Three Ten Thousand Year Soul Bones? An External Soul Bone: The Sixty-Thousand-Year Bone-Eroding Poison King Scorpion Tail Hook Bone! (Please Read On!)

The Medusa horde had been full of menace, ready to unleash their petrifying attacks, but the moment that dragon's might descended, they seemed to have had their spines ripped out.

Thud!

Thud!

Hundreds and thousands of Medusas, including their leader, collapsed to the ground in an instant, utterly unable to resist.

They trembled and buried their heads deep in the dirt, not daring to look at Dugu Yan. Their wails were steeped in terror.

It was submission and fear that welled up from the depths of their souls!

The entire valley fell deathly silent.

Dugu Bo stared at the outrageous scene before him, his mouth hanging open for a long time.

Back then, he had gone to hell and back, nearly losing his life, just to deal with that Medusa Queen.

And now...

Senior Yu Nan had merely released a little of his aura, and he'd taken out the whole nest?

So this was... bloodline suppression?

His former self, the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor, had lain dormant in this valley for centuries.

Century upon century of bloodline suppression.

It had made it easy for Yu Nan to subdue this entire horde of Medusas.

"A bunch of good-for-nothings."

Yu Nan gave the Medusas huddled together a cold glance, then looked toward the deepest part of the valley.

"Come on. Don't let this trash get in our way."

"The stuff is beneath that poison pool up ahead."

In the suffocating silence, the grandfather and granddaughter walked toward the depths of the valley, stepping over trembling Medusas as if they were in an empty place.

The farther they went, the heavier the sickly-sweet stench in the air grew. Even the surrounding rocks had been eaten away into a honeycomb pattern.

At last, a deep pool roughly ten zhang across appeared before them.

Its water was a strange shade of dark green, thick as paste.

Huge bubbles rose to the surface now and then, bursting and releasing multicolored poisonous fumes that made one want to retch.

This was the "Myriad Poison Pool."

Even Dugu Bo, a Poison Douluo, couldn't help frowning at the water.

The poison here was so fierce that even a Soul Saint would likely turn to a puddle of pus from a single drop.

"It's down there."

Yu Nan's voice sounded in Dugu Yan's mind, tinged with lazy reminiscence.

"Near the center of the pool bottom, more or less. A piece of Ten Thousand Year Profound Iron Essence is sitting on top of it."

"The stuff is in a hidden compartment beneath that iron essence."

In truth, the memories of these Soul Bones had grown hazy in Yu Nan's mind.

After all, his former self, the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor, had lived for more than a hundred thousand years.

In those long years, the Soul Beasts he had devoured and the treasures he had seen were beyond counting.

Soul Bones, priceless to human Soul Masters,

had been little more than some slightly hard, difficult-to-digest "scraps of bone" to him back then.

Or perhaps shiny little trinkets he'd picked up and kept on a whim.

If he hadn't needed to improve Dugu Yan's strength this time,

he might never have remembered that a few "private savings" were buried in this corner.

I seem to remember... one of them was an External Soul Bone?

Yu Nan muttered to himself in the Sea of Consciousness.

It's been too long. I can't quite remember.

I think it dropped from some mutant Soul Beast I casually slapped to death back then. Its shape looked odd, so I kept it.

If there really is an External Soul Bone, this girl's luck is heaven-defying.

External Soul Bones are treasures.

And they can evolve as a Soul Master's strength increases.

Even after she becomes a god, it could become part of her divine armor—or a divine artifact.

At the thought, even Yu Nan couldn't help feeling a little anticipation.

"Grandpa, go ahead."

Dugu Yan relayed his words.

Dugu Bo nodded and took a deep breath. Soul Power surged around him.

"Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor, appear!"

With a low shout, the enormous phantom of the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor materialized behind him.

Dugu Bo wasn't foolish enough to jump in himself.

Instead, he controlled the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor's enormous tail, wrapped in powerful Soul Power, and plunged it into the thick poison pool.

Gurgle—!

