Apes: How did I become tall?

[Note: On the Folded Ear Continent provided by the system, the Nanshan Rainforest lacks a carrier of destiny like the Star Dou Forest. Since the Three-Eyed Golden Lion was tricked away by Huo Yuhao, and the Elves themselves have no need to hunt soul beasts to level up, there is no need to consume the output of soul beasts like the Lake of Life. Thus, the concentration of heaven and earth energy is several orders of magnitude higher.]

"Do we really need to bring all this stuff?"

Ximing watched as Rus Wang kept attaching Soul Guidance Devices to her transformed body, to the point where he was even trying to fit human-style power armor onto her, and couldn't help but speak to her husband.

"You don't understand, Ximing. You were rescued by Yanjin and brought to the Folded Ear Continent while you were in a coma, so you have no concept of that ice fog. If you go in there without any preparation, or without the immense willpower to maintain a straight flight path and push through without feeling drowsy, it is very easy to get trapped."

After Ximing decided to return to the old continent, Yanjin had constantly told her that she had discovered Ximing—who was in a deep coma and had a cultivation of fifty thousand years—while crossing that ice field plagued by mental interference. At the time, Yanjin, with over eighty thousand years of cultivation, had just eaten the carcass of a sea soul beast that had beached and died due to magnetic field disturbances. She chose not to eat Ximing, and instead used her soul power to wrap around the unconscious Ximing, forcibly walking her way out of that eerie ice field and ice fog.

Only then did Ximing wake up, and she lived with Yanjin in an ocean ice floe area where prey (ordinary baleen whales, not sea soul beasts) was abundant. It wasn't until an accidental hunt, where they sensed that the heaven and earth energy became increasingly dense the further south they flew, that they arrived at the Folded Ear Continent.

"Ravenna is the only place where we can obtain Soul Guidance Devices. And once we reach that coniferous forest to the south, it will be our last chance to resupply and rest before we leave the continent. After that, you must be prepared for a month of continuous, high-intensity flight, crossing several thousand kilometers in a straight line."

Rus Wang recounted his experience from last year when he crossed the ice fog and that ice field of mental interference to Ximing. During the journey where he led several thousand soul beasts across that region, hundreds of them simply couldn't hold on and quietly left the group.

At the time, Rus Wang hadn't noticed, and it wasn't until they passed the dragon skeletons that he saw hundreds of fresh soul beast carcasses, realizing the severity of the problem. In front of those eerie dragon skeletons in the ice fog, he made the herd stop to count the soul beasts, stuffed all the hundred-year and thousand-year soul beasts into storage Soul Guidance Devices, and continued forward with only those dozen or so ten-thousand-year soul beasts.

"So that ice fog can kill soul beasts silently and even gather their corpses together? That is truly terrifying for a dragon."

After hearing about Rus Wang's experience on the return journey with that group of soul beasts, Ximing, who had only heard of the ice fog's strangeness from Yanjin and the others, suddenly felt that bringing a few more Soul Guidance Devices wasn't such a bad idea.

"Alright, everything that needs to be prepared is ready. Let's go. After a short rest in the coniferous forest near our daughter Iyuda, we will cross the sea and officially head to the Dragon Valley Continent (which is not yet the Star Luo Continent). We can chat more on the way."

"Okay."

The five siblings born to Rus Wang and Thalassa had indeed seized a territory in the Nanshan Rainforest and lived together when they were thousand-year soul beasts in their early years. However, as they reached the ten-thousand-year mark and entered an awkward phase, they couldn't compete with the veteran ten-thousand-year soul beasts (at that time, there were fewer than 300 ten-thousand-year soul beasts in the Nanshan Rainforest, but because they had been nourished by the massive amount of heaven and earth energy in the Nanshan Rainforest for a hundred years, every single one was over 30,000 years old, with none below that level). Coupled with the fact that the Folded Ear Continent hid various heavenly treasures everywhere and there was no need to fight to the death in the Nanshan Rainforest, the five Barus brothers decided that staying in the territory wasn't worth it and chose to disperse, each searching for treasures outside the Nanshan Rainforest to improve their strength as quickly as possible.

