Weapon Martial Soul Nemesis

"Ding~"

A crisp metallic clang echoed through the air, sharp and brief, carrying a strange piercing force, as though something had been forcibly severed in that instant.

The bandit leader's savage grin froze.

He looked down at the martial soul broadsword that had fallen to the ground, then up at the copper coin hovering in midair with wings on either side. His mind went blank.

His broadsword martial soul—the tiger-headed saber that had accompanied him for over twenty years and been stained with the blood of countless merchants—had been knocked from his grasp so easily? Worse, he seemed unable to sense his martial soul at all, as if it had vanished.

"Y-you... what did you do?!" The bandit leader's voice was filled with barely concealed panic.

Zhao Ming did not answer. He simply raised a hand and caught the returning Treasure-Dropping Coin. The copper coin spun nimbly around his fingertips before vanishing into his palm.

With a flip of his right hand, a pitch-black Steel Whip appeared in his grasp. The three-foot whip gleamed with a cold metallic sheen beneath the sunlight.

"Vajra Body."

His first soul ring lit up. A layer of pale golden light surged from within him and covered his skin, making him appear as though he had been coated in gold foil.

He still looked like a seven-year-old child, but the aura that suddenly erupted from him made the nearly two-meter-tall, burly bandit leader involuntarily take a step back.

"Emerald Feather Protection."

His second soul ring lit up immediately afterward. A pale emerald film covered the golden glow, feather-like patterns flowing across its surface with lightness and agility.

Zhao Ming felt his body suddenly become far lighter. With a slight push from his legs, he shot forward like an arrow released from a bow.

What difference was there between a soul master without a martial soul and an ordinary person?

The bandit leader tried to dodge in terror, but without the support of his martial soul, both his speed and reactions had fallen to a pitiful level.

In his eyes, Zhao Ming's figure had almost turned into an afterimage, moving too fast for him to catch its trajectory.

The steel whip swept out with a piercing howl through the air and smashed solidly into the bandit leader's waist.

"Crack!" The sound of shattering bones rang out clearly. The bandit leader let out a pig-like shriek and flew sideways like a kite with its string cut, slamming heavily into the stockade's wooden fence and smashing the thick logs to pieces.

He sprawled amid the broken wood, blood gushing from his mouth. His body twitched a few times before going completely still.

Zhao Ming landed on the ground, flicked his wrist to shake the blood from the steel whip, and calmly swept his gaze over the dozen or so remaining bandits in the stockade.

They gripped all manner of weapons, and some had even summoned their martial souls, yet not one dared take a step forward.

Their eyes were full of terror as they looked at Zhao Ming, as if they were staring at a monster.

A seven-year-old child had crippled their chief in a single exchange. Was this even human?

"Why aren't you getting out of here? Are you waiting for me to invite you to dinner?" Zhao Ming asked blandly.

No one answered. No one knew who started it, but the dozen bandits scattered like birds and beasts, scrambling and crawling down the mountain as though they wished their parents had given them two more legs.

Zhao Ming did not pursue them. It did not matter whether these ordinary bandits lived or died. Without their leader, they would not be able to cause much trouble.

He put away the steel whip, walked to the bandit leader's corpse, and skillfully searched through it. Before long, he found a bulging money pouch.

"Tsk, what a poor bastard." Zhao Ming weighed the pouch in his hand. It held only around a dozen Gold Soul Coins, but it was better than nothing.

He stored the spoils in the Mustard Seed Space, then found a clean rock to sit on and began reviewing the battle just now.

A month and a half had passed since he left Heaven Dou City.

Over that month and a half, Zhao Ming had traveled from north to south, crossing nearly half of the Heaven Dou Empire.

He had entered soul beast forests, crossed barren mountains and wildernesses, raided bandit stockades, and participated in Soul Fighting Arena matches against soul masters of the same level in several cities under the alias "God of Wealth."

Soul Fighting Arena matches had rules and did not allow lethal attacks, but there was a wide variety of opponents—assault-type, agility-type, control-type, defense-type, and all kinds of soul masters. It was an excellent place to hone combat skills.

The various soul masters and bandits he encountered in the wild, however, were true life-and-death struggles.

There were no rules and no referees—only a fight to the death. Such battles on the edge of a blade were dangerous, but they were also the best at drawing out a person's potential.

Through all these battles, large and small, Zhao Ming had basically figured out the characteristics of the Treasure-Dropping Coin.

Without exaggeration, the Treasure-Dropping Coin was the nemesis of all weapon martial souls.

In the Primordial World, the Treasure-Dropping Coin's greatest characteristic was that it consumed the user's own fortune to knock down all magical treasures, but it was ineffective against weapons held in an enemy's hand.

Though the Treasure-Dropping Coin in Zhao Ming's possession was an imitation, it had fully inherited every characteristic of the genuine Treasure-Dropping Coin.

Moreover, perhaps because Douluo Continent's martial soul system was far inferior to the Primordial World's magical treasure system, the Treasure-Dropping Coin had undergone a strange "mutation" in this world. Its range of effect had expanded from "magical treasures" to "all weapon martial souls."

Even weapons held in the hands of weapon martial soul masters could be knocked down.

Better still, using the Treasure-Dropping Coin in the Primordial World required consuming one's own fortune. If it was used too often and one's fortune ran dry, it could bring about a fatal disaster.

But Zhao Ming's Treasure-Dropping Coin came with the Fortune-Gathering Domain, which could automatically gather all kinds of scattered fortune from between heaven and earth.

The fortune consumed by knocking down an opponent's weapon martial soul could be automatically replenished through the Fortune-Gathering Domain, so there was no need to worry about a deficit of fortune.

Of course, knocking down weapon martial souls was not without limitations. The greatest limitation was Soul Power Level.

Take Snake Lance Douluo as an example.

If Zhao Ming threw the Treasure-Dropping Coin at Snake Lance Douluo, Snake Lance Douluo's Snake Lance martial soul would immediately fly from his grasp, and any soul skill being released would be interrupted.

But Snake Lance Douluo was, after all, a powerful Title Douluo. The gap in Soul Power was there. He could simply seize the Snake Lance again at once, so the Treasure-Dropping Coin's effect on him would amount to no more than interrupting a single soul skill.

But if his opponent's Soul Power Level was not much different from Zhao Ming's, the effect would be completely different.

Just like the Soul Grandmaster-level bandit leader from earlier, after Zhao Ming threw the Treasure-Dropping Coin, it not only knocked down his martial soul but directly severed his connection with it, essentially stripping him of his martial soul temporarily.

What difference was there between a weapon martial soul master who had lost his martial soul and an ordinary person? Wouldn't he be at Zhao Ming's mercy?

Zhao Ming had tested it many times. Against soul masters of the same rank, this move lasted for about five minutes.

After five minutes, his Soul Power would be exhausted, and the Treasure-Dropping Coin's suppression of the martial soul would automatically be lifted.

If he activated the Fortune-Gathering Domain during that time and absorbed the opponent's fortune to replenish his own consumption, he could extend the duration a little longer.

Five minutes was already enough to accomplish many things in a life-and-death battle.