Spirit Word: Instant and Time Zero Combo, Totally Crushed It, Okay?

The outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest.

Towering ancient trees blotted out the sky, and sunlight leaked through the gaps in the branches and leaves, scattering mottled patches of light across the forest floor.

The damp scent of soil and the smell of rotting vegetation filled the air. Now and then, a few low beast roars drifted over from the depths.

Li Yuan walked in front at an unhurried pace. Di Jun and Long Yuan followed behind him on his left and right, their auras completely withdrawn, not even disturbing the fallen leaves underfoot.

"My lord, what are we doing in a place like this?" Long Yuan poked his head forward curiously.

"Grinding levels." Li Yuan swept his gaze over the surroundings. "Long Yuan, help me find a thousand-year soul beast."

"Yes, my lord."

Long Yuan released a wisp of divine sense, and every movement within several li instantly entered his perception.

A moment later, he raised a hand and pointed. "My lord, two hundred meters ahead. There's a thousand-year soul beast. Its aura is around twelve hundred years or so."

Li Yuan nodded and strode forward.

After passing through a stretch of dense forest, the view suddenly opened up.

A blue-gray armored rhinoceros was lying by the stream drinking water. Its body was a full ten feet long, its thick limbs like four stone pillars, and the single horn on its head glowed faintly.

It sensed the newcomers and spun around abruptly. A low hiss rolled out of its throat. Its front hoof pawed at the ground as it took on an attacking stance.

A twelve-hundred-year soul beast was roughly equivalent in strength to a human Soul Elder.

Li Yuan flexed his wrist and walked forward. "Di Jun, Long Yuan, don't interfere."

The two exchanged a glance, then both stepped back ten paces and stood with their hands behind their backs.

Li Yuan stopped ten zhang away from the soul beast, and two dark-gold soul rings appeared beneath his feet.

The phantom of the World-Destroying Black Dragon flashed behind him and vanished. With just that brief encounter, all the hair on the armored rhinoceros stood on end. Its massive body shuddered violently, and its four hooves instinctively shrank back several steps.

This was suppression from the level of his martial soul.

The black dragon's aura pressed down on it from the roots of its bloodline until it could barely breathe. Only terror remained in those bell-sized eyes.

It turned and tried to flee, its four hooves tearing up the mud as its clumsy body charged toward the dense forest.

Li Yuan's dark-gold vertical pupils abruptly contracted.

"Spirit Word: Time Zero."

With that soul beast as the center, the flow of time within a radius of three zhang suddenly slowed.

Its forward charge seemed to have been filled with lead. The motion of its raised hooves was stretched out several times over, and even the path of each swaying hair became clearly visible.

Di Jun's pupils contracted slightly.

He was proficient in the laws of time and saw the clue at a glance.

It was not true stillness, but rather slowing the flow of time in that area by dozens of times, stretching something that should have happened in an instant into slow motion.

My lord actually... grasped a time-type ability?

Di Jun's gaze sharpened slightly.

Li Yuan did not pause. He stomped hard.

"Spirit Word: Instant."

His figure pulled a blur through the air, his speed surging explosively in an instant, so fast the naked eye could barely catch him.

In the next instant, he had already appeared in front of the soul beast. His fists clenched, and dark-gold light burst across their surfaces.

Bang bang bang bang bang—!!!

A dense barrage of fist impacts, like a sudden downpour, exploded through the forest.

In that instant, Li Yuan's fists smashed down on the armored rhinoceros's head, neck, and spine at a shocking frequency. Every punch was wrapped in the berserk soul power of the World-Destroying Black Dragon.

Armor cracked, flesh and blood splattered, and that thousand-year soul beast did not even have time to let out a scream before its massive body collapsed layer by layer beneath the endless heavy blows.

At last, all 128 punches landed.

Boom!

The armored rhinoceros's entire body exploded. Flesh and blood flew everywhere, and it collapsed where it stood like a pile of sludge, dead beyond dead.

Li Yuan stood with his fists lowered, dark-red beast blood staining his knuckles, his dark-gold vertical pupils filled with excitement.

He lowered his head to look at his own fists, the corners of his mouth slowly curling up.

"The combo of Time Zero plus braking... it's ridiculously sick."

He shook the blood from his hand, his eyes still full of lingering thrill. "First, I put a layer of time deceleration on you, then give myself a layer of time acceleration. With this kind of combo, even if a Titled Douluo came, he'd still have to eat a hundred punches first."

Di Jun walked forward, rare approval in his gaze. "My lord's use of time has already touched the threshold of the laws. If this ability is diligently honed, its future growth potential is limitless."

Li Yuan smiled without explaining much. "Basic move, don't overreact."

He turned and walked over to the mangled remains of the soul beast. A purple soul ring was slowly emerging from the corpse, its color roughly that of a thousand-year age.

Li Yuan sat down cross-legged. "Di Jun, Long Yuan, guard me."

Long Yuan immediately panicked and hurried forward. "What? My lord, you're going to absorb this trash soul ring? You absolutely can't! Even if you're going to absorb one, it should at least start at ten thousand years."

"Your first soul ring is already ten thousand years, and your second is twenty thousand years. But now you're going to absorb a thousand-year soul ring? If you keep going down like this, won't you be living backward?"

"Enough," the Di Jun said calmly. "If our lord is doing this, he naturally has his own considerations."

"But—!" Long Yuan still wanted to say more, but the Di Jun swept him with a look, and he instantly behaved himself, retreating off to the side in frustration and crouching down.

Li Yuan paid them no further attention. He closed his eyes and sank into himself.

The World-Destroying Black Dragon martial soul surfaced behind him, two dark-gold soul rings slowly rotating.

He activated the Devour talent, and the purple soul ring floating before him seemed to be pulled by an invisible force, turning into two streams of purple light.

One sank into his first soul ring, while the other surged into the body of the Black Dragon martial soul itself.

A clear piece of information surfaced in Li Yuan's mind.

[Devoured one 1,200-year soul ring. Converted 610 years of age.]

[Current first soul ring age: 10,610 years]

His eyes snapped open, and a flash of surprise swept through his dark-gold vertical pupils.

A 1,200-year soul beast had converted into 610 years of age?

Although he did not know why it was only half, even so, this was already terrifyingly efficient.

If he found a ten-thousand-year soul beast to devour, that would start at five thousand years.

And he could clearly sense that the other half of the energy did not seem to have vanished. Instead, it had fed back into the Black Dragon martial soul itself, making the foundation of the martial soul even more solid and weighty.

Long Yuan crouched beside him, his eyes bulging like copper bells. Only after a long while did he manage to force out a sentence. "My lord... is he devouring soul rings and converting them into his own soul ring age?"

As a peak rank-98 Douluo, he still had at least that much discernment.

But precisely because he understood it, he found it even harder to believe.

Devouring soul rings to increase their age? Who would believe that if it got out?

The Di Jun's expression also grew faintly solemn. After a moment of silence, he slowly said, "Our lord's talent far exceeds our expectations."

Li Yuan stood up, patted the dirt from his robes, and explained, "This is an innate source talent that comes with my martial soul: Devour. It can absorb and convert a soul beast's soul ring. Half of the age is given to my soul ring, while the other half strengthens the martial soul itself. It can also directly convert soul rings into soul power to raise my level."

The Di Jun's eyes narrowed slightly.

Almost in an instant, he saw the end of this path clearly.

"Does that not mean our lord only needs to continuously hunt soul beasts and devour their soul rings, and without bitter cultivation, you can improve without limit?"