Dual Hearts at the Start: Heart of Destruction and Heart of Life!

In the northeast of Douluo Continent, along the border of the Heaven Dou Empire, there was a corner too insignificant to even be marked on a map.

Disabled Village!

It wasn't that the people here had been born disabled. On the contrary... the elderly and children here all had one more organ than normal people.

An extra hand, a foot, a finger, or perhaps an extra ear or nose...

Today was the day of martial soul awakening, and this was one of the villages under the Body Sect.

The open space at the center of the village was especially lively today.

A dozen or so children of five or six stood in a line. Some were tall, some short, some fat, some thin. Their only common trait was that not a single one of them looked "normal."

Some had two Adam's apples stacked on their necks, giving their voices an echo. Some dragged short tails behind them that swayed as they walked. The most outrageous was the boy at the front of the line—a slit of flesh ran vertically down the center of his brow, and whenever he got excited, it would pop open to reveal an eyeball spinning wildly inside.

"Martial soul, thumb!"

A middle-aged man in a gray cloth shirt announced loudly. His arms hung past his knees. His name was Wang Long-Arm, and he was a steward dispatched to this region by the Body Sect.

A timid boy stood before him. At the tip of his right index finger, the phantom of a thumb segment flickered with light.

"Innate Soul Power, level one." Wang Long-Arm expressionlessly marked the registry, cursing inwardly.

"Next, Li Ergou!"

A boy with a short tail stepped forward and placed his hand on the crystal ball. A faint halo lit up.

"Martial soul, final segment of the tailbone. Innate Soul Power, half a level."

"Pfft!" Someone in the line couldn't hold back a laugh.

Wang Long-Arm didn't even raise his eyelids. "What are you laughing at? Your third eye only has Innate Soul Power of level two. You're one to talk."

The laughter stopped abruptly.

After an entire morning, the registry was filled with all manner of bizarre "Body Martial Souls": little toes, earlobes, appendixes, wisdom teeth... The most respectable was a "kneecap," with Innate Soul Power of level three. That child was currently holding his head high and looking down his nose at the companions with "toenail" martial souls beside him.

Wang Long-Arm rubbed his throbbing temples, feeling that this assignment was shaving years off his life.

The Body Sect valued "Body Martial Souls," that was true, but what kind of Body Martial Soul was a single toe?

If the Sect Master found out he had wasted time in a place like this, he would probably have Wang Long-Arm's arms extended another length just so he could slap himself louder.

"Next—"

He glanced at the final line in the registry and froze.

"Zichuan?"

No one answered.

The children in the line looked at one another. A child with oversized ears whispered, "Brother Zichuan... seems to have gone to the back mountain to raid bird nests again."

"Or he went down to the river to catch fish," added another child with especially large nostrils.

"He can never stay still, and he has too much strength with nowhere to use it. Yesterday, he even pushed the stone mill at the village entrance into a ditch. Granny Wang chased him halfway down the street to beat him."

Wang Long-Arm's mouth twitched.

Just as he was considering whether to skip him, a series of muffled thuds suddenly came from the direction of the village entrance, drawing closer and closer, as if a young wild bull were charging at full speed.

Dust flew high into the air as a figure shot into the clearing like a cannonball, screeching to a stop before the crowd and splattering the children in front with mud.

It was a boy of around six.

His short black hair stood on end, tangled with grass clippings and spiderwebs. His coarse cloth shirt was torn in several places, revealing sturdy, wheat-colored skin beneath. Mud streaked his face, but his eyes were frighteningly bright, as though two burning coals blazed within them.

He panted heavily, his chest rising and falling violently, yet there was not the slightest trace of exhaustion on his face. Instead, it was filled with an almost fanatical excitement, his grin nearly reaching his ears.

"I'm here, I'm here!" The boy wiped his face and revealed a mouthful of white teeth.

"I'm Zichuan! Martial soul awakening, right? Hurry up. I've been waiting so long I've been itching all over!"

Wang Long-Arm studied him, his brows gradually furrowing.

Something was wrong.

This child... was far too normal.

Two arms, two legs, two eyes, a pair of ears, one nose, one mouth. In Disabled Village, such a "standard configuration" seemed utterly out of place.

"You're from this village?" Wang Long-Arm couldn't help asking.

"Absolutely!" Zichuan slapped his chest, making it thump. "It's just that my parents died early..."

Wang Long-Arm was skeptical, but there was a record in the registry, and he couldn't be bothered to ask more. He pointed at the six-pointed star formation drawn on the ground with crushed stone powder.

