Ghost Douluo Gui Mei released his hands.
The enormous Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger crashed down before Su Chen onto the scorched earth.
Fetid mud splashed everywhere.
This two-thousand-five-hundred-year-old Soul Beast possessed an ancient, mutated bloodline.
At that moment, it was in a wretched state.
Its skull had been badly caved in by a kick from Yue Guan.
Both of its thick forelegs had been broken by force.
White bones pierced through its black fur.
Dark-red blood pooled across the ground.
But even so,
the Demon Tiger was not quite dead yet.
Its blood-red beast eyes fixed on Su Chen as he approached.
They brimmed with venomous hatred and savagery.
It opened its maw, wreathed in black flames.
A threatening rumble rolled from its throat.
It tried to unleash a final mental shock with what little strength it had left.
An invisible black wave of mental energy burst from the Demon Tiger's brow.
It shot straight toward Su Chen's mind.
"Holy Son, be careful."
Yue Guan called out in warning from the side.
He was about to dispel the mental shock.
But Su Chen didn't even blink.
The Million-Year Head Soul Bone in his mind glimmered faintly.
A solid barrier of mental energy instantly took shape before him.
Bang.
The black wave of mental energy slammed into the barrier.
It was like an egg hitting a sturdy city wall.
It shattered in an instant.
The Demon Tiger suffered a backlash from its own mental attack.
Blood streamed from its eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth.
It let out a howl of unbearable pain.
"You worthless beast. You don't know when to quit."
Su Chen's gaze was icy.
He raised his left hand.
Dense black mist churned in his palm.
The God-Slaying Magic Spear, imbued with the ultimate attributes of darkness and destruction, instantly took shape.
Dark-red dragon-scale patterns shimmered along the shaft.
It radiated a terrifying pressure that made the heart tremble.
Su Chen didn't hesitate.
He gripped the shaft,
aimed at the Demon Tiger's sunken skull,
and drove the spear down with all his might.
Pfft.
The sharp spearhead met no resistance.
It pierced straight through the Demon Tiger's hard skull.
Its brain was utterly pulverized.
The Demon Tiger's massive body convulsed twice.
Then it went limp on the ground.
Its life signs vanished.
As the Demon Tiger died,
flecks of deep-purple light began to gather above its corpse.
At last, they formed a dark-purple Soul Ring, so deep in color that a faint black demonic flame seemed to burn across its surface.
This was a two-thousand-five-hundred-year-old mutated Soul Ring.
The energy fluctuations it gave off
were even more violent than those of an ordinary three-thousand-year Soul Ring.
The surrounding air suddenly grew colder.
A suffocating aura of destruction spread in every direction.
Yue Guan watched the deep-purple Soul Ring floating in midair.
A sheen of fine cold sweat appeared on his forehead.
"Your Highness the Holy Son, have you truly thought this through?"
Yue Guan couldn't help asking again.
"The energy in this Soul Ring is too concentrated, and it carries corrosive properties. Once absorbed, that corrosive energy will act directly on the inner walls of your meridians."
Gui Mei's brows knitted together as well.
"Yue Guan is right. We can interrupt the absorption, but if the energy erupts too violently all at once, we might not even have time to save your meridians."
Facing the repeated warnings of two Titled Douluo,
Su Chen merely waved a hand calmly.
"Guard me."
"Whatever happens, don't interfere without my order."
Su Chen's voice carried an unquestionable authority.
He walked up to the Demon Tiger's corpse
and sat cross-legged on the blood-soaked, scorched earth.
He laid the God-Slaying Magic Spear across his knees.
His eyes closed.
His breathing gradually grew long and steady.
The Chaos God-Demon Art began circulating at full speed inside him.
The black-and-white vortex in his dantian spun faster,
drawing in energy from the surroundings.
"Come."
Su Chen murmured inwardly.
He raised his right hand.
His Soul Power formed a thread
and latched precisely onto the deep-purple Soul Ring floating in the air.
