Huo Yuhao carefully packed away the small glass bottles before casually tossing them into his storage Soul Tool.
The test was over.
An entire shichen had passed, and he had obtained the data he wanted.
The results were unsurprising. They were even completely consistent with his previous deductions.
Huo Yuhao looked at the icy-blue stream of air floating above his left palm.
At present, his second Martial Soul was indeed in its most primitive origin state.
Just like children of three or four who had yet to undergo Martial Soul awakening.
Many ancient records in the Shrek Outer Court Library had mentioned this phenomenon.
According to those records, the nascent Martial Soul within a child's body was an origin in a state of chaos.
As the child grew, that chaotic origin would be drawn by their bloodline and gradually take shape.
In the end, it would either become the father's Martial Soul or the mother's Martial Soul.
Although those documents made it sound mystical and used plenty of esoteric terminology,
to Huo Yuhao, the meaning was actually simple.
It was not some vague and intangible pull of bloodline.
Put plainly, it was genetic material.
During a child's development, the origin of their Martial Soul would be continuously influenced by the parental genes carried within their body, ultimately solidifying into a specific form.
If the genetic material mutated during this process, then the Martial Soul would undergo what was known as a mutation.
Huo Yuhao quietly watched the icy mist in his palm.
Following that underlying logic, if he did nothing now and simply allowed this second Martial Soul to remain in its origin state,
then as time passed, the genetic material in his body would likewise subtly influence the icy mist.
It would begin to slowly take shape.
It might take a few years.
Or perhaps more than a decade.
But the eventual result was actually easy to guess.
There was a high chance it would become a tiger-type Martial Soul with ultimate ice attributes.
After all, the blood of the White Tiger Duke of the Star Luo Empire flowed through this body.
The genetic sequence corresponding to the White Tiger Martial Soul had long since been etched into his body.
In his memories,
Xu Yunhan, the son of the original Huo Yuhao, had not inherited his body Martial Soul. Instead, he had inherited traits across generations and mutated into a variant of Dai Hao's White Tiger Martial Soul—the Three-Eyed White Tiger.
That directly proved how domineering the White Tiger genes were.
Huo Yuhao thoughtfully rubbed his chin.
Just as inspiration continued to surge through his mind and he prepared to keep digging deeper along this line of genetic contamination,
a startled cry suddenly came from beside him.
"Hey, what's that?"
Wang Dong was crouching nearby, one hand pointing toward the depths of Sea God Lake.
Huo Yuhao frowned slightly.
Having his train of thought interrupted annoyed him somewhat.
But he still raised his head in the direction Wang Dong was pointing.
Over the pitch-black lake, a dazzling crimson light had appeared at some point.
It was still far away, but the domineering heat wave had already swept over them like an overwhelming tide.
The surrounding temperature rose sharply.
A thick layer of vapor even rose from the lake's surface, caused by vast quantities of lake water evaporating in an instant.
Before Huo Yuhao could figure out what was happening,
the crimson figure suddenly paused in midair.
Then, a blazing line of fire as thick as a water vat tore through the night sky and shot viciously toward where the two of them stood.
It was unbelievably fast.
"Fuck!"
Wang Dong reacted a step faster than Huo Yuhao.
Her pink-blue eyes abruptly constricted, and she did not even have time to say another word.
Light flashed.
The Light Goddess Butterfly Martial Soul instantly possessed her.
Wang Dong abruptly stretched out both hands, seized Huo Yuhao by the shoulders, and threw herself down on top of him, slamming him onto the lawn.
The two rolled several times across the ground from the momentum.
Boom!
Just as they hit the ground,
that terrifying line of fire swept directly through the spot where they had just been standing.
The pungent smell of scorched earth instantly spread through the air.
Huo Yuhao lay on the ground.
Wang Dong was pressed over him, both hands tightly shielding his head. The dazzling butterfly wings behind her trembled faintly.
Huo Yuhao turned his head and looked toward the shore not far away.
Where the fireline had passed, it had left behind a deep, charred trench.
