"But this is only a decoy! Lord Underworld Emperor's true target was never those low-level Soul Beasts!"
Dark Phoenix swallowed and dropped a bombshell that made everyone's scalp crawl.
"The Holy Spirit Cult's main force has now come out in full. They're using the opening covered by the Spirit Pagoda to head straight for the last core region of the Star Dou Great Forest!"
"Lord Underworld Emperor intends to use the blood of the Ferocious Beasts still remaining in the Star Dou Great Forest to complete the final blood sacrifice and awaken Lord Demon Empress!"
At those words,
the faces of the Shrek Seven Devils changed instantly.
The Star Dou Great Forest! It was the last habitat of the Soul Beast Clan on the Douluo Continent!
Although the Spirit Pagoda had now reduced the Star Dou Great Forest to a pitiful size,
the forest was still home to the slumbering ranks of the Douluo Continent's mightiest Ferocious Beasts.
If the Holy Spirit Cult succeeded and sacrificed all those hundred-thousand-year-old Ferocious Beasts,
then once Demon Empress revived, the entire Douluo Continent would face true doomsday!
"We can't let them succeed!"
An intense, resolute gleam blazed in Tang Wulin's eyes.
"Shrek Seven Devils, hear my command!
Get ready to move. Our target is the Star Dou Great Forest. We absolutely cannot let the Holy Spirit Cult's blood-sacrifice formation activate!"
Watching Tang Wulin's righteous and resolute bearing,
Luo Feng's eyes suddenly lit up, and his grin stretched almost from ear to ear.
The core region of the Star Dou Great Forest?
Top-tier Ferocious Beasts?
And the Holy Spirit Cult's main force, all gathered in one place?
What the hell was this, if not a disaster?
It was clearly a super experience farm packed with countless "world-class bosses" and "elite monsters"!
"BT! You hear that? We've got a big job!"
Luo Feng excitedly slapped Vanguard Titan's armor.
"Coordinates: the core region of the Star Dou Great Forest. Full power. We're going to have ourselves a glorious grind today!"
A few hours later,
the group finally reached the core of the Star Dou Great Forest, known as a forbidden zone for humanity.
Yet the sight before them made every heart sink.
The forest was dead silent. No birds called, no insects chirped.
A powerful stench of blood filled the air, along with a suffocating sense of oppression.
"Strange. Where are the Holy Spirit Cult's people?"
Xie Xie gripped the Light Dragon Dagger and warily scanned their surroundings.
"And I can't see a single high-level Soul Beast, either..."
Just as Tang Wulin and the others were growing confused,
"RUMBLE!!!"
Without warning, a layer of impossibly thick, dark leaden clouds blotted out the previously clear sky!
The light across the entire Star Dou Great Forest was swallowed in an instant, as if they had plunged straight into endless night.
An ultimate pressure ten, even a hundred times more terrifying than the Dark Bell's descended with a crash, like Mount Tai bearing down on them!
"Pfft!"
The moment that pressure hit, Xie Xie and Xu Xiaoyan, whose cultivation was weaker,
were crushed into spitting blood, their knees slamming to the ground.
Even Tang Wulin's bones creaked throughout his body. He had to urge his Golden Dragon King Bloodline with all his might just to stand upright.
Only Luo Feng, who had just advanced to level 97, was barely affected.
But an alarm sounded in his ears from Vanguard Titan.
[Warning, warning!] [Pilot, I'm detecting an extremely powerful biological signal. It's the strongest Ferocious Beast in this world.]
What?
As soon as Vanguard Titan finished speaking,
a middle-aged man over two meters tall walked out of the darkness.
He looked human,
but the terrifying pressure of a high-level Soul Beast radiated from him.
Was he...?
Beast God Di Tian?
Luo Feng immediately figured it out.
That was right!
In the original story, Tang Wulin had indeed encountered an ambush by the Beast God in the Star Dou Great Forest.
The reason was different this time, but some things really were ordained by fate.
As the middle-aged man appeared,
three more figures emerged on either side of the Shrek Seven Devils.
Two men and one woman.
Each of them glared at the Shrek Seven Devils with ill intent.
"Tang Wulin, you finally came!"
"We've wanted to kill you for more than just a day or two!"
This Beast God sure got straight to the point.
But I like this blunt, no-nonsense style!
"Vrrrm!"
As Beast God Di Tian and his underlings closed in,
Vanguard Titan dropped from the sky as well,
landing in front of his pilot, Luo Feng.
Seeing the hunk of metal descend from above,
Di Tian furrowed his brow.
"A mecha?"
"I hate these human contraptions the most!"
In truth, the increasingly harsh conditions Soul Beasts faced were directly linked to the invention of these terrifying weapons of war by humans.
Even Beast God Di Tian felt a trace of apprehension when facing a mecha!
"Pfft!"
