A Road to Heaven, Yet You Refuse to Take It! No Gates of Hell, Yet You Charge Right In!

Morning light filtered through the canopy of Sunset Forest, casting mottled shadows across the ground.

Lin Ye stepped over fallen leaves at an unhurried pace.

His Spiritual Power was fully spread out, keeping every movement within five hundred meters under his control.

Level thirty, Double Thousand-Year Spirit Rings, and Spiritual Power comparable to a Soul King.

Lin Ye calculated inwardly as he walked.

With my current Physical Constitution and Spiritual Power, ordinary Thousand-Year Soul Beasts can no longer satisfy me.

My Third Spirit Ring needs to be at least around eight thousand years.

If I'm lucky enough to encounter a ten-thousand-year one...

He clenched his fist.

That would be even better.

After all, absorbing a Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit Ring beyond one's level came with two risks: Physical Constitution and spiritual shock!

Normally, a Soul Master had to reach the Soul King stage at level fifty before they could absorb a Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit Ring.

That was because their Physical Constitution and Spiritual Power would have reached the required standard by then, greatly reducing the risks of absorbing a Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit Ring.

But if an ordinary Soul Master wanted to absorb a Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit Ring beyond their level,

that would be nothing but a fantasy across the entire Douluo Continent.

But Lin Ye was not an ordinary Soul Master.

The Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum had reconstructed the foundation of his body.

The Autumnwater Dew had elevated his Spiritual Power to the Soul King level.

On top of that, there was the formidable physical enhancement granted by the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger itself.

Not to mention the Double Thousand-Year Spirit Rings!

In other words,

with level-thirty soul power, along with a Soul King-level body and Spiritual Power,

the two fatal risks of absorbing a Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit Ring were both within controllable limits.

A Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit Ring? That'll be easy.

The corner of Lin Ye's mouth lifted slightly.

Just then,

Lin Ye's Spiritual Power suddenly caught a surge of soul power eighty meters to his front left, rapidly closing in.

Boom!

A tree thick enough for two people to wrap their arms around was smashed apart, splinters flying everywhere.

A massive bear covered from head to toe in grayish-white rock armor charged out of the undergrowth. Its eyes were bloodshot, and its limbs were as thick as iron pillars.

Every step it took made the ground tremble faintly.

It was a Stone Armor Bear.

Lin Ye gave it a glance, and his Spiritual Power instantly made its judgment.

Its cultivation... barely over three thousand years.

His brows furrowed slightly.

Three thousand years?

That was it?

Lin Ye turned to leave.

Its age is too low. No need to waste time.

However, when the Stone Armor Bear saw Lin Ye turn away, not only did it fail to retreat, it instead let out a furious roar.

Its limbs kicked off the ground, and its enormous body charged straight at Lin Ye like an out-of-control war chariot.

Boom!

Lin Ye sidestepped. The Stone Armor Bear's charge grazed past the corner of his clothes and pulverized two trees behind him.

"I don't even want to bother with you, and you're still chasing after me?"

The Stone Armor Bear turned around, its bloodshot eyes fixed on him as it launched another charge.

Lin Ye leaped left, and the bear chased left.

Lin Ye ran right, and it chased right.

Three times.

It had pursued him three whole times.

Lin Ye's face darkened completely.

"There's a road to heaven, yet you refuse to take it. There are no gates to hell, yet you insist on barging in, is that it?"

He stopped and turned to face the Stone Armor Bear as it pounced toward him.

"Fine."

"Since you're in such a hurry to die, then I, Lin Ye, will send you on your way!"

"Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, possess me!"

Buzz!

Black evil aura wrapped in purple lightning erupted from Lin Ye's body, while a violent gale howled and burst around him.

Two purple Thousand-Year Spirit Rings lit up beneath his feet, and the Supreme Evil Aura swept outward in all directions.

The Stone Armor Bear's charge came to an abrupt halt.

Its limbs suddenly stiffened.

A trace of fear actually appeared in its bloodshot eyes.

The Stone Armor Bear gradually began to regret its actions,

but it was already too late.

"First Spirit Skill, Evil God Thirteen Slashes!"

