Black clouds violently collapsed inward.
A gigantic Demon Tiger more than fifteen meters long slowly emerged from the clouds.
Its appearance bore some resemblance to the Dark Nightmare Demon Tiger that had died earlier.
But the demonic markings across its body were far more intricate and profound.
A pair of enormous black leathery wings spread from its back, blotting out the sky.
A top-tier Evil Beast with over fifty thousand years of cultivation.
The Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger.
It had just sensed the death of its offspring.
It had also sensed the purest of dark origins emanating from Su Chen.
Its greed for a supreme bloodline overcame its instinctive fear of a Titled Douluo.
It wanted to devour Su Chen.
And complete the ultimate transformation of its life form.
Yue Guan's expression turned grim.
Top-tier Evil Beasts with over fifty thousand years of cultivation were extremely difficult to handle.
The beast had skin as tough as an oxhide.
And it could briefly travel through space.
"Old Ghost. Stop holding back. Use your killing moves."
Yue Guan abruptly brought his hands together in front of his chest.
The Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum above his head rapidly expanded.
The eighth black Soul Ring beneath his feet suddenly lit up.
"Eighth Soul Skill: Flowing Light Myriad Radiance."
Countless golden petals transformed into dazzling laser beams.
They shot toward the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger in the sky in a sweeping barrage.
Gui Mei didn't waste a moment either.
His body instantly dispersed into countless black ghostly figures.
They swiftly climbed upward along the shadows on the ground.
Trying to cut off the Demon Tiger's escape route.
The Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger let out a roar that shook heaven and earth.
Its wings beat violently.
A dense black storm erupted from its mouth.
The black storm was laced with highly corrosive abyssal poison.
The golden petals slammed into the storm.
A barrage of sharp explosions rang out.
The two forces clashed in midair, neither gaining ground.
But the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger's true target wasn't the two Titled Douluo.
Its massive body suddenly turned ethereal beneath the cover of the storm.
It was using its innate skill.
Shadow Shuttle.
Yue Guan's pupils contracted sharply.
"Not good. It's going for the Holy Son!"
Just as Yue Guan cried out in alarm,
the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger's enormous body had already crossed through space.
It appeared without warning above Su Chen.
Its bloody maw gaped open.
A nauseating stench swept over him.
It lunged straight down to bite Su Chen.
This was a lethal attack from a ten-thousand-year Soul Beast.
Even a Soul Douluo would be killed instantly by it.
Gui Mei was already too late to save him.
Su Chen raised his head.
He looked at the gaping maw descending like a black hole.
There wasn't a trace of panic on his face.
The deep black light in his left eye blazed.
The level-twenty-two Soul Power within him surged instantly.
His one-hundred-percent affinity for darkness was fully activated.
"First Soul Skill."
Su Chen spoke softly.
He raised the God-Slaying Magic Spear in his hand.
The deep purple Soul Ring around the shaft erupted with blinding light.
"Endless Dark Prison."
As Su Chen's words fell,
an indescribably absolute darkness
expanded fiercely outward from him.
All light within a five-hundred-meter radius was instantly stripped away.
The sunlight still remaining in the sky.
The golden light from Yue Guan's Soul Skill.
Even the demonic flames burning across the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger's body.
All were forcibly snuffed out in an instant.
This darkness wasn't mere visual concealment.
It was absolute devouring at a conceptual level.
The Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger's body stopped dead in midair, halfway through its attack.
In its pair of scarlet beast eyes,
for the first time, it revealed utter terror.
It was horrified to discover
that within this domain, it had completely lost control of the abyssal attribute it had always prided itself on.
The Soul Power in its body seemed frozen.
It couldn't circulate at all.
Endless Dark Prison.
This was a growth-type god-tier skill rewarded by the system.
As long as someone was within this domain,
all energy with a lower affinity for darkness than Su Chen's would be suppressed and devoured without exception.
For the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger, which cultivated the dark attribute above all others,
it was a complete dimensional beatdown.
Su Chen stood at the very center of the darkness.
He was the absolute ruler of this domain.
