Death Spider Emperor

At that,

Bibi Dong couldn't help chuckling a few times. She waved Naruto over. "Go on. Do you really think your good big sister wouldn't help you?"

As she spoke, purplish-black Soul Power quietly emerged from her meridians, filling every gap in an instant. Naruto's consciousness returned, and his aura climbed steadily, reaching the threshold of a Soul Ancestor before stopping.

This was the limit of the Soul Power Naruto could withstand without harming his body.

Naruto lowered his eyes, clenching his hand into a fist before opening it again.

How did that saying go?

The language of steel-wool balls was wealth and endurance. I don't want to work hard anymore!

Of course, that was a joke. He swept away the jumble of thoughts in his mind, raised his eyes to the Pure Water Turtle struggling in its death throes, and casually waved a hand.

Whoosh!

An invisible ripple swept through the forest. Nothing seemed to happen, whether before their eyes or to their spiritual senses, yet every Soul Hunting squad still in the Soul Hunting Forest vaguely sensed something.

A panicked flock of birds swept overhead. Soul Beasts fled through the woods, while Spirit Masters with Beast Martial Souls all froze in place, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.

This was Martial Soul suppression!

The aura leaking from a Martial Soul alone had suppressed the entire Soul Hunting Forest. What kind of monster was this?

Beside Naruto, the pitch-black void split open.

Two enormous forelimbs, gleaming like scythes, emerged first. With a sharp crack, they seized the edges of the rift, sending bright, fleeting sparks flying.

The next second, a hideous spider, wrapped in golden Runic Chains and resembling a Ghostly Rakshasa, thrust its head out of the void!

As the Death Spider Emperor appeared, four Soul Rings—yellow, purple, purple, and purple—rose one after another from beneath Naruto's feet!

The Death Spider Emperor slowly spread its mouthparts.

Boom!

A purple streak flashed across the sky with a thunderous roar. A spear of Soul Power whistled through the air and pierced the Pure Water Turtle. The raging gravity field vanished without a trace, stirring not the slightest ripple.

Naruto looked down at the Death Spider Emperor beside him, then toward the Pure Water Turtle, now silent in the distance.

How had it been killed in one move?

Wasn't it supposed to be badly wounded so he could finish it off himself? Was it really that powerful?

Naruto's mouth twitched.

"I don't want to work hard anymore!"

"What nonsense are you babbling about now?"

Bibi Dong's face was covered in black lines. She pressed a hand to her forehead and shook it in admonishment. "Hurry up and check your Soul Ring. If you want to be technical about it, my Martial Soul was the one that hunted this Soul Beast. If anything goes wrong, you'll have plenty to cry about."

Only then did Naruto come back to himself. He raised a hand, and the Runic Chains protruding from the void clattered as they dragged the fearsome Death Spider Emperor back inside. Naruto's Soul Power Level dropped along with it, returning to that of a level-ten Spirit Master.

Ignoring the aching, distended feeling in his meridians, Naruto hurried forward.

The surrounding Shadow Clones parted to make way. Above the enormous body of the Pure Water Turtle, a dense, heavy Soul Ring floated in midair, waiting to be absorbed by a Spirit Master.

Naruto reached out and touched the Soul Ring. Only after confirming that it showed no signs of resistance did he secretly breathe a sigh of relief.

Good.

It seemed that, in the eyes of this world's rules, a Jinchuriki and a Tailed Beast counted as one person.

After a brief rest,

the dense Shadow Clones hid among the silent trees, keeping watch with their full attention.

Naruto's original body sat cross-legged beside the Pure Water Turtle's corpse. He took several deep breaths, plainly ready to begin.

"Are you ready?"

Bibi Dong forced down her unease and asked.

When it came to absorbing Soul Rings, every Spirit Master on the continent had to rely on themselves. If Bibi Dong still had a body, she could have intervened forcefully if the absorption failed and saved Naruto's life. Now, even that fallback was gone.

Naruto nodded firmly.

He offered no grand words. Instead, he let out a long breath and stared at the heavy Soul Ring overhead. Guided by his will, it quietly drifted above his head.

The absorption began.

Perhaps because she was watching from the peculiar vantage point of the Sealing Space, Bibi Dong, who kept focusing her attention on the outside world, felt that this Soul Ring absorption was taking especially long.

For several months now, Naruto had stopped paying attention to Bibi Dong's attempts to send her spiritual power through the seal and observe the outside world.

Through her spiritual perception,

Bibi Dong could clearly sense Naruto's current condition.

Two completely different kinds of Soul Power clashed and intermingled in his meridians. His body had already been battered to pieces, yet neither side had gained the upper hand.

This was already the prelude to a failed Soul Ring absorption.

A Soul Beast's Soul Power was vastly different from a human's. A Soul Ring carried both the Soul Beast's Soul Power and its spirit, so absorbing one was essentially another battle against that Soul Beast.

Of course, this battle took place inside the human body, on the human's home ground. Humans, who could draw on an endless supply of Soul Power, held an innate advantage.

But that innate advantage wasn't absolute...

Crack.

A faint sound rang out. Bibi Dong, waiting anxiously, suddenly raised her head, her pupils contracting!

"Did he fail?"

In one corner of Naruto's body, the meridians had been carrying the fierce clash between the two kinds of Soul Power. They could hold out no longer, and a tiny fissure split open.

