"Sanpao? Luo Sanpao?!" Yu Xiaogang froze, a foreboding feeling rising in his heart.
He focused again, sensing with all his might.
(Salamander)
There was no response.
Luo Sanpao... seemed never to have existed at all, vanishing completely from his perception.
"W-What's going on?! Where's my Martial Soul?! Where did Luo Sanpao go?!"
Yu Xiaogang panicked. A Martial Soul was the foundation of a Soul Master. If it disappeared, that could mean he was completely crippled!
And yet... the Soul Power inside him was clearly growing!
As he floundered in confusion, a thought stirred in his mind. Two halos representing Hundred-Year Soul Rings slowly rose from beneath his feet, circling his body as they pulsed with a steady Soul Power fluctuation.
Yu Xiaogang was utterly dumbfounded.
His Martial Soul was gone, but his Soul Rings remained?
And his Soul Power Level had genuinely increased?
This completely contradicted everything he knew about Soul Master theory!
He stood there dazed for a long while. Then the Brain honed by the title of "Grandmaster," adept at summarizing and drawing conclusions, began racing, trying to explain this baffling phenomenon with the "wisdom" he had spent his life cultivating.
'Luo Sanpao disappeared... my Soul Power bottleneck broke... my Soul Rings are still here...' Clue after clue connected in his mind.
At last, a conclusion surfaced—one that shook him, yet seemed "perfectly reasonable."
'Could it be... that the reason my Soul Power hadn't advanced in decades wasn't my mere half-level of Innate Soul Power, nor a defect in my Mutated Martial Soul... but that Luo Sanpao, that useless Martial Soul, was itself a shackle?'
'It was parasitic inside me, constantly feeding on my Soul Power, which kept me from leveling up?'
'Now, for some unknown reason, that "parasite," Luo Sanpao, has disappeared!'
'With the shackle gone, my