Supreme Unity Descends! The Eastern Sovereign Comes to Earth!

Tang Shuo did not give her much time to be shocked.

"Delays breed trouble. Once your Soul Power recovers a little more, we move."

Half an hour later.

When Qian Renxue had recovered roughly seventy percent of her Soul Power, Tang Shuo urged her to get up.

The two set out again, following the direction they remembered as they stealthily made their way toward the lair of the fifty-thousand-year Nine-Heart Toad.

Moonlight filtered through the forest.

Qian Renxue walked ahead, her movements agile, but she kept her voice low as she repeatedly warned him.

"A fifty-thousand-year Soul Beast is on an entirely different level from a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast."

"Its intelligence is no less than that of an ordinary human."

"Every inch of its territory may be covered in venom and traps."

"Its strength, defense, and speed all far exceed anything you can imagine."

"Do not let your guard down."

With every warning, she expected to see a grave expression appear on Tang Shuo's face.

Yet the man behind her merely followed at an unhurried pace.

There was even a trace of...

An anticipatory smile on his face?

Qian Renxue frowned.

She felt that the man before her had to be insane.

"If all you want is toad venom, we can think of another way."

Her voice was very low, carrying a note of persuasion.

"We can set a trap and lure it into spitting out its venom. We take it and leave. That would minimize the risk."

It was the most rational and safest approach.

Tang Shuo merely shook his head.

"Only take the venom?"

He smiled and turned to look at Qian Renxue.

"Wouldn't that be too wasteful?"

"A fifty-thousand-year Spirit Ring is a stroke of fortune delivered right to my door. There is no reason for me to let it pass."

Qian Renxue fell silent.

Looking at the unfeigned excitement on Tang Shuo's face, she suddenly felt that all her previous warnings might as well have been spoken to a cow.

This person simply could not be judged by common sense.

Perhaps he truly possessed some trump card beyond anything she could imagine.

In the end, she merely softly uttered two words.

"Be careful."

A quarter of an hour later, the two had crept to the edge of the marsh.

The view ahead suddenly opened up, revealing a relatively dry clearing.

At the center of the clearing, a strange azure flower bloomed quietly. Its petals seemed carved from glazed crystal, radiating a dreamlike halo beneath the moonlight.

Moonlight Glazed Flower.

Beside that strange flower crouched a colossal creature.

It was a gigantic toad the size of a small water vat, entirely emerald green. Its skin was covered in folds and slime, giving off a sickeningly sweet, fishy stench.

Most horrifying of all were the nine unevenly sized fleshy tumors bulging from its broad back. They rose and fell gently with its breathing, like nine beating hearts.

A fifty-thousand-year Soul Beast, the Nine-Heart Toad.

It merely lay there, yet its vicious aura and toxic presence shrouded the entire clearing, making the air thick and dangerous.

Qian Renxue slowed her breathing as Soul Power quietly circulated through her body, ready for any sudden development.

Tang Shuo, however, appeared perfectly relaxed.

He gestured to Qian Renxue and silently mouthed:

"I'll handle it. You take the flower."

Qian Renxue's pupils contracted slightly, but she still nodded.

She watched Tang Shuo boldly step out from behind the tree where they had been hiding and enter the clearing.

"Croak—!"

The instant Tang Shuo stepped into its territory, the Nine-Heart Toad's massive eyelids flew open. Its dark golden vertical pupils locked firmly onto this unwelcome intruder.

Its furious roar shook fallen leaves from the trees.

A dense poisonous miasma instantly spread outward from its body.

Now!

At the instant the Nine-Heart Toad's full attention was drawn to Tang Shuo, Qian Renxue moved.

Her body became a golden afterimage. With a light tap of her toes against the ground, she made not the slightest sound. Like a falling feather, she silently circled behind the Nine-Heart Toad.

Her movements were impossibly fast.

Before that massive body could react, she had already leaped onto the toad's broad back. Her slender hand reached out and precisely plucked the crystalline stamen at the very center of the Moonlight Glazed Flower.

Success!

Qian Renxue did not linger for even a moment. She pushed off with her feet, her body shooting away like an arrow loosed from its bow as she instantly retreated to a safe distance a hundred meters away.

After steadying herself, she immediately turned back, her heart rising to her throat.

The Moonlight Glazed Stamen was in hand, but the true danger had only just begun.

She stared fixedly at Tang Shuo in the clearing as golden Soul Power gathered in her palm.

If Tang Shuo showed even the slightest sign of being unable to hold on, she would intervene without hesitation.

Though she knew full well that against a furious fifty-thousand-year Soul Beast, her seventy percent Soul Power might... be no more than a drop in the ocean.

All she could do was try her best.

At the center of the clearing.

The instant Qian Renxue succeeded and withdrew, the relaxed smile on Tang Shuo's face abruptly vanished.

An indescribable majesty erupted from within him.

"Martial Soul, Eastern Sovereign Taiyi."

His indifferent voice rang out like a divine decree from above the nine heavens.

A vague yet majestic golden imperial phantom slowly emerged behind him.

The phantom wore a crown and dragon robes. Its face could not be seen, yet its mere outline exuded an unparalleled aura capable of suppressing eternity and ruling the heavens.

Imperial might as deep as an abyss, imperial might as inescapable as a prison!

"Cro... croak?"

The Nine-Heart Toad's motion of preparing to spit poisonous arrows abruptly froze. For the first time, an emotion called fear appeared in those savage vertical pupils.

Under this immense pressure, its formidable demonic power seemed frozen solid. Its enormous body began trembling uncontrollably, and with a thud, it collapsed prostrate upon the ground, not even daring to raise its head.

But it was not over yet.

Tang Shuo raised a hand.

Within his body, the two mysterious masses of chaotic energy were surging violently.

This power allowed him to unleash the divine artifact, the Eastern Emperor Bell, at full strength twice.

"Come, Bell."

At his command, an ancient, heavy bronze bell engraved with the sun, moon, stars, mountains, rivers, and vegetation condensed above his palm and rapidly expanded!

Clang—!

A bell toll resounded through heaven and earth.

The sound was not loud, yet it seemed to strike directly at the depths of the soul.

The soundwaves spread, shaking souls and rending spirits!

The Nine-Heart Toad let out an incomparably shrill scream as black poisonous blood instantly flowed from its seven orifices.

Immediately after, the phantom of that enormous bronze bell shot into the sky, blotting out the moonlight. Like an overturned firmament, it thundered down upon the prostrate Nine-Heart Toad below!

The bell's shadow descended, divine might vast as the sea.

The fifty-thousand-year beast could not even release its final cloud of poison before it was completely engulfed by the bell's shadow.

There was no violent explosion, no earth-shattering clash of energy.

Only a muffled sound came from within the bell, the sound of flesh and bones being crushed under overwhelming force, followed by a cut-off scream.

The next second, the bell's shadow slowly rose, turning back into a streak of light that disappeared into Tang Shuo's body.

The invincible fifty-thousand-year Nine-Heart Toad did not leave behind a single drop of blood or a single fragment of bone.

Flesh, bone fragments, venom, and even its soul...

All had been reduced to dust.

Only a Spirit Ring radiating an ominous yet powerful aura quietly floated where it had been.

Heaven and earth fell silent.

A hundred meters away, Qian Renxue remained frozen in the stance she had taken to intervene.