A Dream He Did Not Want to Wake From

"Armor similar to Soul Bones?"

The two Evil Soul Masters exchanged a glance and voiced the same guess. The boost in strength was about the same.

Equivalent to a full set of thousand-year-grade equipment, yet each individual piece... was close to ten-thousand-year grade. When had Shrek Academy developed something like this?

"What an interesting little thing." The Wraith Evil Soul Master laughed darkly. "Crow, looks like we've struck gold this time. If we bring this back to headquarters, we can create a whole bunch of Soul Saints after researching it."

"If it can be improved and upgraded, even Soul Douluos, Title Douluos, and Super Douluos might be possible!"

They imagined bringing this back and soaring to greatness, receiving rewards from the organization. Ma Xiaotao brushed back her long red hair and looked at them with disdain as phoenix flames surged around her.

"But can you still make it back alive?"

Her crimson phoenix wings spread wide, and she accelerated to the limit. A red streak of fire cut across the sky... followed by a violent boom as it formed a massive pillar of flame.

"Sixth Soul Skill, Phoenix Cloud-Piercing Strike!"

This was a charging skill that pushed speed to its utmost limit. Not to mention Phoenix Soaring Wings and Bathing Fire Phoenix, the triple enhancement from her One-Word Thousand Refinement Battle Armor made it no less formidable than a Martial Soul Avatar.

"Ah!" Crow Evil Soul Master cried out.

He only felt as if a thousand-pound hammer had smashed into him. Blood sprayed from his mouth... and Ma Xiaotao followed closely behind, driving his body from the sky into the ground. His bones and tendons were nearly shattered, while phoenix flames ignited his black feathers and turned him into a living torch. His evil aura seemed to become fuel for the blaze, and his eyes rolled back lifelessly.

"One, two, three... boom!"

Mu Baobao silently counted. When the time was up, even the ground beneath them trembled. Crow Evil Soul Master's already-burning body erupted with a pillar of molten fire, completely engulfing him in flames.

Fourth Soul Skill, Phoenix Laughs at Frog... Howling Sky Strike. In terms of attack power, it surpassed Cloud-Piercing Strike, but it required three seconds of charging... and needed a teammate's control. Ma Xiaotao's fighting style was simply too fierce.

Some teammates could not keep up with her rhythm. When Ma Hongjun used this move, he needed Tang Buddha Ancestor's god-level Soul Skills, Blue Silver Entanglement and Blue Silver Cage, for assistance and control. Ma Xiaotao, however, used Phoenix Cloud-Piercing Strike's incredible speed to slam her enemy into the ground. The time needed to break free was enough for Howling Sky Strike to erupt. When the fifth and sixth Soul Skills were unleashed in succession, even a Soul Saint would lose a layer of skin if he survived.

"Hey, that one was mine! Why are you stealing it?" Mu Baobao shouted. By then, Ma Xiaotao had already gone berserk and set her sights on the Wraith Evil Soul Master.

Although the phoenix flames made it scream miserably, its speed and strength were both inferior to Ma Xiaotao's.

Yet its body transformed into black smoke, rendering Ma Xiaotao's attacks useless as they passed through it. Then it released a shriek that left her mind reeling, and she fell from the sky.

"I told you, it's mine!"

Mu Baobao spread his arms, caught her, and grinned mischievously. Ma Xiaotao looked at him with a blush.

The atmosphere suddenly became somewhat suggestive.

Skeletons, zombies, liches... these undead creatures all had abilities they excelled at and abilities they did not. Wraiths possessed formidable spiritual power and even more outrageous defenses, capable of ignoring most physical attacks.

"Even my phoenix flames don't work, but your Ultimate Ice can!" Ma Xiaotao struggled a few times, only to find herself held exceptionally tightly in a princess carry. As expected of a Martial Soul with the strength of a giant dragon.

"Who said I only knew ice?"

Mu Baobao smiled. He also trained as a blacksmith, while Xian Lin'er was responsible for his Martial Soul training. He rarely sparred with his classmates... and the first four Soul Skills he had displayed all matched a dragon and Ultimate Ice.

Yet now... he was saying he did not only know ice?

"Hehehe, little brats, I won't play with you anymore!" The Wraith Evil Soul Master saw that it could not defeat either of them and immediately decided that green hills remained and rivers still flowed.

As long as the green hills remained, there would be no shortage of firewood. The black-robed figure without hands or feet was about to flee into the distance when Mu Baobao's eyes instantly turned into vertical slits.

Dragon eyes, filled with majesty at a glance. Holding a girl in his arms, he looked incomparably domineering as he spoke slowly.

"Did I say you could leave?"

Ma Xiaotao dared to say she had never seen Mu Baobao like this before. Gone was his childishness and unreliable air... replaced by an overwhelming sense of security. She nestled against his chest as vast spiritual power surged like a tsunami.

It instantly condensed into a gigantic hammer, making the Wraith Evil Soul Master look tiny by comparison, before crashing down!

"Boom!"

Amidst a miserable scream, the Wraith's soul body was actually smashed into scattered fragments. Its power was even greater than the soul shock of those spiritual-type Soul Masters.

"Fifth Soul Skill, Psychic Force!"

The young man held the young woman in a princess carry as he domineeringly killed their enemy in an instant. Ma Xiaotao even began to feel an inexplicable sense of romance, but Mu Baobao suddenly pulled her back from her fantasies.

"Hey, hey, get down. You're really heavy!"

"Hm?"

Ma Xiaotao's face immediately darkened again. She had just thought this guy was handsome and domineering, yet he teased her like that.

Did he have no idea how much she weighed? Even if she was not slim, she was still quite well-proportioned. He was a level-sixty Soul Emperor, yet he could not even carry her? After breaking free from his arms, she stomped on his foot, only for both of them to be wearing One-Word Battle Armor.