The massive ornamental rocks along the shore had completely changed shape, their surfaces melted into magma-like liquid that glowed dark red.
What the hell was this absurd temperature?
Huo Yuhao's eye twitched slightly.
If that thing had grazed him even a little, he would probably have been cremated on the spot.
He raised his head and looked at the culprit in the air.
A fiery red figure floated beneath the night sky, with the phantom of an enormous, violent Fire Phoenix behind her.
The extreme heat had twisted the surrounding air.
It was Ma Xiaotao.
Her distinctive crimson hair and those crazed eyes that had completely lost all reason left no room for a second guess.
Huo Yuhao sighed inwardly.
He had only just grasped the underlying logic behind Martial Soul mutations and was preparing to fully refine the theory.
Then this madwoman had appeared.
She had forcibly cut off his train of thought.
It was infuriating.
"Are you okay?"
Wang Dong climbed off him and pulled him to his feet.
Before Huo Yuhao could answer,
a frenzied phoenix cry rang out from the sky.
Bang!
Ma Xiaotao descended directly from the sky, crashing heavily into the ground less than ten meters away from them.
The powerful impact made the ground tremble.
The grass beneath her feet turned to ash in an instant, while the lake water around her bubbled furiously from the heat.
Faced with that suffocating pressure,
Wang Dong's expression completely changed.
She took a deep breath, spread her pink-blue arms, and unhesitatingly shielded Huo Yuhao behind her.
A six-ringed Soul Emperor.
This was absolutely not an opponent two two-ringed Soul Grandmasters could handle.
Although she and Huo Yuhao often traded barbs,
when their lives were on the line, she still instinctively moved to protect him.
"Get farther away."
Wang Dong stared fixedly at Ma Xiaotao ahead of them, her voice hoarse with tension.
Standing behind her, Huo Yuhao watched this little girl whose legs were visibly trembling, yet who still stubbornly tried to act tough.
For some reason,
an indescribable feeling rose in his heart.
He wanted to laugh, but he also found her just a little reliable.
However, this was not the time to be touched.
Huo Yuhao knew Ma Xiaotao's current condition very well.
The backlash of Evil Fire had caused her to completely lose control. Her mind was now filled with nothing but violent flames, and she could not hear a word anyone said.
Nothing but extreme cold could suppress her.
With that thought,
Huo Yuhao ignored Wang Dong's warning and directly mobilized the Soul Power in his body, pouring it into his left palm without holding anything back.
The previously tranquil icy-blue stream of air instantly swelled.
An aura of extreme cold erupted in every direction like a tidal wave.
The moisture in the air froze instantly, turning into countless tiny ice crystals.
The open space that had just felt like a furnace saw its temperature plummet.
Wang Dong, standing at the front, bore the brunt of it.
"Hiss—"
She sharply sucked in a breath, and her entire body shuddered uncontrollably.
It was too cold.
This was not the ordinary chill of a winter wind, but a terrifying low temperature that seemed capable of freezing even bone marrow to pieces.
Her butterfly wings instantly stiffened, and a faint layer of frost even formed over them.
Then, an unbelievable scene unfolded.
Ma Xiaotao, who had been preparing to launch an indiscriminate attack, suddenly stopped moving.
Her vacant, unfocused eyes locked onto Huo Yuhao like a radar detecting prey.
To her, as she suffered the burning torment of raging flames within her body, that extreme chill was simply the deadliest temptation in the world.
"Screech!"
Another piercing phoenix cry rang out.
The dark-red flames around Ma Xiaotao surged another three feet higher, and she locked onto Huo Yuhao like an arrow released from its bow.
At the sight of this, Wang Dong's heart nearly leaped out of her throat.
She had just desperately tried to pull away from Ma Xiaotao, yet Huo Yuhao behind her had gone and caused such a massive disturbance.
"Have you gone mad?!"
Wang Dong turned her head, her eyes reddening from extreme tension.
She shouted at Huo Yuhao in near collapse, "Why are you provoking her at a time like this? Are you tired of living?!"
Before you continue