Dense black mist raced between the treetops of the Star Dou Great Forest.
The cloud of mist had been condensed from Ghost Douluo Gui Mei's pure Soul Power.
It was perfectly streamlined.
It swept away all the air resistance in front of it.
Su Chen stood at the center of the black mist.
There wasn't the slightest bump around him.
Not even a single gust of wind could get in.
That was the prestige of having a Titled Douluo personally guard his path.
Yue Guan rode atop a gigantic, illusory chrysanthemum.
He followed close on the right side of the black mist.
The might of a ninety-fifth-level Peak Douluo poured out without restraint.
It formed an absolute exclusion zone with a radius of five hundred meters.
Every Soul Beast along their route—
whether Single-Horned Wild Boars foraging on the ground
or Venomous Scaled Snakes coiled in the treetops—
as soon as they sensed this aura, as imposing as heavenly might,
collapsed to the ground in terror.
They lost even the strength to flee.
The dangers on the outer edges of the Star Dou Great Forest were nothing to them.
Suddenly, a dense flurry of flapping wings rang out ahead.
A vast cloud of dark red blocked their way.
It was a tide of over a thousand Bloodthirsty Demon Bats, each five hundred years old.
They had clearly been disturbed by something.
They were in an extremely frenzied state.
They paid no heed at all to the might of a Titled Douluo.
They charged straight at the trio.
"Courting death."
Yue Guan gave a cold snort.
He had no intention of slowing down.
He brought the index and middle fingers of his right hand together.
Then casually slashed forward.
Dozens of tiny golden petals from the Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum flew from his fingertips.
The petals swelled in the wind.
They transformed into razor-sharp golden scimitars.
The scimitars instantly swept into the formation of Bloodthirsty Demon Bats.
The bats had no chance to resist.
A flash of golden light passed.
The several hundred bats at the front were instantly sliced into evenly sized chunks.
A rain of blood poured down from the sky.
The thick stench of blood spread through the forest.
The remaining bats finally came to their senses.
They let out terrified shrieks.
Then fled frantically in both directions.
The black mist shot straight through the bloody rain.
It wasn't stained by even a single drop of blood.
Su Chen watched it all with a calm gaze.
This kind of absolute crushing power was precisely what he craved most right now.
The purple dot on the system's radar interface grew brighter and brighter.
They were only three li from their target.
The terrain around them began to change.
The towering ancient trees grew denser.
The sunlight was completely blocked out.
A layer of pale purple miasma began to permeate the air.
That meant they had officially entered the edge of the Star Dou Great Forest's mixed zone.
This was the territory of thousand-year Soul Beasts.
"Stop."
Su Chen suddenly spoke.
Gui Mei immediately withdrew his Soul Power.
The black mist came to an abrupt halt in midair.
It landed steadily on a thick tree branch.
The black mist dispersed.
Su Chen's figure appeared.
Yue Guan landed beside him as well.
"Your Highness the Holy Son, there's a natural forest of poisonous miasma up ahead."
Yue Guan looked at the dense purple fog ahead.
"This miasma has powerful paralyzing and corrosive effects. For Soul Masters at the Soul Grandmaster level, it's lethal."
He raised a hand.
He was about to use his Soul Power to create a protective barrier around Su Chen.
Su Chen paid no attention to Yue Guan's movements.
He walked straight toward the miasma forest.
"No barrier."
Su Chen's thoughts stirred.
The black-and-white vortex in his dantian spun faster.
He turned his right palm over.
A Judgment Holy Sword, wreathed in golden sacred fire, instantly took shape.
An aura of absolute light and holiness erupted.
Su Chen gripped the hilt.
Without any Soul Skill to empower it,
he simply poured his Innate Full Soul Power into the holy sword.
He swung it forward.
A crescent-shaped arc of golden sword energy slashed toward the forest.
Wherever the sword energy passed,
the pale purple poisonous miasma was like snow beneath the blazing sun.
It hissed as it burned.
In an instant, it was purified without a trace.
A clear, poison-free passage, five meters wide, appeared before the three of them.
A flicker of admiration passed through Yue Guan and Gui Mei's eyes.
This kind of pure elemental suppression
was more effective than any antidote pill.
"Let's go."
Su Chen put away the Judgment Holy Sword.
He strode forward along the passage he had carved open.