Barus was in the Central Plateau, searching for treasures with Elena, while the other four explored in the four cardinal directions; Iyuda was the one who headed south.

She was quite capable, being the first of the five siblings to reach a cultivation of thirty thousand years at just over 200 years old. Although the southern coniferous forest was often a fallback area for ten-thousand-year soul beasts that couldn't compete with the old lords in the Nanshan Rainforest's mixed circle, Iyuda could be considered a hegemon for being able to carve out a territory of her own in the core area of the coniferous forest belt purely through her own strength.

When Rus Wang and Ximing flew to Iyuda's territory for a short rest, Iyuda quickly sensed the presence of her father and Aunt Ximing.

"Father, Aunt Ximing? With all this cargo on your backs and these Soul Guidance Devices, are you heading to that ice fog zone further south?"

Iyuda hurried over, and seeing the exaggerated packs on her father and Aunt Ximing's bodies, she immediately guessed what they were about to do.

"Hmm?"

As a father, how could Rus Wang not know the information revealed by Iyuda's question? He said with a serious expression:

"What is it, daughter? Did you go to that ice fog zone when you were searching for treasures?"

"I went once, but I only went a few kilometers in. I felt something was wrong, so I backed out."

Iyuda naturally wouldn't hide anything from her father and told him about her experience.

"That's good. Iyuda, just remember: that ice fog stretches for hundreds of kilometers. Unless you have the strength of a sixty-thousand-year cultivation, never go deep into it."

"Is it very dangerous there?"

Iyuda asked.

"Of course. If you really want to experience it, I can consider taking you to cross it yourself once you reach sixty thousand years."

"Then don't go back on your word, Father."

"I naturally won't."

Rus Wang promised solemnly, which made Iyuda firm in her intention to immediately absorb the hundred-thousand-year Ice Silkworm she had captured.

"Just wait and see, Father. I will definitely give you a surprise."

As Iyuda thought this, she also felt that the Ice Silkworm, a great tonic for insects, was incredible. It had eaten so much ten-thousand-year black ice in the Antarctic of the Folded Ear Continent to reach a hundred thousand years, yet it couldn't even beat her, a two-hundred-year-old youngster with only thirty thousand years of cultivation. It was enough to lose face for all soul beasts.

After the two dragons, one large and one small, rested for a while in Iyuda's territory, they continued their journey. This stretch of flight would be the last time they could close their eyes and feel drowsy before reaching the ice fog.

"How do you feel?"

Rus Wang and Ximing landed on an ice floe. Ahead lay the entire intact ice field; beyond this, they would enter the ice fog region.

"It's alright. After all, I am a hundred-thousand-year soul beast now; I'm not as weak as I was before."

Ximing took a thick steel cable out of her Soul Guidance Device and tied her right forelimb to Rus Wang's left forelimb.

In that ice fog, Soul Guidance Devices would mysteriously malfunction and become unusable. If they wanted to avoid losing each other within that one-meter visibility range, this old-fashioned method of tying a rope was undoubtedly the most practical.

"Alright, let's go."

Seeing the steel cable tied to his claw, Rus Wang spread his wings and took Ximing with him, beginning the month-long sleepless flight that lay ahead.

"Monkey, those humans are here to hunt young hundred-thousand-year soul beasts again."

Inside the core area of the Dragon Valley Forest, a group of transformed dragons and transformed plants held a meeting around a transformed ape, but judging from their conversation, their morale could be described as low.

"Damn humans. It's one thing for them to fight among themselves, but in the end, they still have to treat us soul beasts like wool to be sheared."

The transformed Giant Mountain Golden Ape wanted to stand up, but a wave of immense pain washed over him. He looked at the deep, bone-exposing wounds on his two hands, and his urge to fly into a rage was forced down.

