Qian Jue

"Everyone, hold on a little longer! Elder Xuan heard the commotion and will come as fast as he can! Don't give up!"

Zhang Lexuan's voice had grown hoarse, but she still fought desperately to rally their spirits.

"But Sister Lexuan... this hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast has gone completely berserk. We really can't hold out much longer..."

"Five of our fellow disciples have already fallen..."

Star Dou Great Forest, mixed zone.

Their glaring crimson uniforms looked especially tragic in the dim forest.

If any outsiders had been there, they would have recognized those distinctive uniforms at once. They belonged to the elite disciples of Shrek Academy's Inner Court.

Yet these Inner Court students, who were usually the pride of heaven, were now trapped in a desperate situation.

The one hunting them was a hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast that had gone completely mad.

Of the twelve-strong elite squad, nearly half were now seriously wounded and sprawled on the ground. The rest were at the end of their strength, and their formation was on the verge of collapse.

With Zhang Lexuan struggling to hold on, the group fought desperately to keep the Ferocious Beast at bay. Their only hope was to wait for their supervising elder, Xuan Zi, to rescue them.

But with every passing second, the figure they were longing for remained nowhere to be seen.

Despair spread through the squad like poison. Some were even on the verge of breaking down, unable to stop themselves from cursing.

"Where's Elder Xuan?! Where the hell did he go?!"

"Heh... the old man's probably drunk and passed out by now, isn't he? We've made all this noise, and he probably thinks we're setting off firecrackers. He doesn't care if we live or die!"

A male disciple, covered in blood, gave a bitter laugh, his eyes full of resentment.

"I never thought I, a dignified level-sixty Quasi-Soul Emperor, would die in such a ridiculous way—eaten by a beast. I didn't die fighting Evil Soul Masters, and I never got to avenge my parents..."

Hearing her junior disciples' tearful complaints, Zhang Lexuan bit her lower lip and said nothing.

But deep down, she couldn't stop a trace of doubt and sorrow from taking root.

Elder Xuan... had he really abandoned us?

"Look out! Sister Lexuan, it's coming for you!"

A junior disciple's piercing shout rang out from behind her.

Zhang Lexuan jerked her head up. The hundred-thousand-year Bloodthirsty Dragon Lizard was bearing down on her like a moving mountain of flesh, its foul breath rushing toward her as its enormous, fang-lined maw loomed over her head.

And she was in a blind spot, with nowhere to dodge.

"Is this the end...?"

Zhang Lexuan murmured bleakly.

Her Soul Power had long since run dry, and her body felt so heavy she couldn't even lift a finger.

But in the final moment before death, she still summoned all her strength and shouted one last time to her companions behind her.

"Run! It's focused on me—get out of here! If even one of you can survive, then go!"

BOOM—!!!

A deafening crash rang through the forest. A violent surge of Soul Power kicked up billowing clouds of dust, swallowing Zhang Lexuan's slender figure in an instant.

"Sister Lexuan—!!!"

A heartrending wail rang out among the Shrek disciples, tears blurring their vision.

"Let's fight this beast! Avenge Sister Lexuan!"

"Kill!!"

Meanwhile, at the center of the dust swirling through the air...

"Am I... dead?"

Zhang Lexuan instinctively squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself for the agony of being torn apart.

But the death she expected never came. Instead, an icy night breeze brushed her cheek.

Hesitantly, she opened her eyes—and stared in shock. She hadn't fallen into the Soul Beast's mouth. She was suspended several yards above the ground.

Following the strong arm wrapped around her waist, she looked up and saw a stranger's face: pale, yet so strikingly handsome it took her breath away.

Then her pupils shrank.

Behind the man, three pairs of pitch-black wings spread wide.

An utterly pure aura of darkness, cold and unfathomable, radiated an oppression that made her soul tremble. A Fallen Angel Martial Soul!

"Evil Soul Master?!"

Zhang Lexuan's mind went blank. I... was saved by an Evil Soul Master?

Unfazed by the shock of the woman in his arms, Qian Jue's expression remained impassive. He didn't even lift an eyelid.

With one arm around Zhang Lexuan, his six black wings beat slowly in midair as he looked down from on high like a god,

coldly surveying the furious hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast below and the despairing Shrek disciples.

A violent, utterly overwhelming pressure of darkness descended like a hundred thousand invisible mountains, instantly pinning everything in place.

"I just woke up, and this is the noisy scene I'm greeted with."

Qian Jue's low, resonant voice echoed through the air, laced with undisguised coldness and arrogance.

"To disturb my slumber with all this racket... I'm very displeased."

As soon as he finished speaking, Qian Jue didn't even glance below. He simply raised his free right hand and gently clenched it toward the empty air.

Humm—!

High above, the sky, which had been obscured by dust, suddenly split open with a pitch-black fissure.

A colossal sword, wreathed in dark-purple demonic runes and radiating an aura of destruction, instantly took shape from the void!

"Go."

At his indifferent command, the black sword became a bolt of lightning that tore through space.

With unstoppable force, it plunged from the sky, pierced the enormous body of the hundred-thousand-year Bloodthirsty Dragon Lizard, and pinned it firmly to the ground!

"Roar..."

Blood gushed out like a waterfall. The hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast let out a shriek of agony, then fell silent.

Under that one strike, its indestructible vitality melted like snow. Its aura visibly withered, and it fell into a near-death state, left twitching helplessly in a pool of blood.

At that moment, all was silent.

The Shrek disciples below, who had narrowly escaped death, were stunned by the horrifying sight. Even their breathing stopped.

"One strike... just one strike?!"

"How can an Evil Soul Master be this powerful?!"

An Inner Court disciple's voice trembled. His knees buckled, and he dropped straight to the ground.

A hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast was a terrifying existence that even Super Douluos had to take seriously. Yet this mysterious, six-winged young man had defeated it in a single move?

And Zhang Lexuan, held in Qian Jue's one arm, felt her scalp prickle.

She was closest to Qian Jue, and the terror of standing before an abyss pressed on her more intensely than anyone else.

She could clearly feel how pure and vast the dark power within him was, as if he were a true demon god.

Zhang Lexuan even had the strange impression that Elder Xuan would look as laughable as an ant beside him.

Yet Qian Jue paid no attention to the astonished gazes below, as if they belonged to mere insects.

His gaze lifted slightly, fixing on a translucent screen that had suddenly appeared before him, visible only to him.

[Congratulations. You have completed the trial of Word Spirit: Zagrede.]

[Quest reward: The age of all Soul Rings has increased by 10,000 years. You have obtained the power of Word Spirit Demon.]