The Soul Ring trembled slightly.
Then it became a streak of purple-black light
and settled over Su Chen's head.
It slowly descended along his body.
Boom.
The instant the Soul Ring touched Su Chen,
an indescribably violent energy
surged into him through his pores like floodwaters bursting through a breached dam.
This energy was laced with extreme savagery and powerful corrosive force.
The black brocade clothes on Su Chen's body were torn to shreds in an instant by the raging current of energy.
His firm, well-proportioned upper body was exposed.
Dark-purple demonic patterns immediately surfaced across his skin.
His fair complexion turned red.
Veins bulged beneath his skin like writhing dragons,
as if they might burst at any moment.
Su Chen clenched his teeth.
The veins stood out on his forehead.
The tearing sensation in his meridians
far surpassed the pain he had felt when taking the Marrow Cleansing Pill.
The Marrow Cleansing Pill had transformed him gently.
But the Soul Power of this mutated Demon Tiger was pure destruction.
It surged through the inner walls of Su Chen's meridians,
trying to destroy this body that did not belong to it.
"Damn it. The energy is too violent."
Watching from ten meters away, Yue Guan was shaken to the core.
Golden Soul Power had already gathered in his hands,
and he stood ready to forcibly sever Su Chen's connection to the Soul Ring.
"Wait."
Gui Mei grabbed Yue Guan by the wrist.
"Look at his body."
Yue Guan looked closely.
He was shocked to discover
that Su Chen's meridians had been stretched to their limit,
and fine beads of blood were even seeping through his skin,
yet his blood vessels showed no sign of rupturing.
It was as though a resilient force within Su Chen
was holding firm against the devastating impact.
The perfectly remade body bestowed by the Marrow Cleansing Pill was doing its work.
If an ordinary six-year-old child had been in his place,
even a genius with Innate Full Soul Power
would have had every meridian shattered at the first breath of contact with this energy.
Inside Su Chen,
the Chaos God-Demon Art revolved furiously.
The black-and-white vortex became a massive millstone,
forcibly grinding apart the violent energy of the Demon Tiger flooding into him.
It stripped away the impurities
and transformed the energy into the purest dark Soul Power.
That power streamed without end into the God-Slaying Magic Spear across his knees.
The God-Slaying Magic Spear gave a delighted hum.
The dark-red dragon-scale patterns along its shaft seemed to come alive,
greedily devouring this ultimate force of darkness, so similar to its own.
Just as the clash against his body gradually reached equilibrium,
an even more terrifying crisis descended.
The unyielding resentment of the two-thousand-five-hundred-year-old mutated Soul Beast
took the form of an illusory black tiger.
It raced along the Soul Power link
and plunged straight into Su Chen's Sea of Consciousness.
This was the deadliest hurdle when absorbing a Soul Ring beyond one's limits.
Many Soul Masters whose bodies had barely endured the strain
had their souls scattered by the resentment of the Soul Beast at this very stage.
They were left as idiots.
The black tiger roared in Su Chen's vast, boundless Sea of Consciousness.
It opened its jaws,
trying to devour the source of Su Chen's soul.
"A mere wisp of a remnant soul dares to run wild on my turf?"
Su Chen's consciousness sneered within his Sea of Consciousness.
The Million-Year Head Soul Bone hovering above the Sea of Consciousness suddenly burst into brilliant golden light.
An immense, terrifyingly powerful force of spiritual energy took physical form.
In an instant, it became a golden greatsword that reached from heaven to earth.
The greatsword made no flashy movements.
It bore the absolute majesty of a superior being.
And cleaved straight down at the roaring black giant tiger.
Bang.
Before this overwhelming spiritual force, one so powerful even Titled Douluo had to avoid its edge,
the Demon Tiger's resentful soul didn't even have time to scream.
The golden greatsword split it in two.
Then it instantly scattered into countless points of light.
It was completely transformed into nourishment for the Sea of Consciousness.
