"Don't go." Lin Yuan stopped her.
Hu Liena looked up at him, confused.
"Why? I read that white foxes like this are the most suitable for Fox-type Martial Souls."
Lin Yuan glanced at the white fox and said calmly,
"Its attributes are a good match, but it's far too young. Judging by the length of its body and tail, this white fox has cultivated for at most three hundred years."
"The quality of your First Soul Ring determines the foundation and growth potential of your Martial Soul. You're a prodigy of Spirit Hall. Absorbing a three-hundred-year Soul Beast would not only waste your talent, but seriously lower your potential, too."
Hearing Lin Yuan's words, Hu Liena felt warmth bloom in her heart.
She knew he was genuinely thinking about her future.
She let go of his sleeve and nodded firmly.
"Okay, I'll listen to you! Let's keep looking!"
Lin Yuan didn't spare the white fox another glance. He simply walked around it and continued deeper into the forest with Hu Liena.
As they ventured farther in, the light around them grew dimmer, and the stench of blood and damp earth grew stronger.
The vegetation grew more and more grotesque, and the towering tree canopies almost completely blotted out the sky.
Hu Liena could clearly sense the Soul Beasts lurking nearby growing more powerful.
She was, after all, only a six-year-old girl who had never experienced true slaughter.
The oppressive surroundings made her heart race and her breathing quicken.
"Lin Yuan..." Hu Liena stopped, her voice filled with worry.
"I think we've gone too deep. The books say that farther in is the Inner Forest. It's full of thousand-year Soul Beasts, and even Ferocious Beasts that are several thousand years old."
"If we run into one, we won't stand a chance. Maybe we should look around the outskirts instead."
Lin Yuan stopped and turned to face Hu Liena.
"With me here, you won't get hurt. Just stay close to me, and don't worry about anything else."
Looking at the boy her own age, Hu Liena felt her panic vanish in an instant.
The calm, unshakable presence Lin Yuan carried, as though Mount Tai could crumble before him and he wouldn't so much as blink, made her feel completely safe.
She took a deep breath and forced down her fear.
"Okay! I'm not afraid! I trust you!"
Hu Liena nodded firmly.
Hidden in the treetops several hundred meters behind them, Bibi Dong had seen everything.
Watching Lin Yuan lead Hu Liena across the boundary and straight into the Inner Forest, she knitted her brows into a tight frown.
"That boy has no idea how high the sky is!"
"No matter how talented he is, he has no Soul Ring or Soul Skills. How could Soul Power alone possibly let him take on thousand-year Soul Beasts?"
Bibi Dong fretted inwardly.
The Soul Beasts in the Inner Forest were ferocious beyond measure, nothing like the low-level beasts of a few hundred years outside.
She immediately gathered all her Soul Power, ready to rush in and save them at a moment's notice. These were the two children she valued most; she couldn't let anything go wrong here.
Not long after Lin Yuan and Hu Liena entered the Inner Forest,
a piercing rush of wind howled through the branches overhead.
The next moment, a huge red-and-black shadow dropped from the sky and slammed into an open patch of ground ten meters ahead of them with a thunderous crash.
The earth shook, and a gale swept up the fallen leaves, scattering them in every direction.
As the dust cleared, a fox-like Soul Beast as large as a tiger appeared before them.
Its entire body was a strange blood-red, and the most striking thing about it was the nine enormous, bushy tails trailing behind it.
The narrow beastly eyes of the Nine-tailed Fox Demon glittered with bloodlust as it stared at the two human children.
A stench so foul it was overwhelming struck them, accompanied by the powerful pressure of a thousand-year Soul Beast.
Hu Liena's breath caught. Her legs went weak, and she stumbled backward in fright, nearly falling on her backside.
"This is... a thousand-year Nine-tailed Fox Demon!"
Hu Liena's voice trembled.
She had seen this kind of Soul Beast in Spirit Hall's bestiary. Its nine tails and enormous size meant it had cultivated for at least fourteen hundred years!
To a child who hadn't even absorbed a ten-level Soul Ring, a fourteen-hundred-year Soul Beast was an invincible reaper.
Bibi Dong could no longer hold back. Purple-black light surged around her, and she pushed off the branch, ready to rush down and protect them.
But what happened next forced her to stop in her tracks. Her beautiful eyes widened in disbelief.
"You're exactly who I've been looking for."
Lin Yuan's legs suddenly tensed, and the ground beneath him burst into two deep craters.
He shot forward like a cannonball, charging straight at the fourteen-hundred-year-old Fox Demon!
At that moment, Lin Yuan held nothing back.
His eyes narrowed, and the Nine-Nether Slaughter God's Domain within him erupted.
A pure, overwhelmingly domineering blood-red light spread wildly from him, engulfing the entire area within a hundred meters in an instant.
The moment the domain unfolded, the air around them sank, and even the light seemed to warp.
Within this blood-red domain, an absolute suppressive force descended from the depths of the soul.
The Nine-tailed Fox Demon, so arrogant moments before, was suddenly enveloped by the domain. A flicker of utter, almost human terror crossed its beastly eyes.
Its body trembled uncontrollably, and the powerful aura of a thousand-year Soul Beast instantly dwindled.
Before the Nine-Nether Slaughter God's Domain, every Soul Beast with a bloodline inferior to Lin Yuan's was crushed as if by a blow from a higher dimension.
A mere thousand-year Fox Demon didn't even deserve to carry his shoes!
"Roar—!"
The Fox Demon let out a wail and tried to flee.
"Do you think you can get away?"
Suspended in midair, Lin Yuan's blood boiled.
He awakened the Nine-Nether Ao Bloodline within him.
Boom!
An ancient, vast, world-destroying dark force erupted from Lin Yuan and soared into the sky.
Behind him, an enormous silhouette of a black Ferocious Beast slowly appeared.
It had nine heads, its body covered in black scales, and every hair on it was like a razor-sharp war spear.
This was only a faint trace of the Nine-Nether Ao Bloodline made manifest, yet it was enough to terrify every Soul Beast in the entire Inner Forest into prostrating themselves on the ground, too afraid to even breathe.
The Nine Nether Beast was an unparalleled Ferocious Beast capable of devouring heaven and earth.
No creature in a low-tier plane like the Douluo Continent could withstand the pressure of a bloodline of this level.
The Fox Demon was slammed to the ground by that pressure. The bones in its limbs cracked under the strain.
Lin Yuan landed in front of the Fox Demon. He didn't need to use any flashy Soul Skills.
He simply unleashed the Nine Nether Beast's innate divine ability—Devour!
Lin Yuan reached out a small, pale hand and pressed it against the Fox Demon's enormous head.
The Fox Demon struggled desperately, its nine tails thrashing against the ground, but it couldn't break free from Lin Yuan's iron grip.
A deep black vortex appeared in the center of Lin Yuan's palm.
Visible streams of blood-red life force were forcibly torn from the Fox Demon's body, flowing without end along Lin Yuan's hand and surging into his own.
The Fox Demon's once-strong body shriveled at an incredible speed. Its fur lost its luster, and its life force drained away like mercury spilling across the ground.
In just a few breaths, the peerless thousand-year Soul Beast had no chance to fight back. It collapsed limply onto the ground, on the brink of death.
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