Nightmare Power

"Waa meow!"

Demon Ding anxiously flapped its wings, circling En Zuo and continuously letting out warning growls. Yet the interior of Narak Space had long since lost its former majestic and magnificent appearance.

It was not only the inner core of the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger that had undergone a mutation. En Zuo's second martial soul had changed as well.

The Crystal Staff.

A thread of dark purple energy, so minuscule it was nearly invisible and as sticky as sludge, crawled out from the staff. Several strands wrapped around En Zuo's fingers before pulling their entire "body" free. Greedily, they sucked in the pure dark energy around them and expanded at a visible rate.

"What the hell is this?!" En Zuo gripped the end of the Crystal Staff tightly. At this moment, he had no time to consider where this energy had come from.

To preserve himself as much as possible, he made a swift decision and shouted, "Second soul skill, Fire Element Control."

The black soul ring circling his body flashed. Several reddish-brown fireballs condensed out of thin air, crashing down around En Zuo and erupting in brilliant flames.

The entire process was completed within a few breaths.

In the end, only scorching tongues of flame remained within Narak Space, licking at the ground. At the center of the blaze, a blurry black silhouette swayed.

The fitted uniform of Monster Academy had been burned and torn, exposing pale hair and a sickly white face.

His originally brown pupils had turned incomparably crimson. His normal vision was restricted, and the entire world in his sight was covered by a thin blood-red film.

Amid the fading embers, En Zuo stood at the center. The dark purple energy that had originally been as thin as a thread had swollen into a mass nearly as large as Long Yue after devouring the inner core, floating quietly behind him.

After consuming the final trace of energy from the inner core, the energy mass behind En Zuo slowly began to contract, shrinking back into his martial soul.

It fell silent.

The soul rings circling En Zuo's side rose and fell rhythmically. Black... black... black...

Dark purple!

His fourth soul ring. He had become the youngest Soul Ancestor in the history of Monster Academy, reaching the rank of Soul Ancestor at the age of eleven!

Not only that, the number of spacetime anchors had increased from one to two.

En Zuo had broken through to Soul Ancestor because the Crystal Staff had forcibly devoured the energy of the entire inner core, raising his Soul Power to the level of a rank-forty Soul Ancestor and directly granting him a soul ring.

By En Zuo's estimation, the soul ring was around thirty thousand years old. According to his original plan, his fourth soul ring should have come from a ten-thousand-year water-element soul beast, and the soul skill he obtained should have been Water Element Control.

But the soul skill directly attached to En Zuo by the Crystal Staff was something that had never appeared before, whether from this day onward or since ancient times.

"It's actually... Nightmare Power Control..." En Zuo murmured.

Based on the background information about En Zuo that he had learned while playing Locke Kingdom in his previous life, Nightmare Power possessed the forbidden power to transcend life and death and revive others.

This included, but was not limited to, using Nightmare Power to control sprites and force them into nightmare-corrupted forms. Even the derived Black Magic could induce sprites to evolve. By ordinary logic, Nightmare Power should be able to accomplish the same.

Ding-Ding Demon could use Black Magic to evolve into a Demon Baron.

En Zuo frowned. His eyes had not yet faded from crimson, making his current appearance somewhat unsettling. Perplexed, he asked, "Why does the Crystal Staff contain Nightmare Power?"

"According to the lore of Locke Kingdom, nightmares were born from evil thoughts. Then, amid an unknown change in the heavens on Black Moon Day, the physical form of Nightmare Power was born—the birth of nightmares."

En Zuo's thoughts were in turmoil. He raised his staff and attempted to use his fourth soul skill. A nearly tangible malice gathered before the staff.

This was not pure dark energy, but wicked malice born from the heart.

"On Douluo Continent, this would probably be directly classified as the power of an evil soul master." Feeling the terrifying evil contained within the Nightmare Power he had summoned, En Zuo made up his mind. I absolutely cannot casually reveal my fourth soul skill in front of others during the Dragon King Era.

"Sheltering a soul master with an evil martial soul is not a good reputation to have."

With a wave of his hand, he dispersed the Nightmare Power. The blood-red color in En Zuo's pupils gradually faded, returning to their normal black.

Throughout Narak Space, the darkness was being driven away, slowly receding like a drawn curtain as the space gradually returned to its original state.

"Waa meow!"

Demon Ding moved closer and lightly sniffed En Zuo's scent. It was still that familiar presence, which finally put it at ease.

As long as En Zuo was all right.

"Waa meow!" (That scared me to death.)

Demon Ding glared fiercely at En Zuo.

En Zuo rubbed Demon Ding's round little head. The latter narrowed its eyes, stretching out its body in great enjoyment.

"I'm fine, Demon Ding." En Zuo smiled, genuinely happy inside. It was not merely because he had broken through to Soul Ancestor, but because he had found it.

He had found...

A way for Demon Ding to evolve.

Since En Zuo of Locke Kingdom had been able to research a method to evolve Ding-Ding Demon into a Demon Baron from Black Magic derived from Nightmare Power,

then he, who controlled Nightmare Power,

also had a chance to do so.

En Zuo would not fear this power and thus dare not use it. Nor would he allow it to gather dust. He understood well that power itself had no absolute distinction between good and evil; only the person who wielded it did.

Good and evil were distinguished by human will.

Even the most evil power needed to twist the wielder's own mind before it could bring disaster to others.

A strand of viscous Nightmare Power appeared at En Zuo's fingertips as he asked Demon Ding, "Demon Ding, are you afraid of this power?"

Demon Ding curiously leaned closer. Then its little face scrunched up completely, and it let out a dissatisfied cry.

"Waa meow!" (It stinks. I don't like it. It would be better if it didn't stink so much.)

Dispersing the Nightmare Power, En Zuo abandoned the idea of letting Demon Ding come into direct contact with it. Since Demon Ding disliked it, there was no need to force the matter. He did not want Demon Ding to be immersed in endless pain when it accepted power.

Although his contact with Nightmare Power had only just begun, En Zuo already possessed the most basic understanding of it. That was the advantage brought by his perspective as an observer above both Douluo Continent and Locke Kingdom.

"Is it because it contains too much malice?" En Zuo lowered his head in thought. "Everything that restrains something must also give rise to something."

"Logically speaking, Nightmare Power is merely the complete opposite of Wish Power. If the hatred and the evil buried deep within human hearts were stripped away from it, could it become an entirely new kind of Wish Power?"

"I can only study this subject properly after everything has settled down."

En Zuo felt a slight headache. Including the derivative professions of Battle Armor, there were now more things he needed to learn than even some old relics.

But he had to master them all.

Only by personally completing every stage of Battle Armor creation could he forge the most perfect Battle Armor, one that suited him best.

Research into Nightmare Power, meanwhile, was a taboo that could not be brought into the open. The evil nature of this power meant that only En Zuo could study it in secret.