Ignoring the Beast God's grumbling,
Luo Feng quickly climbed into the cockpit.
Then he used the loudspeaker to warn the Shrek Seven Devils beside him.
"Everyone, don't just stand there!"
"That's Beast God Di Tian. Beside him are Xiong Jun, King of Myriad Demons, and Zi JI. If you don't want to die, get ready to fight!"
"What?"
At the warning,
the Shrek Seven Devils, led by Tang Wulin, immediately tensed up.
The sudden appearance of the mecha had also disrupted Di Tian's original rhythm.
He scowled,
then ordered the burly man beside him,
"Xiong Jun, get rid of that annoying mecha!"
"Understood!"
At Di Tian's command, the burly man known as Xiong Jun let out a deafening roar.
His already mountain-like frame suddenly swelled, as if someone were pumping air into a balloon.
With a bone-rattling series of cracks,
his clothes burst apart, and he transformed into a terrifying giant bear over fifteen meters tall, its entire body covered in thick, dark golden fur!
Most striking of all were his forelimbs, as thick as pillars holding up the sky.
From the front of each paw extended five blades several meters long, glinting with a chilling, dark light.
One of the Star Dou Great Forest's mightiest bloodlines, an unrivaled Ferocious Beast that could rend the sky and split the earth—the Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear!
"Thud! Thud!"
Xiong Jun strode forward, each step causing a violent earthquake throughout the core region of the Star Dou Great Forest.
As the forest's absolute pinnacle of strength and defense, he didn't take the hunk of metal before him seriously at all.
Throughout his long years, his favorite thing had been tearing apart the high-level mechas humans were so proud of, ripping them to shreds like scraps of paper!
"Iron Shell, prepare to die!"
Xiong Jun roared and pushed off with all four limbs.
His enormous body erupted with terrifying speed wholly at odds with its size, hurtling straight at Vanguard Titan like a dark golden meteor!
"Just what I was hoping for!"
In the cockpit, Luo Feng watched the deep-red dot on the radar as its energy reading shot off the charts.
Far from being flustered, a feverish gleam blazed in his eyes.
"A top-tier physical tank with skin like armor and flesh like iron? This is the perfect target for a firepower test!"
Luo Feng's hands blurred across the controls.
"BT! Unlock the entire standard weapons arsenal! Let's give this big dumb bear a metal storm shower!"
[Command confirmed.] [Target: ultra-high-energy carbon-based organism (Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear).] [Level-seven high-explosive armor-piercing rounds and level-eight plasma Fixed Soul Guidance Cannon array ready!]
As BT's cold, emotionless electronic voice rang out,
the thick armor across Vanguard Titan's shoulders and chest slid apart.
Beneath it lay a densely packed array of gun barrels, like a honeycomb.
No words, not even a pause to lock on and predict the target's movement.
It opened fire!
"BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!!"
Amid ear-splitting shrieks, dozens of level-seven and level-eight Fixed Soul Guidance Cannons dragged long, scorching tails of flame
and poured down on the charging Xiong Jun like the fiercest summer thunderstorm!
Facing this kind of heavy-fire bombardment,
even a level-95 Super Douluo among humans would have to avoid its full force, never daring to withstand it with their bare body.
But Xiong Jun let out an extremely arrogant roar.
He didn't dodge or retreat. He charged straight into the rain of missiles!
"RIP!"
Xiong Jun raised his signature Dark Gold Dreadclaw.
The terrifying blades, several meters long, slashed through the air and carved five black spatial rifts.
He actually meant to tear apart those incoming high-level Soul Guidance Cannons with his bare paws!
"RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE!!!"
A series of earth-shattering explosions erupted in the forest's core region.
Blazing flames instantly swallowed Xiong Jun's enormous body.
Huge orange-red mushroom clouds billowed into the sky.
The shock waves, mixed with temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees, vaporized the towering trees around them in an instant.
Even with Tang Wulin and Yuanen Yehui desperately shielding them,
the Shrek Seven Devils behind them were still driven back again and again by the explosion's aftershock, struggling even to breathe.
"What terrifying firepower!"
Xie Xie shouted as he used the Light Dragon Dagger to shield himself from the scorching gale rushing toward him.
"What's wrong with that Xiong Jun? He actually dared to take the full blast of level-eight Soul Guidance Cannons with his bare body!"
"With a saturation attack like that, he's probably not even got bone fragments left!"
After all, not long ago, they had seen Vanguard Titan vaporize a level-93 Evil Soul Master with the same firepower.
However,
just as the Shrek Seven Devils thought the peerless Ferocious Beast had been blasted into minced meat,
Beast God Di Tian, who had watched coldly from the air the whole time, curled his lips into a scornful sneer.
"Human toys are toys, nothing more. You think weapons like those can hurt Xiong Jun?"