—!!!"

Its miserable cries echoed through the forest. The Green Pouch Beast had never imagined that after escaping the wolf's jaws, it would fall straight into the tiger's den.

In less than a moment, the cries vanished without a trace.

Its body was covered in warts, standing eight meters tall, its skin a deep indigo blue. Its enormous eyes bore the distinctive horizontal pupils of a toad.

With every breath, its bulging cheeks swelled exaggeratedly, releasing low rumbles like war drums.

Watching from afar, Ye Wen silently thought, So this is indeed an eighty-thousand-year War Drum Toad King.

After a long while, the War Drum Toad King remained motionless, still crouched there with complete composure.

"Strange. Those laxatives were all thousand-year-grade stuff. Even an eighty-thousand-year War Drum Toad King should have started getting stomach pains by now. Yet its aura is steady. Could it be that the War Drum Toad King has an extreme resistance to diarrhea medicine?"

The thought that several days of effort might have all been wasted left Ye Wen secretly irritated.

If it truly came to that, he could only leave the War Drum Toad King alone for now and hunt it later.

Just as Ye Wen was about to give up, the War Drum Toad King, which had been sitting as steady as a mountain, furrowed its placid eyes. Its body began trembling involuntarily.

Seeing this, Ye Wen was overjoyed.

The original plan had been for Ah Yin to use her exceptionally tough Blue Silver Emperor to bind and restrain the War Drum Toad King if it were only fifty or sixty thousand years old, while he picked it off with sneak attacks from the side.

But this eighty-thousand-year War Drum Toad King possessed profound cultivation. If Ah Yin made the first move, she might alert it.

So the plan changed. Ye Wen directly used his Fifth Soul Skill, Barrier of Emptiness, and silently flew into the sky.

Looking down at the War Drum Toad King, which had begun spraying diarrhea and was in unbearable agony, Ye Wen grinned maliciously.

"As long as a lifeform needs to eat, drink, piss, and shit, every action it takes will be greatly impaired when it has stomach pain and diarrhea.

Even martial arts masters, boxing champions, and fitness experts from my Previous Life would be taught a lesson by a sickly weakling after taking a dose of croton seeds."

Normally, Ye Wen would have been discovered by the War Drum Toad King the instant he rose into the air with Barrier of Emptiness. Unfortunately, the toad king was currently suffering so badly from diarrhea that it had no spare attention to monitor its surroundings.

At that moment, it felt as though its ass no longer belonged to it. Weakness spread through its entire body. Though those thousand-year-grade laxative herbs were not enough to kill it, they had left it incredibly feeble.

War Drum Toad King: (°﹃°) Ababababa

"Blame yourself for eating things carelessly.

Self-Created Soul Skill—Creation of Gravity, go!"

Having finished gathering power in midair, Ye Wen fired the swords within Creation of Gravity straight at the War Drum Toad King.

When the War Drum Toad King noticed the piercing roar, it tried to dodge, only to discover that the surrounding Blue Silver Grass had somehow bound its legs, preventing it from escaping immediately.

"Croak~!"

The War Drum Toad King let out a low, pained croak. Ye Wen's Creation of Gravity had clearly caused it immense pain.

But as the king of its kind and a battle-hardened Soul Beast powerhouse, it quickly adjusted. Though dozens of swords fired by Ye Wen were embedded in its back, with several even piercing into its body, they did not hinder its agile movements.

It hurriedly fled the area and entered the dense forest nearby. It clearly knew that its enemy was attacking from the shadows, and that if it failed to conceal itself while exposed in the open, its end would be miserable.

Unfortunately, its opponents were Ye Wen and Ah Yin.

Wherever there was Blue Silver Grass, Ah Yin had the equivalent of a map hack. And now that she had condensed the Strength Attack System soul skill Blue Silver Overlord Spear, she had become an even more treacherous assassin.

Using the Blue Silver Grass as cover, Ah Yin slipped directly behind the War Drum Toad King and dealt it a vicious blow.

She punched a bloody hole straight through its body, then swiftly concealed herself again.

All the War Drum Toad King could do was vent its helpless rage by firing its innate Ultimate Technique—Empty Roar Cannon—in every direction.

Wherever the attacks struck, trees shattered into pieces from the shockwaves. If one hit an ordinary person, they would likely be blasted into a cloud of blood. This ability was precisely why Ye Wen wanted to hunt it.

After constant exploration, Ye Wen had come to understand that calling his Martial Soul the Nabu Martial Soul was actually inaccurate.

