Dragon Soul

He had always felt that this piece of bone carried an extremely ancient yet familiar aura.

Just then, the light on the transparent bone suddenly brightened.

The bone's cross-section simultaneously refracted a brilliant radiance.

As if drawn by some invisible force, that radiance gathered, condensed, and took shape above the bone, finally transforming into an illusory dragon soul phantom.

The phantom slowly rose from the bone.

From utter darkness to dazzling brightness, from blur to clarity, every detail gradually emerged amid the shifting light.

It was a dragon soul of indistinct form yet imposing majesty, its entire body seeming to have been carved from crystal.

Every scale reflected immense light.

Its body was long and elegant, the curve of its neck like a perfect line deliberately traced.

Its eyes resembled two slowly rotating nebulae.

Silver-white points of starlight moved within them along some mysterious trajectory.

It was as though the entire universe was contained within those eyes.

It floated above the stone platform, looking down from on high at the scrawny human child below.

A trace of extremely complex emotion flashed through the two nebulae...

There was surprise, confusion, and a deep reverence that came from the depths of its soul.

Lu Mingfei looked up at the dragon soul phantom.

He could feel that this dragon soul's aura was older and more powerful than any soul beast he had encountered in Dragon Valley.

It carried a weight that did not belong to this era.

As though this dragon soul had existed for millions of years.

"Human!"

The dragon soul spoke.

Its voice echoed directly in Lu Mingfei's mind, and it was actually speaking the human language.

It carried a strange resonance, as though it had traveled from somewhere unimaginably distant, yet also as though it had risen from some corner of the deepest part of his soul.

Its voice had the crisp clarity of metal and stone, yet also the low heaviness of an abyss.

It stirred layer upon layer of echoes in Lu Mingfei's consciousness.

"Release your martial soul and let me see it!"

Lu Mingfei swallowed.

He knew he was in danger. The aura of the dragon soul before him was hundreds, even thousands of times more powerful than anyone he had ever seen. He could not disobey its request.

Lu Mingfei took a deep breath, expelled all the stale air from his chest, and with a thought, released the Black Dragon King martial soul from within his body.

A black dragon soul phantom condensed behind him.

Its dragon head was raised high, golden light flickering in its eyes.

A deep purple soul ring slowly pulsed beneath his feet.

The instant the martial soul possessed him, Lu Mingfei's hands and arms underwent dragonification...

Pitch-black scales spread from the backs of his hands to his shoulders.

Every scale carried the cold, hard sheen of metal, their edges sharp as blades, while sharp dragon claws extended from his fingertips.

A dim blue gleam reflected from their tips.

Lu Mingfei's arms were covered in a layer of dense black scales, with the contours of his arm muscles faintly visible beneath them.

Those muscles had grown more than a size larger than before the possession.

Under the dim light of the secret realm, they gleamed faintly, brimming with explosive power.

The instant the dragon soul saw the Black Dragon King martial soul, the two nebulae violently began to rotate.

They spun so quickly that the points of starlight within stretched into countless silver-white threads.

It was like two miniature tornado storms erupting at once.

Its phantom trembled slightly.

Those crystal-like scales flickered erratically in an instant.

Its light surged violently, as though it had been deeply shaken by something, so shaken that it could barely maintain its own form.

"This is..."

For the first time, the dragon soul's voice carried shock. That shock was mixed with disbelief, joy, and an extremely suppressed reverence.

"Dark Dragon King! No... no... this aura... this aura is wrong!"

It fell silent for a long time.

The two nebulae remained locked onto Lu Mingfei's Black Dragon King phantom, as though repeatedly confirming something, as though exhausting every means to verify its own judgment.

It sensed the dragon might emanating from the depths of that dragon soul.

It was a pure, supreme bloodline aura from the origin of the dragon race, the root power passed down through countless generations of dragons over hundreds of millions of years.

That aura made it instinctively want to lower its head and submit.

It had lived for millions of years. It had seen countless powerful dragons, and had even witnessed the lingering radiance of the Dragon God himself...

In that era so distant it was almost impossible to trace.

The Dragon God had perched above the nine heavens, gazing down upon the entire continent with eyes that contained the stars...

Yet the purity of the aura before it was actually a notch higher than even the Dragon God in its memories.

It was a purity beyond description.

As though countless rivers all flowed toward one source, and Lu Mingfei himself was that source.

"Not the Dark Dragon King..."

The dragon soul murmured.

Its voice carried an almost devout reverence.

That reverence caused its phantom to lower itself unconsciously, changing from looking down on him to meeting the scrawny youth's gaze. "This is something older and purer than the Dark Dragon King...

I can sense a supreme dragon might from you. That aura feels familiar, much like the Dragon God...

No, even more powerful than the Dragon God.

As though...

As though you are the origin of all dragon bloodlines.

As though the entire history, glory, bloodlines, and power of the dragon race have all converged within you into that single point.

You are the source of all dragons, the ancestor of ten thousand dragons.

Even if your body is still so weak and small, your origin cannot be questioned."

The dragon soul remained silent for a long while before finally seeming to reach a decision.

It slowly withdrew its gaze, turned to the quietly crouching Taotie beside it, and said a few words in a soul beast language so ancient it was nearly lost.

Taotie nodded slightly, lowered its body, and retreated to the edge of the secret realm like a silent dark-gold statue.

"Human!"

The dragon soul looked back at Lu Mingfei, its voice filled with unshakable resolve.

"This soul bone is the torso bone I left behind. It contains the essence and inheritance of my millions of years.

Even powerhouses at the level of Titled Douluo, and even those gods who stand high above all others, covet it.

Today, I give it to you."

Lu Mingfei's pupils suddenly contracted.

A million-year soul bone!

This transparent piece of bone before him was actually a million-year soul bone!

He remembered reading in Basic Knowledge of Soul Masters that soul bones were priceless treasures coveted by all soul masters.

Every one of them was exceptionally rare, and the higher their age, the more precious they were.

A hundred-thousand-year soul bone was already something Titled Douluo would fight bloody battles over.

A million-year soul bone was a legend among legends.

In the recorded history of the Douluo Continent, there were only a handful of million-year soul bones.

Lu Mingfei only knew that Tang San had later absorbed a million-year soul bone. That alone showed just how rare million-year soul bones were.

Very soon, the transparent bone flew up from the stone platform.