Lin Ye's right hand formed a claw and slashed out rapidly.

This was the first time he had used this spirit skill in actual combat since his First Spirit Ring had evolved to Thousand-Year quality.

The first slash descended.

Bang!

A web of cracks instantly exploded across the grayish-white rock armor the Stone Armor Bear was so proud of.

The second.

Crack!

The rock armor shattered, and stone fragments flew everywhere.

The third.

The rock armor across the Stone Armor Bear's chest completely collapsed, exposing the flesh beneath.

"Back when Evil God Thirteen Slashes was still supported by a Hundred-Year Spirit Ring, it took quite some effort just to pierce the rock armor of a Darkrock Giant Rhino."

"Now that it's Thousand-Year quality..."

Before the fourth slash could fall, the Stone Armor Bear had already been blasted away by the lingering force of the first three strikes. It smashed through four trees before rolling into a massive boulder.

It struggled to stand, but its limbs were trembling.

"The current First Spirit Skill is more than twice as strong as before."

Lin Ye then withdrew his tiger claw, his gaze indifferent.

"What a pity, big stupid bear. You were only a tool for testing my First Spirit Skill."

"Devour."

Buzz.

A fist-sized black vortex formed in Lin Ye's palm, its suction precisely locking onto the dying Stone Armor Bear.

It took only three seconds.

The Stone Armor Bear's body turned into streams of grayish-white motes and was completely swallowed by the black hole.

At the same time,

a current of warmth surged through Lin Ye's body before being absorbed.

Lin Ye sensed it carefully.

"My body has grown a little stronger again, but the improvement isn't as great as it was from those Wolf Raiders."

"Sure enough, a three-thousand-year soul beast is no longer enough for me."

He then raised his head and looked toward the depths of Sunset Forest.

Just then,

Rumble!

A dull, thunderous boom came from the northeast, and even the ground trembled faintly.

Then came a second and a third in rapid succession.

Along with the impacts came two completely different roars.

One was deep and heavy, like thunder rolling across the earth.

The other was sharp and piercing, carrying the scrape of metal.

Lin Ye's Spiritual Power instantly spread toward that direction.

Five hundred meters.

At the edge of his perception, two massive auras were violently colliding.

"Could those be... two Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts?"

Lin Ye's pupils suddenly contracted.

"And... are they fighting each other?"

He did not hesitate and immediately suppressed his aura as he moved in that direction.

Three minutes later.

Lin Ye crouched on a thick horizontal branch of a giant tree, using the dense foliage to conceal himself as he overlooked the battlefield below.

The sight before him made him suck in a cold breath.

A hundred-meter-wide stretch of forest had already been reduced to ruins.

Trees lay toppled everywhere, while deep ravines and claw marks covered the ground.

On the left side of the battlefield, a gigantic tiger covered in dark golden scales had its bloody maw wide open.

It was more than three times the size of an ordinary tiger-type soul beast, with limbs as thick as pillars.

Every time it stepped down, the rocks beneath its feet cracked under the pressure.

It was an Earth-Rending Dark Armor Tiger.

Lin Ye's Spiritual Power swept over it, and his heart jolted.

"It's a fifteen-thousand-year Earth-Rending Dark Armor Tiger!"

On the right side of the battlefield, a slightly smaller but bizarre-looking soul beast was retreating.

It had eight jointed limbs and a dark-purple body. Most horrifying of all was its head.

Its face actually resembled that of a human, its distorted features carrying an indescribable eeriness.

It was a Human-Faced Demon Spider.

"Its cultivation has reached twelve thousand years."

Both Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts were already covered in wounds.

The Earth-Rending Dark Armor Tiger had a bone-deep wound on its left foreleg. Its dark golden scales had been torn apart, and blood continuously seeped from the injury.

Several bloody holes pierced by spider limbs also marked its abdomen.

But the Human-Faced Demon Spider was in even worse condition.

Three of its eight jointed limbs had been severed, large portions of its purple carapace were shattered, one eye had been smashed blind, and bodily fluid mixed with dark-green mucus dripped continuously from its body.

Lin Ye leaned against the tree trunk, his arms crossed.