Did I Say I Wouldn't Pay?

"How much?!"

"How much did you say?!"

A supply town on the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest.

As night deepened, the town built beside the continent's most famous gathering place for soul beasts was at its liveliest.

In a corner of a restaurant called the Soul Hunter's Home, empty plates were piled half a meter high on a greasy square table.

Behind the plates sat a boy who looked no older than six or seven. He had a rare head of silver hair, but his clothes were shabby—typical commoner's garments of coarse cloth and hemp, with bits of grass clinging to them that no amount of washing could remove.

"Three gold soul coins?!"

Xuan Hao's voice rose several pitches, disbelief ringing through its childish tones. "I only ate one meal, and you want three gold soul coins? This whole table was worth thirty copper soul coins at most!"

What did three gold soul coins amount to?

For young soul masters born into great clans, they might be no more than spare change tossed to a roadside beggar, or a casual tip for a beautiful maid.

But for Xuan Hao, it was a fortune.

He was a transmigrator, and an orphan.

A few days earlier, during the martial soul awakening ceremony in Lan Yun Village, he had stood in the center of the awakening formation, brimming with anticipation. Given the monstrous strength he had possessed since childhood, far beyond that of ordinary people, he had expected to awaken a top-tier beast spirit at the very least. Then he would soar to the heavens in a single leap, pummel Spirit Hall with his fists, and kick the two great empires aside.

And the result?

The Spirit Hall official conducting the ceremony had told him his awakening had failed.

No martial soul, no soul power—not even a sickle or a hoe.

At that moment, Xuan Hao had felt the whole world turn gray.

On the Douluo Continent, where strength reigned supreme, having no martial soul meant spending a lifetime as an ant. Even someone like Yu Xiao Gang could casually crush him underfoot.

Yet before he could digest that despair, fate, that bitch, had slapped him hard across the face again—and slipped him a bloodstained piece of candy for good measure.

That night, wolf bandits had attacked Lan Yun Village.

They were half-human, half-wolf beasts without a shred of humanity, leaving not even chickens or dogs alive in their wake.

All Xuan Hao remembered was fire blazing into the sky and heart-rending screams.

A powerful wolf bandit had pinned him to the ground, the bandit's foul-smelling maw only centimeters from his throat.

In that instant, overwhelming fear and rage had shattered some hidden shackle.

He had awakened.

Golden Dragon and Silver Dragon, ultimate strength and ultimate elements—twin martial souls!

Xuan Hao did not actually remember very clearly what had happened afterward.

Under the onslaught of that berserk power, he had lost his reason.

By the time he woke again, it was the following morning.

The first thing he saw was the ground strewn with wolf bandit corpses.

They could no longer even be called corpses. They were pieces.

Not a single one was intact, as though some terrifying beast had torn them apart by brute force. Blood had stained the earth across half the village.

Less than half of Lan Yun Village's people remained.

The survivors no longer looked at him as the mischievous "Little Overlord" he had once been. They looked at him as though he were a monster, their eyes filled with profound fear and estrangement.

Xuan Hao understood that he could no longer stay.

After helping everyone bury their dead friends and relatives, he had chosen to leave.

Before departing, he had found thirteen gold soul coins on the wolf bandits' bodies. He supposed that counted as loot from his first kill.

His village was not far from the Star Dou Great Forest, so he had decided to come here and try his luck first.

He knew absolutely nothing about cultivating a martial soul. He had no idea how old a soul ring he could absorb, much less how to determine a soul beast's age.

Fortunately, there was a town outside the Star Dou Great Forest. He had spent one gold soul coin on an illustrated soul beast guide, which gave a rough introduction to some common soul beasts found around the forest's outskirts and methods for judging their ages.

It was vague, and the drawings were so abstract that he even suspected the thing was a scam. Still, after shopping around, it had been the most credible guide he could find.

And now this one meal was going to cost him three gold soul coins?

