Qin Mu muttered to himself.
Then he stood up from the bluestone and casually dusted off his backside.
As for the three Black-Scaled Monsters already pouncing through the air, their bloody maws open and ready to bite through Hu Liena's neck, they seemed no different from chickens and ducks raised at home in Qin Mu's eyes.
The Azure Ox lying nearby could not even be bothered to lift an eyelid. It merely swished its tail in distaste to chase away the mosquitoes around it.
The foremost monster was already less than three meters from Hu Liena.
At that moment, the last trace of sunset sank completely below the horizon.
The sky instantly turned dark.
An indescribably eerie sensation swept in from every direction across the wilderness.
At the village entrance, the four ordinary-looking stone statues covered in moss suddenly buzzed, flaring with a layer of pale golden firefly-like light.
In an instant, a vast circular barrier enveloped the entire Crippled Old Village.
Hu Liena happened to be standing one step beyond the edge of the barrier.
The foremost Black-Scaled Monster opened its bloody maw, and its foul-smelling fangs were less than half a foot from Hu Liena's neck.
Qin Mu, seated on the large bluestone, looked at this bedraggled big sister who had warned him just moments ago and lightly clapped his hands.
"Perfect. Let's see whether those circles Grandpa Deaf drew earlier actually work."
Qin Mu muttered under his breath, then stomped both little feet hard against the ground.
Buzz!
As a crisp tremor rippled through the village entrance, a dazzling burst of light suddenly bloomed around Qin Mu without warning.
Immediately afterward, four blood-red rings and five incomparably brilliant pure golden rings sprang up from beneath his feet, rapidly pulsing up and down around his body.
Those four red rings were crimson like balls of blazing fire, exuding a murderous aura that made one's heart pound.
The five golden rings carried an indescribable holiness and majesty, their radiance so bright it was almost impossible to keep one's eyes open.
The moment the nine rings appeared, the enormous phantom of a White Tiger flickered faintly behind Qin Mu.
Hu Liena, who had already closed her eyes and waited for death, suddenly felt a blinding light flare before her eyes.
When she instinctively opened them and saw the scene before her, she was struck as if by lightning. Her mind went completely blank.
"R-red Soul Rings? Four hundred-thousand-year Soul Rings?!"
"And those five golden ones—what level of Soul Rings are those?"
Hu Liena screamed hysterically in her heart, her beautiful fox-like eyes widening even more than bronze bells.
As the Holy Maiden of Spirit Hall, she had seen much, yet this little brat who looked only around ten years old had a full nine Soul Rings hanging on him!
And even the lowest-ranked ones were hundred-thousand-year red Soul Rings!
Before Hu Liena could recover from that terrifying visual shock, Qin Mu activated the first red ring beneath his feet.
The Black-Scaled Monster that had already leaped into the air did not even have time to cry out.
A flash of light gleamed from the red ring, and an incomparably sharp white claw slash materialized from thin air. Like slicing tofu, it instantly cut the massive monster in two.
Blood and organs spilled all over the ground.
The two monsters following behind were scared out of their wits at the sight. They kicked off the ground with all four legs, turned around, and fled desperately toward the black forest behind them.
But just as they turned around, darkness as thick as ink came crashing down from outside the village like an avalanche.
Two dull screams came from deep within the woods. The darkness instantly swallowed the two monsters whole, leaving behind only a scalp-crawling sound of chewing.
At this point, night had fully descended upon the Great Ruins.
The pale golden barrier emitted by the four stone statues at the village entrance kept the darkness firmly outside.
Hu Liena, meanwhile, was sprawled on the ground one step outside the barrier, watching the endless darkness behind her creep toward her.
"Big Sister, it's dark outside. It's dangerous."
Standing within the warm barrier, Qin Mu smiled and held out one fair little hand to Hu Liena.
"Come in quickly."
Hu Liena looked at the little hand extended before her, then at the nine red-and-gold rings still slowly spinning around the boy. In a fluster, she grabbed Qin Mu's hand and used his support to scramble and crawl into the golden barrier.
The instant both feet stepped into the barrier, the endless darkness behind her slammed into the barrier with a bang, producing a muffled boom.
Hu Liena collapsed on the ground, gasping heavily as her entire body trembled uncontrollably.
She looked at the night behind her, filled with endless eeriness and the sound of bones breaking, then turned back to stare at Qin Mu.
By now, Qin Mu had withdrawn all nine rings and returned to looking like an innocent little cowherd.
"Y-you're also a Soul Master transported here from the Douluo Continent?"
Hu Liena swallowed, her voice full of unconcealed trembling and disbelief.
In her understanding, since he possessed Soul Rings—and such utterly world-shattering Soul Rings at that—this little boy absolutely had to be an unparalleled genius from the Douluo Continent, just like her!
