He looked at the fishing rod in his hand, then at the red dot blinking on the light screen.
A thought, mad beyond all reason, took shape in his heart.
The corner of his mouth slowly, uncontrollably, curled upward, forming a smile that even Cailin found unfamiliar.
It was the wild abandon of someone driven to the brink, with nothing left to lose.
"I'm going to fish it up."
Li Hao spoke. His voice wasn't loud, but it was crystal clear.
Cailin's golden, slit-pupiled eyes suddenly narrowed.
She wondered if she'd heard him wrong.
"Master, what did you say?"
"I said..." Li Hao repeated, raising the Karma Rod and pointing it toward the ominous red dot on the chaotic light screen. "I'm going to fish that damned mark right out of the void!"
He was crazy.
That man was absolutely crazy.
That was the only thought in Cailin's mind.
She had lived for tens of thousands of years, and never had she heard such an absurd idea.
A causal mark was something on the level of laws.
It was a tracking imprint that the Spirit Hall had spent countless resources to have someone of at least Titled Douluo rank inscribe.
It was intangible, acting directly between the soul and the laws of heaven and earth.
Forget fishing it out. Just sensing it required immense cultivation and a special secret art.
Touching something like that by force was like a mortal reaching out to fiddle with the spinning wheel of a myth. One mistake, and they'd be ground to pieces.
"Master, that's far too dangerous!"
Cailin urgently tried to stop him.
"This isn't like before!"
"The divine sense you fished up earlier, though extremely high in rank, was fundamentally ownerless, just stray energy!"
"But this mark is different!"
"Behind it is the entire Spirit Hall tracking network!"
"If you touch it, you're declaring war on the whole network!"
"The backlash will be a hundred times more terrifying than that divine sense!"
Li Hao listened quietly.
Of course he knew Cailin was right.
Reason told him the safest choice was to be a coward and cultivate in this secluded paradise until the end of time.
But the frustration and resentment buried deep in his heart were screaming wildly.
He hadn't crossed over into this world just to be locked up!
"So what?"
Li Hao turned and looked at Cailin.
"What's the difference between hiding here as a prisoner for the rest of my life and being dead?"
"I don't want to wait anymore."
"Not even one more day."
His words were calm, but carried an unyielding stubbornness.
Cailin was at a loss for words.
She looked at the man in the body of a six-year-old boy.
In his dark eyes, she saw a light she had never seen before.
It wasn't the domineering aura of a powerful expert, nor the ambition of a schemer.
It was the resolve of a salt-dried fish pushed too far, ready to flip the whole pond.
Xiao Wu didn't understand what they were talking about, but she could feel the weight in the air.
She clung tightly to Li Hao's leg, tilting up her little face, her big eyes full of worry.
"Daddy..."
Li Hao lowered his head and smiled at Xiao Wu, reaching out to rub her head.
"Don't be afraid. Daddy's going to fish up a bad guy. Once I've got him, we'll never have to worry about anyone finding us again."
With that, he stopped hesitating.
He walked to the center of Paradise.
He took a deep breath.
He sank his entire mind into the Karma Rod in his hand.
"Cailin, Xiao Wu, get away from me."
"If I fail, don't worry about me. This Paradise will protect you."
Cailin wanted to say more.
But seeing Li Hao's unshakable resolve, she silently retreated more than ten meters and shielded Xiao Wu behind her.
The Soul Power in her body surged into action, putting her on the highest alert.
Li Hao closed his eyes.
This time, his will didn't lock onto any person.
Instead, it precisely fixed on the malicious black dot blinking on the dimensional barrier.
Then he snapped his eyes open!
With all his strength, he whipped the fishing rod in his hand toward the void!
The luminous fishing line shot out with a whoosh.
This time, it didn't drop into the stream or vanish into the sky.
It turned into a straight streak of golden light and struck the black dot with pinpoint accuracy.
Then...
It sank into the dot and disappeared.
As if it had pierced the barrier between worlds and connected to an entirely different space.
At the same time.
Far away, in a dim, austere underground chamber in Spirit City.
A cardinal in a red robe embroidered with gold patterns paced back and forth in a fury.
On the stone table before him, a compass made of obsidian sat lifeless, its needle swaying without pattern like a drunkard.
"Useless! All of you are useless!"
"A Soul Saint, an entire sect—and they've vanished into thin air! We can't even find the slightest trace!"
Several black-clad Soul Masters knelt at his feet. Every one of them was so terrified they didn't dare raise their heads.
