The air in Mistveil Swamp carried a cloying stench of rot.
Chu Yao stood atop a dead Ironbark Tree, looking down over the emerald-green mire below.
Her expression was calm, a calmness that stood out starkly amid the deathly stillness of the swamp.
"Emerald Nether Python, ten thousand years old, eighty-one meters long."
Chu Yao ran a fingertip over the markings on the map, her voice utterly flat.
"Its venom glands are located beneath its jaws and at the tip of its tail. Its venom can melt thousand-year black iron in an instant."
Jiang Tieyi stood behind her, fanning the air in disgust.
"This place reeks worse than the latrine back home."
Chu Yao ignored him.
Su Chen stepped off the back of a Shadow Leopard and landed soundlessly beside the dead tree.
He looked toward the faintly visible emerald back deep within the swamp.
"How long does your Poison Mist Formation need?"
"It's already set up."
Chu Yao turned her head, a thin layer of frost on her face.
"I came here last night while you were sleeping."
Ling Shuang muttered softly from the side, "No wonder her eye circles were so dark this morning..."
Chu Yao pretended not to hear.
She removed six black ceramic bottles from her waist and lined them up on the tree trunk.
"The Emerald Nether Python relies on absorption through the skin. My Myriad-Poison Gu Mother counters it."
She pulled the stopper from the first bottle, and a wisp of grayish-purple smoke slid down the tree trunk.
"But this thing has thick skin and tough flesh. Toxins invade too slowly from the outside, so I need an opening."
"Drag it into the heart of the formation and wear down thirty percent of its strength."
Su Chen nodded without another word.
Three bear roars exploded from the western side of the swamp.
Six Dark Golden Terrorclaw Bears smashed through the mud and water, with Iron Wall at the lead, its golden claws cleaving through the viscous surface.
The swamp erupted.
A colossal emerald creature burst from the mire, sending mud spraying sixty meters into the air.
The Emerald Nether Python's head was larger than a millstone, rage blazing in its vertical pupils.
It spat out a pillar of dense green venom. Iron Wall twisted aside and took it head-on, its left shoulder corroded into a scorched mark the size of a palm.
The six bears did not retreat. They tightened their encirclement and drove the python east as though herding livestock.
To the east lay Chu Yao's killing ground.
The Emerald Nether Python sensed the danger and abruptly turned around.
Ten Purple Lightning Thunder Eagles dove from the clouds, lightning weaving into a giant net that sealed off the northern exit.
The Emerald Nether Python was forced straight into the formation.
Grayish-purple poison mist surged madly from cracks in the ground.
Chu Yao stood high above, her hands forming seals as the Gu Mother phantom behind her spread translucent wings.
A quarter hour of frenzied struggle passed.
The Emerald Nether Python's movements grew slower and slower, while dark fluid seeped from the surface of its scales.
It was a sign that its defenses were being stripped away layer by layer.
"Close enough."
Chu Yao jumped down from the dead tree.
She walked into the poison mist. The smoke that could corrode black iron swirled around the hem of her dress, obedient to an absurd degree.
The Emerald Nether Python sensed the threat and lunged desperately, its fangs aimed at Chu Yao's throat.
Chu Yao extended her right hand.
A golden gu insect flew from her palm, its wings buzzing.
The insect burrowed into the snake's mouth and traveled down its throat.
Gu Mother Soul Devourer.
The Emerald Nether Python's body convulsed violently three times. Then its enormous shell went limp in an instant, crashing into the mire without another sound.
A black Spirit Ring rose up.
Chu Yao's absorption process was exceptionally quiet.
The Gu Mother phantom grew increasingly solid until it completely enveloped her.
Level forty-one. Soul Ancestor.
The moment her fourth soul skill condensed, the air within a four-hundred-meter radius changed in quality.
"Myriad Poisons Domain—Corroding Heart, Eroding Bone."
A pale purple membrane of light spread in all directions.
Wherever it swept, weeds withered, rotted, and turned to black ash within three seconds.
Jiang Tieyi shot back three hundred meters in a single breath.
He stared at the expanding purple death zone, his scalp tingling.
"Is this woman planning to turn the whole swamp into a dead zone?"
Chu Yao withdrew her domain and walked out expressionlessly.
"Every second a living creature remains in this domain, another layer of toxin accumulates."
"After ten layers, flesh and blood turn to water."
She said no more. The residue on the ground had already provided the answer.
The next day, it was the Frosthorn Rhino.
This Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast crouched at the bottom of a glacial crevice, its body covered in an ice armor three inches thick.
Su Chen's strategy consisted of only four words: "Heat it first, then freeze it."
Mo Qianye struck first, Nether Phoenix Heavenly Flame pouring down from above the crevice.
Black fire licked at the ice armor, sending massive clouds of steam into the sky.
The three-inch-thick armor melted until only a thin shell remained.
The Frosthorn Rhino went mad, frantically secreting cold energy in an attempt to repair it.
