The Living Bear the Past of the Dead

Bai Xiao spent an entire day practicing without pause. He could now control his Cell Martial Soul with ease.

He could switch continuously between "Martial Soul Release," "Martial Soul Possession," and "Body Martial Soul."

Bai Xiao's Cell Martial Soul could even transform his Martial Soul into any Martial Soul with a cellular structure.

It could be said that, on the current Douluo Continent, Bai Xiao's Martial Soul was likely the one with the greatest developmental potential.

Early the next morning, the sun had only just risen, casting a faint golden sheen over the Blue Silver Grass.

From the entrance of Holy Soul Village, one could see a small figure traveling alone into the distance.

He walked along the path leading out of Holy Soul Village.

Slowly, he headed deeper toward the forest.

A gray robe concealed his entire body. Through the gap beneath the hood at the front, only a pair of blue eyes could be seen.

This was how Bai Xiao had looked when he first arrived at Holy Soul Village a year ago. Now, dressed this way once more, he left the village.

Beneath the gray robe were mismatched garments. They did not match because Bai Xiao had stripped every piece from a different corpse.

Some were coats taken from old beggars who had starved to death.

Some were belts taken from the corpses of adults who had died of illness.

Some were ribbons found on the mutilated corpses of young girls.

Some were little undershirts picked up near the skeletons of children.

Some had been selected from heaps of corpses...

Bai Xiao remembered the original owners of every piece of clothing, as well as where he had found them.

Most of those people had been strangers to Bai Xiao. Only a few were people whose names he could roughly recall.

Some had died helping Bai Xiao. Some had died because of Bai Xiao. Some were merely people he had known, and Bai Xiao had simply witnessed their deaths.

Using the occasional needle and thread he obtained, along with his clumsy sewing skills, Bai Xiao stitched them together into his first functional combat suit, "The Past."

Unlike the panic he had felt when he first put on this outfit, Bai Xiao's heart was now as calm as still water.

The dead had passed on. Only the living still carried their pain and beliefs as they continued to live.

The only thing Bai Xiao could be grateful for was the more than year of peaceful days he had spent in the small village of Holy Soul Village.

Those happy days of living half-fed and half-hungry would continue to shine like gold in his memories in the years to come.

When Bai Xiao had first arrived on the Douluo Continent, he had not a single coin and could not speak the language. He could only pretend to be deaf and mute, wandering aimlessly alone.

He had gone hungry for a long time before he understood the law of the jungle on the Douluo Continent.

Fortunately, in the woods outside the city, he had luckily found the corpse of an unlucky man and traded the clothes stripped from it for his first meal.

How ironic! Bai Xiao had nearly starved to death in the fantasy world he loved, yet survived through an act he had once despised most.

He understood it then. The Douluo Continent was the romance of the strong and the hell of the weak.

Bai Xiao still remembered the day he had found a broken dagger while searching a corpse.

That day, he smiled. He smiled as he cried.

Later, he met many people, and many non-humans.

He had struggled to escape from the jaws of soul beasts in the Star Dou Great Forest, and he had also picked up rotten fruit beneath a small town's fruit shop to fill his stomach.

He had witnessed fierce battles between Soul Masters, and he had worried over tomorrow's lunch.

While living in Holy Soul Village, Bai Xiao had never thrown away the things he had obtained from searching corpses.

During his wandering days, those things had become some of the few things he could rely on to survive.

Bai Xiao had always hidden them beneath the bed in his little grass hut.

When he had first arrived in Holy Soul Village, he often had nightmares. He dreamed of being swallowed by the darkness rising from beneath his bed. He roared in the dream, yet could not hear a single sound.

When he woke with a start, he found himself clutching his defensive dagger tightly, his forehead and back soaked in cold sweat.

"The life of an ordinary person ends now."

Bai Xiao clenched his fists tightly and raised his head toward the distant crossroads. With firm steps, he walked in the direction from which he had come to Holy Soul Village.

This time, he was no longer afraid, no longer lost.

This time, he would set foot on this road again with a brand-new identity, in a new way.

The world of Soul Masters, the path of the extraordinary, would shake the continent.