As if someone had pressed an activation switch,

tiny cracks began appearing all over his meridians, sprouting like bamboo shoots after the rain!

This was bad!

The little brat had really failed!?

Bibi Dong shot to her feet, only to grit her teeth and look around helplessly.

A Spirit Master had to absorb a Soul Ring alone. If Bibi Dong still had a body, she could try to forcibly interrupt the process from the outside and save the brat's life.

But she didn't. Trapped inside the Eight Trigrams Seal, Bibi Dong could do nothing but watch Naruto's body fall apart...

Outside,

the murky yellow Soul Ring above Naruto's head had grown hazy and seemed ready to fall apart.

But Naruto's body had reached its limit first. Fine beads of cold sweat had soaked through the back of his clothes. The two kinds of Soul Power inside him continued to clash, while his body had already been battered into a cracked ceramic jar!

And how long could this nearly shattered jar hold out...?

Clatter!

Bibi Dong lost herself for a moment, then slumped back onto the Soul Power sofa. Resting her forehead in her hand, she let out a faint sigh. In the end, Heaven wouldn't give her a second chance.

Unable to bear watching, Bibi Dong waved her hand and withdrew her spiritual power.

It was all over.

The annoying brat was dead. What would happen to her now?

Would she be trapped forever in this lightless "Sewer"? Would she silently die after him? Would she go to hell, or somewhere else...?

All sorts of bizarre thoughts flashed through her mind. In the end, Bibi Dong decided that dying along with him was the most likely outcome.

She waited quietly for death to come.

Several minutes passed.

Nothing happened.

Bibi Dong, who had been waiting in despair to die, frowned and slowly sat up straight. She scanned the unchanged Sealing Space.

"What... happened?"

Outside,

the clash between the two kinds of Soul Power continued!

The pain on Naruto's face had eased a little. He remained seated cross-legged beside the Soul Beast's corpse, while several black Chains of Heaven shot from his palm. They formed something like dark armor, wrapping tightly around his body.

Inside his meridians, the Soul Ring's power, which had been rampaging unchecked, was now forced to struggle forward beneath the suppression of his Martial Soul!

Crack.

The hazy Soul Ring above Naruto's head shattered completely. At that very instant, a clear, bright yellow Soul Ring quietly appeared beneath his feet—his very own Soul Ring.

"Hah..."

Naruto suddenly opened his eyes.

The Chains of Heaven wrapped around him turned into azure Soul Power motes and vanished in an instant.

His limp body tipped straight toward the ground. He didn't even have the strength to roll over, and could only lie sprawled on the floor, gasping for breath.

"You... succeeded?"

Hearing someone's voice, choked as if on the verge of tears,

Naruto turned his head to show half his face. He managed a weak smile and gave a thumbs-up.

"I... think this is the part where... I rub my nose... and say I got lucky..."

Notting Academy,

it was a rare holiday, and the students, still just children, streamed out of the school gate in a noisy crowd. Tang Wu and Tang San, who had confirmed their relationship—specifically, their sibling relationship—stood at the entrance.

"Third Brother? What are you going to do?"

Seeing Tang San pack a lot of things into his Soul Tool the night before, Xiao Wu tilted her head and asked curiously.

"I don't think the school teaches us much that's useful. I'm planning to find a blacksmith shop in town and learn how to forge." Tang San naturally told Xiao Wu everything. He didn't hide his plan to learn blacksmithing from her.

"Huh? Blacksmithing?"

Xiao Wu looked thoroughly displeased.

"Isn't that even more useless?"

"But I can earn money doing it. If things keep going like this, I'll have to borrow money from our teacher." Tang San stopped and gestured to his empty pockets.

"Sorry."

Xiao Wu pressed her palms together and apologized again and again.

There was no helping it. Human society had far too many delicious things to eat and fun things to do. Soul Coins flowed away like water.

Seeing this, Tang San shook his head and said no more. Instead, he asked seriously, "Xiao Wu, that person really hasn't bullied you, has he?"

Of course, he meant Naruto.

At first, Tang San could still be fooled by the fear Xiao Wu instinctively showed whenever she faced Naruto. But there was no way he could miss it after all these months.

"No, really, he hasn't!" Xiao Wu waved her hands again and again. "I just think he's a little scary. Third Brother, you'll need to be more careful around him."

Since Xiao Wu didn't want to say, Tang San didn't press her.

As for Xiao Wu's final warning, Tang San didn't care in the slightest. If anything, he shook his head with a trace of regret. "It's fine. By the time he becomes a level-ten Spirit Master, I might already be a level-twenty Soul Grandmaster. At that point, a Soul Fighting match might just be a formality."

He was already a level-fourteen Spirit Master.

The gap between Innate Full Soul Power and innate level-six Soul Power wasn't something that could be bridged easily.

Besides, he had a teacher who carefully guided him. The gap between him and that brat would only grow wider, until the other boy became an insignificant passerby in his life.

Just as he was musing over this, Xiao Wu's expression suddenly stiffened, and she began shrinking into his arms.

Seeing Xiao Wu's familiar reaction, Tang San immediately understood what was happening. He turned to look in the direction she had just been watching and spotted the other person at once, even through the dense crowd.

A huge backpack hung from his back, and his clothes were stained with dirt and grass...

Tang San narrowed his eyes. He had seen plenty of Spirit Masters dressed like that: they had just returned from Soul Hunting and hadn't yet had a chance to rest.

So the other boy was now...

A Spirit Master?