The water churned violently, like a beast enraged.

Dugu Bo knitted his brows, veins bulging on his forehead.

The water was extremely dense and highly corrosive. Even controlling it with his Soul Power was a struggle.

"Found it!"

A glint flashed in Dugu Bo's eyes.

"Rise!"

With a booming shout, the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor's tail whipped out of the pool.

It held a huge iron chest, wrapped in thick mud and poison deposits, and slammed it down onto the rocks at the shore.

Boom!

It was as if the earth itself had shuddered.

The iron chest was pitted and corroded, but one could still tell it had been forged from Ten Thousand Year Profound Iron Essence. It was extraordinarily sturdy.

"Open it."

Yu Nan spoke calmly.

Dugu Bo flicked his hand, sending out a wave of Soul Power to shake the mud off the chest. Then he gathered force in his palm and struck the lid.

Crack!

The rusted-shut lock snapped.

Dugu Bo heaved open the heavy lid.

Whoom—!

There was no dazzling treasure-light, as one might have expected. Instead, a bone-chilling aura spread through the air.

Three bones lay quietly inside.

The one on the left was a pitch-black left arm bone, glimmering with a cold, eerie light. Its quality was at least thirty thousand years.

The one on the right was a dark-red right leg bone, wreathed in a faint bloody aura. Its quality was around forty thousand years.

Though precious, the two were nothing special in the eyes of Dugu Bo, who had seen a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Bone.

The one in the middle drew everyone's gaze.

It was a bone of an extremely strange shape.

It was neither a hand bone nor a leg bone, and certainly not a skull or torso bone.

It was a translucent purplish gray, made up of a series of fine bone segments.

Its tip was sharp as a hook, and it looked like a tiny... scorpion tail?

Or the tail vertebrae of some kind of serpent?

It lay there quietly, yet seemed alive, giving off an evil fluctuation that made the heart tremble.

The instant he saw it, Dugu Bo's pupils shrank to pinpricks. He cried out in shock:

"This... this is..."

"An External Soul Bone?!"

In the Sea of Consciousness, Yu Nan's eyes lit up at the sight of the bone, and his confidence soared.

There really is one!

Looks like my guess was right.

Yu Nan was in high spirits, and a hint of amusement entered his voice.

"Not bad. We got lucky."

"Old Poison Freak, you saw right."

"This is the External Soul Bone that's worth its weight in gold in the Soul Master World."

"If I remember correctly,"

"it came from a sixty-thousand-year Bone-Eroding Poison King Scorpion, after it fought a Blazing Azure Wolf and both were badly wounded."

"I picked it up and killed it, and it dropped this."

"This bone should be the Bone-Eroding Poison King Scorpion's tail hook, mutated after fusing with part of its spine."

"Sixty... sixty thousand years?!"

"And it's an External Soul Bone?!"

Dugu Bo felt as though his heart were about to leap out of his chest.

External Soul Bones were rare to begin with, with a drop rate of only one in ten thousand. Most were only a thousand or ten thousand years old.

A sixty-thousand-year External Soul Bone?

He'd never even heard of such a thing!

It was absolutely no less valuable than the Ten Thousand Year Blue Silver Emperor right leg bone!

"Yan Yan, hurry!"

"Put it away!"

Dugu Bo was so excited he could barely get his words out, gesturing wildly.

"It's an External Soul Bone!"

"Once absorbed, it can evolve just like a Soul Ring as your strength increases!"

"With it, your combat power will make a qualitative leap!"

Dugu Yan gazed at the purplish-gray Tail Hook Bone, her eyes filled with longing and astonishment.

She could sense that the bone seemed to be calling to her, resonating in some strange way with the poison in her body.

"Don't put it away just yet."

Yu Nan's voice rang out at the right moment, carrying unquestionable authority.

"Better now than later."

"The environment here is harsh, but the poisonous fumes rising from the Myriad Poison Pool are the best nourishment for this poison-type External Soul Bone."

"Yan Yan, absorb it right here."