The Never-Extinguishing Golden Pupils

The boundless sea stretched without end.

Aolai City was a small coastal city on the east coast of the Sun Moon Federation, bordering the ocean.

This day had come at last...

Gu You adjusted the sunglasses on his face and gazed out over the East Sea. Today was the annual Awakening Day, the moment that would decide his fate.

Anyone who had transmigrated to Douluo Continent knew how important martial soul awakening was.

For commoners who wanted to change their lot, awakening a martial soul and becoming a soul master was the most direct way out.

And as an orphan, Gu You understood even more clearly what martial soul awakening meant.

If his awakened martial soul came with soul power, then he would be above ordinary people. After all, the odds were one in ten thousand, and at the very least, he would definitely live better than an orphan in the future.

If he awakened a powerful martial soul along with soul power, it could be called reaching the heavens in a single step. Becoming a soul master and gaining status would be just around the corner.

At that thought, the corners of Gu You's mouth rose. Beneath his sunglasses, two flashes of golden light flickered, like burning golden flames.

Then let this moment that decided fate arrive here...

Red Mountain Academy.

As one of the few places in Aolai City that provided awakening services on Awakening Day, it was already noon, yet the place was still unbearably crowded, packed everywhere with parents who had brought their children to take part in the awakening.

Gu You swept his gaze around, then walked toward a separate line of children.

Today, Red Mountain Orphanage had organized its children to come here to awaken their martial souls. As an orphanage under Red Mountain Academy, this line was specifically for them.

He had gone to the nearby seaside earlier to clear his head. By the time he came back, it was almost his turn.

Children went in and out, all of them dejected. From the looks of it, they had suffered a complete wipeout—there was not a single one with innate soul power.

"Gu You!"

Before long, the line reached its end. A teacher walked out from inside Red Mountain Academy and called Gu You's name while looking at the form in his hand.

Gu You walked forward.

"Come with me. You're the last one."

Perhaps because there was too much work on Awakening Day, the teacher seemed somewhat indifferent and turned to walk ahead.

After entering the academy, the awakening room was not far away.

As soon as he entered the awakening room, Gu You saw two figures.

He knew one of them: Chen Hui, the director of Red Mountain Orphanage. The other was a middle-aged man wearing an ancient-looking robe, with dark patterns in the shapes of soul beasts on it.

Could this be a Spirit Master?

It was Gu You's first time seeing a Spirit Master.

On Douluo Continent, Spirit Masters generally had a higher status than soul masters.

Because it was their emergence that had allowed so many martial souls to be awakened.

Every year, countless Spirit Masters rushed to the poorest places on Douluo Continent, such as Blazing Basin, Changheng Desert, and other regions, to help the children there awaken their martial souls.

It was precisely because of this spirit that, ever since the profession of Spirit Master had been pioneered by the Spirit Pagoda ten thousand years ago, it had remained prosperous for ten millennia and held a lofty status on the continent even now.

When the Spirit Master saw that a child had arrived, he came before Gu You with a gentle smile, while signaling to the teacher at the side that he could leave.

"Little friend, can you take off your sunglasses?"

The Spirit Master looked at Gu You and smiled.

"All right."

Gu You glanced at Chen Hui, then raised his hand and removed the sunglasses from his face.

As the sunglasses fell away, the light inside the awakening room seemed to dim.

The gentle smile that had been on the Spirit Master's face froze there.

What kind of eyes were those...

Brilliant golden vertical pupils, like the molten core of the sun, burning and flowing eternally, breathing out light from within Gu You's eye sockets.

The Spirit Master subconsciously retreated several steps. The moment he looked directly into those eyes, an inexplicable fear surged into his heart.

It was as if standing before him was not a six-year-old child, but a colossal dragon coiled upon a throne, looking down at him from above.

He had seen countless beast martial soul owners whose eyes changed color, but never had he seen a pair of eyes like these.

These were not eyes a human should possess at all. They carried pressure—the pressure from the deepest reaches of the bloodline.

It was telling him: kneel, for that is the only qualification you have!

Chen Hui's condition was not too good at this moment either.

As long as one looked directly into the Golden Pupils, fear would arise in the heart.

He had long known of the peculiarity of Gu You's eyes.

From the moment he had found Gu You by the seaside, there had been flames burning in the child's eyes that never went out.

He had once tried to investigate it and had searched through countless ancient texts, but he had never found any record of it.

The only thing he knew was that when he was five, Gu You had told him that these eyes were called Golden Pupils—Golden Pupils that would never go out.

Standing where he was, Gu You's expression remained calm, his Golden Pupils calmly watching the reactions of the two people before him.

He did not really understand these eyes of his either, but one thing was certain: they were anything but ordinary.

Golden Pupils that would never go out—if nothing unexpected happened, they were related to the dragon race. As for how far that connection went, he would have to see what use these eyes actually had in the future.

"Can we begin the awakening?"

Gu You asked.

The Spirit Master snapped back to himself as if waking from a dream, and the way he looked at Gu You changed completely.

It was no longer the gentle gaze one used on an ordinary child, but one mixed with curiosity, and a fear-born reverence.

What kind of martial soul would a child with such eyes awaken? Would it be related to those eyes?

"Yes." The Spirit Master took a deep breath and pointed to the center of the room. "Stand in the center."

Gu You looked over. The floor, walls, and even the ceiling of the entire awakening room were engraved with lines of soul-guiding patterns that gave off a faint white glow.

At the center where the soul-guiding patterns converged was a huge awakening array.

He walked over and stood still in the center of the array.

Chen Hui knew the awakening ceremony was about to begin and left the awakening room with lingering fear.

After that, the Spirit Master said to Gu You, "Hold your breath and focus. Don't be nervous. Carefully feel the power within your body that belongs to you."

He stretched out his hand. White soul-power light gathered in his palm, and amid an almost imperceptible fluctuation of soul power, the entire awakening room lit up.

Every soul-guiding pattern flashed brilliantly, driving a strange power into Gu You's body.

At that moment, Gu You only felt a warm current pour into him, washing through his limbs and bones.

His vision turned blurry. Images from the past flickered continuously through his mind, and in a daze, the world began to shatter bit by bit.

Behind the shattered world was a new world!

Upon a vast ice plain, pale white ice faintly tinged with blue covered mountains that stabbed straight into the sky. The sky was a blood-deep red, and rain poured down in torrents, every drop of water scarlet.

Atop the peak of an icy mountain, a black dragon lay there quietly, its wings hanging all the way down to the mountain's foot. Thick, reeking blood had dyed the entire ice peak red.

A dragon—the black dragon Nidhogg!

Gu You's golden vertical pupils abruptly contracted.

The black dragon Nidhogg. In Norse mythology, it was the evil dragon that gnawed day and night at the World Tree, and also an existence of supreme honor, supreme virtue, and supreme power, ruling the world with absolute fate...

He had no room to think further.

The next second, the ice plain shattered, and the scene changed.

On a vast stone altar, a huge bronze pillar pierced through heaven and earth.

Upon the bronze pillar, a bound woman slowly opened her eyes. Her white hair flew wildly, and two streams of thick, reeking blood flowed from her eyes.