Saturating Firepower

A Soul Beast with an edgelord title like King of Swords was indeed not easy to mess with.

This Dawn Sword Wolf King was just over ten thousand years old. Combined with the unusual sword forged from Heavenfeather Sacred Gold in its mouth, not to mention Ye Guyi, who had only just crossed the threshold into Soul Ancestor, even against an ordinary high-level Soul Beast of thirty thousand years, this wolf king was fully capable of tearing it to pieces.

As for Xuan Ziwen, the level eighty-one Soul Douluo was standing several hundred meters away atop a dirt slope, his face grave.

As a proper Sun Moon Empire researcher, he truly had pitifully little combat experience.

Setting aside his Martial Soul Avatar, all his soul skills leaned toward control and research support. Asking him to brawl with a ten-thousand-year mutant beast simply did not suit his status as a high-level Soul Engineer.

But that was fine. If strength was lacking, firepower would make up for it. Every lack of confidence in tactical maneuvering came from insufficient firepower.

Xuan Ziwen wiped a hand across the Storage Soul Tool at his waist, and one heavy metal device after another appeared before him. In less than a quarter of an hour, more than a dozen pitch-black metal cannon barrels had been set up in the clearing, their muzzles all locked onto the mine pit below.

Huo Yuhao's eye twitched. Those were Class 5 fixed soul cannons. While the power of a single shot was far inferior to those top-tier large-caliber sniper Soul Tools, against a ten-thousand-year Soul Beast, this was absolutely a crushing advantage.

"Teacher Xuan, how many shells did you bring?" Huo Yuhao swallowed and asked cautiously.

"I didn't count."

"How many is 'didn't count'?"

Xuan Ziwen adjusted his glasses, his expression utterly calm. "A few hundred, probably. Ju Zi provided quite a generous budget this time, so I prepared a little extra."

Huo Yuhao: ...

Was this what he called preparing a little extra? Several hundred Class 5 fixed shells were more than enough to flatten a small town.

Before he could finish complaining, the devastating assault began.

Deafening booms echoed wildly through the depths of the Jingyang Mountains as more than a dozen cannon barrels spewed blazing tongues of fire in succession.

There was no need for precise aim. Hundreds of shells rained down, instantly smothering the entire mine pit in fire and explosions. Earth flew everywhere, and metal fragments and shattered stones blasted in all directions.

How the hell was this hunting Soul Beasts? This was clearly a deranged money-burning game.

It continued for the time it took to burn an incense stick. When the smoke finally dispersed, Huo Yuhao poked his head out to look. The Dawn Sword Wolf King, which had been so arrogant moments ago, was now sprawled on its back at the bottom of the pit.

Its proud white fur had been blasted black, blood foam constantly bubbling from its mouth. It took more breaths out than in, reduced completely to a limp heap of flesh. Even the Heavenly Feather Sacred Sword it had used for show had lost its luster, shattered into several pieces, and fallen to the side.

If not for the toughness of a Soul Beast's body, the Dawn Sword Wolf King would probably have been scattered into pieces just like that Heavenly Feather Sacred Sword.

"Go on. You can collect the Soul Ring now." Xuan Ziwen slowly put away the cannon barrels, his tone as casual as if he were discussing what to eat for dinner.

Ye Guyi silently glanced at him. For some reason, the short sword she had worked so hard to master suddenly did not seem nearly as impressive.

The sheer shock of such overwhelming firepower was indeed a little too much for a traditional Soul Master like her, one who relied on her body to fight.

Shaking her head to cast aside those stray thoughts, Ye Guyi erupted with dazzling golden light. Four illusory angel wings instantly unfolded from her back.

She took two steps forward, raised her sword, and brought it down, cleanly ending the Sword Wolf King's lingering life. A deep black Soul Ring slowly rose from the corpse. She sheathed her short sword, sat cross-legged, closed her eyes, and began guiding the Soul Ring into her body.

The soul tremor and resentment of a ten-thousand-year Soul Ring were naturally not weak. For an ordinary Soul Master who had just broken through level forty, that Spiritual Shock alone would have been enough to turn them into an idiot.

But to Ye Guyi, who possessed the Holy Angel Martial Soul, it was nothing at all. Not to mention that her meridians and bones had long since been repeatedly tempered into something monstrous by the Profound Water Pill, Red Jade Pill, and fivefold gravity device.

The entire absorption process was tense but uneventful. The violent energy was like metal fed into a steel furnace, obediently broken down and converted. About two hours later, the golden light around Ye Guyi suddenly drew inward, and she slowly opened her eyes.

