The Soul Beast they needed to hunt was called the Ice Fire Poison Horn Deer. It lived in the central region's Ice Crystal Forest, a forest formed by trees that looked like crystal.
They had already completed the hardest part by reaching the central region. Finding the Ice Crystal Forest was easy, and finding the Soul Beast once they reached the forest would be easier still.
Yue Hongchen looked up. The sky was still exceptionally bright, but it was already evening. This was the Far North's polar day, with six months of daylight followed by six months of night.
Yue Hongchen took a tent from his storage Soul Guiding Ring and set it up in a suitable spot. Then he and Meng ducked inside. He used his power of separation to isolate the entire tent, ensuring that passing Soul Beasts wouldn't notice it.
After a simple meal of dry rations, the two lay down to rest. Xiao Ka emerged from the Sea of Consciousness right on schedule and lay on Yue's left, while Meng stayed on his right.
After covering them with a blanket, Yue held the two of them and drifted off to sleep. Snow began falling outside again, and the wind blew steadily, but the three inside the tent weren't affected at all.
Early the next morning, Xiao Ka returned to the Sea of Consciousness. Yue packed up the tent and began looking for the Ice Crystal Forest.
They were pretty lucky. They had reached the central region the night before, and that morning it didn't take much effort to find the forest formed by crystal-like trees.
"Stay behind me. Because of the severe cold, few human Soul Masters come to the Far North to hunt for Soul Rings. The central region these days is probably even more dangerous than the core region of the Star Dou Great Forest." Yue Hongchen kept a wary eye on their surroundings as he spoke to Meng Hongchen behind him.
Meng Hongchen murmured a quiet "Mm" and followed closely behind Yue Hongchen. She, too, watched their surroundings, ready to react at once if danger appeared so she wouldn't hold him back.
The central region was home to all kinds of Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts, but five races predominated: the Ice Jade Emperor Scorpions, Titan Snow Demon Kings, Ice Plains Bears, Ice Snow Giant Dragons, and Snow Velvet Moths. The Ice Crystal Forest was the habitat of the Ice Plains Bears and Snow Velvet Moths.
If possible, Yue didn't want to encounter either of those Soul Beasts. They might be manageable if they were far from their habitats, but if one of them died near its territory, the entire race could swarm out. That would be a real handful.
The two explored the Ice Crystal Forest at a slow pace. They came across several Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts along the way, but none was an Ice Fire Poison Horn Deer, so Yue Hongchen went around them. There was no need to wipe them out, and the commotion from a fight might attract even more powerful Soul Beasts.
They continued deeper into the forest and noticed that the trees around them were becoming fewer. Many of the Ice Crystal tree trunks were marked with bite scars.
"This should be the territory of some Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast." As Yue spoke, he gestured for Meng to hide nearby.
Meng obediently nodded. She didn't follow Yue out of the forest, but hid behind a large tree at its edge, where she could still see what was happening inside.
Yue stepped out of the forest. Before him lay a lake, with a large rock at its center and several broken ice floes drifting on the surface. Nothing else was in sight. The lake was encircled by the Ice Crystal Forest.
"Something's wrong."
Yue Hongchen stayed alert, instinctively tightening his grip on the Blood Oath Pact.
The place was far too clean. The ice floes drifting across the lake were especially suspicious. At this temperature, the lake should have been frozen over.
He looked at the rock in the middle of the lake. It was free of snow, and he could just make out claw marks covering its edges.
Information about a Soul Beast surfaced in his mind: a variant of the Nile Crocodile that lived in the lakes of the Far North. It had one habit that never changed, no matter how high its cultivation became: ambushing its prey.
Whether its target was a Soul Master or a Soul Beast, regardless of its age or cultivation, it would leap out of the lake the moment they drew near, bite them, then follow up with a death roll.
If it could win, it got an extra meal. If it couldn't, it used the momentum of its roll to return to the lake. This Soul Beast was cunning; it always chose a habitat with underwater currents leading elsewhere. It was incredibly fast in the water, and few could catch it there.
Yue Hongchen didn't dare approach the lakeshore. Who knew where the thing was lurking, just waiting to bite him?
His gaze swept over the lake. One of the floating ice floes seemed to be drifting normally, but it was slowly drawing closer to him. It would have been hard to notice without careful observation.
"Found you." Yue Hongchen chuckled.
At the same time, his fourth Soul Ring lit up behind him, and a Human Rights Sword projection plunged squarely into the ice floe.
The floe shattered, and the Human Rights Sword's effect sent the Nile Crocodile hiding beneath it flying out of the lake.
Only then did Yue Hongchen get a clear look at it. It was the same size as an ordinary Nile Crocodile, but its skin was blue and its body was covered in armor formed from ice crystals. Its blood-red eyes fixed on Yue Hongchen as it sailed through the air.
"Pretty tough."
The Human Rights Sword had only cracked the armor on its body. Without that armor, the sword would have pinned it firmly to the lakebed.
The Nile Crocodile endured its discomfort and curled up as it fell onto the rock in the middle of the lake.
Its blood-red eyes stared fixedly at Yue Hongchen. A Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast already possessed a clear sense of self. Though Yue Hongchen had only four Soul Rings, the power of that last strike was far beyond what a normal Soul Master with four rings could manage.
After watching him for a few seconds and noticing nothing unusual, its instincts overcame its caution. Whatever Yue Hongchen was, it would take a bite first and see how he tasted.
The Nile Crocodile slapped its tail hard against the water, shooting its massive body straight toward the shore. It opened its gaping jaws, ready to bite.
Yue Hongchen wasn't foolish enough to stand there and let it bite him. He casually tossed out several Level Four Soul Guiding Bombs, then sprang backward.
The Nile Crocodile looked contemptuously at the objects Yue Hongchen had thrown. It swallowed them in one gulp, its huge body landing where Yue Hongchen had been standing moments before. Snow burst up from the ground and drifted through the air again.
After landing, the Nile Crocodile prepared to attack once more. Yue Hongchen gave a wicked smile and snapped the fingers of his left hand. The four Level Four Soul Guiding Bombs exploded inside its body.
Its earlier external wounds, compounded by its new internal injuries, made it spit out a mouthful of blue blood. The blood hit the ground with a sizzling sound.
"Level Four bombs really can't do much damage to a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, can they?" Seeing no fragments of internal organs in the blood, Yue Hongchen shook his head in disappointment.
The Nile Crocodile was thoroughly enraged. Even if the King of Heaven himself showed up today, it would take a bite out of Yue Hongchen before considering escape.
After two exchanges, it knew it would have a hard time keeping Yue Hongchen there, but that didn't mean it would simply flee. It was still a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, after all.
The ice crystals on its body glowed a deep blue. The Nile Crocodile whipped its tail, sending countless ice crystals shooting toward Yue Hongchen.
Yue Hongchen swung the sword in his hand, sending out one sword wave after another to block the Nile Crocodile's Soul Skill.
At the same time, he kept closing in on the Nile Crocodile.
Seeing Yue Hongchen move closer instead of putting distance between them, the Nile Crocodile thought it had run into a fool. Even an ordinary fifty-thousand-year Soul Beast couldn't withstand its bite.
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