Star Dou Forest, deep within.
This was the oldest forbidden zone on the Douluo Continent. Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts were as common as weeds, and Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts were no mere legend.
Even powerhouses at the Titled Douluo level dared not casually venture into the heart of this region.
Towering ancient trees blotted out the sky. Their dense branches and leaves shredded the sunlight into fragments, letting it fall in scattered patches across the ground. The air was thick with the scent of rotting leaves and beasts.
By all rights, a place like this should have shown no traces of human activity.
Yet deep in the forest, on an apparently ordinary clearing, there stood a small courtyard.
It was modest, with blue bricks and dark tiles, a fence around it, and several beds of unknown flowers and plants growing in one corner.
Were it not for the primeval forest surrounding it, anyone would have thought it an ordinary farmhouse.
Yet this courtyard had quietly nestled in the deepest reaches of Star Dou Forest for a full hundred thousand years, living in peace beside countless savage Soul Beasts.
"Creak—"
The basement's stone door swung open, and a tall figure strolled out with a lazy gait.
He was a young man who looked barely past twenty, dressed in black, with black hair and handsome features.
At that moment, though, he was spattered with dark red blood. Some of it had dried and turned black, while some still carried a warm, bloody reek, as if he had just crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
But the young man paid it no mind. He casually plucked a blade of foxtail grass from beside the courtyard wall, held it between his lips, then sprawled in a wicker chair and gazed up at the sky, sliced into pieces by the treetops. He looked as content as if he were on vacation.
His name was Jiang Li.
He was a transmigrator.
A hundred thousand years ago, he had inexplicably transmigrated to this Douluo Continent.
Back then, Soul Beasts ran rampant across the continent, and humans were no more than ants struggling to survive in the cracks.
Fortunately, he had awakened a Sign-in System.
By signing in every day, he could earn rewards.
Soul Bones, Soul Rings, cultivation techniques, pills, bloodlines, divine artifacts... As long as he kept signing in long enough, there was nothing he couldn't obtain.
Thanks to this system, Jiang Li had climbed, day after day and year after year, to the pinnacle of the continent.
He had also married Xiao Rou, the Soft Bone Charm Rabbit, who was renowned as one of the ten most beautiful women on the continent and had become a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast.
Then he had received a long-term sign-in quest: suppress the Abyss rift in Star Dou Forest.
A hundred thousand years had passed. He had long since lost count of how many times he had signed in. The treasures in his possession had piled up like mountains, and he had nearly forgotten where some of them had come from.
His gaze swept over every inch of the courtyard, calm and unruffled.
The seemingly ordinary flagstones were each actually carved from divine stone.
If anyone tore them up and forged them into weapons, they would drive any Titled Douluo mad—and might even unleash a storm of bloodshed across the entire continent.
Beneath the flagstones lay an immense Spirit Gathering Array.
It drew in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth without pause, gathering it into an invisible sea of energy within the courtyard.
Even an ordinary pig could live here for a few years and shed its old form, becoming a Ten-Thousand-Year pig king.
If not for his fear that the Abyss aura might leak out, Jiang Li would never have laid down an array to conceal the workings of heaven. The courtyard's terrifying spiritual energy, along with the aura radiating from its countless treasures, would long since have alarmed the outside world and driven the entire continent into a frenzy.
Still, Jiang Li didn't care about any of it.
A hundred thousand years had passed. What good thing hadn't he seen?
Just as Jiang Li was drifting between sleep and wakefulness, a crisp voice suddenly rang in his mind.
[ DING! Host detected at sign-in location. Please sign in! ]
Jiang Li didn't even open his eyes. He lazily uttered two words: "Sign in."
[ DING! Congratulations, host. You have obtained a Soul Bone—the Death Spider Emperor Skull! Please collect it! ]
As the voice faded, a dark purple light appeared out of thin air before Jiang Li.
The light dispersed, revealing a fist-sized skull that slowly floated in the air. It was a deep purplish black all over, its surface webbed with patterns like a spider's web, and it radiated a chilling aura that made one's heart tremble.
The Death Spider Emperor.
In the Douluo Continent's records of Soul Beasts, it was one of the very highest-ranking predators.
A fully grown Death Spider Emperor was enough to make even a Titled Douluo wary.
An External Soul Bone was the finest of Soul Bones. If one fell into the outside world, who knew what kind of commotion it would cause?
Jiang Li merely glanced at it, without even bothering to reach out and take it.
"Another Soul Bone? Not bad."
With a casual wave of his hand, a beam of emerald-green light welled up from his palm and enveloped the Death Spider Emperor Skull.
Beast Taming Skill—Revival.
This was Jiang Li's unique ability.
Ordinary Soul Masters who obtained a Soul Bone could only fuse it into themselves to strengthen their combat power.
But Jiang Li was different. With the power to tame beasts, he could revive a lifeless Soul Bone and turn it back into a living Soul Beast.
The green light grew brighter, and the skull began to tremble violently.
Bone grew, sinews returned, flesh filled out, and a layer of black carapace slowly took shape in the light.
In a matter of breaths, a complete Death Spider Emperor appeared in the courtyard.
It crouched before Jiang Li, its eight long legs bent beneath it in a kneeling posture. Its dark purple compound eyes brimmed with reverence and awe, as if it were worshipping its god.
"Go on. Join the army fighting the Abyss."
Jiang Li waved it away, as if dismissing an insignificant foot soldier.
The Death Spider Emperor let out a low hiss, bowed its head respectfully, then turned and headed for the basement entrance.
The basement's stone door opened once more.
At that very instant, a suffocating killing aura surged out through the crack.
It carried the stench of a mountain of corpses and sea of blood, the bloodlust and savagery forged on a battlefield where countless living beings fought to the death.
Through the narrow opening, one could glimpse a vast, boundless space underground, where dense ranks of Soul Beasts were locked in fierce battle with unknown crimson creatures.
Those crimson creatures were hideous, their bodies seemingly formed from coagulated blood. A nauseating, evil aura emanated from them.
They poured ceaselessly from a rift deep within the earth, like a tide that would never run dry.
That rift was the entrance to the Abyss Plane.
And Jiang Li, alone, had suppressed the entire Abyss Plane.
For a hundred thousand years, he had built this courtyard atop the Abyss rift and sealed it with his supreme cultivation.
The underground space was crammed with the countless Soul Beasts he had revived over the past hundred thousand years. They fought the Abyss creatures day and night, keeping them firmly sealed on the other side of the rift and preventing even the tiniest trace of Abyss aura from leaking out.
Abyss creatures could not be destroyed. Even if slain, they would reform within the Abyss Plane.
That was why this war would never end.
It was also why Jiang Li had kept the courtyard isolated and forbidden Xiao Rou and the others from entering.
The Abyss aura could corrupt living beings through the tiniest opening. Even a single wisp leaking out would mean immense trouble.
The stone door slowly swung shut, sealing off that suffocating aura once more.
The Death Spider Emperor disappeared into the darkness beyond the door, becoming one of the Soul Beast army.
Jiang Li sank back into his wicker chair and yawned.
Just as he was about to settle in for a good nap, his ear twitched. He opened one eye.
In the forest outside the courtyard, a terrifying aura was drawing nearer, hurtling toward him at astonishing speed.
It was so powerful that each step made the earth tremble faintly.
"What's that gorilla rushing over here for?"
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