JO Family's Inherited Skill

Soul Shadow Flying Dragon suddenly stopped all its movements and stared blankly in Mo Lin's direction.

This strange action naturally caught Mo Lin's attention. By all rights, in a situation where it was surrounded on all sides, every second was crucial. Turning itself into a live target so openly was clearly unreasonable.

However, Mo Lin's question was quickly answered. A translucent white shadow suddenly emerged from the flying dragon's body, then separated from it and flew straight toward Mo Lin.

"**! An out-of-body soul?!"

Mo Lin had read the records on this thing. They clearly stated, "It uses its own soul to breathe a certain special flame that cannot be blocked, attacking the soul." But this scene of its soul leaving its body was completely wrong!

Soul Shadow Flying Dragon had lived for over five thousand years and fought countless soul masters. The moment it discovered Mo Lin, it realized that the eight "people" surrounding it were likely Mo Lin's tool martial souls. That was why it could not directly sense their souls. And since Mo Lin did not dare approach, he must have feared its ability to attack souls directly. So it chose to gamble everything—either kill Mo Lin outright, or force him to recall his martial souls to protect himself. Either way, its crisis would be resolved.

Although the flying dragon's reasoning was not entirely correct—because even if Mo Lin died, the eight puppets would continue attacking until the soul power within them was completely exhausted—Mo Lin had not prepared well for this situation. He had never practiced any techniques targeting souls. The only thing on him capable of harming a soul was Village Chief Ma's Soul-Shaking Bell.

Mo Lin hurriedly pulled out the bell and shook it hard. The sound waves produced by its ringing struck the flying dragon's soul, but only slowed its advance. There was not the slightest sign that it would disperse.

"Damn! Is this bastard's soul really that tough?! If that's the case, then I can only..."

Mo Lin turned around and ran for his life. (See ya~)

Since he could not inflict effective damage on the flying dragon's soul, he could only buy time by fleeing, allowing the eight puppets to cripple the dragon's physical body and force it to withdraw its soul.

In an instant, black and white lightning intertwined across Mo Lin's entire body. He launched himself forward, widening the distance between himself and the flying dragon's soul.

But Soul Shadow Flying Dragon had already chosen to go all in. How could it possibly be so easy to shake off? Ignoring resistance and terrain alike, it pursued Mo Lin along the shortest possible route.

Three years ago, in the secret realm, Mo Lin's lightning movement technique had seemed so fast that even Dugu Bo could not detect it. But aside from Dugu Bo being anxious to enter the cave and investigate, there was another reason: that use of the lightning technique had not been sustainable at all. That burst of high-speed movement had drained nearly all of Mo Lin's soul power. Worse, for an entire day afterward, he had been unable to use lightning techniques at all. It had scared Mo Lin badly at the time; he thought he had wasted two months of training.

Although Mo Lin had made considerable progress with lightning techniques since then, he was still nowhere near capable of moving at that speed for an extended period!

Mo Lin rushed out of the cave and found a steep slope before him. With a light leap, he gathered Yin Five Thunders beneath his feet and slid straight down the slope toward the foot of the mountain.

He had only slid halfway down when a dragon head suddenly appeared in front of him. The flying dragon's soul had passed straight through the mountain and overtaken him.

Mo Lin quickly shook the bell. This time, the distance was much shorter, and the effect was noticeably stronger. The sound waves pressed the flying dragon's soul into the mountainside, leaving only its head outside.

Mo Lin performed a kip-up over the dragon's head and continued running.

After entering the dense forest at the foot of the mountain, Mo Lin suddenly realized that he had created trouble for himself. Weaving through the trees would inevitably slow him down, while the flying dragon's soul could ignore those obstacles entirely.

But it was impossible to turn back now. The thing was right on his heels. He could only grit his teeth and charge deeper into the forest, hoping his puppets could finish off the flying dragon's body before it caught him.

The longer Mo Lin fled, the more he felt that this Soul Shadow Flying Dragon was a complete freak. He had been running for half an hour. He clearly had not been circling back, and should have been getting farther and farther from the cave, yet the dragon soul had not slowed in the slightest despite moving farther from its body. Most importantly, its physical body should have been seriously corroded by Yin Five Thunders by now. Why did it have no intention of returning to protect its body and insist on chasing him instead?

"Could the puppets have run out of soul power? But based on how much soul power I infused into them, there's no way it should have run out this quickly!"

Just as Mo Lin was still thinking, a startled soul beast snapped a tree in half, sending it crashing directly across his path.

Mo Lin hurriedly jumped, but because his mind had been elsewhere, he was still a moment too late. His left foot struck the tree. Though the kick blasted apart part of the trunk, according to Newton's third law, every action had an equal and opposite reaction. Mo Lin instantly lost his balance in midair, spun backward seven hundred and twenty degrees, then crashed to the ground and rolled a fair distance away.

After rolling into and knocking over another tree, Mo Lin finally stopped. Ignoring the pain, he hurriedly got to his feet. There was no time to waste now!

But the moment Mo Lin stood up, white flames lunged straight at him.

"If I make it back, within three days I'm going to kill that intelligence agent who didn't clearly write up the soul beast's information and loves playing word games, then scatter his ashes too! So after all this time, it turns out it uses its out-of-body soul to breathe some kind of special flame that can't be blocked?!"

Soul Shadow Flying Dragon had pursued Mo Lin with its soul for so long precisely for this moment—the moment Mo Lin made a mistake!

After its soul left its body, Soul Shadow Flying Dragon was not entirely unaffected by its physical body. The reason it had been able to endure for so long was that the puppets' attacks had weakened. The puppets Mo Lin made had flaws.

This Soul Shadow Flying Dragon could be called a soul beast that cultivated both life and soul. It could achieve an "out-of-body soul" like the Quanzhen Daoists, while also possessing powerful physical recovery abilities that rapidly eliminated negative conditions from its body. Moreover, this was an innate skill, like a reflex. Even if its soul left its body, as long as its physical body could still function normally, this ability would continue to exist.

However, because its soul-attacking ability was so unusual and powerful, many people who gathered intelligence on soul beasts either overlooked its formidable physical recovery ability or never had the chance to discover it.

At first, the puppets' Yin Five Thunders weakened the flying dragon faster than it could recover. But as the puppets' soul power declined, their attacks weakened as well to conserve energy. The recovery speed of the dragon's body gradually surpassed the rate at which the puppets could injure and weaken it, and the situation was steadily reversed.

And this flying dragon was incredibly crafty. Although it possessed the ability to spew special flames in its soul state, it did not fire them recklessly. Instead, it waited all along for the best opportunity, ensuring a single decisive hit.