Just as she was about to feel the powerful, transformed strength within her body, before she could even smile, two grown men had already crouched in front of her from either side.

"Quick, quick, quick! Draw out your Soul Power and test it." Huo Yuhao held a newly built Soul Power tester with a dial in his hands, his eyes shining.

Xuan Ziwen held a charcoal pencil and a small notebook, his face equally filled with eager fanaticism.

Looking at these two research maniacs with their undisguised perverted stares, Ye Guyi felt her scalp tingle.

After another half hour of torment, Ye Guyi lay limp on the ground, pale and drained, unable to lift even a finger.

"Beep."

The tester's indicator finally stopped at the last mark. Looking at the number on the dial, Huo Yuhao's lips could not stop curving upward. "11327 HL. Compared to 6805 HL before the breakthrough, the Soul Power increase alone was nearly double."

Xuan Ziwen rapidly recorded the data in his notebook, his hand trembling. "This is a ten-thousand-year Soul Ring. For a fourth ring, this has already shattered the limits of conventional theory. If this concrete data on such an explosive increase were released outside, it would absolutely make every expert in the Soul Tool world drop their jaws."

Just as the two marveled over the data, an unusual fluctuation of Soul Power suddenly came from the pile of corpses beside them.

The three turned to look. The remains of the Dawn Sword Wolf King surged with the little light essence it had left. The shattered Heavenly Feather Sacred Sword had not collapsed with its owner's death. Instead, it was fused together by those fragments of light origin, its pieces gathering anew to form a three-foot golden sword. The golden blade not only carried a sacred light attribute, but its hilt was strangely connected to the phantom image of a section of spine.

"An External Soul Bone." Xuan Ziwen's voice suddenly shot up an octave, and his glasses nearly slid off his nose. This was actually a strange sword-type External Soul Bone nurtured from Heavenfeather Sacred Gold. Even after searching through all historical records of the Douluo Continent, such uniquely special weapon-type External Soul Bones were extraordinarily rare—priceless, peerless treasures.

Looking at the golden sacred sword floating in the air, Huo Yuhao also sucked in a breath of cold air. He had truly not expected an External Soul Bone to drop from this. Then he suddenly remembered that within Qian Renxue's Angel Divine Armor was a ninety-nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-year Angel Sacred Sword, which was also described in the original Douluo Continent novel as an External Soul Bone. This Heavenly Feather Sacred Sword could not be called exactly identical to that Angel Sacred Sword, but it could certainly be called similar.

Half a day later, having finished absorbing the Soul Bone, Ye Guyi and the others returned laden with gains and officially set off for the border camp.

Meanwhile, deep within the Star Dou Great Forest, far from the Sun Moon Empire, a plump, fair giant ice silkworm stared sorrowfully at a blurry pile of bloody flesh on the ground inside a dark, damp underground cave. The air was still thick with the stench of blood. A brutal human explosion had just taken place here.

"What a pity. Such a pity. Not everyone can withstand my vast spiritual energy." Sky Dream Ice Silkworm let out a long sigh.

The unfortunate fellow lying on the ground had been a luckless six-ring Soul Emperor before his death, forcibly dragged into the cave by him moments ago.

For the sake of that great God-Making Plan, he had silently carried out several living experiments over this period. Starting with the Titled Douluo he had first encountered in the forest thousands of years ago and working his way down to Soul Emperors today, without exception, every one of them had exploded and died from the terrifyingly immense spiritual power within his origin.

Fortunately, these failed sacrifices held enormous value.

With the data from these living experiments across different cultivation levels, his theory had finally become complete. The Wisdom Soul Ring Method he had contemplated for so long had now reached its most perfected stage.

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm now understood one thing very clearly: an ordinary Soul Master's body and spiritual sea simply could not bear such an enormous origin as his.

To force a successful fusion, multiple seals had to be laid down, locking away the power layer by layer.

Furthermore, the other party absolutely could not possess a common Tool Martial Soul or be from the assault type. They had to be a control-type Soul Master born with an innate spiritual attribute in order to withstand his Spiritual Shock at the most fundamental level.

Whenever he thought of those Fierce Beasts clinging to his body and madly sucking his blood, Sky Dream Ice Silkworm felt nauseated.

He could not delay any longer.

His round body wriggled twice through the dirt as he raised his head toward the pitch-black cave ceiling. His deep little eyes were filled with weariness and urgency.

When... would the perfect test subject finally come to me?