Douluo Continent, Slaughter City.
A place with no rules, only slaughter.
Crimson waves of heat burst continuously from the scorching magma, immersing the city in the ecstasy of slaughter.
In a dim corner of an alley in the inner city, a six-year-old boy was hiding. It was hard to imagine a child in a place so steeped in bloodshed.
His name was Ling Chen, a transmigrator who had arrived here from another world.
Back then, he had been searching Fuxian Lake for the legendary Green Steel Sword. If he really got his hands on that thing, he would become rich overnight.
Ling Chen shoveled away at the lakebed, stirring up the mud and sand until the water turned murky.
He was lucky enough to actually touch a sword, so without a second thought, he grabbed it and swam in one direction.
But he was also unlucky enough to lose his bearings. In his confusion, he accidentally swam into a whirlpool.
He was swept into the whirlpool along with the Green Steel Sword, and vanished.
He felt himself falling, and the Green Steel Sword in his hand disappeared without a trace.
As it happened, the twenty-something Ling Chen kept growing younger until, by the time he caught hold of a particularly sturdy dead tree, his age had settled at six.
At first, Ling Chen thought he had fallen into some hidden cavern beneath the lake. But when he landed, he realized he had fallen into a living hell.
During three months of exploration, Ling Chen had constantly heard the people of Slaughter City talking about the Hell Slaughter Arena and Yellow Spring Dew. That was when he realized he had arrived at the most nightmarish place in Douluo Continent.
Although everyone here was equal and could summon their Martial Souls to fight, no one could use the Soul Skills attached to their Soul Rings.
But that put Ling Chen at a severe disadvantage.
He was just a college student who had grown young again. A six-year-old child with no awakened Martial Soul was little more than an ant in Slaughter City.
Ling Chen could only hide in dark corners, scraping by on whatever scraps he could scavenge.
If he wanted to leave this place, he had to kill someone!
And to kill here, he needed either superb martial skills, an unstoppable weapon, or an immensely powerful Martial Soul.
Each of those three things was incredibly difficult for Ling Chen to obtain.
But he had no choice. He had no money, no Martial Soul, and no martial skills. With a start this hellish, it was a miracle he had survived until now.
Still, Ling Chen refused to lose heart. Every day, he kept training his body while observing how other people killed and what methods they used.
Of course, he had to do all of that in secret. If anyone discovered him, he would become a captive sacrifice, raised for the sake of making it through the trials.
Some powerful fighters would tie up a few weaker people and bring them to the Hell Slaughter Arena, where they would kill them to improve their odds of winning and leave this place as soon as possible.
They usually did not capture too many—just one or two. It took effort and food, and there was always a risk of getting hurt.
And the chances of success were not that high, either. Every last one of them was a desperate outlaw, so it was only natural for things to end in mutual destruction.
But a child like Ling Chen was different. Snatching up a little kid was easy, with little risk, and he was easy to keep captive. There was no way they would not get ideas about him.
Ling Chen was in a bad situation. The truth could not stay hidden forever, and last night, someone had finally found him.
Now, in the dim alley, the clatter of footsteps had begun to echo. They were slowly drawing closer to where Ling Chen was hiding.
"Thump-thump! Thump-thump!"
Ling Chen could faintly hear his heart racing. A bead of cold sweat slid down his forehead.
With every fraction of an inch that the sweat trickled down, the footsteps drew closer.
There was nowhere to run. This alley was a dead end, and people rarely came here.
He might have been able to fight back, but against an adult, his resistance would be nothing but a clown's act.
Should he beg for mercy? In a place with no rules, only slaughter, begging would only make his death more humiliating.
The footsteps kept approaching. Ling Chen swallowed involuntarily. Was he really doomed to die?
Helplessness, despair, fear... All those emotions surged through his bloodstream and spread to every corner of his body, making him tremble uncontrollably.
Ten paces! The man was about ten paces away! Even in the gloom of the alley, Ling Chen could see the silhouette of an adult with perfect clarity from this close.
Ling Chen held his breath, his trembling body gradually tensing.
But the footsteps did not continue toward him. The shadow, now just ten paces away, began to retreat, and the footsteps faded into the distance.
"Has he left?"
Ling Chen slowly let out a breath, but he did not lower his guard. His tense body gradually relaxed. He could not stay here anymore.
Ling Chen needed to find somewhere else to hide. Only after some time had passed since the shadow left did he slowly get to his feet and head for the alley's exit.
But as soon as he reached the fork in the alley, Ling Chen sensed something was wrong and quickly rolled forward.
When he looked back, an adult was reaching out to grab him, but the man's hand closed on empty air.
Ling Chen scrambled to his feet and ran. He had not expected the man to lie in wait for him here.
The adult was neither angry nor in a hurry. The thrill of the hunt was a rare pleasure in Slaughter City.
It was not as if there were no weak people here, but someone this weak was a rare sight.
The man held an axe and leisurely followed Ling Chen. He even deliberately slowed his pace, keeping a certain distance so Ling Chen could not shake him off.
Ling Chen ran fast. Three months of stubborn training had made him much quicker than an ordinary six-year-old. But in the eyes of an adult Soul Master, he was just a "little girl"!
As he sprinted wildly, Ling Chen unwittingly darted into a dead end. Just as he tried to turn around and change course, the axe's cold gleam flashed from the alley's entrance.
The man ambled toward Ling Chen, leisurely twirling his axe.
"Keep running, kid! Weren't you so fast?"
The axe's gleam illuminated the man's face. A broad, ugly scar ran across his forehead, and paired with his fierce glare, it made him look especially savage.
Ling Chen kept backing away, breathing so hard he could barely think. When the chill behind him reached the nerves in his back, he had already backed into the wall at the end of the alley.
Despair welled up in him again. Ling Chen glanced around, searching the ground for a weapon he could use to make a last stand.
But the ground held nothing but broken bricks and stones. Then Ling Chen spotted a dog hole at the foot of the wall to his left. Were there Soul Beasts in Slaughter City too?
Ling Chen had no time to think about that. At least there was still a way out! With his six-year-old body, he could crawl through the dog hole with ease.
So Ling Chen picked up some stones and threw them at Scarface.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
Scarface knocked the stones aside one by one with his axe. Ling Chen seized the chance, lunged at the dog hole, and squeezed inside with all his might.
Even though the narrow passage was full of sharp stones, Ling Chen ignored them and forced his way through.
Scarface had been smiling as he casually blocked the little brat's attacks, certain he had Ling Chen under control. But when he saw Ling Chen crawling into the dog hole, he realized something was wrong!
He charged at Ling Chen at top speed, axe raised. With a sharp crack, he split the paving stone in front of the hole in two.
Dust billowed up from the ground, then quickly settled. Ling Chen was no longer in the dog hole.
On the other side, covered in blood, Ling Chen held half a brick and stared fixedly at the hole he had just crawled through.
If Scarface dared to come after him, Ling Chen would smash his head open.
Silence. A long, long silence...
As time passed, Ling Chen's ragged breathing finally began to settle.
Humiliation—what a disgrace! He, a transmigrator, had actually been driven to crawl through a dog hole just to survive!
But he had no choice. A six-year-old in this slaughterhouse was meat on a chopping board, there for anyone to carve up!
Scarface was probably going around the wall from another direction, but when Ling Chen turned around, he discovered that this was a sealed room with no doors or windows.
The only entrance was the dog hole.
There was also a pile of bones on the ground. It was not hard to guess who had once lived in this dog hole.
Ling Chen planned to clean the place up and make it his secret base.
But as soon as he touched the bones, a white Soul Ring flew into Ling Chen's mindscape, and his consciousness followed it inside.
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