A Trap in Every Sense

With Ice Soul Ghost Shadow's warning, Meng Xuanji immediately became doubly alert.

"Wait."

Meng Xuanji stopped at once.

"What is it? Is there a problem?"

"Don't you think it's a little too quiet here?"

Meng Xuanji looked at the patch of grass ahead that seemed faintly half a head taller than the surrounding vegetation. When the breeze passed through, not a single blade of grass swayed.

Following Meng Xuanji's gaze, Hu Liena also noticed the anomaly.

"Could someone be here?"

Hu Liena took out her gold-thread dagger and hid it in her sleeve, ready to strike at any moment.

"Not people, but soul beasts. Hehe, this really is a trap in every sense—though it looks like it was prepared for us."

"What do you mean? Should we go over?"

"Yes, I think it's necessary to check it out. Their cultivation is only two hundred years. When the time comes, we'll take one each—you on the right, me on the left. Any problem with that?"

"How about I handle it instead? I can take care of two two-hundred-year soul beasts by myself."

Perhaps because Hu Liena had grown used to acting as Meng Xuanji's enforcer, she was now incomparably confident in her own strength.

Meng Xuanji did not argue with her. On the contrary, he was happy to see Hu Liena do this.

Not only would it mean he could hold back some of his own methods, but it would also bring him closer to Hu Liena. After all, he could already sense that Hu Liena was beginning to rely on him.

"Fine, then. You'll take the lead, and I'll support you. I'll help you with your soul power."

"Alright."

The two wolf beasts hiding in the grass stared viciously at the two young humans approaching them.

The Wolf King had ordered that they could only attack when someone came within ten meters of the trap. Under any other circumstances, they were not to move no matter what.

The intelligence of century-old soul beasts generally had not fully developed. They would only mechanically carry out their leader's orders.

So even though Meng Xuanji had stood there discussing matters with Hu Liena for quite some time, they did not make the slightest move.

Hu Liena slowly approached a patch of grass alone. The instant her left foot entered the wolf beasts' alert range, the two wolf beasts suddenly sprang into action!

"Awooo!"

"I've been waiting for you!"

"Violet Thunder Flash!"

Hu Liena's figure flickered rapidly, turning into a bolt of lightning as she rushed toward one of the wolf beasts.

"Violet Lightning!"

Lightning erupted from Hu Liena's gold-thread dagger. With a wet stab, the dagger and lightning struck the wolf beast's neck at the same time! The wolf beast was blasted away by the immense force.

Meng Xuanji silently praised her from behind.

She truly deserves to be one of the Golden Generation's representatives in the original story. Her combat instincts are outrageously strong. It's only been a few days, and she's already completely mastered the techniques for using her soul skills?

Hu Liena's talent was beyond question. That was also why Meng Xuanji did not want her to leave.

Her appearance was only one aspect. Another was the enormous value she possessed.

"Awooo!"

The other wolf beast had already reacted and changed direction, its fang-filled jaws biting toward Hu Liena's thigh.

"Blue Silver Entanglement!"

A Blue Silver Emperor burst from the ground and wrapped around the wolf beast's hind leg, forcibly dragging it down from midair!

"Awoo..."

The wolf beast crashed to the ground in a daze. Before it could react, dense Blue Silver Emperors completely covered it, making it look like a thorny ball lying on the ground.

As the Dark Blue Silver Emperor's poison spread, the wolf beast gradually lost consciousness and collapsed weakly within the Blue Silver Emperors.

Without hesitation, Hu Liena raised her dagger and walked over to the wolf beast, intending to finish it off directly.

Hu Liena might not yet have been able to accept killing people, but she did not hesitate in the slightest when it came to hunting soul beasts.

These soul beasts that harmed villagers all deserved to die.

"Wait!"

Meng Xuanji hurried over and grabbed Hu Liena's arm.

"I still have a use for this one. It won't be too late to spare its life for now."

"Fine."

Hu Liena decisively put away her dagger and stepped aside to make room for Meng Xuanji.

"By the way, why do you want to capture it alive? Don't tell me you can get information out of it?"

Meng Xuanji chuckled.

"Well, it may be even more amazing than you imagine. Just watch from the side."

"Ice Soul Ghost Shadow, possess."

At Meng Xuanji's command, Ice Soul Ghost Shadow swiftly separated a clone and merged it into the wolf beast's body.

In a flash!

The wolf beast suddenly opened its dim gray eyes. Like a puppet, it slowly broke free from the Blue Silver Emperor's restraints and crawled to its feet step by step.

Hu Liena was so shocked that she could not speak.

"You can even control soul beasts!"

"There's more than that."

Meng Xuanji questioned the wolf beast.

"How did you cross the perimeter last night? And why did you attack that human yesterday?"

"We usually follow our leader's actions. It was our leader who led us into the village. As for the human killed yesterday, our leader ordered us to do it. We were only responsible for carrying it out."

As expected, ordinary wolf beasts could not provide any useful information. They were nothing more than tools under the Wolf King's command.

"Then was it also the Wolf King that sent you here to ambush humans?"

"Yes."

Meng Xuanji had obtained an unexpected answer. At the same time, he looked toward the realistic patch of turf beside him, beneath which the ground had already been hollowed out.

Strange. This trap looks no different from anywhere else from the outside. How did the Wolf King discover it?

A question could not help surfacing in Meng Xuanji's mind. Just how intelligent was this Wolf King? Not only could it evade multiple layers of security and enter the village, but it could also accurately locate the traps and attack the guards.

Perhaps those guards who had died earlier had not failed to run because they did not want to, but because they simply could not.

By the time they realized they were in danger, they could no longer escape.

A trace of cold sweat appeared on Meng Xuanji's forehead.

It was hard to imagine what kind of opponent he was facing.

What a bizarre soul beast. Could it already be approaching the ten-thousand-year level?!

An ordinary thousand-year soul beast could never possess such insight and intelligence. Either it had mutated, or its cultivation had already reached ten thousand years.

But if it really was a ten-thousand-year soul beast, how had the village chief and the others defeated it? Without the cultivation of a five-ring Soul Master, facing such a strange ten-thousand-year soul beast would be nothing but a death wish!

There was another point. A wolf pack under a ten-thousand-year soul beast usually numbered in the tens of thousands. With only a little over a hundred wolf beasts, daring to attack a village did not seem like something a ten-thousand-year soul beast would do at all.

How strange. My mind is a mess. Could the soul beast world really have produced a genius?!

After considering everything, Meng Xuanji could not think of any other explanation besides the Wolf King being a mutated soul beast that had unlocked extraordinarily high intelligence ahead of time.

"This is truly troublesome. It seems we were right to come here. There really are secrets hidden here that we haven't discovered."