All In

The night was as black as ink.

When Lin Ye left the inn, he did not alert anyone.

Faint Soul Power fluctuations still came from Zhu Zhuqing's room. She was probably cultivating.

"Big Cat, sorry. This trip is too dangerous, so I can't take you with me."

Lin Ye stood on the windowsill of the inn's second floor and glanced westward under the moonlight.

Then he leaped out.

Sunset Forest.

It was roughly a hundred li from Heaven Dou City. Though it was not as vast as the Star Dou Great Forest,

the density of Soul Beasts within was extremely high. In particular, the core region was home to quite a few thousand-year and even ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts.

Lin Ye kept the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's senses activated the entire way, extending his detection range to the limit.

Along the way, he sensed the auras of at least seven or eight thousand-year Soul Beasts.

Lin Ye did not linger to fight.

Whenever he encountered one, he went around it. If he could not, he suppressed his aura and circled around from the flank.

The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's Supreme Evil Aura itself carried an extremely powerful deterrent. After sensing his aura, most thousand-year Soul Beasts retreated on their own.

That saved him quite a bit of trouble.

Who knew how much time passed.

The air ahead began to change.

A pungent, fishy stench drifted out from the depths of the forest, so concentrated it seemed capable of corroding his nostrils.

Lin Ye stopped and fixed his gaze on the area before him.

Every tree ahead had withered, their branches an eerie dark purple. Their bark was covered in densely packed corrosion marks.

A translucent pale-green mist also blanketed the ground.

So this was the Poison Barrier.

It was precisely the outer defensive line Dugu Bo had set up.

"Old bastard, your poison really is formidable."

"Unfortunately, you ran into me."

Lin Ye then took a deep breath, and his eyes abruptly turned scarlet.

"Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, possess me."

Buzz!

Black evil energy instantly spread from Lin Ye's body.

At the same time, two purple Soul Rings slowly lit up beneath his feet.

Lin Ye then activated the wind attribute first.

Whoosh!

A visible wind barrier condensed around his body.

It then blew away all the poisonous mist within one meter of him.

The pale-green mist was torn into wisps the moment it touched the edge of the wind barrier, drifting apart to either side.

Immediately after,

"Second soul skill, Evil God Guard."

At that moment, a spherical barrier woven from black evil energy, purple lightning, and violent wind formed once more within the wind barrier.

Thus creating a double layer of protection.

The outer wind barrier dispersed the poisonous mist, while Evil God Guard sealed off all infiltration within.

"Everything's ready. Go."

Lin Ye immediately plunged into the poisonous mist.

Pale-green mist surged in from every direction, growing denser the deeper he went.

Further in, the mist practically became semi-liquid, sticking viscously to the surface of the wind barrier.

Its corrosiveness was absurdly powerful.

Several flying insects that accidentally entered the poisonous mist gave off sizzling sounds the instant they touched it, turning into pools of black water in less than two seconds.

Lin Ye took one look, and his scalp instantly tingled.

Damn, no wonder no one could get through.

As expected of a Titled Douluo!

With poison mist this concentrated, forget Great Soul Masters—even Soul Kings and Soul Emperors probably could not endure it.

But for Lin Ye, the effects of this double-layered defense were unexpectedly excellent.

The wind barrier kept the poisonous mist a meter away, while the evil energy of Evil God Guard seemed to produce some sort of repulsive reaction with the mist.

The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's supreme evil energy was itself highly corrosive.

The two corrosive attributes clashed against each other, instead creating a vacuum zone.

The poisonous mist could not touch him at all.

After Lin Ye sprinted for three minutes,

the scene before him abruptly changed.

The poisonous mist came to an abrupt halt at some critical point, as if blocked by an invisible barrier.

And beyond that barrier,

a circular pool roughly thirty meters in diameter sat quietly in the center of the ground.

A clear dividing line split the pool in two.

The left half was deep red, its surface constantly bubbling with fine bubbles as heat waves rose from it.

The right half was a deep blue, its surface covered in a thin layer of ice crystals, radiating biting cold.

This pool was the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well!

Two utterly opposing extreme energies coexisted perfectly within this small space.

But what truly made Lin Ye stop breathing was not the pool itself.

It was the Immortal Herbs around it.

"Holy shit..."

Lin Ye sucked in a cold breath.

The edge of the pool was densely packed with all kinds of strange plants.

On the red side stood a proud plant that was crimson from stem to leaf, its petals dancing like flames.

It was the Infernal Delicate Apricot.

On the blue side grew a clump of grass with eight leaves arranged in an octagonal pattern, its surface covered in mysterious ice.

It was the Star Anise Mysterious Ice Grass.

At the boundary between ice and fire, a golden chrysanthemum radiated dazzling light. Within its stamen, a towering golden flower stalk could vaguely be seen.

It was the Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum.

Besides those, many spiritual herbs whose names he did not know, but which were clearly no ordinary treasures, were scattered around the pool.

In the original story, Tang San had used these Immortal Herbs to forcibly raise the Shrek Seven Devils' talent by an entire level.

Now, they were all Lin Ye's.

"Sorry, little bastard. First come, first served!"

A faint smile appeared at the corner of Lin Ye's lips.

He then swiftly released his Spiritual Power to scan the surroundings.

Lin Ye was shocked to discover that there was no one there.

There was not a trace of any human aura nearby.

It seemed Dugu Bo was not here tonight!

"Not bad luck. In that case, let's do this!"

Lin Ye stopped hesitating and rushed straight to the edge of the pool, taking the Storage Jade Pendant from his robes.

He took out his harvesting tools.

His movements were incredibly quick.

He did not waste even a second.

Star Anise Mysterious Ice Grass, collected!

Infernal Delicate Apricot, collected!

Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum, dug up whole, collected!

Before long,

one plant, two plants, three plants...

Lin Ye's movements were swift and steady.

In less than a quarter of an hour, the highest-grade Immortal Herbs surrounding the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well had been completely looted.

The five-cubic-meter space inside the jade pendant was stuffed to the brim as well.

Lin Ye then patted the dirt from his hands and turned to leave.

However,

at that moment,

"Oh?"

A voice cold to the bone came from the rock wall above.

"I would very much like to see what kind of person... dared to trespass into my medicine garden."

The instant he heard that unfamiliar voice,

every hair on Lin Ye's body stood on end.

He abruptly looked up.

Under the moonlight,

a gaunt figure had appeared at some point on the rock wall above the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

The man was thin and withered, his face haggard. A pair of narrow eyes glimmered with cold, ghostly green light in the darkness.

Bzz—

Nine Soul Rings rose beneath his feet.

Two yellow. Two purple. Five black.

All nine rings appeared.

The aura of a Titled Douluo descended onto Lin Ye's shoulders like an invisible mountain.

The newcomer was none other than—the Poison Douluo, Dugu Bo!

The moment Lin Ye saw Dugu Bo, his heart gave a violent jolt.

This was bad.

That old bastard had actually come back!

Dugu Bo stood atop the rock wall, looking down at Lin Ye from above.

His ghostly green eyes swept over the empty medicine garden, and his pupils suddenly constricted.

"Empty. It's all empty..."

The herbs he had tended for over a decade had not a single plant left.