"B-Bad news!"
A shriek so piercing it had gone hoarse suddenly tore through the tribe's morning calm.
A young Soul Master responsible for the outer perimeter watch scrambled through the crude fence.
His face was white as paper, his Soul Power thrown into utter disarray by extreme terror, his staggering steps nearly sending him sprawling to the ground.
Ignoring the astonished stares of the tribespeople, he charged desperately toward the tallest stone house at the center of the village.
It was the residence of the tribe's guardian deity—the elderly man who was their sole Soul Douluo.
"Bang!" The young man practically crashed through the heavy wooden door, his voice broken by frantic gasps and terror.
Yet it was enough to make the old man meditating inside the stone house snap open his sharp eyes.
"My lord! A beast tide! No, not a beast tide! A group of Soul Beast overlords is coming toward us!"
"What?!"
The old man seated on the stone bed abruptly rose to his feet.
His hair and beard were white, yet his frame remained as straight as a pine, his gaze as sharp as an eagle's.
But at that moment, those eyes, which had witnessed countless storms, were instantly filled with incredulous shock and a trace of icy dread.
A group of Soul Beast overlords? This was no ordinary beast tide!
Low-level Soul Beasts might gather because of natural disasters or because they had been driven away.
But those overlord-level beings, possessing both intelligence and power, each ruling their own territories and normally never infringing upon one another—
How could they possibly all be heading toward a human settlement at once?
Without the slightest hesitation, Soul Power surged silently yet mightily around the old man. Eight Soul Rings flashed beneath his feet before vanishing again in