Thousand-Year Soul Beast

Thinking of this, Chen Ye let out a soft sigh.

He did not know whether his luck was bad, or whether Tang San was truly protected by the fortune of the heavens.

His archery was clearly accurate, yet that arrow had missed at the crucial moment.

But there was no use thinking about it now, or rather, it held little meaning.

It was not enough to change his current situation.

If anything, he should be glad he had not killed Tang San.

After all, if Tang Hao retaliated in madness, everyone who had ever had any contact with Tang San—including Yu Xiaogang—might die.

Naturally, that included Chen Ye himself.

Thinking of this, Chen Ye raised a hand and rubbed his brow, exhaustion evident in his expression.

He did not rush to leave. Instead, he maintained his Time-Space Miniaturization state as he moved farther outward, quietly waiting for his soul power to recover.

Sitting in a tree, he continuously killed weak ten-year soul beasts through the Space Bow.

This method of killing was slow, but its results were remarkable.

For ordinary ten-year soul beasts, he only needed regular Space Arrows to kill them easily.

Compared to facing hundred-year soul beasts at full strength, the soul power consumed by slaughtering large numbers of small soul beasts was greater than the amount needed to normally hunt a single hundred-year soul beast.

But the difficulty was far lower, and he did not need to worry about being ambushed or killed.

As he continued hunting, he was currently waiting for Yu Xiaogang to come out.

He could sense that Tang Hao had likely already left with Tang San, and that only Yu Xiaogang remained inside.

And he had not intended to let Yu Xiaogang return.

He sat silently amid the branches and waited as evening arrived.

The soul power within him had also recovered by nearly half.

Although this soul power was not enough for much, it should be more than enough for him to hunt Yu Xiaogang with ease.

But just as Chen Ye waited, a thunderous fart rang out.

Three consecutive puffs followed, scattering the soul beast pack that had been gathered ahead.

A strange purple creature, resembling a pig but not quite one, came running over, with Yu Xiaogang following behind it.

Yu Xiaogang looked rather disheveled. Both hands tightly held something that looked like a flowerpot.

Chen Ye was too far away to see clearly at first.

Only when the creature came close did he realize that Yu Xiaogang was holding a section of roots.

And growing from those roots was a complete bamboo stalk.

The instant Chen Ye saw that bamboo, he froze.

He stared at it with an extremely strange expression.

"Is Yu Xiaogang really planning to make Tang San fuse with a ten-year Solitary Bamboo? If the soul ring fusion fails this time, they can just come back next time."

"What the hell is a ten-year Solitary Bamboo?"

As Chen Ye spoke, his throat bobbed.

He had stolen the Datura Snake that had belonged to Tang San, but he had never imagined Yu Xiaogang would give Tang San something like this.

And if Tang San got something like that, would Tang Hao agree?

Yet as he watched Yu Xiaogang carry that still-living ten-year Solitary Bamboo away step by step, Chen Ye surprisingly did not stop him.

He silently watched Yu Xiaogang leave, and the killing intent in his eyes turned into silence.

"If I really killed someone like that, wouldn't I become the same kind of idiot?"

"Better leave Yu Xiaogang alive. Whether this joke lives or dies probably makes little difference."

Chen Ye even felt a little emotional as he said it.

But after Yu Xiaogang left, Chen Ye did not depart.

Although his strength and soul ring age were still continuously increasing, Chen Ye had also discovered a flaw in this ability.

After yesterday's and tonight's hunting, especially after absorbing the 422-year Datura Snake soul ring, his soul power rank had risen by a large margin.

By calculation, his soul ring age should have long since exceeded a thousand years.

Yet although his soul ring now gave off a pale violet hue, it had not completely turned purple.

Chen Ye did not understand what was happening.

But some vague will told him that only by killing a true thousand-year soul beast could his soul ring age rise to a thousand years.

The feeling was strange and had no basis, but Chen Ye still intended to try.

So he sat calmly in the tree.

Below him lay the hundred-year soul beasts and ten-year soul beasts he had killed.

A large number of soul beast corpses had been casually discarded there, their scent of blood spreading freely through the air.

Quite a few soul beasts had already begun circling nearby.

He was still in the middle region, a location that could already draw hundred-year and thousand-year soul beasts.

Although all the soul beasts that had come so far were hundred-year soul beasts, as long as there were no flying soul beasts, it was difficult to notice this tree, which stood only three or four meters tall.

And they would be even less likely to spot Chen Ye sitting quietly among its branches.

As night fully descended, this place quickly became a carnival belonging to soul beasts.

Several hundred-year soul beasts arrived, hunting one another as well.

The hundred-year soul beasts also hunted the ten-year soul beasts trying to sneak over and steal food.

As the soul beasts slaughtered each other, unlike the place where Tang San had first entered outside—

where large numbers of lower-tier grass-type soul beasts stood silently without any powerful means of attack—

this place had become a complete soul beast carnival.

Chen Ye remained seated on the branch, and the soul power within him had recovered to seventy or eighty percent.

Then, within his sight, a massive figure suddenly leaped out.

It was a creature somewhat like a tiger, except its body was even larger.

Its eyes held a faint crimson glow.

It raised a claw and gave a light swipe. One of the hundred-year soul beasts did not even have time to react before its head was smashed apart.

Another hundred-year soul beast tried to flee, but within a second, its body was bitten in half.

As the enormous tiger below voraciously chewed the bodies of those soul beasts, Chen Ye slowly rose to his feet on the branch.

His gaze locked onto the tiger's head, and he slowly raised a hand.

In an instant, his body entered the Time-Space Miniaturization state.

The next second, an illusory crossbow bolt rippled into existence.

The bolt shot out with tremendous speed, leaving only the slightest disturbance in the air.

But just as it was about to reach the tiger's head, the huge tiger that had been eating seemed to react.

Its body suddenly lunged forward by a meter.

The crossbow bolt that should have struck its head instead pierced its forepaw.

The tiger let out a miserable roar.

Under the terrifying shockwave of sound, the surrounding soul beasts scattered in all directions, their eyes filled with fear and despair.

But as the tiger's gaze flickered and it tried to find the one who had attacked it, a sharp pain erupted from its back.

A massive wound had been slashed open.

Its defenses were normally powerful, after all—it was a thousand-year soul beast.

Even as the lowest rank of thousand-year soul beast, it was not weak.

Yet now, its fur had been sliced open as easily as tofu, without the slightest resistance.

Intense pain surged through it. The tiger almost instantly spun around, then suddenly pounced.