Come On, You Trash!

Situ Xuan could clearly feel countless hostile, covetous thoughts locking onto him.

This was exactly the effect he wanted!

At last, he passed through an especially dense thicket of brambles, and the view before him suddenly opened up.

It was a small clearing in the woods. Though not large, compared to the jungle that had previously blotted out the sky and sun, it was a rare stretch of open ground.

Several precious shafts of sunlight, not entirely blocked by the canopy, pierced through the shade like golden swords, casting columns of light that illuminated the dancing dust and the massive, dazzling clusters of spiritual power halos surrounding Situ Xuan.

The grass in the clearing glistened with dew beneath the sunlight, creating a strange and stark contrast with the deathly halos Situ Xuan had brought with him.

Yet this seemingly tranquil clearing was now filled with suffocating killing intent.

Situ Xuan stopped and slowly swept his gaze around.

Directly ahead, three pairs of scarlet eyes lit up from the shadows at the edge of the clearing.

Accompanied by low, threatening growls, three Shadow Leopards, each a full size larger than the previous one, slowly padded out.

Their muscles bulged, their claws gleamed with a ghostly light, and they spread out in a fan formation, sealing off Situ Xuan's path ahead. Their auras far surpassed a hundred years; they had at least five hundred years of cultivation.

Heavy footsteps and the crackling of snapping branches came from the left.

A gigantic beast emerged, like a small hill—the thousand-year Soul Beast, the Earth-Shaking Giant Ape!

It stood over five meters tall. Its thick arms pounded its chest, producing dull booms like war drums. Its fangs jutted outward, and saliva dripped from the corners of its mouth, corroding tiny pits into the ground.

Its gaze remained fixed on Situ Xuan—or rather, on the enormous clusters of spiritual power halos behind him, enough to make it drool with greed.

From the right came a faint hissing. A massive, brilliantly colored python as thick as a water barrel silently lowered its head from an ancient tree, its cold serpent eyes locking onto Situ Xuan without a trace of emotion.

A thousand-year Soul Beast, the Seven-Colored Poisonous Miasma Python! The air around it twisted slightly, giving off a sickeningly sweet, fishy stench.

And that was not all.

"Caw—!"

A piercing cry came from above.

The beasts looked up to see three Iron-Winged Goshawks with wingspans exceeding four meters circling over the clearing. Their sharp gazes swept across Situ Xuan and the Soul Beasts below as though scanning prey. They too were thousand-year Soul Beasts, clearly drawn by this massive concentration of spiritual power.

Behind him, from the thicket he had come through, came rustling sounds. Countless tiny green eyes flickered in the darkness, accompanied by scalp-numbing gnawing sounds—the Bloodthirsty Demon Rat horde drawn here by the spiritual power. Though individually weak, they numbered in the hundreds or thousands, like a surging tide!

In an instant, Situ Xuan had fallen into an unprecedented encirclement.

Three five-hundred-year Shadow Leopards, one thousand-year Earth-Shaking Giant Ape, one thousand-year Seven-Colored Poisonous Miasma Python, three thousand-year Iron-Winged Goshawks, and an uncountable horde of Bloodthirsty Demon Rats...

These powerful Soul Beasts, which normally occupied their own territories and feared one another, had temporarily formed a strange balance and encirclement because of their shared target—Situ Xuan and the utterly immense spiritual power halos around him.

The air was thick with Soul Beast killing intent, the smell of blood, and the sweetly fishy odor brought by the venomous python. Mixed with the fresh scent of grass in the clearing, it created an intensely contradictory, oppressive atmosphere.

The sun still shone, but the clearing seemed to have become the prelude to an Asura battlefield.

None of the Soul Beasts attacked immediately. They watched one another warily, growling, hissing, and circling overhead, seemingly assessing each other while searching for the best moment to strike.

But the focus of all their gazes remained the tiny human standing in the center of the clearing, surrounded by countless spiritual power halos.

Faced with a desperate situation that would have driven any Soul Grandmaster, even a Soul Elder, to despair, Situ Xuan showed no fear. Instead, his eyes, usually carrying a hint of languid mockery, now blazed with unprecedented excitement like two clusters of ghostly fire.

He slowly raised both hands and assumed his opening stance. The aura that had once been restrained around him erupted like a ferocious beast released from its seal!

It was not merely a fluctuation of Soul Power. It also carried the brutal killing intent tempered amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

He drew a deep breath, feeling the heart in his chest pound violently from the extreme danger and excitement. Then he gave the terrifying "audience" around him a smile that mixed madness with anticipation.

"Now this is more like it... Come on, you trash! Let me have some fun!"

In the clearing, the air froze solid as iron. Killing intent, thick as tangible liquid, wrapped around every inch of space.

Several powerful thousand-year Soul Beasts, along with the centuries-old Shadow Leopards and the tidal horde of Bloodthirsty Demon Rats, formed a cage of certain death.

Their growls, hisses, breaths, and the scrape of claws against the ground interwove into a prelude to destruction. Every greedy, vicious gaze focused on the center—on the human illuminated by vast spiritual power halos like a ruler of the nebulae.

Standing in the heart of this hopeless situation, Situ Xuan felt no fear whatsoever. Instead, the fury and battle intent churning in his chest reached their peak.

The killing intent radiating from him collided fiercely with the ferocious aura of the Soul Beasts, invisibly forming a suffocating vortex of pressure.

The profound meaning of the Fist of the North Star surged through his body. His rage became fuel, driving his strength to a new peak.

His opening stance appeared ancient and unadorned, yet it contained explosive force capable of tearing everything apart, as though he would transform into an Asura in the next instant and stain heaven and earth with blood.

Just as the battle was about to begin, at that critical moment—

"Awoo—!"

A tiger's roar, utterly out of place amid the brutal atmosphere and carrying a touch of youthful clarity, rang out without warning.

The howl was not particularly earth-shaking, yet it seemed to possess a peculiar penetrating force. It clearly entered the ears of every living creature present, even briefly drowning out the agitation of the Soul Beasts.

Immediately afterward, a deep black radiance burst from Situ Xuan's chest like a meteor tearing through the night.

The black light left his body, rapidly expanding and solidifying in midair before lightly landing in the clearing at his side.

As the glow faded, it revealed the figure within.

It was Situ Xuan's Soul Spirit—the Little Black Tiger, black as ink and no larger than a housecat.

At this moment, the little fellow seemed somewhat different from usual.

It was no longer curled up lazily in sleep, nor did it show the slightest timidity toward its terrifying surroundings.

Its four paws stood firmly on the ground. Though tiny, like a speck of dust before those colossal beasts, it held its head high and puffed out its chest. The fur around its neck even bristled slightly, trying to project an imposing air.

It threw back its head and let out another long howl. "Awoo—!"

This time, there was less childishness in its cry and more indescribable majesty and pride drawn from deep within its bloodline.

Its amber eyes, usually half-lidded and slightly dazed, were now wide open. Blazing flames burned within them as it fearlessly swept its gaze over the terrifying beings around it, each of which was like a mountain to it.

Its gaze even carried an innate arrogance, as though it looked down upon all living things.

Though the young tiger's roar shook the forest only faintly, its intent was already clear!