It should have been called the Space Martial Soul—a conceptual Martial Soul. Its true existence was not the summoned Nabu itself, but the Pocket Dimension it inherently possessed.

By hunting different Soul Beasts, it could generate Space Abilities with different attributes.

Previously, Ye Wen had gained abilities such as camouflage, life preservation, research, storage for mutated living creatures, and defense through Soul Rings. He had even created a Strength Attack System Soul Skill like Creation of Gravity.

For a Support Martial Soul, Ye Wen had developed the Space Martial Soul to an exceptionally high level.

However, its weakness of insufficient attack power had also become apparent. Although Ye Wen looked down on Buddha Tang's hidden weapons in every possible way, he absolutely had no means of developing a hidden weapon like Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus, which could instantly kill a Titled Douluo, under his current circumstances. He could make black powder, but once he opened that door, this world would probably become even more chaotic.

After all, black powder required practically no technical expertise. If those bizarre Soul Masters analyzed its components, it would be terrible if they turned this fantasy world directly into a world of firearms.

Thus, under all these restrictions, Ye Wen currently lacked absolute offensive power.

As for spatial attack abilities, the only ones Ye Wen could think of were spatial slashes, Space Shockwave, and black hole pulverization.

But how should he put it? Space-Time Turbulence did indeed frequently appear outside Douluo Star, but the space within Douluo Star itself was quite stable. At the very least, even Titled Douluo had no way of tearing apart Douluo Star's space.

And that was why Douluo was called the gutter of fantasy worlds. In other fantasy worlds, the later stages involved shattering heavens and earth at every turn, while here, even after becoming gods, they could not even break down a city wall. It was truly laughable.

Therefore, the only spatial combat ability he could currently develop was Space Shockwave.

And Soul Beasts with shockwave abilities were, frankly speaking, extremely rare. Ye Wen had searched for a long time before finding the War Drum Toad, a rare kind of Soul Beast. Because it was very difficult to hunt, yet could not provide other Soul Masters with particularly powerful Soul Skills, very few people knew of this Soul Beast.

If he successfully obtained the War Drum Toad's Empty Roar Cannon Soul Skill, then after its mutation through Nabu's inherent spatial attribute, there was a high chance he would gain a Soul Skill like Space Shockwave.

And when it came to the strongest representative of Space Shockwave, there was undoubtedly one powerhouse known as the strongest man in the world.

Whitebeard—Edward Newgate.

A real man who dared to shatter the world's strongest violent organization through his own strength alone.

The War Drum Toad King was currently in terrible condition. It had never imagined that there would be such a shameless human, constantly launching sneak attacks while it had diarrhea.

Yet it had to be said that it was indeed a top-tier Soul Beast. Even after suffering such severe injuries, the War Drum Toad King remained agile, and some of its wounds had already begun to heal.

The War Drum Toad King frantically swept its gaze around, wanting to find the human who had grievously injured it. But after searching for a long time, apart from being constantly harassed, it found nothing.

"Croak—"

Its deep roar showed just how displeased the War Drum Toad King was.

Although its wounds were constantly healing, the discomfort inside its body was beyond its control. Its churning intestines left the War Drum Toad King in an extremely foul mood.

As if it had made some kind of decision, the War Drum Toad King began gathering strength throughout its entire body.

Ye Wen had clearly noticed this abnormality as well. Afraid that the War Drum Toad King might pull something unexpected, he kept his eyes fixed on it.

Run for it~

The War Drum Toad King leaped toward one direction. Judging by its posture, it had no intention of fighting at all—it was trying to flee.

As the saying went, as long as the green hills remained, there would always be firewood to burn. Few Soul Beasts that had grown to their current level were stupid. They did not care about human honor. Survival was their most fundamental instinct. Any Soul Beast that stubbornly fought a battle it knew it could not win had long since died out.

"Not good! It's trying to escape!"

Ye Wen had clearly sensed the War Drum Toad King's intentions as well. He wanted to intercept it, but because he had stayed somewhat far away out of fear of being hit by the War Drum Toad King's Empty Roar Cannon, it was now too late to stop it.

But at that moment, the inconspicuous Blue Silver Grass on the ground once again grabbed hold of the War Drum Toad King, refusing to let it escape.

Its charged leap was interrupted like this. Even with the War Drum Toad King's massive bulk, it was still caught midair and slammed back onto the ground.

Moreover, countless strands of Blue Silver Grass marked with golden patterns sprang out from the dense forest, tightly binding themselves around the War Drum Toad King.