A dragon Martial Soul gave him absurd physical strength. If they were not wearing armor, she would probably have been the one in pain. All she could do was curse angrily.

"Go eat shit!"

"Mm, the data's decent!"

On the way back, Mu Baobao summarized the improvements he had made to the Battle Armor and felt that it was quite good.

The time required to equip it had been reduced severalfold, while its overall power was roughly the same. He scribbled and drew on his recording Soul Tool when Ma Xiaotao suddenly asked him a question.

"Is your Martial Soul really only Ultimate Ice? That spiritual attack was so powerful that even spiritual-type Soul Masters would probably be weaker. Even the innate majesty of a giant dragon couldn't possibly be that absurd!"

Dragon Might, the gaze of a king looking down from above. Creatures with high racial standing naturally possessed a form of bloodline suppression...

When Soul Masters obtained Soul Rings, they chose Soul Beasts with matching attributes or similar races for the greatest possible Soul Skill effect.

If someone with fire fused with a water-type Soul Ring, even if it came from an extremely rare Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast,

the result could still be backlash. If Ultimate Ice fused with a spiritual-type Soul Ring, that versatile attribute would not cause much backlash and could slightly enhance spiritual power, but the effect would certainly not compare to a suitable, powerful match.

Psychic Force, his fifth Soul Skill, was no weaker than Ultimate Ice in power. How could it be that simple? Mu Baobao spread his hands and shrugged.

"I never said I only had Ultimate Ice. Even the Radiant Sacred Dragon could create Reign Over the World, a Soul Skill that fused spiritual power and Soul Power. My Ice Dragon is a mutated mechanical version, so what's strange about that?"

"You really have a spiritual attribute?" Ma Xiaotao froze. She had only been guessing, yet he actually admitted it.

"It would be discovered sooner or later anyway. There's no use hiding it." He yawned. Huo Yuhao had hidden all sorts of things early on, even though his second Martial Soul had clearly been acquired later.

He made up a lie, and Wang Yan, that teacher from the Spirit Department, immediately filled in countless imagined explanations... claiming it had only awakened after his strength had grown enough, and that the Martial Soul had consciousness and feared he could not bear it. That last part was actually correct.

Later, he exposed everything outright. He even possessed a third Martial Soul. Those ten-year Soul Rings people looked down on... were directly million-year ones, shattering the understanding of countless people.

"How many more things are you hiding from me?"

Ma Xiaotao grabbed him by the neck and interrogated him, then realized that even if he hid things, so what? They were neither family nor close friends... why should he tell her? Slightly flustered, she withdrew her hand. Everyone had secrets!

"Take a guess." Mu Baobao gave her another infuriating answer, but getting angry was useless.

It was not just Kyurem. His attributes were not limited to Ultimate Ice; he also had Ultimate Spirituality... and his other two unhatched Martial Souls were just as incredible, both possessing dual ultimate attributes. He was not even from this world... and the Battle Armor came from the next era.

"When you're weak, naturally you have to hide things. What, should I go around arrogantly shouting that my talent is unmatched beneath the heavens, that I'll be absurdly powerful in the future, and tell people to come kill me?"

"Forget it. I don't want to die young. Even if you discover it, I won't deny it."

"Leave everything to time!"

Ma Xiaotao could not refute him. That was indeed how it was. Even before the people closest to you, you could only reveal sixty or seventy percent and hide the remaining thirty or forty percent... because when the time truly came and everyone feared you enough to turn against you,

the people by your side would instead be the most likely to stab you first, fastest, and deepest. You could not lower your guard around anyone.

Morality stood supreme... yet it was still inferior to profit.

During the rest of the journey, Mu Baobao remained just as annoying, but Ma Xiaotao fell silent.

In a single day, her mindset had shifted many times. At first, she was as displeased with Mu Baobao as always, constantly bickering with him. After the Battle Armor system was revealed,

she learned that he was not as simple as he seemed and began to view him somewhat differently, even admiring him... After he revealed part of his strength, she felt safe, yet also somewhat afraid, unable to tell whether he was a demon or a god.

Choose? Refuse!

That was also a problem. As Mu Baobao had said to her, even the closest people could not be trusted without reservation. Yet this guy's growth trajectory was similar to hers. Both had grown up at Shrek.

He had gone out even less than she had, yet he seemed to have experienced something heartbreaking. His mentality was also unusually mature. If Douluo Continent had not been a low-martial world where, no matter how powerful spiritual power became, one could not possess another person's body,

she would have suspected he had been possessed. Who knew she had guessed half of it right... they had both lived a second life.

Rebirth... could also be considered a form of possession. It was not bringing one's original body over, but occupying another person's body. Yet unlike Tang San, he truly existed.

Mu Baobao did not exist in the original story at all, so he had once formed a terrifying thought.

Was this a dream?

Perhaps there was no Sea God Tang San at all. Perhaps it was merely the fantasy of someone who had been discovered stealing an outer sect secret technique, leapt off a cliff, and died. Perhaps Holy Soul Village was merely the fantasy of a blacksmith whose wife had died, who spent every day drinking himself senseless, whose useless son sat blankly at the village entrance before returning home to keep cooking for his alcoholic father, envying other people's parents.

As for... why it felt so real, it was because this was the life he longed for, even if it was painful.

He was also afraid that waking up would be even worse, so he did not dare wake up.

The real me is fucking useless. I have nothing. None of this beauty has anything to do with me... And now that I finally have a dream where I can control my fate, Mu Baobao wanted to say,

Whoever wakes me up... I'll fight them to the death. What do you mean I can't indulge in false happiness?

Bullshit... only people living well would say that.

If you weren't, perhaps you'd be even crazier than me.