"Your mother's that beautiful? Really? Is she even prettier than Teacher Liu Ruyan, the dean of our Skywater Academy?"
When Shui Bing'er heard Lin Tian say that, a puzzled look spread across her face.
She'd heard about Teacher Liu Ruyan's beauty long ago, but had never seen it with her own eyes. Now that Lin Tian had described his mother as so beautiful, she couldn't help feeling a little competitive.
"Our dean, Liu Ruyan, is known among the Soul Masters of Douluo Continent as the Water Beauty. Compared with your mother, which of them is more beautiful?"
Shui Bing'er sat beside the bonfire, looking unconvinced.
"My mother is known as the Douluo Peerless Beauty. Every frown and smile of hers can stir the heart and entrance the soul! She's incredibly beautiful!"
Beside the bonfire, Lin Tian and Shui Bing'er bickered back and forth.
Shui Lanlan sat to one side, gathering Soul Power. Hunting the Extreme Cold Ice Eagle that day had drained most of hers.
Listening to the two little girls debate whose elder was the most beautiful, she couldn't help smiling.
"I think Teacher Shui is beautiful too. Fair skin, a gorgeous face, long legs—and she's so strong."
Lin Tian blinked and looked over at Shui Lanlan.
At his words, Shui Lanlan blushed and was just about to object.
But then Shui Bing'er chimed in from the other side:
"At least you've got some taste, kid. Teacher Shui Lanlan is one of Skywater Academy's Ten Great Beauties. She's not only gorgeous, but strong, too."
"I agree."
Beside the bonfire, the two children traded arguments, making Teacher Shui Lanlan, who was sitting nearby gathering Soul Power, blush again and again.
"Teacher Shui is the prettiest. Below her neck, it's all legs, and she walks like she's got a built-in wiggle machine."
"My mother has fair skin, a beautiful face, and a great figure. She can fly through the sky and burrow underground, and she can even slip into a secret chamber to cultivate."
"Teacher Shui can eat shit. Would your mom dare?"
"Okay, she wouldn't!"
Hearing Shui Bing'er and Lin Tian's increasingly outrageous conversation, Shui Lanlan couldn't take it anymore.
She slammed the staff beside her against the ground and said coldly:
"I wouldn't eat shit, and I'm not as amazing as you say! Go to sleep!"
At that, Shui Bing'er made a face at Lin Tian, then leaned against a nearby tree and fell fast asleep.
After a day of being on the go, Lin Tian was tired too. Once he stopped arguing with Shui Bing'er, he leaned against a pile of grass and closed his eyes to rest.
Deep in Star Dou Forest, the roars of high-level Soul Beasts rose and fell. The night's killing had begun in earnest.
The next morning, just after dawn.
Shui Bing'er woke Lin Tian, who was fast asleep.
"Little brother, we're leaving. Do you want to come back with us? Our Skywater Academy doesn't admit boys, but I can ask our principal to make an exception for you. You're a genius, after all!"
Shui Bing'er's little face was flushed, and she looked reluctant to part.
To her, meeting such a handsome boy while hunting Soul Beasts in Star Dou Forest had to be a message from the gods.
Besides, this little guy had even held her hand. Her mother had said that if a boy held your hand, you could get pregnant...
What if... what if she had a baby? She didn't want her child to grow up without a father...
In the end, Lin Tian turned down Shui Bing'er's invitation.
After all, he'd come to Star Dou Forest to train after making an agreement with his mother, the Pope.
He had to stay for three years, raise his Soul Power to level 50, then sleep on a redwood bed and attack his mother, the Pope.
He hadn't completed his objective yet, so he couldn't leave.
After a brief farewell, Lin Tian continued his training in Star Dou Forest.
Spring passed and autumn came. Time flew like a white stallion flashing past a crack in the wall, and soon the Three-Year Period he'd agreed on with the Pope was upon him.
The Star Dou Mountain Range lay more than seven hundred miles from Spirit Hall. Its endless peaks and ridges stretched like a colossal dragon lying across the earth, majestic and imposing.
The mountain range extended for hundreds of miles, its peaks taking countless shapes. Every mountain had its own form, and every form its own beast.
"Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!"
Deafening booms echoed through the range. The roar of the storm reached the heavens, shaking the surrounding trees and scattering their leaves across the ground.
The tremendous explosions sent Soul Beasts fleeing in every direction.
A closer look revealed a vast stretch of forest reduced to ruin. Trees lay toppled and splintered, rocks were shattered across the ground, and deep craters pocked the earth. Cracks spread in every direction like a spiderweb, and blood was splattered everywhere.
An Armored Black Bear more than thirty thousand years old was being pummeled into the ground by a handsome young man.
The defense the Armored Black Bear took pride in was as fragile as paper beneath the young man's fists.
Its massive body, usually enough to intimidate other Soul Beasts, had become a sitting target. Black light coiled around the youth's fists, as if some unknown black flame were burning there. Every blow left an indelible wound on the bear.
"Roar!"
As the top boss of this area, the Armored Black Bear had never been so humiliated. It opened its jaws and roared furiously at the boy, its great fangs gleaming in the sunlight.
Then it suddenly raised a paw as broad as a fan and swiped at the boy's head.
The blow carried all the Armored Black Bear's fury. Its paw swept forward like an avalanche, unleashing the full force of its immense strength.
As the paw came down, the handsome youth neither dodged nor flinched. A look of excitement appeared on his youthful face. He clenched his right hand into a fist, black flames gathering around his knuckles, and punched. His fist shot forward like a spear, piercing through everything.
"Boom!"
A dull crash rang out. The tremendous force of fist against paw swept in every direction, raising clouds of dust. Ripples shivered through the air as shattered rocks flew everywhere, snapping all the surrounding trees.
"Roar!"
A desperate bellow followed. The handsome youth punched straight through the Armored Black Bear's enormous paw. Black flames seared the wound, filling the air with the smell of roasting meat.
"Thud! Thud! Thud!"
The young man didn't want to waste time, so he decided to end the Armored Black Bear's life. He clenched both fists again, coating his knuckles in black flame, and began hammering the bear.
Every blow landed with the force of a thousand jun. Each punch left a gruesome, bloody wound across the bear's chest.
The sinister power of the Soul-Eater Spider Emperor seeped into the Armored Black Bear's body with every punch, corroding its organs and searing its flesh, roasting it from the inside out.
Under such a frenzied, scorching assault, the Armored Black Bear had no way to fight back. After taking dozens of blows, the armor on its chest was finally shattered, and the flame of its life went out. It crashed to the ground, utterly unwilling to accept its fate.
Even as it died, it couldn't understand why a human boy had pinned it down and beaten it senseless. It had the best defense, so why couldn't it withstand the other's relentless bombardment?
Could this kid be a Hundred-Thousand-Year Transformed Soul Beast?
At the thought, Lin Tian's expression shifted again and again.
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