"Take a good look, brat."

Seeing Xuan Hao's fierce reaction, the waiter's fake smile vanished completely, replaced by contempt and impatience.

"This is Kanor Town, a major route into and out of the Star Dou Great Forest! Every shipment of ingredients requires soul masters hired as escorts. Naturally, the costs are high. The prices are clearly listed!"

The waiter looked Xuan Hao's ragged clothes up and down, making no attempt to hide his disdain. "Dressed like a beggar, aren't you? Don't tell me you're planning to dine and dash. If you haven't got money, don't come in here playing the big shot!"

"Hurry up, pay, and get lost! Otherwise, don't blame me when I strip you naked and throw you out to feed the dogs!"

"Who are you calling a beggar?!"

Xuan Hao's gaze hardened, and an indescribably terrifying aura erupted from his body without warning!

In an instant, the air throughout the ground-floor dining hall seemed to thicken. The temperature plummeted, only to become unbearably hot a moment later.

Starting at the roots, Xuan Hao's previously soft, silvery-white hair rapidly turned a dazzling gold, the change visible to the naked eye!

His sky-blue eyes instantly became molten, red-gold slit pupils, brimming with brutality, majesty, and destruction.

With a faint sound of tearing fabric, fine hexagonal golden dragon scales began to show beneath the exposed skin of Xuan Hao's neck and the backs of his hands. Each scale gleamed with a cold metallic luster, with streams of light seeming to flow between them.

Although no soul rings appeared, that pure pressure from deep within his bloodline spread outward as though it were something tangible.

"Wh-what is this?!"

The diners who had been watching the spectacle paled. Those with beast spirits could even feel their own martial souls trembling.

"Y-you... what are you going to do...? This is..." the waiter stammered, trying to back away.

"Who are you calling a beggar?!"

Xuan Hao slammed his palm onto the solid wooden round table before him.

The table was made from high-quality ironwood, incomparably hard. Even an ordinary Soul Grandmaster might not have been able to damage it easily.

Yet beneath Xuan Hao's palm, the thick tabletop shattered as though it were made of tofu, exploding into countless splinters that flew in every direction!

"Did I say I wouldn't pay?!"

Upstairs, in the most luxurious private room.

The soundproofing here was excellent. Normally, none of the commotion downstairs should have been audible.

A woman in an exquisite purple robe elegantly held a teacup. She was breathtakingly beautiful, her bearing so noble that others hardly dared look directly at her. Time seemed to have treated her with particular kindness, leaving not a trace on her face and instead distilling the allure unique to a mature woman.

Across from her sat an equally enchanting girl of about eight or nine, whose foxlike eyes held a natural, effortless charm.

They were Bibi Dong, the Pope of Spirit Hall, and her disciple, Hu Liena.

"Teacher..." Hu Liena's face was slightly pale, a trace of terror showing in her eyes. "What is this aura? My martial soul... my martial soul is afraid."

Bibi Dong set down her teacup, her gaze seeming to pierce the floor and look straight downstairs.

"Dragon Might. And it isn't from an ordinary sub-dragon species. This is the aura of a true, high-ranking member of the dragon clan, with an exceptionally pure bloodline."

"The dragon clan?" Hu Liena asked in surprise. "Could it be someone from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan?"

"No. The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon's aura may be domineering, but it doesn't possess such pure suppressive power." Bibi Dong narrowed her eyes slightly, and her powerful spiritual power instantly enveloped the entire restaurant. "What's even more interesting is that the little fellow giving off this aura has soul power filled almost to overflowing, yet he doesn't have a single soul ring."

"No soul ring?" Hu Liena was even more shocked. "A Soul Warrior who hasn't obtained a soul ring can suppress my demon fox with his martial soul's aura alone?"

"Not just yours. Even my death spider emperor is growing restless." Bibi Dong's brows drew together slightly.

"This is unquestionably an emperor among dragon spirits."