But Yan Wuji was already waiting at the exit.
He pressed his right palm against the rocky wall of the crevice.
Extreme cold traveled through the veins of the rock, bypassed the gap in the ice armor, and penetrated directly into flesh and blood.
The Frosthorn Rhino froze in place.
It lowered its head and watched the exposed skin on its chest turn bluish-white as its blood instantly solidified.
"Absolute Zero."
Yan Wuji withdrew his hand.
The Frosthorn Rhino remained in its roaring pose as it transformed into a translucent crystal.
Cracking sounds erupted everywhere, and the entire Soul Beast shattered into ice fragments across the ground.
Level forty-one. Soul Ancestor.
"Profound Ice Forbidden Domain—Ten Thousand Miles of Ice Seal."
The temperature within a thousand-meter radius of the crevice instantly dropped to zero.
Streams turned solid, while moisture in the air condensed into fine needles suspended in midair.
Mo Qianye watched the white mist from his breath turn into ice grains and fall to the ground.
"When we work together in the future, stay away from me."
Yan Wuji smiled politely. "Certainly."
Jiang Tieyi's hunt was the simplest—and the most brutal.
The Ten-Thousand-Year Ironhide Earth Bear ranked among the top three in defense within its level.
This time, Su Chen drew no plans and made no positioning arrangements.
"Fight it head-on."
Jiang Tieyi grinned, baring his white teeth.
"It should've been this way from the start."
Ten Dark Golden Terrorclaw Bears formed an arrowhead formation and charged straight at the Ironhide Earth Bear.
Fists slammed against iron armor, and every impact shook open cracks in the ground.
Iron Wall was sent flying, then climbed back up and charged again.
Little Gold was stomped into the earth, only to dig its way out and clamp down on the bear's hind leg.
Half an hour later, the Ironhide Earth Bear's sternum cracked.
Jiang Tieyi overlapped his fists, poured all his Soul Power into them, and slammed his entire body into the Earth Bear's chest.
The sound of bones breaking was so crisp it made their teeth ache.
Level forty-one. Soul Ancestor.
"Wild Gravity Field—Qian Jun Descends to Earth."
Jiang Tieyi stomped the ground.
Within a six-hundred-meter radius, gravity instantly doubled.
Caught off guard, Chu Yao dropped to one knee, murderous intent flashing in her eyes.
"Turn it off!"
"Oh, sorry." Jiang Tieyi withdrew his power with an awkward grin.
Ye Linglong's battle made no sound.
The Ten-Thousand-Year Phantom Moth released hallucinatory scale powder beneath the moonlight.
Ten Shadow Leopards sealed off its retreat, yet did not move.
Ye Linglong stood directly beneath the Phantom Moth and stared straight up at it.
Substantial Mental Shock overflowed from those crimson pupils.
The Phantom Moth's wings began to tremble, and large patches of scale powder fell away.
A thin line of blood flowed from Ye Linglong's nostril.
She did not wipe it away. A ring of crimson light erupted from her pupils.
The Phantom Moth fell straight from the sky, its compound eyes shattering into grayish-white powder.
Its mental core had completely collapsed.
Level forty-one. Soul Ancestor.
"Annihilation: Myriad Forms Return to Ruin!"
She stared at a tree in the distance.
The birds perched on the tree fell simultaneously, struggling on the ground for a long time before flying off crookedly.
"Any target I lock onto loses all senses within three seconds."
"They can't see, can't hear, and can't even sense Soul Power."
Yan Wuji commented, "That move cuts off all paths to survival."
Deep within Star Dou Great Forest, atop a massive boulder struck by lightning.
The six of them stood in a line.
Four Spirit Rings glowed beneath each person's feet.
Two purple, two black.
That Spirit Ring configuration, which defied common sense, suppressed the area for hundreds of meters around them so thoroughly that no Soul Beast dared approach.
Su Chen looked at them.
Mo Qianye's burns, Chu Yao's dark eye circles, Yan Wuji's torn clothes, Jiang Tieyi's blood scabs, Ye Linglong's bloodstains.
Three days, five Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
"One person left."
Su Chen looked at Ling Shuang.
Ling Shuang sat cross-legged at the edge of the boulder, her feet dangling and swinging in the air.
She held the beast-hide map, worn nearly to tatters from being unfolded so often, her fingertip resting on the deepest part of the forest.
The old man had drawn three circles there in red ink.
"Where is your target?"
Ling Shuang turned the map over.
A faded line of writing covered the back.
—South of this realm, three beasts rule together. Trespassers die.
Chu Yao's pupils contracted sharply.
"That is the boundary of the Three Great Guardian Beasts' territory."
Ling Shuang rolled up the map, jumped down from the boulder, and dusted off her skirt.
"My target is right on the boundary line."
She smiled, her eyes curving into crescents, looking utterly harmless.
But at that moment, no one could ignore the madness beneath that smile.
Before you continue