The indigenous humans of the Dragon Valley Continent were currently fighting fiercely with the Star Luo people from overseas over land issues. Relying on the advantage of Soul Guidance Devices, the Star Luo people were crushing the indigenous human armies—who were still beast soul masters—on a large scale, causing the indigenous humans to desperately increase their cultivation and hunt high-year soul beasts to obtain soul rings. And the Star Luo people, this group of overseas humans, were even less kind; they were even crazier than the indigenous humans when it came to slaughtering soul beasts. It was no longer a matter of hunting a few, but rather using the number of stuffed storage Soul Guidance Devices as a unit of measurement.

"Sigh, if even one of our eldest, second, or third brothers were still here, we wouldn't have fallen to this point."

The Giant Mountain Golden Ape was the strongest soul beast in the Dragon Valley Forest during the period when Thalassa and the others were fleeing the old continent. He was actually quite surprised that he had become the most powerful soul beast on this continent. Because on this continent, which hid the Dragon Valley small world and various spatial rifts, the dragon race should have been the leading big brothers of the Dragon Valley Forest soul beasts. He was just a little brother following behind them. After all, as the fourth in line, he had three dragon race members ahead of him with five or six hundred thousand years of cultivation each. No matter how you looked at it, it should have been their turn to be wiped out by the heavenly tribulation or killed by humans before it was his turn.

Then, more than 400 years ago, on a day when it was leisurely wandering through the core area of the forest to find the fifth-ranked Turquoise Dragon to sneakily eat the flowers and fruits produced by the sixth-ranked Sun-Passing Ginkgo, the seventh-ranked Lightning Tyrannosaurus flew over with a drastically changed expression to find it, saying that the first, second, and third-ranked dragons had somehow had their heavenly tribulations arrive prematurely and were killed by them.

If Rus Wang were here, he would surely bite down and insist that this was a "good" deed secretly done by Three Candies. Regardless of how one puts it, the series of various super events following the first era all had his handiwork in them, and these three dragons disappearing all at once must have been his doing as well.

But the Giant Mountain Golden Ape was just a lackey; how could he possibly come into contact with or know what the God Realm was? Furthermore, since the first through third-ranked dragons never spoke of it, and he himself was just an ape who could not enter the small world of Dragon Valley to consult the dragon souls for knowledge, he remained ignorant.

The sky had collapsed, and with no one taller to hold it up, he had inexplicably become that tall one holding up the sky, leaving the Giant Mountain Golden Ape with no one to reason with.

Consequently, the Giant Mountain Golden Ape, who had no experience whatsoever, along with a group of even weaker lackeys, stubbornly became the leading group of this continent. They led the soul beasts to cope with the increasingly unrestrained hunting frequency of the local humans, as well as another batch of humans coming from overseas who treated soul beasts like wheat to be harvested.

But how could he, at over 400,000 years of age, possibly block those several level 97 and 98 Super Douluo humans? He was forced to retreat again and again, and many soul beasts began to flee south during this period to escape the human butcher knives. It wasn't until the Giant Mountain Golden Ape and the other fierce beasts were pushed by humans to the mixed zone of the Dragon Valley Forest, with the territory of the core area and the spatial rift of Dragon Valley right behind them, that they could truly retreat no further and fought the humans to the death with their lives on the line. This resulted in a pile of severe injuries accumulated over four hundred years, some of which were to the point that even the Sun-Passing Ginkgo could no longer heal them.

"The Far South, that attack by the 600,000-year soul beast, has it been verified? Is it true?"

The Giant Mountain Golden Ape looked at the Turquoise Dragon, pinning his hopes on the vague news obtained recently; this was almost the last tether for his survival today.

"It hasn't been verified yet, but that outpost set up by the overseas humans has been completely uprooted. Furthermore, we have discovered quite a few traces of soul beast activity, with various soul beasts of high and low ages crowded together, and it can be confirmed that there is a 100,000-year soul beast managing them."

The Turquoise Dragon brought back an ambiguous piece of news, but for the Giant Mountain Golden Ape, it was not considered bad news; after all, as long as hope was not severed, it was enough.

"Sigh, if there really is another continent behind that ice fog, it would be great if the soul beast brethren there could come to support us."

The Giant Mountain Golden Ape looked at his comrades sitting there, all of whom bore wounds, and said in a hoarse voice.