Could he be some supreme prodigy hidden away by an ancient reclusive sect?
Hu Liena secretly guessed.
Otherwise, there was simply no way to explain how a ten-year-old child could possess four hundred-thousand-year Soul Rings and five Divine Soul Rings. Even that fleeting phantom behind him had clearly been some incredibly high-level dragon-and-tiger Divine Beast Martial Soul!
Upon hearing Hu Liena's words, the entire Douluo Continent beyond the Sky Screen erupted.
Spirit City, inside Pope Palace.
Bibi Dong looked at Qin Mu, who was sitting at the village entrance patting dirt off himself, and sighed helplessly.
"It's over. Nana is going to get led around by the nose."
It was not just her. On the training grounds of Shrek Academy, Yu Xiaogang, Tang San, and the others looked at one another.
Because they all knew those were not real Soul Rings. That Deaf man had drawn them with a brush!
But Hu Liena inside the Sky Screen did not know that, and she still believed Qin Mu was also from the Douluo Continent.
At that moment, Qin Mu listened to the unfamiliar terms coming from Hu Liena's mouth. His large black eyes shifted, and a trace of cunning flashed in them.
"Douluo Continent? Soul Master?"
Qin Mu tilted his head and squatted in front of Hu Liena, putting on an expression of curiosity and confusion.
"Big Sister, where is this Douluo Continent you mentioned? Is it fun?"
"And that Soul Master thing—is it someone like Grandpa Pharmacist, catching bugs and brewing soup every day?"
Seeing Qin Mu's innocent look of complete ignorance, Hu Liena froze.
"Y-you don't know about the Douluo Continent?"
Hu Liena widened her eyes in disbelief and pointed to Qin Mu's chest.
"Then those nine rings that appeared on you earlier, and those Divine Beast phantoms behind you—weren't they your Martial Soul and Soul Rings?"
Qin Mu smacked his lips, casually plucked a blade of grass and put it in his mouth, then shook his head indifferently.
"Big Sister, you mean those sparkly rings?"
"I saw that strange old man the big centipede brought back today stepping on them, and it looked fun, so I went to Grandpa Deaf behind the village and asked him to draw some for me too."
"Grandpa Deaf said that old man's rings were ugly, all yellowish, so he smeared a few on me with red ink and gold paint."
As Qin Mu spoke, he casually gestured twice through the air.
"As for those four big fellows behind me, Grandpa Deaf thought the rings alone were too plain, so he dipped a big broom in ink and added them for me. He said they were called Azure Dragon and White Tiger or something, and they were useful for scaring little loaches in the mountains."
Hearing Qin Mu speak so casually, Hu Liena felt her head buzzing.
Drawn... drawn on???
Four hundred-thousand-year Soul Rings, five Divine Soul Rings, and that terrifying Four Divine Beasts Martial Soul...
They had all been drawn by some deaf old man using a brush and ink?
How was that possible!
She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. Looking at the seemingly easy-to-question little cowherd before her, she cautiously asked, "Little Brother, then how is that strange old man who was captured doing now?"
Qin Mu shrugged, looking utterly innocent.
"Oh, Grandpa Pharmacist said the cultivation technique he practiced was too lousy. He couldn't even withstand one sneeze from Niu Niu."
"But he said the few rings beneath that old man's feet had some research value. He's planning to peel off the rings and use them as fertilizer for feeding bugs, then throw the old man into the Myriad Poison Cauldron and stew him into a pot of broth to nourish Little Black and the others."
At the words "peel off the Soul Rings as fertilizer" and "throw him into a cauldron to make soup," Hu Liena's legs went weak again.
She could guess with her toes that the strange old man in the pharmacy had to be Poison Douluo Dugu Bo, who had been transported here in the same batch as her!
That was a level-ninety-two Titled Douluo!
Yet in the eyes of these villagers, he was only fit to be boiled into soup and fed to bugs?
Hu Liena swallowed, forcefully suppressing the fear in her heart as she tried to learn more about this world from the seemingly innocent child.
"Then... Little Brother, what exactly is this Crippled Old Village? What powerful elders are in the village?"
Seeing Hu Liena's nervous expression, a mischievous smile flashed in Qin Mu's eyes. But his face still wore an honest, simple-looking expression.
"Our village is called Crippled Old Village. There are only nine elders in the village, and they're all quite ordinary."
As Qin Mu counted on his chubby fingers, he slowly listed them out.
"There's Grandpa Village Chief, but he has no limbs and can only lie on a stretcher to sun himself every day."
"There's Grandpa Butcher, but he only has his upper body and spends every day by the river chopping meat with a Butcher Knife."
"And Granny Si. She likes making clothes the most. Tonight, she's probably figuring out what sort of new skin suit to sew for the newly caught hunter..."
