Since hunting the Dragon Horn Hunting Lizard hadn't taken much out of Mo Yuan, he rested briefly, then immediately sat cross-legged and drew the Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring toward the top of his head.
As Mo Yuan began absorbing it, wisps of black smoke poured from the Dragon Horn Hunting Lizard's Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring, transforming into streams of Soul Power that seeped into his body. One yellow and two purple Soul Rings appeared around him, slowly rising and falling.
The surging Soul Power in his Meridians flowed rapidly, pouring into him without end. The intense pressure and pain made Mo Yuan furrow his brow slightly.
But compared with what was happening in his Sea of Consciousness, the trouble caused by absorbing the Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring seemed insignificant.
An ordinary Soul Master's Sea of Consciousness took the form of water. It began as scattered droplets, then, as Soul Power and cultivation grew, transformed into a boundless ocean.
But Mo Yuan's Sea of Consciousness was different.
Beneath a somber night sky, heavy snow fell across an endless black plain. The frigid flakes blanketed the distant mountains.
At the heart of this land stood rows upon rows of gray tombstones, carved with an unknown script. The world seemed desolate, cold, and ruined.
Death and the end of all things seemed to define this place.
Mo Yuan stood among the tombstones, gazing up at the distant sky, where an unwelcome guest had appeared.
"So this is Soul Shock? It does seem pretty impressive..."
High above, the Dragon Horn Hunting Lizard floated in a hazy form, its body shrouded in black resentment so dense it had become tangible. Its eyes glowed crimson, and it let out a shrill roar full of murderous intent.
"Roar!!!"
Perhaps because it was already dead, the Dragon Horn Hunting Lizard felt no bloodline suppression. The instant it saw Mo Yuan, it charged at him savagely!
Facing the oncoming resentment, Mo Yuan remained utterly calm, his voice flat.
"Too bad my Sea of Consciousness isn't home to just you and me. There are other things here, too..."
As he spoke, the Dragon Horn Hunting Lizard plunged down from the sky with a crazed grin, its overwhelming resentment turning it into a black meteor!
The distance between them shrank in an instant. The gale buffeting Mo Yuan sent his coat whipping wildly.
"Roar!!!"
The Dragon Horn Hunting Lizard opened its huge, bloody mouth and lunged for Mo Yuan, its sharp teeth bared!
At that moment, with danger closing in—
The somber night suddenly shuddered violently. Something enormous flashed across the dark firmament.
A violent gale swept in, carrying the falling snow and turning it into a terrifying blizzard. A pair of enormous black wings cleaved through the sky, casting a vast shadow over the land!
The gigantic black wings, hung with countless stark-white skulls, arrived bearing endless calamity and unquestionable death!
A dragon!
It was a black dragon!
The black dragon was at once majestic and terrifying, savage and beautiful. It was awe-inspiring—and suffocating.
Its eyes, like Mo Yuan's, were brilliant Golden Eyes! Flames seemed to flow within them. Its head was crowned as if with an emperor's diadem, and its scales were so dark they seemed almost like ink. A single glance seemed capable of drawing all life into their depths!
The Black King Nidhogg descended, bringing indisputable death!
The Dragon Horn Hunting Lizard, which had been grinning as it charged at Mo Yuan, now lay sprawled on the ground at his feet. Its entire body trembled uncontrollably, and even the overwhelming resentment around it had vanished.
With a trace of Dragon Blood in its veins and a Pure-blooded Dragon once seen in its lifetime, the Dragon Horn Hunting Lizard knew well the immense power of a true dragon. But when it saw the black dragon in the sky, it realized it had been wrong.
That was a true dragon! That was true terror!
His appearance heralded the end and destruction of all things!
He was the incarnation of death and calamity!
But... kneeling in submission couldn't make the Dragon Horn Hunting Lizard invisible, much less let it escape its fated death. The black dragon descended from the sky with a hurricane. The ground shook as Nidhogg landed behind Mo Yuan.