The radar showed the target was less than five hundred meters ahead.
The farther they went,
the more overpowering the nauseating stench of blood became.
It even drowned out the smell of decaying leaves.
Along with the stench of blood
came a repressive surge of darkness.
The three of them reached the edge of a sunken basin.
The scene inside was ghastly.
Every plant within a hundred meters had withered and died.
The tree trunks were a bizarre, charred black.
The soil looked as if it had been doused in strong acid.
Black bubbles kept rising from it.
At the very center of the basin,
a black tiger over five meters long was feeding.
Beneath its feet
lay an enormous Earth King.
This Earth King had to be at least two thousand years old.
Its originally indestructible, reddish armor
had now been torn to pieces.
The tiger was gulping down the Earth King's flesh and blood.
The tiger's entire body was pitch-black.
Dark purple demonic patterns shimmered across its fur.
Its limbs were thick as ancient stone pillars.
The character for "king" on its forehead was blood-red.
With every chew,
black demonic flames spewed from its nostrils.
The flames fell on the rocks below.
The rocks were instantly burned into a huge pit.
The Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger.
Su Chen stood on high ground at the edge of the basin.
He stared down at the ferocious beast.
He could clearly feel
the God-Slaying Magic Spear lying dormant in his left palm trembling violently.
It was an intense yearning for a supreme power of the same origin.
There was no mistake in the system's radar scan.
The extreme darkness within this tiger
was a perfect match for his Second Martial Soul.
The Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger seemed to sense the presence of strangers.
It stopped feeding.
It abruptly turned its enormous head.
A pair of crimson beast eyes, filled with savagery and a desire for destruction,
locked directly onto the three people at the edge of the basin.
Unlike other Soul Beasts, it didn't turn tail and flee when it sensed the might of a Titled Douluo.
The mutated bloodline of the Ancient Evil Dark God Tiger
had endowed it with an arrogant and vicious nature.
Roar!
The Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger opened its gaping maw.
A deafening roar burst forth.
A ring of visible black sound waves, mixed with a stench-laden gale,
swept toward Su Chen and the others in a fan-shaped arc.
The sound waves contained not only powerful physical force.
They also carried a mental shock that struck straight at the soul.
Several charred ancient trees at the edge of the basin were hit by the sound waves.
They instantly turned into flying splinters.
Yue Guan's expression darkened.
He stepped forward
and placed himself in front of Su Chen.
The nine Soul Rings on his body, arranged in the optimal configuration, suddenly lit up.
Yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black, black, black.
He casually waved a hand.
A golden Soul Power barrier appeared out of thin air.
It steadily blocked the oncoming black sound waves.
The sound waves struck the barrier.
There was no deafening explosion.
Instead, a piercing sizzling sound rang out.
Yue Guan was surprised to discover
that the surface of the Soul Power barrier he had released
had actually been corroded by the black sound waves, leaving several tiny holes.
Although he had used less than a tenth of his Soul Power,
this was the Soul Power of a level-95 Peak Douluo.
Yet it had actually been corroded by an attack from a thousand-year Soul Beast.
This completely defied common sense.
Yue Guan turned his head.
His expression grew extremely grave.
"Your Highness the Holy Son. This beast is no ordinary Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger."
Yue Guan pointed at the giant tiger below, which was arching its body in preparation to pounce.
"Its ancient bloodline has fully awakened. Not only are its attacks highly corrosive, but its mental power has also become incredibly ferocious due to the mutation."
"Although its cultivation is indeed around two thousand five hundred years,"
"its true combat strength and physical toughness far exceed those of a top-tier Soul Beast with four thousand years of cultivation. It could even tear into a Soul Beast that had just passed five thousand years of cultivation head-on."
Yue Guan's tone grew more emphatic.
"The soul resentment it leaves behind after death will be ten times more terrifying than that of an ordinary Soul Beast."
"If you forcefully absorb its Soul Ring, the violent energy it carries, imbued with the power of destruction, will destroy your meridians in an instant and may even devour your Sea of Consciousness."
"This is no longer a matter of breaking through the limits. You'd be gambling with your life."
"I advise killing it here and now, then finding an ordinary Soul Beast with around fifteen hundred years of cultivation. That would be the safest choice."
Ghost Elder stood to one side.
He nodded in agreement as well.