"Stand inside. Close your eyes and feel what is awakening within your body."

Zichuan took a deep breath and stepped into the formation.

Of course, he knew what he was supposed to feel, because he was a typical transmigrator from Blue Star.

He had already been here for six years.

As a transmigrator, he felt he wasn't much different from anyone else, except that he had a little too much energy and never got tired no matter what he did.

Very soon, the martial soul awakening ceremony began!

Zichuan instantly felt a surging force arise within him... uncontrollably rushing toward his heart.

Thump!

A muffled heartbeat like a war drum exploded deep within everyone's eardrums.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Then came the second beat, the third, each heavier and more urgent than the last, as if an ancient ferocious beast had awakened in the boy's chest and was smashing against its cage.

Everyone in the clearing instinctively clutched their chests, as though their own heartbeats had been seized, dragged, and assimilated by that terrifying rhythm.

"What... is that sound?"

"My heart... hurts so much..."

The children turned pale, and several with weaker constitutions collapsed directly onto the ground.

Wang Long-Arm's pupils shrank sharply.

He saw a dark crimson glow shining from Zichuan's left chest in the center of the formation!

It was not light released outwardly, but a fundamental, destructive radiance seeping out from beneath his flesh and deep within his bones!

Zichuan himself was changing as well. His black hair turned red, and his entire body radiated an aura of destruction and frenzy, his blood and vitality surging like a rainbow!

"Th-this is..." Wang Long-Arm's voice trembled, his arms hanging past his knees tensing with excitement.

"A heart! It's a Heart Martial Soul!"

Among Body Martial Souls, the closer an organ was to the core of life, the greater its potential.

Eyes and the brain were already top-tier, but the heart was the core of cores—the organ that pumped blood and sustained life!

In the entire history of the Body Sect, the number of people who had awakened Heart Martial Souls could be counted on one hand!

But before his wild joy could overwhelm him, another mutation occurred.

Buzz!

A completely different vibration, clear and melodious like a spring's chime, came from Zichuan's right chest.

From the roots on the other side, his dark crimson hair was rapidly dyed and covered in emerald green. The dark crimson brimming with destructive desire and the emerald green bursting with life—

The weeds around them that had withered under the destructive aura suddenly shot upward, sprouted leaves, and bloomed the instant the green light brushed over them. In the cracks between broken stones, tender green moss spread into patches at a visible speed.

Zichuan's entire aura changed dramatically!

"T-twin Martial Souls..." Wang Long-Arm's voice completely broke, as if someone had grabbed him by the throat. "Two hearts... Twin Heart Martial Souls?!"

He had never seen such a thing in his life—no, he had never even heard of it!

Zichuan touched his chest, the corner of his mouth twitching.

"Two hearts..." he muttered. His voice was soft, yet it was clearly audible in the extreme silence. "No wonder I've been like I'm pumped full of stimulants all day, unable to settle down. It wasn't hyperactivity. I really did grow an extra thing."

Wang Long-Arm quickly tested Zichuan's Soul Power!

The crystal ball's light nearly overflowed!

Innate Full Soul Power!

Wang Long-Arm's breathing stopped. Only one thought remained in his mind: he had found treasure. No, he had dug up a divine mine!

"Y-you, wait here! Don't go anywhere! Just stand there! Don't go anywhere!"

He spoke incoherently, his arms hanging past his knees waving wildly. "I-I'm going back to the sect right now! I'll report to the Sect Master! Twin Heart Martial Souls! Innate Full Soul Power! Hahaha... the Body Sect is going to rise! Rise!"

He turned and was about to sprint away, but he was so excited that his long arms swung like windmills, nearly tripping him.

Yet Zichuan seemed completely unaware of everything around him.

Because at the instant his martial soul awakened and the light exploded, something boomed inside his mind, as though a floodgate had been blasted open.

Then, a voice—a wild voice filled with boundless hatred and the ecstatic joy of surviving a catastrophe—exploded directly in the depths of his consciousness.

"Hahahaha!!!"

That laughter was so unrestrained and so brazen that even Zichuan's Sea of Consciousness trembled.

"This god didn't die! I actually didn't die in the spatial tempest! Wonderful... wonderful!!!"

"Life didn't die either, though it seems to have fallen asleep..."

The owner of the voice seemed to laugh for a long time before gradually calming down. Then, he gave a surprised "Hm?"

"This is... whose Sea of Consciousness?"

After a pause, the voice suddenly became vigilant, carrying the indifference and pressure of a god looking down upon an ant.

"Who dares to contain this god's remnant soul?"