The God-Slaying Magic Spear in his hand pointed at the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger in the air.
"Kneel."
Su Chen's voice echoed through the darkness.
It carried the authority of a divine decree that allowed no disobedience.
The dark energy within Endless Dark Prison instantly transformed into countless thick black chains.
They wrapped around the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger's limbs and wings.
The Demon Tiger struggled desperately.
But the chains were imbued with an attribute of ultimate destruction.
The harder it struggled,
the tighter the chains pulled.
They even cut deep into its flesh.
Hiss, hiss.
Its tough scales were corroded, leaving large patches of charred wounds.
The pain drew a shrill wail from it.
Its massive body could no longer stay balanced in midair.
The chains yanked it down to the ground.
It crashed heavily right in front of Su Chen,
smashing a huge crater into the earth.
Yue Guan and Gui Mei were also caught within the reach of Endless Dark Prison.
They were shocked to discover
that the speed at which their Soul Power circulated had dropped by a full thirty percent.
This was the Soul Power of Peak Douluo at level ninety-five.
Yet it was being suppressed by a Soul Master at level twenty-two with his First Soul Skill.
"What kind of Soul Skill is this?"
Yue Guan's voice trembled.
"It not only has a large-area domain effect, but also comes with powerful suppression against single targets. And it can even affect our Soul Power. This completely defies the common sense of the Soul Master World."
Gui Mei stared fixedly at the young man holding a spear in the darkness.
"This is the power of a god-tier Martial Soul combined with a mutated Soul Ring. This is no ordinary Soul Skill. It's a divine skill."
Su Chen paid no heed to the two elders' astonishment.
He could feel the Soul Power within him rapidly draining away.
Endless Dark Prison was powerful.
But its Soul Power consumption was terrifying, too.
With his current reserve of level-twenty-two Soul Power,
he could maintain this domain for ten seconds at most.
Ten seconds was more than enough to decide life or death.
"Elder Ju. Ghost Elder. What are you waiting for?"
Su Chen issued the order coldly.
"Strike while it's down. Finish it off."
Yue Guan and Gui Mei immediately snapped back to their senses.
A top-tier Evil Beast with fifty thousand years of cultivation was now completely pinned to the ground.
This was a once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity to kill it.
The two of them no longer held anything back.
The ninth black Soul Ring beneath each of their feet lit up at the same time.
This was the strongest attack a Titled Douluo could unleash.
"Ninth Soul Skill: Chrysanthemums Crumble, Petals Scatter, Flowers Fall and Hearts Break!"
Yue Guan roared.
A huge golden chrysanthemum exploded in midair.
It transformed into a sweeping golden tornado.
Every petal was as thin as a cicada's wing.
Yet each was razor-sharp.
They carried terrifying power capable of tearing through space.
They furiously shredded toward the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger in the crater.
"Ninth Soul Skill: Infinite Ghost Shadow Devour."
Gui Mei's body transformed into a gigantic black vortex.
Countless clawing, snarling evil spirits surged out of it.
They rushed toward the Demon Tiger's spiritual core and tore at it.
Faced with the finishing blows of two Titled Douluo,
the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger's eyes filled with despair.
It wanted to fight back.
But the black chains of Endless Dark Prison pinned it firmly in place.
The attribute of ultimate destruction continued to ravage its defenses.
Boom.
The two Ninth Soul Skills, each powerful enough to destroy heaven and earth, ...
The attack struck the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger's massive body with pinpoint accuracy.
Golden light and black aura intertwined and erupted in the center of the basin.
A gigantic mushroom cloud shot into the sky.
The violent shock wave snapped every tree within a thousand meters in half.
The earth shook violently.
It was as if the apocalypse had arrived.
The instant the shock wave erupted, Su Chen voluntarily withdrew the Endless Dark Prison.
The two Titled Douluo immediately gathered a gentle stream of Soul Power and firmly shielded him behind them.
The smoke and dust gradually cleared.
A terrifying crater, dozens of meters deep, had appeared in the center of the basin.
The Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger's massive body lay at the bottom, badly mangled.
Black blood stained the surrounding earth.
It was completely dead.
A black Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring, so deep in color that its edges gleamed faintly red, slowly rose above its corpse.
"It's dead."
Yue Guan let out a rough breath.
Killing a top-tier Evil Beast that was fifty thousand years old had taken a great deal out of both him and Old Ghost.
"If His Highness the Holy Son hadn't used his domain skill to lock down its movements and attributes, leaving it nowhere to run, the two of us would have had to fight it for at least a day and a night to kill it. It might even have gotten away."
Gui Mei spoke with lingering fear.
When they looked at Su Chen, their eyes held a touch of genuine awe.
It was the awe one felt for the strong, not merely for his status as the Holy Son.
Su Chen put away the God-Slaying Magic Spear. His face was a little pale.
Using a divine skill beyond his level had drained nearly eighty percent of his Soul Power.
But he didn't sit down to rest right away.
His gaze passed over the Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring and fixed on the back of the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger's corpse.
A strange light flickered there.
"Elders, turn the body over."
Su Chen gave the order.
Yue Guan and Gui Mei immediately jumped into the crater.
Working together, they flipped the ruined tiger corpse over.
An unusual dark red light instantly illuminated the bottom of the crater.
It was a pair of translucent, bone-like wings.
Natural Abyssal Demon Patterns covered their wing bones, which radiated pure darkness and wind-attribute energy.
"T-this is an External Soul Bone!"
Yue Guan cried out in shock.
His face, more delicate than a woman's, was filled with disbelief.
Soul Bones were already the most precious treasures on Douluo Continent.
And an External Soul Bone was worth even more than a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring.
It was a priceless treasure that could continue evolving as its Soul Master grew stronger.
Gui Mei's breathing quickened, too.
Even a Titled Douluo couldn't help feeling tempted by an External Soul Bone dropped by a fifty-thousand-year-old Evil Beast.
Su Chen leaped straight into the crater.
He walked up to the External Soul Bone, delight flashing in his eyes.
The system hadn't lied to him. This was the hidden reward for daring to challenge an opponent beyond his level.
"His Highness the Holy Son is truly blessed with incredible luck."
Yue Guan forced down his greed and respectfully stepped aside.
"These are the Abyssal Winged Demon Tiger's wing bones. They'll give you the ability to fly and contain incredibly powerful wind, thunder, and shadow attributes. They're a perfect fit for your Second Martial Soul."
Su Chen didn't hesitate.
He raised his right hand.
Soul Power formed a beam of energy that locked onto the External Soul Bone.
This bone would be a tremendous boon to him, too.
"Guard me. I'm going to absorb it here and now."
Su Chen sat cross-legged.
The External Soul Bone turned into two streams of dark red light and pierced into his back, at the shoulder blades.
Thanks to the body reforged by the Marrow Cleansing Pill and his experience absorbing a two-thousand-five-hundred-year mutated Soul Ring, the fusion went remarkably smoothly.
Less than an hour later, Su Chen's tightly shut eyes snapped open.
With a sharp creak of bone against bone, a pair of dark red Dragon Wings, three meters wide, burst through his clothes.
The wings unfurled.
The air around him split apart, letting out a piercing whistle.
Su Chen's thoughts stirred.
His body rose from the ground.
Without any preliminary Soul Skill movements, he hovered in midair.
He was so fast that Yue Guan saw only a blur.
"Excellent."
Su Chen folded his wings and returned to the ground.
He could feel that his overall strength was now enough to crush most Soul Elders.
"His Highness the Holy Son has obtained both his First Soul Ring and an External Soul Bone. This trip to the Star Dou Great Forest has been a complete success. We should return to Spirit City at once and report to the Pope."
Yue Guan made the suggestion.
The Pope was still waiting for their news.
But Su Chen shook his head.
He looked toward the depths of the Star Dou Great Forest.
"There's no rush to return."
Su Chen's tone was calm.
"My Soul Power is now level twenty-two."
"I still need a Second Soul Ring."
Before you continue