"Damn it! Aren't you supposed to have a sharp nose, Soul Beast? How did you only notice them now?" Lin Hui snapped, furious.
Xiao Wu was just as anxious.
"You didn't notice them either, so why are you blaming me?"
The Marrow-Eating Burrowing Worms quickly charged at them.
"First Soul Skill: Waist Bow!"
Xiao Wu leaped forward and darted in front of one Marrow-Eating Burrowing Worm, unleashing Waist Bow.
But the moment her foot landed on the worm, it sank straight into the mass of dead flesh.
"What?" Xiao Wu was stunned.
"Go, Ah Yin!" Lin Hui immediately threw out his Ultra Ball. A streak of blue light shot from it, and the Blue Silver Emperor appeared.
The Blue Silver Emperor extended its vines and wrapped them around Xiao Wu's foot, pulling her free!
Then the dozen or so Marrow-Eating Burrowing Worms began attacking Lin Hui and Xiao Wu again. The two could do nothing but dodge continuously.
Xiao Wu tried to attack as well, but it had no effect.
The Blue Silver Emperor's powerful vines could Bind several Marrow-Eating Burrowing Worms and hold them at bay, but they still couldn't hurt them in the slightest.
Gradually, Xiao Wu began to run out of strength. She couldn't see any hope of turning the tide.
"Da Ming, Er Ming... come save me!" Xiao Wu murmured. When had she ever been bullied by Soul Beasts in the Star Dou Forest?
Just then—
"Ah Yin, use [Thousand Blue Locking Domain]!"
Blue light began to shimmer over the Blue Silver Emperor's body. Its vines hardened, their tips sharpening into spikes, like chains tipped with spearheads.
Then, in almost an instant—
The blue-silver chains pierced straight through the plump bodies of the dozen or so Marrow-Eating Burrowing Worms. White pus seeped from their wounds.
The two largest Marrow-Eating Burrowing Worms were badly injured, but still moved, preparing to burrow away.
Another seven or eight blue-silver chains turned their pointed tips toward them and pierced their bodies again.
After that strike, they could no longer move.
Their bodies went rigid, and they collapsed to the ground.
Barrel-wide wounds gaped across their fat bodies, spilling foul-smelling pus.
The Blue Silver Emperor pulled its hardened chains back out.
After the battle, Lin Hui noticed that something seemed different about his Blue Silver Emperor.
White specks of light, carrying the aura of life, drifted from the bodies of the dead Marrow-Eating Burrowing Worms toward the Blue Silver Emperor.
The Blue Silver Emperor absorbed all that life force.
Its color also gradually deepened, changing from pale blue to a richer shade.
The age of Lin Hui's First Soul Ring began to increase as well.
It rose from over nine hundred years to over fifteen hundred!
At that moment, Lin Hui suddenly remembered that during the Peerless Tang Sect era, Tang Ya's Blue Silver Grass had possessed the ability to devour life.
Could it be that after the battle just now, his Blue Silver Emperor had awakened that same ability?
This was probably because of the Blue Silver Emperor's excellent racial talent, combined with its urgent need for Soul Power to recover its strength. The internal and external factors had triggered the ability together.
Besides, in the world of Pokemon, it was perfectly normal for a Soul Beast captured by him to evolve after battling for a while.
Who would've thought? The Soul Beasts he captured could actually keep evolving!
Lin Hui released his Soul Rings again.
Purple, purple!
Two glowing purple Soul Rings caught the eye.
"What happened, Lin Hui? Why did the age of your Soul Rings suddenly increase?" Xiao Wu asked, utterly astonished.
Lin Hui had no intention of hiding anything from her.
"When a Soul Beast captured through my Martial Soul grows and fights for a while, it has a chance to evolve and awaken a new ability!"
"And after the battle just now, my Blue Silver Grass awakened the ability to devour life."
"It absorbed the life force of those dead Soul Beasts, increasing their age."
"Maybe you'll awaken a new ability in the near future, too." Lin Hui began scrutinizing Xiao Wu from head to toe.
Xiao Wu noticed something else was off and exclaimed in surprise,
"That can't be ordinary Blue Silver Grass. More than a dozen Soul Beasts between two and four thousand years old were easily subdued by your Blue Silver Grass?"
"Even a Soul Ancestor might struggle to do that!"
"What kind of monster did you capture?"
Lin Hui merely replied, "Of course. The Soul Beasts I capture can't all be trash."
The two continued deeper into the Star Dou Forest.
Lin Hui also pondered whether, if the Soul Beasts he captured could evolve, they might learn new skills as well.
After all, in the world of Pokemon, Pokemon could learn new skills as they grew.
At present, Xiao Wu was clearly much weaker than the Blue Silver Emperor. But one couldn't judge everything by what they saw now.
She was, after all, a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast. Once she grew, the potential she unleashed might be no less than the Blue Silver Emperor's.
More importantly, Lin Hui's primary reason for capturing Xiao Wu was to use her to find the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm.
With Xiao Wu leading the way, they eventually reached the core of the Star Dou Forest: Lake of Life.
Legend had it that Lake of Life was where all Soul Beasts were born, and the Soul Power in its waters was far denser than elsewhere.
But to Lin Hui's slight surprise, he didn't see the Sky Azure Bull Python or the Titan Giant Ape near Lake of Life.
"Never mind." Lin Hui threw out his Ultra Ball again. "Ah Yin, use the Blue Silver Grass around us to search for any unusual Soul Power nearby."
A flash of blue light passed, and the Blue Silver Emperor emerged from the Ultra Ball.
It rooted itself in the ground, its branches and leaves swaying as it released a Soul Power unique to the Blue Silver Emperor.
Under the touch of this royal aura, the surrounding Blue Silver Grass passed the word along, one blade to ten, ten to a hundred, all bowing in homage to the Blue Silver Emperor.
Eventually, the Blue Silver Grass began swaying gently, as though stirred by a breeze.
Rooted underground, the Blue Silver Emperor sensed the information transmitted by the surrounding Blue Silver Grass. After about ten minutes, it stopped moving.
Then one of its vines began to stretch, pointing straight toward the bottom of Lake of Life.
"It looks like the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm is being held prisoner at the bottom of the lake," Lin Hui thought.
Soon, he took off his clothes.
"Y-you... what are you doing?" Xiao Wu asked in surprise, then covered her chest.
"I need to check the bottom of the lake. Wait here," Lin Hui said.
"The bottom of the lake is forbidden to all of us Soul Beasts. No one is allowed to enter," Xiao Wu said.
Hearing that, Lin Hui felt even more certain that there was a secret down there.
"I'm not a Soul Beast. Just wait for me on the shore."
Lin Hui jumped into the water and headed straight down.
He was already at level thirty, and after using Green Wood Liquid, his physical strength had improved considerably.
After diving dozens of meters, Lin Hui saw that the lakebed was still a hundred meters below, but he could no longer descend.
Deep on the lakebed, a white magic circle glowed faintly, as though sealing something...