Dugu Yan listened, her heart stirred, her eyes filled with excitement and anticipation.
"Are you ready?" Gu Nian asked.
"I'm ready!" Dugu Yan nodded firmly, her gaze becoming incomparably resolute.
"Good."
With a flick of his finger, Gu Nian sent the drop of Nine Nether Dragon King Essence Blood and the Nine Profound Dragon Ganoderma Grass floating before Dugu Yan.
"Release your Martial Soul."
Without the slightest hesitation, Dugu Yan circulated her Soul Power, and a sharp hiss rang out.
The phantom of an enormous dark green serpent rose coiled behind her, faint light glimmering within its triangular snake eyes.
It was the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor.
"Go."
Gu Nian spoke with Word of Law.
The drop of Dragon Blood and the Dragon Ganoderma Grass instantly turned into two streaks of light and sank into the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor's brow.
"Hiss—!!!"
An agonized roar erupted from the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor's mouth.
Its body writhed and twisted violently. Scales of dark green began cracking and falling from its massive serpentine body, seeping threads of black blood.
An incomparably violent energy rampaged through its body.
Dugu Yan let out a muffled groan, her face instantly turning deathly pale. The drastic change in her Martial Soul was clearly inflicting tremendous pain upon her as well.
"Focus your mind. Hold fast to your true self."
Gu Nian's voice was like a clear spring flowing into her heart, instantly clearing her chaotic mind.
Dugu Yan gritted her teeth and circulated her Soul Power with all her strength, cooperating with her Martial Soul's evolution.
Boom!
A black shockwave exploded outward from the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor!
Its old snakeskin was completely shattered, turning into dust that filled the air.
In its place, black-gold scales with a metallic gleam rapidly grew over its mangled, bloodied body.
Ancient, mysterious patterns were branded onto every scale.
Two imposing dragon horns burst through the flesh atop its head, pointing straight toward the sky vault.
Beneath its belly, sharp claws tore through the flesh and extended out, glinting with chilling light.
Its original snake eyes transformed into a pair of majestic vertical dragon pupils, with what seemed to be underworld flames burning deep within them.
Its size continued expanding, and its aura steadily climbed, breaking through the emperor level and reaching an entirely new, tremblingly terrifying realm!
"Roar—!!!"
A Dragon Roar that shook the heavens replaced its former serpent hiss.
It was no longer a serpent, but a true dragon!
An unparalleled ferocious dragon covered in black-gold dragon scales, exuding the aura of the underworld and death!
Martial Soul Evolution—Nine Nether Underworld Dragon Emperor!
At the very instant Dugu Yan's Martial Soul completed its evolution and its aura rose to its peak.
High in the nine heavens, the Sky Screen, which had been silent for so long, lit up once more without warning!
Golden light illuminated the earth. Everyone instinctively raised their heads and held their breath.
The Seventh Place on the Golden Ranking was about to be announced!
Yet the expected name and reward did not appear.
Instead, a line of enormous words that no one had anticipated slowly emerged in the center of the Sky Screen.
[Detected intense fluctuations in ranking data...] [Golden Ranking positions... recalculating...] [Golden Ranking positions... recalculating...]
Every stroke of the golden words upon the Sky Screen seemed to carry the weight of a thousand jun, pressing down on the hearts of every Spirit Master across the continent.
Recalculating?
This was something that had never happened since the Golden Ranking appeared!
Everyone held their breath and stared intently at the sky, waiting for the final result.
At this moment, time became unbearably long.
Finally, that line of text slowly faded away, and new light gathered.
[Seventh Place on the Golden Ranking: Dugu Yan!]
It was here!
But when everyone saw what followed, the entire continent fell into strange dead silence.
[Martial Soul: Evolution in progress...]
The entire continent was dead silent.
Countless Spirit Masters stared upward with their mouths agape, their eyes nearly popping out of their eye sockets.
What had they just seen?
Still... evolving?
A Martial Soul could reach Seventh Place on the Golden Ranking while it was still evolving?
Was that even reasonable?!
After a brief silence came an uproar that shot into the heavens!
"Madness! This Golden Ranking has definitely gone mad! Why should a Martial Soul that hasn't even finished evolving be ranked seventh?"
"Dugu Yan? Isn't she Dugu Bo's granddaughter? Her Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor Martial Soul can actually evolve?"
"The key point is that it was judged seventh on the continent before its evolution even finished! If it completes the evolution, wouldn't that be unbelievable?"
Shrek Academy.
Oscar muttered blankly, "Th-this works too?"
Dai Mubai's gaze was solemn. "Dugu Yan's Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor has the well-known flaw of poisonous backlash. How could it possibly evolve? And into something of such a high level at that."
"It was that Blue Silver God King!"
Ning Rongrong hit the nail on the head.
"Other than him, I can't think of anyone else capable of doing something like this."
Everyone's hearts trembled at her words.
Him again!
That man always seemed capable of doing things that overturned common sense.
"Impossible!"
A decisive voice rang out.
Yu Xiaogang stood with his hands behind his back, his brows tightly furrowed, his face full of academic rigor and stubbornness.
"Martial Soul Evolution is already an unfathomably mysterious matter. Its probability is more than ten thousand times lower than Martial Soul Mutation, and the possibility of human intervention is virtually nonexistent."
He looked at the others and analyzed the matter in a grave voice.
"For him to evolve Xue Ke's Swan Martial Soul was absolutely luck! A blind cat stumbling upon a dead rat! He merely used some heavenly treasure that happened to suit Xue Ke's Martial Soul!"
"This sort of thing can happen once, but never twice!"
"The bloodline issue with the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor runs too deep. Making it evolve is harder than ascending to heaven!"
The more Yu Xiaogang spoke, the more agitated he became, as though defending the authority of his own theories.
"If he can truly help others evolve their Martial Souls whenever he wishes, then I, Yu Xiaogang, will eat the dirt off this ground before the Entire Continent!"
The moment his words fell.
Bzzzz—!
The image on the Sky Screen above the nine heavens suddenly changed.
The original golden ranking vanished, replaced by an incomparably clear moving image.
The livestream had begun!
Within the image, immortal mist swirled through fields of exotic flowers and rare herbs. It was the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well in Sunset Forest.
A figure stood with his hands behind his back, his White Clothes Like Snow, his bearing detached from the mortal world.
It was the Blue Silver God King, Gu Nian!
Before him, Dugu Yan sat cross-legged. Her pretty face was pale, and fragrant sweat drenched her entire body, clearly showing that she was enduring immense pain.
Behind her, the Nine Nether Underworld Dragon Emperor, still undergoing transformation, released waves of pained, suppressed Dragon Roars.
Though its aura was rapidly rising, it seemed to have encountered some kind of bottleneck. Its evolution had stalled, and fine cracks had even appeared across its black-gold dragon scales.
At that moment, Gu Nian's voice rang out. Passing through the Sky Screen, it clearly spread throughout the Entire Continent.
"Calm your mind. Do not be deceived by appearances."
"The source of your bloodline is not a dragon, but a serpent. A dragon is merely one direction for its evolution, not the endpoint."
"Trace it back to its origin. Feel the most ancient mark in the depths of the soul, form a connection with the slumbering Serpent Queen Medusa, and awaken her!"
Before you continue