Strange Mist

"Isn't it over yet?" a middle-aged man with a hooked nose and a sinister expression asked impatiently.

"Soon, soon. It'll be done any moment now," a voice answered from the wooden hut before him, accompanied by a woman's scream.

The wooden hut was nothing short of a living hell. More than a dozen corpses lay scattered about, severed limbs strewn across every corner of the room. The stench of blood rushed straight to one's head. Yet in this nauseating environment—

A man in a black robe was writhing atop a ragged, blood-soaked woman. The woman pinned beneath him let out miserable screams, but her hands had been tightly bound by the black-robed man.

Only a little boy remained in the corner, his face covered in blood and his eyes vacant. He had clearly been frightened senseless by the hellish scene before him.

With a satisfied grunt, the man rose to his feet. His aura surged, and four soul rings appeared beneath him. With a wave of his right hand, the green skeletal undead behind him swung its butcher's blade. The woman on the ground was instantly severed in two, and all sound ceased.

"Only this last one remains." The black-robed man slowly walked toward the boy in the corner, a cruel grin on his lips. Whenever he raided villages, he always kept a few children alive. When he vented his lust, their cries and the despair on their faces were his stimulants.

Unfortunately, this child seemed to have been scared stupid. There was no expression at all on his numb face. "Tch, what rotten luck. Why did I get stuck with an idiot? I should've kept a few more."

Noticing the slowly approaching figure, the tiny body curled into a ball gradually raised its head. There was no focus in those empty eyes.

"Is this how it ends?" he muttered.

Six years ago, after staying overnight at an internet cafe, he had stepped outside and been crushed to death by a streetlamp. He had then transmigrated to Douluo Continent. Still an infant at the time, he had been found in the forest and taken home by a couple from this small village. Whenever his parents went into town to sell vegetables, he had always begged to go with them.

During that time, he had wandered through countless tea houses, all to gather information and determine exactly which era he had transmigrated into.

Not long ago, he had finally learned at a tea house in town that Ning Tian, the young mistress of the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, had awakened her martial soul some time earlier. He had been delighted to discover that he had transmigrated into the era of The Unrivaled Tang Clan.

But Mu Feng, who had learned the plot ahead of time and had already planned to cling to Huo Yuhao, had not waited for the soul master in charge of awakening martial souls to arrive on this day. Instead, three evil soul masters had come first.

In remote Stone Village, the strongest soul master was only the village chief's son, an eighteenth-level soul master. Faced with three evil soul masters—two Soul Ancestors and one Soul King—the weak Stone Village stood no chance. Within two hours, it had been ravaged and slaughtered by the three evil soul masters.

His parents had already died in an area attack. The woman who had just died was the older sister from the family at the western end of the village, whom he had met a few times. He had heard that she was supposed to marry the village chief's son this year.

"Is this really how it ends?"

"What are you mumbling about? Looks like you've been scared into hallucinating." The black-robed man had already arrived before Mu Feng. Impatiently raising his right hand, he made the green skeletal undead behind him lift its butcher's blade as well.

At the very moment his life hung by a thread, Mu Feng, who had been curled up in numbness, suddenly screamed like he had gone mad.

"Ah!"

Howling, he crawled up from the ground and charged at the black-robed man. His legs had gone weak, and fear had already swallowed him whole, but at the brink of life and death, his utter despair was like a spark that ignited the fierceness in his heart.

Even if I die, I'll tear a piece of flesh off him.

The black-robed man snorted. He had seen plenty of fools struggling on the verge of death. "A fool is still a fool. The gap between a soul master and an ordinary person is even greater than the gap between a human and a pig. Hahaha!"

Even though Mu Feng was about to die the next second, the black-robed man continued mocking him without mercy.

But the black-robed man soon realized something was wrong. When the boy raised his head, he suddenly noticed that his pupils contained not even a trace of white. They were entirely pitch-black. At the same time, a circle of dark-purple mist slowly rose around his body.

The sight of that ominous mist made the black-robed man's heart skip a beat. All four of his soul rings lit up. Overcome by a foreboding sense of danger, he only wanted to kill this strange little brat as quickly as possible, lest something unexpected happen.

A powerful air-cleaving wave shot from the skeletal undead's blade. Yet the moment the fierce slash touched the dark-purple mist around the boy, it instantly dissolved. It was as if the mist had absorbed his attack. The mist that had previously surrounded only the boy suddenly burst outward and filled the entire hut.

The instant he touched the mist, his body seemed to be restrained, leaving him unable to move. He could only feel in despair as both his body and martial soul were eroded by the mist. Even his screams were blocked by the mist and could not leave the hut.

Mu Feng suddenly hugged his leg and tore at his body like a wild beast mauling its prey, not stopping until he had been completely swallowed by the mist.

Having absorbed the black-robed man, the mist burst through the wooden windows and surged into the surroundings. Before the middle-aged man outside could understand what the purple mist was, he had already been engulfed by dense fog, unable to move.

With a pained cry, a soul master with three soul rings—white, white, and yellow—fell into a pool of blood and went still. The culprit was another man in a black robe standing before him. However, five soul rings shone beneath this man's feet. He had narrow eyes and deep nasolabial folds beside his nose, making him appear to be in his forties.

"Those two idiots, why are they taking so long to finish up?" During the fight just now, his opponent had taken out something that exploded like fireworks while he was not paying attention. It was probably an item used by Imperial soul masters for communication. He estimated that other soul masters would arrive in seven or eight minutes.

He hurriedly left the area. When he returned to the small village, the entire place was deathly silent. Aside from the bloodstains on the ground and the wooden huts, not a single corpse could be seen. It was completely different from the corpse-strewn scene when he had left to stand watch. If not for the pools of blood on the ground, he would have suspected that he was hallucinating.

"Did those two idiots stay behind to clean up?"

Filled with suspicion, he quickly searched the wooden huts and soon discovered something unusual. In the entire village, only the area around the wooden hut before him was shrouded in a small amount of dark-purple mist. He cautiously entered, inevitably brushing against some of it. Wherever the mist touched him, he could clearly feel his soul power draining away.

Pushing open the wooden door, he saw only a little boy lying face down on the floor, his face covered in blood. A martial soul was manifesting behind him.

It had a tall, cold, alluring figure, pointed elven ears, and waist-length dark-purple hair flowing wildly behind it. Three pairs of damaged demonic wings spread behind its back, their feathers charred black and cracked, their edges entwined with dark-purple corrosive demonic flames and covered in ruptured wounds.

It wore a fallen angel battle dress woven from purple, black, and gold, with dark magic chains wrapped around its waist. Both hands supported a swirling vortex of shadows, while phantom chains crisscrossed around its body and corrosive black mist constantly drifted from the fog.

Just as he intended to investigate more closely, the trap he had set in the forest earlier was triggered. His martial soul was a demonic spider, and one of his soul skills allowed him to lay spiderweb traps. It was likely a soul master drawn over by the commotion.

He immediately grabbed the boy and fled at top speed. Though he had yet to understand the reason, the disappearance of his two teammates and every corpse in the village was undoubtedly connected to this little boy's strange angel martial soul.