An even more terrifying gale swept through! Nidhogg opened his mouth!
The trembling Dragon Horn Hunting Lizard didn't resist in the slightest—or rather, it couldn't even conceive of resisting!
The gale faded and the mouth closed. The Dragon Horn Hunting Lizard disappeared from Mo Yuan's Sea of Consciousness.
Silence once again fell over the black plain. Among the gray tombstones, only the two pairs of Golden Eyes—one large, one small—belonging to Mo Yuan and Nidhogg still shone.
The cold wind stirred a strand of hair against Mo Yuan's cheek. He turned to face the enormous black dragon that embodied death, gazed at its perfect form as if crafted by the gods, and sighed softly.
"No matter how many times I see him, I still find myself lost in a daze. It's hard to imagine Nidhogg is actually my Martial Soul. No—his blood, the blood of the Black King Nidhogg..."
The blood of the Black King Nidhogg was the Martial Soul of Mo Yuan, a transmigrator.
In his previous life, Mo Yuan had graduated from university at twenty-two and entered the workforce as an office drone. His only real hobby was reading novels. One day, after work, he'd been struck by a car and reborn on Douluo Continent, in the Heaven Dou Empire.
Both his parents had been Soul Masters at the Soul Elder level. When Mo Yuan was five, they died in an accident while hunting Soul Beasts for someone else to earn money.
His parents both had ordinary bow-type Tool Martial Souls. Mo Yuan had assumed his own Martial Soul would probably be a bow, too, but he discovered he was wrong after his awakening.
His Martial Soul wasn't a bow. It was Dragon Blood—the blood of Nidhogg!
This Nidhogg wasn't the black dragon from Norse Mythology who gnawed at the World Tree, but the black dragon from a book by the author Qingmian Beast, who awoke and destroyed the world!
The emperor who created the White King, the Four Kings, and all the dragons!
And during his Martial Soul Awakening, Mo Yuan had entered his Sea of Consciousness. There, he'd discovered a black dragon. It was none other than the Black King Nidhogg!
But something seemed off about this Black King. He wasn't like the Black King described in the Original Work. Mo Yuan felt he was more like a vessel.
After Mo Yuan saw this terrifying Black King, he transmitted some information to him.
From that information, Mo Yuan learned that unlike other Soul Masters, who hunted Soul Beasts for Soul Rings and Soul Skills, he also had to hunt Soul Rings—but instead of gaining Soul Skills, he would obtain the Black King's blood.
Each time Mo Yuan advanced by one major realm and acquired a Soul Ring, he could exchange blood with the Black King, replacing one-tenth of the blood in his body with Dragon Blood and increasing its purity by 10%.
Once he had Dragon Blood, its purity and proportion would determine which Words of Power he could use and how much alchemical knowledge he would gain.
For example, now that he had three Soul Rings, Mo Yuan could use nearly every Word of Power below Sequence Number 70, along with basic alchemy involving self-forging and elemental control.
Of course, the rules had changed, so using Words of Power also consumed Soul Power. The amount depended on the power of the Word.
The reason he'd been able to use Sequence Number 89, Jun Yan, just now was that... he'd temporarily undergone bloodline frenzy.
Using mental techniques to suppress the 'human' part within him and strengthen the 'dragon' part—that was bloodline frenzy, also known as the Bloodline Refinement Technique.
Mo Yuan had used bloodline frenzy to raise the amount and purity of Dragon Blood in his body to 40%, allowing him to use Jun Yan.
Of course, bloodline frenzy had side effects.
But unlike the 'slow descent into hell' described in the Original Work—a fate that meant certain death—using first-degree bloodline frenzy would only leave him weakened for a while.
However, he'd only undergone first-degree bloodline frenzy. If Mo Yuan went as far as the fourth degree, he could temporarily raise his strength enough to use Words of Power on the level of 'Eclipse' and 'Judgment,' but the price would be that the Black King in his Sea of Consciousness took over his body.
From then on, when he died, the Black King would descend—and destroy this world.