Like he was naming dishes, Qin Mu listed the disabled old people in the village one after another.
Outside the barrier, Hu Liena's face had already changed from deathly pale to iron-gray as he spoke.
A Village Chief without limbs, a Butcher with only half a body, and Granny Si who liked skinning people to make clothes...
What kind of horrifying den of demons was this?
Hu Liena steadied herself and looked at Qin Mu, then asked unwillingly, "Then... Little Brother."
"Do you know what lies beyond the Great Ruins?"
"Have you heard of Spirit Hall, or powers such as the two great empires?"
Qin Mu tugged the blade of grass in his mouth and shook his head.
"I don't know. I've lived in the Great Ruins with the elders since I was little. Grandpa Village Chief said the outside world is too dangerous and won't let me run around out there."
"But I heard Grandpa Pharmacist chatting with Grandpa Blind Man today. He mentioned that the Great Ruins' seal seems to have loosened recently, and strange unfamiliar people wearing glowing rings beneath their feet keep running in."
After saying that, Qin Mu curiously looked at Hu Liena's tattered silver clothes.
"Big Sister, what kind of sect is the Spirit Hall you mentioned?"
"Is it also a place that specializes in putting rings around people's feet?"
Hearing Qin Mu's question, Hu Liena took a deep breath, feeling that this might be a good opportunity to figure out their background.
She leaned against the bluestone. Though somewhat weak, when speaking of her own sect, the pride ingrained in her as Spirit Hall's Holy Maiden still surfaced involuntarily.
"Spirit Hall is the most powerful Soul Master force on the Douluo Continent. We have..."
As Hu Liena organized her thoughts, she carefully explained Spirit Hall's Soul Master ranks, the distribution of the two great empires, how Soul Masters hunted Soul Beasts to obtain Soul Rings, and the cultivation system of awakening Martial Souls.
Through that information, she wanted to see whether she could find some point of connection with their system in this higher-dimensional world, giving herself and Dugu Bo a slim chance of survival.
Yet she had no idea that the ten-year-old cowherd sitting before her was scratching his ear while rapidly calculating in his heart.
So there really is a strange world called the Douluo Continent outside the Great Ruins...
No Spirit Fetus, no Divine Treasury. They rely entirely on awakening some animal and putting on rings to cultivate. What a strange lower realm...
As Qin Mu listened, deep light flickered in his clear, large eyes.
Just as Hu Liena's mouth was going dry from talking and Qin Mu had extracted nearly all the information he wanted about the Douluo Continent,
a measured sound of cloth shoes scraping the ground suddenly came from the dirt road deep within Crippled Old Village.
"Pat... pat..."
The sound was especially clear in the Great Ruins' night, dark enough to seem scorching.
Hearing those footsteps, Qin Mu's little face, which had been crouched on the ground pretending to be profound, immediately fell. He helplessly patted the dirt off his clothes and stood up.
"Granny, why did you come over too?"
Qin Mu scratched the back of his head and called toward the pitch-black village path.
The pale golden barrier trembled faintly. Then, an old woman bent at the waist, carrying a bamboo basket, slowly emerged from the shadows.
She looked seventy or eighty years old, her face covered in wrinkles like old tree bark. Her white hair was a mess, pinned behind her head with a wooden hairpin.
She also held a gleaming bone needle, with a length of red thread winding around her fingertips. She looked like an ordinary old countrywoman.
This person was naturally Granny Si, who had just come out from inside.
Hearing Qin Mu's complaint, Granny Si irritably tapped her bone needle against the bamboo basket.
"You little brat, it's dark and you won't go home for dinner. You insist on sitting at the village entrance catching the wind."
"If this old woman hadn't come out to take a look, who knows which stray cat or dog might have stolen your soul again."
While Granny Si scolded Qin Mu in her hoarse voice, her somewhat cloudy eyes shifted slightly and landed directly on Hu Liena, who was slumped beside the bluestone.
At that instant, an unusual gleam suddenly lit up in Granny Si's old eyes, which had seemed nearly blind.
She took a few steps and arrived before Hu Liena.
Her dry, chicken-claw-like hand lifted slightly, using the gleaming bone needle to raise Hu Liena's chin. Like she was choosing the freshest cabbage at a market, she examined her carefully.
"Oh, what do we have here? A rather pretty young lady."
As Granny Si looked her over, she clicked her tongue in admiration.
"Tsk, tsk. That figure, that delicate skin—smooth as satin to the touch."
"Perfect. The hunter's outfit I tailored a few days ago doesn't fit quite right. The skin keeps slipping off when I wear it."
"This girl's hide is nice and taut. It would be perfect for altering into a new autumn jacket."
Before you continue