In the forest.
"Thud! Thud! Thud..."
Heavy hoofbeats drew closer.
Accompanied by rough, labored breathing, a black wild boar two meters long, its tusks gleaming coldly, charged forward like a mad beast.
Just as the boar stepped onto a patch of fallen leaves,
the ground suddenly caved in, and the boar fell straight down.
Beneath the leaves was a huge pit someone had dug by hand!
"Hrrrgh—!!!"
The boar shrieked in agony.
Dozens of sharpened wooden stakes stood in the pit, piercing right through the Tusked Boar's body!
Its shrill roar shattered the forest's silence.
The several-hundred-pound boar kicked wildly, struggling as blood gushed down the stakes and stained the earth beneath it red.
"Got it!"
A black-haired, black-eyed boy, covered in dirt, rushed out from behind a tree. His eyes shone with barely contained delight.
Su Hui ran to the edge of the pit and saw the boar still tossing its head, trying to break free.
Without a word, he turned, grabbed a nearby boulder, gritted his teeth, and smashed it down hard onto the boar's head!
Once, twice, three times...
"Damn it, you're still moving! I've been lying in wait for you for half a year. Die already!"
He roared, eyes bloodshot, his arm muscles straining until they ached.
Only when the pit was spattered with red and white gore and the boar's head had been smashed to pulp did the beast finally stop breathing.
A bright yellow Hundred-Year Soul Ring appeared above the boar's corpse.
Seeing it, Su Hui finally stopped.
Panting hard, he dropped onto the ground, and the stone in his hand clattered down beside him.
At last, the tension left his heart.
"When a Soul Beast dies, it produces a Soul Ring."
"Douluo Continent hadn't lied to me!"
That's right, this boar was a Hundred-Year Soul Beast, and this was the world of Douluo Continent.
The current year was 2640 on the Douluo Calendar.
The boy, Su Hui, was Soul Hunting.
He had been reincarnated in Douluo Continent by accident.
In all these years, this was the first time he had seen a Soul Beast die and produce a Soul Ring with his own eyes.
There was no helping it. He was an abandoned child, raised until the age of six by an old woman who scavenged through trash.
After she passed away, he became an orphan with no one to look after him.
He had little talent, no money to attend a Soul Master Academy, and no one to help him hunt Soul Beasts.
In a world where anyone who didn't become a Soul Master was no different from an ant, he could only gamble on hunting one himself.
After reaching Soul Power Level 10, he spent the little money he had saved over half a year on tools to make a trap, along with some provisions.
He had spent an entire six months in this desolate forest, where Soul Beasts were scarce, before finally hunting a Hundred-Year Soul Beast.
Half a year. More than a hundred and eighty days.
Wind and rain, mosquito bites and bugs.
He had gone hungry, suffered a high fever, and nearly been bitten to death by a venomous snake.
He had made it through it all.
Su Hui wiped the blood from his face and leaped down into the pit.
Standing on the beast's corpse, which still held its warmth, he could barely contain his excitement.
He was about to become a Soul Master!
"Please, God, let me get a useful Soul Skill!"
Becoming a Soul Master was the main theme of life on Douluo Continent.
Anyone who didn't become a Soul Master was no different from an ant in this world.
Su Hui drew on the pitiful little Soul Power inside him. A faint white light glowed in his palm, and a two-meter-tall, ordinary-looking modern pink wooden door appeared, built with a single panel.
This was his Martial Soul.
When it awakened, there had been no unusual fluctuations or special phenomena at all.
The Martial Soul catalog had no records of anything like it, either.
On top of that, he had awakened with Innate Soul Power Level 6, so it had been classified as an ordinary tool-type Martial Soul.
Since the pink wooden door looked so much like Doraemon's Anywhere Door, Su Hui had named his Martial Soul "Anywhere Door" for convenience.
Unfortunately, his Anywhere Door was completely ordinary and had none of the functions of Doraemon's Anywhere Door.
He didn't even know whether the Hundred-Year Tusked Boar's Soul Ring was suited to his Martial Soul.
But he had no choice.
If he missed this chance, he might never get another opportunity to hunt a second Hundred-Year Soul Beast.
"I can only take one more gamble!"
Su Hui gritted his teeth, his eyes flashing with the fierce resolve of someone wagering everything.
He used his meager Soul Power to draw the bright yellow Hundred-Year Soul Ring toward him.
The instant the ring touched his wooden-door Martial Soul, a sudden change erupted!
The previously motionless door suddenly unleashed a terrifying suction force.