Just then.
Hum!
The long-silent compass on the stone table suddenly let out a shrill buzz!
The needle that had been swaying aimlessly spun like mad, as if it had been given a shot of adrenaline, moving so fast it became a blur!
The sudden upheaval jolted the entire chamber.
The cardinal came to an abrupt stop and stared fixedly at the compass.
His furious expression was instantly replaced by frenzied delight!
"It's moving! It's moving!"
The next moment.
The spinning needle stopped dead.
It pointed unwaveringly toward the southwest of the chamber!
"We found them!"
The cardinal let out an excited shriek, his voice breaking.
"Quick! Everyone! Channel your Soul Power into the Thousand-Mile Soul-Chasing Seal! Stabilize the coordinates and lock on to them! Don't let them escape again this time!"
"Yes!"
The black-clad Soul Masters sprang into action as if pardoned, rushing to the stone table.
They pressed their hands to the edge of the compass and poured all the Soul Power in their bodies into it without holding anything back!
Soul Beast Paradise.
Li Hao felt the fishing rod in his hand suddenly dip!
An unimaginable force came from the other end of the line, as if a dozen mammoths were pulling at once.
The force yanked him off balance, and his feet carved two deep furrows in the grass.
"Holy crap!"
"Are we playing tug-of-war or what?!"
He clutched the rod with all his might, veins bulging along his arms.
He could clearly feel several forces twisting together at the other end of the line, struggling against him with all their strength, trying to drag his hook over and lock down his location!
Across an endless gulf of time and space, a silent contest of strength had begun!
In the Spirit Hall's underground chamber.
The cardinal watched the needle on the compass grow more and more stable, a cruel smile spreading across his face.
"Good! That's it! Put more into it! Let's see where you can hide!"
But before his smile had fully formed, it froze on his face.
A Soul Ancestor channeling Soul Power suddenly screamed and collapsed to the floor, his face as pale as gold paper.
"Your Eminence! My Soul Power... My Soul Power is being drained!"
What?
The cardinal froze, not yet understanding what was happening.
"Ah!"
"Mine too!"
Screams rang out one after another.
Two more Soul Kings suffered the same fate, collapsing to the floor with their strength utterly depleted.
The cardinal finally realized something was wrong.
To his horror, he discovered that the Soul Power they were pouring into the compass wasn't stabilizing the coordinates.
Instead, following the now-steady needle, it was being sucked into the unknown void by an irresistible, uncanny force!
This wasn't locating them at all!
They were being... drained!
"How is this possible?! Cut the connection!"
The cardinal let out a panicked scream.
But it was already too late.
In Soul Beast Paradise, Li Hao felt the change too.
He grinned.
His smile was both vicious and exultant.
He could feel streams of pure Soul Power flowing back along the line. He couldn't absorb them, but they greatly eased the pressure on him.
He understood.
The Karma Rod wasn't just fishing up the mark.
It was fishing up the power source behind it, too!
"Get over here... you bastards!"
Li Hao let out a thunderous roar!
He poured every bit of the Soul Power he'd cultivated to level twenty-nine into the Karma Rod!
Hum!
The mysterious golden patterns on the rod blazed with unprecedented brilliance!
He wasn't fishing!
He was stealing!
In the Spirit Hall's underground chamber, the obsidian compass let out a groan under the unbearable strain.
Crack!
A fracture appeared on its surface.
Then a second, then a third...
Under the cardinal's horrified gaze, the entire compass exploded!
Boom!
A terrifying storm of Soul Power and obsidian shards swept in every direction.
Every Soul Master in the chamber, including the cardinal, was thrown back by the blast, tumbling helplessly into the walls and spitting blood.
And in Soul Beast Paradise.
The terrifying force on Li Hao's line abruptly vanished.
The sudden loss of resistance made him stagger backward and plop onto the ground.
But now he was holding something in his hand.
A black rune formed from pure resentment and Soul Power was wrenched out of thin air by Li Hao. It twisted and struggled in his hand.
Li Hao looked at the culprit without the slightest hesitation.
His five fingers snapped shut.
Crack.
The black rune shattered with a sharp sound, turning into specks of black light that vanished into the air.
The ominous red dot on the dimensional barrier disappeared completely.
Li Hao let out a long breath.
However, the next second,
the system notification rang clearly in his mind.
[Your karma with Spirit Hall has deepened.] [Title acquired: Public Enemy Number One of Martial Soul Hall (inactive).]
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