No Turning Back

With Di Tian's Black Dragon Reverse Scale concealing him, Jiang Heng had no need to worry about his Soul Beast aura leaking out.

He could finally walk among humans.

Though he had accepted from the bottom of his heart that he was a Soul Beast, his soul was human after all, and he still longed for human life.

This was precisely the time when the Soul Master Tournament was about to begin. How could he not go join the excitement?

As for the money needed to travel among humans, he truly did not lack it.

Over the years, he had killed so many human Soul Masters that the unregistered gold cards he had obtained from them alone were worth tens of millions of Gold Soul Coins.

Besides that, he had all kinds of jewelry, jade, refined iron, ores, and other goods that circulated in the human world.

More importantly, he had more than a dozen Soul Bones on him.

Four of them were Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bones: the Silver Moon Wolf King's Hundred Thousand Year right leg bone, the Golden Hawksbill Turtle's torso bone, and two Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bones obtained from Xuan Zi. Aside from those, there were also ones taken from humans and left behind by deceased members of his clan.

He randomly found a city near the Star Dou Great Forest and sampled some human food.

This was something he had long dreamed of while in the heart of the Star Dou Great Forest.

Yet he discovered that it was only so-so.

It was even less satisfying than tearing into raw flesh and drinking blood.

"Looks like I really have become a Soul Beast. There is no turning back now."

Jiang Heng sighed softly. He could indeed use his spiritual power to suppress his body, preventing its instinctive rejection and making himself completely human-like.

But was that kind of self-deception really a good thing?

Jiang Heng gathered his thoughts, left behind a Gold Soul Coin, and vanished from where he stood in the next instant.

Watching the Soul Master Tournament was merely a way to pass the time. His true target was Snow Empress.

With his current strength, it was impossible for him to snatch Snow Empress away in the human world.

He only wanted to determine Snow Empress's ultimate fate and see whether anything had changed because of his arrival.

As for Snow Empress, he had not yet decided how to deal with her. But one thing was certain: he would do everything possible to keep her from falling into Huo Yuhao's hands.

If it came down to it, once his strength improved, he would devour Snow Empress's origin and accumulate more power for himself.

Among the Soul Beasts of Douluo Continent, any that had not taken human form were untrustworthy. They all had their own schemes.

Once they took human form, they automatically became love-addled fools. Females in particular would lower all their standards for so-called love, with minds no smarter than amoebas.

He had no time to play childish games of romance with those Soul Beasts that had taken human form.

Jiang Heng did not head directly to the Star Luo Empire. Instead, he took a detour to the Mingdou Mountain Range.

Since he was already here, how could he not watch a show?

He was also curious. Without Xuan Zi leading them, would the Shrek group still suffer the same heavy losses as in the original story?

Sure enough, coming early was not as good as coming at just the right time.

As soon as he arrived near the Mingdou Mountain Range, he sensed the Shrek group.

Leading them was a level 95 Title Douluo. Matching the aura he gave off to what Jiang Heng knew, Jiang Heng quickly identified him.

Yan Shaozhe, the dean of Shrek Academy's Martial Soul Department.

Jiang Heng then examined the others through his spiritual power.

To his surprise, Huo Yuhao was not among them.

Not only was Huo Yuhao absent, but he also did not spot any little girl in the group. In other words, Xiao Xiao was not among them either.

The ones who had taken their places should have been Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu. Their martial souls made that clear.

"What a pity. I should have spared Xuan Zi back then."

Jiang Heng watched from the sidelines the entire time, but he did not see the scene he wanted to see. He truly felt somewhat regretful.

Though Yan Shaozhe was just as disappointing within Shrek Academy, he was at least somewhat more reliable than Xuan Zi. He kept a close watch on the Shrek group as they fought Evil Soul Masters.

Even when some mishaps occurred along the way, he stepped in and saved them in time.

"Boring. How boring!"

Seeing this, Jiang Heng no longer had any desire to keep watching and quietly left.

Just as Jiang Heng departed, Yan Shaozhe instinctively whipped his head around and looked in the direction where Jiang Heng had been.

But he found nothing.

"Was it an illusion?"

Yan Shaozhe murmured softly, yet he did not think that should be the case. A Title Douluo's intuition could sometimes be crucial.

Although he had found nothing, Yan Shaozhe remained on high alert afterward.

Jiang Heng did not know that Yan Shaozhe had sensed something when he left. Even if he had known, he would not have cared.

Leaving aside the Reverse Scale Di Tian had given him, with his current spiritual power, few Soul Masters below level 98 could compare to him.

The reason was simple. Although his cultivation was only two hundred and thirty thousand years, his spiritual power had already reached the level of a four-hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast.

His spiritual power had become so formidable naturally because he had devoured Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's Spirit Origin.

And he had not even finished absorbing it yet.

According to Jiang Heng's estimates, once he completely refined and fully controlled Tian Meng's Spirit Origin, his spiritual power could reach a realm comparable to a Limit Douluo. It might even surpass a Limit Douluo.

It took Jiang Heng a full seven days to reach Star Luo City.

Along the way, whenever he encountered a human city, he would stop for a while and gather knowledge and books related to Soul Tools.

The development of technology involved chance. Among so many Soul Engineers, it was inevitable that one or two would possess techniques no one else had discovered. They might not even understand what the techniques they possessed truly represented.

That was why he had gone through the trouble of collecting all this related material along the way.

By the time Jiang Heng arrived in Star Luo City, the tournament had already officially begun.

Sure enough, the Shrek Team in its complete, undamaged form was truly strong.

They swept through every opponent and crushed them all.

Throughout the process, Jiang Heng kept his eyes on those who cultivated the Tang Sect's Purple Demon Eye. This method of strengthening spiritual power was worth studying.

I'll find a chance to get it.

Jiang Heng silently made up his mind, then began surveying his surroundings to see whether there was an opportunity to stir up trouble.

Before long, he spotted an acquaintance.

Huo Yuhao!

The Child of Destiny from the original story.

What he had not expected was that his plundering had indirectly helped Huo Yuhao instead.

Huo Yuhao's cultivation had now reached level 29.

In just a year and a half, he had raised his Soul Power by a full eighteen levels.

And judging from his aura and physique, his foundation had clearly been carefully tempered.

"Did he join the Body Sect?"

Jiang Heng looked at Huo Yuhao, who was watching the battles. He was not particularly interested in the boy himself, but in the remaining Sky Dream Ice Silkworm origin within his Spirit Sea.

As he continued absorbing Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's Spirit Origin, he increasingly realized just how valuable this was.

Not only could it rapidly strengthen his spiritual power, but more importantly, that giant bug's spiritual power had faintly touched the threshold of Divine Sense.

Whether Tian Meng was useless or not, one fact was beyond dispute: he was the only Million Year Soul Beast of this era. From the most fundamental perspective, he had touched the threshold of godhood.

It was simply that Sky Dream Ice Silkworm could not wield its own power, much less gather it into one and take that final step, achieving qualitative change through quantitative accumulation.

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm could not do it, but that did not mean Jiang Heng could not!

As long as he seized Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's Million Year Spirit Origin and completely devoured it for his own use, he was confident he could take that final step.

At that moment, Jiang Heng felt an intense sense of danger, as though some terrifying monster had fixed its gaze upon him.