Soul-Pulling Ghost Vine

"I'm not entirely sure of the specifics, but there are rumors circulating that Miss Tang Ya's Blue Silver Grass is exceptionally adept at elemental control. It's said that this is the very reason Director chose the Soul-Pulling Ghost Vine for her; for a soul master who plays with elements, spiritual power is a crucial metric."

"After all, she is the only daughter of the Crafting Bureau Director. These are just whispers among us Martial Soul Hall employees; the Director certainly wouldn't have wanted Miss Tang Ya to step into the soul master world so soon. The fact that it wasn't completely suppressed is already a major oversight on the part of the Crafting Bureau."

Huo Yuhao didn't pay much mind to the latter half of Wang Hong's words, but regarding Tang Ya's martial soul, he might have already caught a glimpse of the truth.

One of the two halves of the Dragon God, the Silver Dragon King who excels in elemental control!

Huo Yuhao felt, almost instinctively, that there was some connection between the two, but these meager clues were not enough for him to make a definitive judgment.

After all, in the God Realm, the Silver Dragon King was nothing more than an ancient legend.

Perhaps, it was merely a coincidence.

Huo Yuhao tried to cast the extraneous thoughts from his mind; he had better focus on how to complete the upcoming mission.

"Brother Sky Dream, Brother Sky Dream, are you awake?"

After several months, Huo Yuhao finally woke Tian Meng once again. As soon as he entered his Sea of Consciousness, he was greeted by a comforting sound of snoring.

"Hmm...? Who's calling me?" Tian Meng opened his eyes groggily and let out a massive yawn. To be honest, this was the most comfortable sleep he had enjoyed since being captured by that group and taken to the Star Dou Forest; it was even more comfortable than sleeping in the Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Marrow.

Huo Yuhao's Sea of Consciousness was filled with a massive amount of high-quality spiritual power. The bed fashioned from this energy was not only as soft as a cloud and highly resilient, but it also nourished the soul and spiritual power he had depleted to seal his own soul power.

Truth be told, he didn't even want to share this sanctuary with other soul beasts anymore.

"Brother Sky Dream, I need your help. I've encountered a very troublesome spirit-type soul beast, and I'm worried I might not be able to handle it..."

"A spirit-type soul beast? You can't handle it even with the soul ring your Brother Sky Dream gave you?" Huo Yuhao's words immediately piqued Tian Meng's interest.

A spirit-type soul beast? Could there really be a spirit-type soul beast on this continent more powerful than him, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm?

See, when Huo Yuhao encountered such a tricky situation, the first person he thought of was still him.

"Tell me, what's the situation with that soul beast?" Tian Meng said, lying on his side on a recliner condensed from spiritual power.

"This soul beast is called a Soul-Pulling Ghost Vine, a variant of ghost vine that specializes in spiritual power. Its physical body is so fragile that even an ordinary person could injure it, but even at the hundred-year level, it can threaten a Soul King-level soul master."

"A Soul King... based on what Brother knows about you human soul masters, a Soul King should be able to absorb a soul ring produced by a ten-thousand-year soul beast, right?" Tian Meng recalled slightly, and Huo Yuhao nodded firmly.

"Hmm... Yuhao, you've run into a tough nut to crack!"

Tian Meng's tone became noticeably serious, and he no longer lounged so casually.

"A hundred-year-level soul beast that can threaten a soul master with a ten-thousand-year soul ring... In Brother's memory, such a soul beast is not just rare; if it were in my hometown, the Far North, there would only be two outcomes."

"Either it grows into an overlord capable of dominating the entire ice field... or its entire species would be wiped out by the ice field before it could ever grow up."

"Yuhao, you probably can't imagine just how heaven-defying the soul beast you're describing really is..." Tian Meng pondered for a moment, then continued:

"A human soul master with a ten-thousand-year soul ring is roughly equivalent to a ten-thousand-year soul beast. In other words, a hundred-year-level Soul-Pulling Ghost Vine can rival a ten-thousand-year soul beast. If it were allowed to grow into a ten-thousand-year soul beast, Brother can guarantee you that dominating a gathering place where ten-thousand-year soul beasts exist, or even threatening multiple hundred-thousand-year soul beasts, would absolutely not be a problem!"

"Honestly, your luck is unparalleled to have encountered this soul beast... Logically, if such a creature truly existed, let alone at the hundred-year level, even a group of ten-year soul beasts would have been purged by those guys. The very existence of such a soul beast is a threat to the entire soul beast habitat."

Hearing Tian Meng's words, Huo Yuhao couldn't help but fall silent.

He had originally come to ask for advice, but he hadn't expected such grave consequences to be hidden behind it.

"Forget it, this isn't something you should be considering right now. In any case, you're planning to hunt this soul beast, right?" Tian Meng shifted his body; he didn't want to get involved in this matter. He was here to create a god; whether the soul beast world was balanced or not had nothing to do with him.

When those soul beasts treated him as a ball of soul power to be absorbed, did they ever care about him?

Rather than dwelling on those things, it was better to help Huo Yuhao figure out how to deal with that creature.

"Let me think. Your current Spirit Genesis God has three effects in total: Spirit Detection, Spirit Deceleration, and Spirit Acceleration, right... According to your description, that soul beast's main ability is realistic illusions, but illusions actually come in two types."

"One is attached to the real world, where the person entering the illusion remains conscious; the other is attached to the spiritual world, where the person entering the illusion is generally in a comatose state in the real world."

As Tian Meng explained, he used his spiritual power to create two dolls—one awake and one asleep—to help Huo Yuhao understand more easily.

Huo Yuhao nodded repeatedly, indicating he understood.

"Based on your description, Brother believes that the illusion used by the Soul-Pulling Ghost Vine is likely a combination of the two. It first uses an illusion attached to reality to lure soul beasts and people close, and once the distance is appropriate, it switches to an illusion attached to the spiritual world. To the person or soul beast caught in it, they might realize they are in an illusion, but by then, they have likely already been entangled by the vine's tendrils and turned into its nutrients."

"Although it sounds reasonable, Brother must still warn you that this is just my guess; the actual situation might not be exactly like this, but it should serve as a decent reference."

As Tian Meng spoke, Huo Yuhao fell into deep thought.

However, at that very moment, both Huo Yuhao and Tian Meng sensed that something was wrong.

The Sea of Consciousness trembled slightly at that instant. This tremor might be difficult to distinguish by feeling alone, but within the Sea of Consciousness, this vibration was magnified by spiritual power into ripples visible to the eye.

And the source of that ripple was a strand of spiritual power attempting to invade!

"Yuhao, Yuhao!" Wang Hong was holding the unconscious Huo Yuhao in his arms. The two were currently inside a transparent Bubble, and outside the Bubble, countless thick, ink-green branches were exerting force, trying to pierce through this seemingly fragile layer.

Beside them lay the equally unconscious Sky Soul Horse and the Soul Guidance Flying Carriage, which had been smashed into pieces.