Beast Tide

Xiling reacted first. With a stomp of his foot, all six of them vanished from where they stood and reappeared some distance away.

After the yellow-green web missed, a black-and-white figure descended from the sky. Its eight long legs spread wide as it landed steadily on the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Human-Faced Demon Spider." The other five looked at where they had just been standing and spoke in unison.

The corner of Xiling's mouth twitched. "Didn't I kill this thing last time? It got revived by the Spirit Ascension Platform and still dared to come back?"

"Forget it. None of that matters." He raised his hand again, and the Subspace Spear pierced through its head once more, killing it instantly.

From the Human-Faced Demon Spider's landing to its death, no more than three seconds had passed.

The enormous spider corpse crashed heavily to the ground. The Human-Faced Demon Spider, known as a soul beast killer, did not even have time to struggle before it completely lost all signs of life.

The five of them stared blankly at the scene before them. It had been too fast—far too fast.

So this was what Brother Ling meant by winning while lying down? This... this was way too awesome!

What else could they say? Brother Ling was freaking incredible!

At Xiling's reminder, they quickly sat cross-legged and began absorbing the spiritual power obtained from killing the Human-Faced Demon Spider.

In the monitoring room, Wu Zhangkong watched this unfold and helplessly pressed a hand to his forehead. How was he supposed to see any training results like this?

"Forget it, forget it. Let him do as he pleases." He sighed.

The staff member, meanwhile, was grinning from ear to ear. See that? This was someone from their Spirit Pagoda. With this kind of combat strength, who else could compare? Who else?

While they absorbed the spiritual power, Xiling killed every soul beast that tried to approach, causing spiritual power to continuously gather in their direction.

Still, he felt this was too slow. Waiting until the soul beasts came close before killing them was far too inefficient. Since he had said he would carry them, he might as well fill them up in one go.

Xiling raised his eyes and swept his gaze across the vast forest.

The next moment, he lightly lifted his five fingers.

Colorless and formless spatial power, nearly impossible for anyone to perceive, spread outward from him.

Ordinary people stirred up a beast tide either by using soul power pressure to intimidate the forest or by using bloody killing intent to draw out the beasts' ferocity.

But Xiling was entirely different.

Using his own spatial power as a guide, countless tiny spatial cracks spread through the entire forest like a spiderweb, covering every beast den, every thicket, and every place where soul beasts dwelled throughout ten thousand meters of woodland.

Spatial Tremor!

The invisible spatial fluctuations became the most tyrannical force of attraction, forcibly dragging every soul beast in the region toward them!

Whether they were insect-type soul beasts lying dormant underground, avian soul beasts roosting in the trees, or predatory soul beasts prowling through the forest.

At this moment, every soul beast was locked onto by space itself!

It was as though their bodies had been imprisoned within invisible spatial cages. Beyond their control, they were swiftly dragged toward the five members of Zero Class, charging wildly in their direction!

Rumble—!

The ground began to tremble faintly.

At first, there were only scattered footsteps. In the blink of an eye, dense, overwhelming beast roars erupted from every direction!

Countless plants toppled, earth and stones churned, and the entire forest seemed to boil!

The previously sparse and tranquil forest instantly transformed into a vast, raging ocean of beasts!

Ten-year and hundred-year soul beasts surged forward in layer after layer, with no shortage of thousand-year soul beasts among them. They ran, roared, and went berserk, a dark mass filling the forest. There were not merely hundreds or thousands of them!

Gu Yue was the first to react. Her eyes flew open, and she immediately rushed before Xiling, grabbed his hand, and spoke anxiously. "Xiling, are you crazy? Stirring up a beast tide is far too dangerous!"

"Even if you're strong, can your current soul power support you against such a massive beast tide?"

Tang Wulin and the other three, who had been sitting cross-legged and absorbing the Human-Faced Demon Spider's spiritual power, jolted awake. Their bodies stiffened, and their pupils contracted sharply!

An endless torrent of densely packed soul beasts came crashing toward them. Savage, murderous auras swept through the surroundings, and terrifying pressure instantly engulfed their entire bodies!

"Th-this is a beast tide?!" Xie Xie's scalp went numb, and he was completely dumbfounded.

Wang Jinxi swallowed hard, his palms instantly sweating. "How could such a large-scale beast tide suddenly erupt?"

However, they quickly realized Xiling was behind it, and their hearts immediately settled. Brother Ling must have had his reasons for doing this.

In the monitoring room, Wu Zhangkong was also greatly shocked by Xiling's actions. Wasn't this complete nonsense?!

Seeing the worry in Gu Yue's eyes, Xiling subconsciously patted her head and smiled. "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."

Gu Yue froze for a moment. This seemed to be the first time Xiling had made such an intimate gesture toward her.

She turned her head slightly, feeling her face heat up. Her voice unconsciously softened. "Y-you'd better know what you're doing."

Xiling himself paused as well. Looking at his right hand, which had just touched Gu Yue's head, he wondered, Why did I reach out without even thinking?

That brief distraction vanished in an instant.

Ahead of them, the immense beast tide had already closed in through the forest. Countless soul beasts roared and charged madly, their vicious auras seeming ready to overturn the entire mountain forest.

Xiling raised his eyes, swept his gaze over the overwhelming beast horde, and lifted his right hand once more.

The beast tide, which had been wildly charging with boundless savagery just a moment before, froze completely in place.

Countless roars abruptly stopped. Countless charging bodies stiffened in midair. The boiling forest instantly fell into dead silence.

Tang Wulin, Xie Xie, and the others had just summoned their martial souls and taken up battle stances when they froze in shock the very next second.

Then, Xiling suddenly clenched his five fingers!

Third Soul Skill, Spatial Strangulation!

The spatial power wrapped around every soul beast transformed into violent spatial currents, crushing, tearing, and strangling them.

Soundless spatial slaughter swept across the entire battlefield.

The overwhelming beast tide, the thousands upon thousands of soul beasts, did not even have a chance to struggle. Their bodies all dissolved and disintegrated within the spatial currents.

There was no bloody chaos, no corpses flying through the air.

There were only countless pure points of spiritual power, pouring out from the void like a sky full of stars!

In a single instant.

The gigantic beast tide that had shaken the entire forest was utterly annihilated!

It was shocking—an absolute shock.

Xie Xie and the others' minds went blank. The same thought came to them again: every time they watched Brother Ling act, there was a certain beauty in the numbers, one that crashed into their already malfunctioning brains.

This absolute suppression in strength shattered and reshaped their understanding again and again.

"What are you standing around for? Absorb it! Do it according to your own limits. Don't bite off more than you can chew."

Xiling's voice brought them back to their senses. Just as they were about to sit cross-legged, a voice came from not far away.

"Leave the Spirit Ascension Platform on your own and leave behind the spiritual power halo. Then I won't make you suffer."

Following the voice, they saw a young man of seventeen or eighteen. Two yellow and one purple soul rings circled his body, while he held a long-handled staff topped with a blue crystal in his right hand.

Behind the young man, a little girl about the same age as Xiling and the others peeked out.

She wore her light-blue hair in two braids and looked delicate and exquisitely pretty. She was also holding an ice staff, with a yellow soul ring flashing beneath her feet.

However, her expression seemed somewhat fearful, as though she was not used to killing.