"Yue Guan is right. His Holiness the Pope instructed us that if any danger exceeds your capacity to endure, we must forcibly stop you."
"This Mutated Demon Tiger is far beyond the theoretical limit for a First Soul Ring."
The two Titled Douluo had judged the situation accurately.
By the common understanding of the Douluo Continent,
even a level-30 Power Attack System Battle Soul Elder
wouldn't dare casually touch a monster with an ancient, mutated bloodline
when absorbing his Third Soul Ring.
Much less Su Chen, who didn't have a single Soul Ring yet.
He was just a six-year-old novice.
Su Chen listened to the two elders' warnings.
He looked at the Demon Tiger below, whose imposing presence was growing stronger by the moment.
The fervent battle intent in his eyes didn't fade.
Instead, it burned all the more fiercely.
The greater the risk,
the greater the reward.
The fiercer this Demon Tiger was,
the richer the system's rewards would be.
He had a perfect body remade by the Marrow Cleansing Pill.
He had a million-year spiritual defense made tangible.
He had long been qualified to challenge death across a gap in power.
"So what if it has the combat strength of a four-thousand-year Soul Beast?"
Su Chen's voice was cold and resolute.
"Even if it had the combat strength of a ten-thousand-year Soul Beast, it would become my First Soul Ring today."
He turned around.
His sharp gaze fixed on Yue Guan and Ghost Elder.
"Elder Ju, Ghost Elder, I don't need you to tell me what to do."
Su Chen reached for the Purple Gold Pope Token at his waist
and raised it high.
"I now command you in my capacity as the Martial Soul Hall Holy Son."
"Attack at once."
"Don't damage its core."
"Break its limbs and pin it down before me."
Su Chen's voice carried an imperious authority that brooked no refusal.
This was no longer a discussion.
It was an absolute order.
Yue Guan gritted his teeth.
He looked at the shining Pope Token.
He knew he couldn't disobey.
Su Chen's position in the Pope Palace was already unshakable.
If he disobeyed today,
Bibi Dong wouldn't spare him when they returned.
"Old Ghost, let's move."
Yue Guan took a deep breath.
"Let's finish this quickly. Don't let the beast self-detonate its Soul Ring."
Before Yue Guan had even finished speaking,
he had already turned into a streak of golden light,
racing straight toward the Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger in the center of the basin.
Ghost Elder gave a cold snort.
His figure instantly merged with the shadow on the ground.
Like a black bolt of lightning skimming across the earth,
he moved to flank it.
Two Titled Douluo attacking a Soul Beast with two thousand five hundred years of cultivation at the same time—
this was an unprecedentedly lavish show of force in the history of the Douluo Continent.
The Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger clearly had no idea what kind of beings it was facing.
When it saw the golden-glowing human charging toward it,
it immediately let out a furious roar.
Its thick hind legs slammed into the ground.
Its enormous body leapt into the air,
flying straight at Yue Guan.
It opened its huge jaws, wreathed in black flames,
trying to bite the tiny human in half.
"You insolent beast."
Yue Guan sneered in midair.
He neither dodged nor retreated.
His right leg rose high like a battle-axe.
Without using any flashy Soul Skill,
he simply compressed pure Soul Power into his leg
and brought it crashing down.
His kick struck the Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger's incredibly hard skull.
Thump.
A loud crack of breaking bone rang out.
The Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger didn't even have time to scream.
Its enormous body shot back toward the ground at ten times the speed at which it had charged in.
It slammed into the center of the basin.
The ground, hard as Adamantine Rock, was smashed into a several-meter-deep crater.
Spiderweb cracks raced wildly in every direction.
Blood ran from the Demon Tiger's eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
Its skull was badly caved in.
It tried to struggle to its feet,
but the violent dizziness in its head left it unable to control its body.
Just then,
Ghost Elder's figure emerged without warning from the shadow beneath the Demon Tiger.
His hands became two pitch-black ghost claws.
He gripped the Demon Tiger's two front legs with perfect precision.
Crack.
Crack.
Two crisp snapping sounds rang out.
Ghost Elder forcibly snapped the Demon Tiger's thick forelegs.
Pale bone jutted through its black fur, exposed to the air.
A shrill beastly howl rang through the entire basin.
The battle was over the instant it began.
Before the absolute power of a Titled Douluo,
any mutated bloodline was nothing but a futile struggle.
Before you continue