It was as if a mouth full of sharp teeth had grown on the door.
With a crisp crunch, the Soul Ring was bitten apart, chewed up, and swallowed!
"???"
Su Hui stared in utter confusion.
The next moment, the Anywhere Door seemed to break through its seal.
The shabby wooden door suddenly blazed with dazzling, blinding golden light.
Complex, mysterious clockwork patterns appeared on its mottled surface.
The three hands on the dial began spinning clockwise at a speed visible to the naked eye!
At the same time, a flood of information crashed into his mind like a thunderclap:
Martial Soul's true name—[Anywhere Door]!
Su Hui was completely stunned.
"It really is the Anywhere Door?"
"Did my Trash Martial Soul awaken? Or did it mutate?"
Before he could recover from the overwhelming surprise,
"Click!"
The Anywhere Door in front of him swung open by itself with a crash.
Beyond the door lay a bottomless, swirling vortex.
At the same time, a terrifying, irresistible force of suction erupted, as if dragging him toward it.
"What the hell?"
Before Su Hui could react, the vortex sucked him in.
"Holy crap!"
His vision went black. A dizzying, weightless sensation engulfed him.
He didn't know how long the dizziness lasted.
Just as Su Hui regained the faintest bit of consciousness, a sharp, agonizing pain tore through his lower back!
"Gah! My kidney!!!"
He sucked in a breath from the pain, his muscles tightening all at once.
He looked down.
A dagger had been buried to the hilt in his lower back.
The cold blade had sunk into his flesh. In the blink of an eye, hot blood soaked through his coarse clothes and ran down his trouser leg, pooling on the ground.
Su Hui's mouth fell open.
"Who the hell stabbed me in the kidney?!"
Through gritted teeth, he lifted his eyes and took in the scene before him.
He was on a deserted street.
Standing in front of him was a little girl with silver hair and violet eyes.
Her clothes were torn, her face covered in grime. She looked like a frightened little beast.
Her amethyst eyes brimmed with tears, and her small body trembled like a leaf in the autumn wind.
A black-haired little boy stood beside her.
His small face was deathly pale, his eyes wide as he stared at the blood on the ground. His lips trembled so badly he couldn't speak. He looked thoroughly terrified.
The one who had stabbed him was a yellow-haired thug with a sleazy look.
Now he and his three companions stood there, staring in shock at Su Hui, who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
The dagger in the thug's hand was still held in a forward-thrusting position.
He was startled, too.
The thug had only meant to wave his dagger around and scare the little boy, who had interrupted their attempt to kidnap and traffic the girl.
Who could have guessed someone would suddenly appear out of thin air and land right on the dagger he had thrust forward?!
"Bastard! Who the hell are you?!"
The yellow-haired thug shouted angrily.
"..."
Su Hui's mouth twitched.
That was what he should be asking!
One second he had been in a forest, and the next he had appeared in a modern city and been stabbed.
Now the pain was so bad he couldn't even speak.
Could anyone be more miserable than him?
"Boss, this guy seems to have appeared out of thin air. He might... be a Soul Master!"
One of the thugs suddenly spoke up, cautiously.
"A Soul Master?!"
The yellow-haired thug's face turned white in an instant.
The Federation's laws clearly stated that harming a registered Soul Master meant prison at best and losing your head at worst!
On top of that, passersby had already started gathering at the alley entrance. The thugs panicked at once.
"Damn it, what rotten luck! Brothers, let's get out of here!"
The yellow-haired thug swore and took off running.
They didn't want to get caught.
That left only the bleeding Su Hui and the two terrified children.
Su Hui was only ten years old to begin with, and after losing so much blood, his vision kept going black.
"Seriously? Am I about to die?"
Su Hui felt as if he were seeing his life flash before his eyes.
The strength drained from his body. He swayed, about to collapse.
"Big brother!"
The black-haired boy suddenly snapped out of it and cried out as he rushed over.
His small body held Su Hui up tightly, his voice thick with tears.
"Big brother! Are you okay? Please don't die!"
The silver-haired girl also bit her lip and came closer.
The tears in her violet eyes finally spilled over, and big droplets splashed onto Su Hui.
She looked at the wound on his lower back, her small face full of guilt and panic.
"Big brother... thank you for saving me..."
"..."
Su Hui's consciousness grew fainter and fainter.
The sounds around him drifted farther away.
He only felt someone carefully prying his lips open.
A hot, warm liquid slowly trickled down his throat and into his mouth.
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