Hunting Soul Beasts

After spending a day in the outer region of the Star Dou Great Forest, they had encountered mostly hundred-year Soul Beasts. Even the few thousand-year ones had been passed over due to incompatible attributes or insufficient cultivation age. However, the three twenty-level students had successfully obtained their respective Soul Rings with the help of Gu Hengzhi, Zhu Zhuqing, Xuan Yue, and the others. Dean Kong Ling naturally would not intervene lightly; after all, if they could not even kill hundred-year Soul Beasts, these students were not worth cultivating.

As for Meng Yiran, Gu Hengzhi had not found any trace of her. The reason was simple. Without Shrek Academy's setup, Meng Yiran had swiftly hunted down that sixteen-hundred-year Phoenix-Tailed Cockscomb Serpent. Naturally, the Human-Faced Demon Spider would not appear, leaving Gu Hengzhi with no way to find it. As for the Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, the Titan Giant Ape, it had even less to do with them.

"Listen up, everyone." Kong Ling swept her gaze across the group, her voice low and solemn. "We have now completed our task of adding Soul Rings for the students at rank twenty Soul Power. Next, we need to find thousand-year Soul Beasts to obtain Soul Rings for Gu Hengzhi, Xuan Yue, and the others. Therefore, we must venture deeper into the Star Dou Great Forest. The situation there is far more complicated than in the outer region. You could say thousand-year Soul Beasts are everywhere, while hundred-year Soul Beasts are as common as stray dogs. So, we need to adjust our formation and stay closer together."

"Understood." The seven high-spirited students answered in unison, determination gleaming in their eyes.

Early the next morning, sunlight filtered through the dense forest, falling like fine golden gauze and revealing the Tyndall Effect. After resting for the night, everyone was refreshed as they began heading deeper into the Star Dou Great Forest.

Yet the Star Dou Great Forest was unusually quiet that day. There were no insects chirping, no small animals rustling through the woods. There was only endless silence, as though the entire forest were holding its breath. An eerie atmosphere, like an invisible pressure, enveloped the eight members of Righteous Heaven Academy and stretched their nerves to the breaking point.

"I think we have entered the territory of a powerful Soul Beast. Be ready to fight at any time." Gu Hengzhi's voice broke the silence. His gaze was sharp and vigilant, as though it could pierce the dense forest. As he spoke, he lightly leaped down from Xiao Qing's back, agile as a leopard, and let Xiao Qing lead the way alone.

Before long, Xiao Qing suddenly came to a stop. Gu Hengzhi and Kong Ling looked in the same direction almost simultaneously, their eyes full of vigilance and wariness. Their heartbeats involuntarily quickened, as though they could hear them echoing through the silent forest. Direction.

Kong Ling's eyes widened in fury, her voice booming like a bell. "Release your martial souls! A powerful Soul Beast is racing toward us. Prepare for battle!"

Gu Hengzhi's expression turned grave as he muttered an incantation. With a sweep of his hands, statues of the Earth Deity and the Day-and-Night Patrol Gods shot out like streams of light. He swiftly activated the Night Patrol God's ability. The Night Patrol God's phantom instantly became illusory and darted forward like a ghost to investigate what kind of Soul Beast it was.

The Night Patrol God's phantom sped along like lightning, appearing and disappearing without a trace and giving off not the slightest aura. In the blink of an eye, it arrived mere meters from the Soul Beast.

This Soul Beast was enormous, nearly five meters long and standing a full two and a half meters at the shoulder, like a towering armored behemoth. Its body was incomparably muscular, yet it lacked the usual ferocity of a savage beast. Diamond-shaped silver-white scales covered its entire body, each one like a carefully polished mirror, smooth as silk, with faint blue-violet halos shimmering around the edges—the mysterious traces left by circulating Soul Power. The gaps between its scales were so tight they seemed seamless, yet as it moved, they opened and closed slightly, reflecting the swaying shadows of trees and scattered stones like countless shattered mirrors dancing in the air.