Outside.
Su Chen's tightly furrowed brow suddenly relaxed.
The pain vanished from his face.
The rampaging purple-black Soul Ring
had now become docile beyond measure.
It slowly contracted,
until it finally settled snugly around Su Chen's body.
With a low hum,
the Soul Ring stopped trembling.
It had fully stabilized.
Su Chen's eyes snapped open.
The pupil of his left eye had turned a deep, pure black.
An unprecedentedly powerful aura erupted from within him.
It swept up the dust and fallen leaves on the ground,
forming a black tornado several meters high.
Yue Guan and Gui Mei were forced to retreat two steps.
The eyes of the two Peak Douluo were filled with incredulous shock.
"He really succeeded."
Yue Guan's voice trembled.
"A 2,500-year First Soul Ring. And it's a mutated Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger."
"This is completely beyond the bounds of human understanding. Yu Xiaogang's theory is nothing but a huge joke in front of the Holy Son."
Gui Mei drew a deep breath.
"He didn't just succeed. His aura is far stronger than before. The level-twenty bottleneck has been completely broken through. He's now qualified to advance to Soul Grandmaster."
Su Chen slowly rose to his feet.
He felt as though his whole body was filled with explosive strength.
As he absorbed the Soul Ring, the effects of the Marrow Cleansing Pill had been further unleashed.
His bones and meridians had been broadened and strengthened once again.
His raw physical strength
had undoubtedly come close to the terrifying threshold of 3,000 jin.
"Ding."
The system's mechanical prompt rang in Su Chen's mind right on time.
"Congratulations, host, on successfully absorbing a 2,500-year mutated Soul Ring beyond your level."
"Divine Choice quest complete."
"Distributing rewards."
"Host's affinity for the dark attribute has increased to 100%."
"The God-Slaying Magic Spear's First Soul Skill has automatically evolved into a growth-type divine skill: Endless Dark Prison."
"Soul Power Level increased by two. Current Soul Power: Level 22."
Feeling the Soul Power within him surge once again,
Su Chen lowered his head and looked at the God-Slaying Magic Spear in his left hand.
A profound, dark-purple pattern had appeared
on the spear's formerly pitch-black shaft.
It was the skill imprint granted by his First Soul Ring.
What's more,
with his dark-attribute affinity at 100%,
Su Chen sensed a strange resonance between himself and the energy in the shadowy corners of the forest.
It was as if he were the incarnation of darkness.
Just as Su Chen was about to test the power of his First Soul Skill,
a sudden change occurred.
The pale-purple miasma that had covered only the basin's outskirts began to churn violently.
The last few rays of sunlight in the sky were completely blotted out.
The light around them dimmed to its darkest point.
It was as if night had fallen ahead of time.
An ancient and evil aura
descended without warning over the basin.
This aura was unlike the Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger's simple savagery.
It carried a bone-chilling coldness that seemed capable of freezing the soul.
Yue Guan and Gui Mei's expressions changed drastically.
Without the slightest hesitation, they summoned all nine Soul Rings.
In an instant, the two stepped in front of Su Chen,
ready for battle.
"Old Ghost, something's wrong with this aura."
Yue Guan held the Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum in his palm,
his gaze fixed on the dark clouds above.
"This definitely doesn't belong on the outskirts. It's at least a top-tier Evil Beast with more than 50,000 years of cultivation."
Black mist swirled around Gui Mei.
"It's here for the Holy Son. That trace of ancient bloodline within the Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger was stirred up, catching the attention of some old monster in the depths of this forest."
Above them,
the churning black clouds began to collapse inward.
In the midst of them,
a black silhouette dozens of meters tall slowly took shape.
The shadow looked down at the three figures below.
Two blood-red lights, like ghostly flames, appeared on its face.
They locked directly onto Su Chen below.
An irresistible pressure crashed down like a tangible mountain.
Even the towering ancient trees within a hundred meters groaned as they cracked under its might.
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