Its head was streamlined, its contours smooth and natural. It had no obvious ears or nose, only a pair of vertical pupils set within its "mirror" surface like two brilliant jewels. Their pupils were pure silver-white, rolling like flowing mercury whenever they moved, cold and mysterious.

Without question, it was a Mirror Shadow Beast, a powerful Soul Beast with a cultivation age of five thousand six hundred years. It was the perfect match for Xuan Yue's mirror martial soul, with no equal.

At that moment, the Mirror Shadow Beast was locked in battle. Opposing it was a Scarlet Fire Fox of just over fifteen hundred years. Whether in bloodline quality or Soul Power cultivation, the two were as far apart as heaven and earth. Yet after struggling countless times on the brink of death, that Scarlet Fire Fox had comprehended a unique technique. It gathered fire-attribute power in its limbs, causing explosions the instant they touched the ground. Using the recoil from those small explosions, it fled at high speed like an arrow leaving the bow. However, the technique did not come without a price; repeated use inflicted considerable damage on its limbs.

Then the Mirror Shadow Beast let out a roar. Its tail, over two meters long, swept through the air, and as Soul Power gathered, it projected and copied three clones. Even Gu Hengzhi found it difficult to tell the difference between them. The three clones and the original formed an encirclement as they pursued the Scarlet Fire Fox. The Scarlet Fire Fox was remarkable as well, actually leading the Mirror Shadow Beast straight toward the eight members of Righteous Heaven Academy.

"Dean Kong Ling, I found it! It's a Mirror Shadow Beast of around five thousand six hundred years. It's hunting a fifteen-hundred-year Scarlet Fire Fox and is running in our direction. I think it would be perfect for Brother Xuan Yue and Sister Ming Ling."

Besides Gu Hengzhi and Zhu Zhuqing, the other student who had reached rank thirty Soul Power was a female student named Ming Ling. Her martial soul was a village dog, a village dog that had successfully mutated, gaining an additional fire attribute. At that moment, excitement gleamed in her eyes, as though she could already see the future where her strength rose dramatically.

Dean Kong Ling's eyes instantly lit up like stars. She secretly rejoiced. She had not expected their luck to be so good; in one stroke, they had solved the Soul Ring problem for both Xuan Yue and Ming Ling. Xuan Yue in particular had encountered the top-tier Soul Beast best suited to him—the Mirror Shadow Beast!

"Dean, you have to help me catch that Mirror Shadow Beast! It—it's truly important to me!" Xuan Yue's voice trembled slightly. A feverish flame burned in his eyes, a craving for power, an irrepressible impulse. His fists clenched tightly, his nails digging deep into his palms as though he wanted to fuse that power into his body.

Dean Kong Ling tapped the ground with the tip of her foot, and the Soul Power around her suddenly boiled like an erupting volcano. In an instant, seven-colored radiance surged from her body, unfurling behind her like a magnificent painting. The light condensed into a Seven-Colored Peacock with a wingspan of nearly thirty meters. Its red feathers blazed like burning flames; its orange shimmered like flowing gold; its yellow was as scorching and dazzling as the sun; its green was as fresh as jade; its cyan was as deep and mysterious as a secluded pool; its blue was as vast and boundless as the sea; and its purple was as dreamlike and ethereal as a nebula. Every feather gleamed with a lustrous sheen, as though endowed with life. Its tail feathers spread into a vast fan-shaped train, and as they hung down, streams of light seemed to fall in soft cascades, like a fairy dancing gracefully.

With a low shout, two yellow, two purple, and four black Soul Rings—a total of eight—rose beneath her feet like eight enormous dragons spiraling upward. The Soul Rings interlocked tightly and spun rapidly around the peacock, releasing Soul Power fluctuations that made hearts tremble. The outermost eighth Soul Ring was black to the point of nearly turning red, like an abyss from hell. It came from a Soul Beast more than ninety-nine thousand years old and contained boundless might.