Chapter Summaries

Lin En fought Di Tian, who tested his abilities and taught him to rely on instinct against overwhelming speed. The battle ended with Di Tian identifying three problems in Lin En’s combat, though he had not yet named them.

• Di Tian recognized Lin En as human under Douluo Continent’s planar laws and assessed his dragon might as impressive but incomplete.
• Lin En used his transformed body, Word Spirit: Moment, and Vector Manipulation Domain to strike Di Tian and briefly force him back.
• Di Tian enveloped Lin En in Ultimate Darkness, but Lin En countered with Ultimate Light and flames to break through the domain.
• Di Tian told Lin En to abandon his eyes and spiritual power; Lin En followed the advice and used instinct and his bloodline to narrowly evade attacks.
• Lin En unleashed the Eye of the Wind King and sent a vast fire vortex crashing down, but Di Tian cut through the flames with his dark-purple sword.
• Di Tian ended the exchange by telling Lin En he had found three problems during their battle.

Di Tian explained Lin En’s flaws in handling his life force, combining his abilities, and relying on borrowed bloodlines, then urged him to build his own unified path. He allowed Qiu’er to stay with Lin En while Wan Demon King directed them to a life-attribute Soul Beast, but told Lin En to leave the Core Zone after half a month.

• Di Tian warned Lin En that he used borrowed life force without understanding its source and had not fused his many powers into a coherent path.
• Di Tian demonstrated how he combined spear and sword techniques with darkness and spatial power, then advised Lin En to make his own bloodline the foundation of his abilities.
• Di Tian invited Qiu’er back to the Core Zone and gently dismissed her concern that she had not yet helped Lin En find a life-attribute Soul Beast.
• Di Tian ordered Wan Demon King to give Lin En a location, and Wan Demon King reluctantly named the Devouring Life Ancient Tree in the Black Thorn Forest.
• Di Tian allowed Lin En to remain in the Core Zone for another half month after absorbing the Soul Beast, then ordered him to leave.

Lin En and Qiu'er entered the Black Thorn Forest and learned how it had been created by the remains of a slain Dark Demon Evil God Tiger. They headed for the forest's core to destroy a Mutated Life Tree.

• Lin En and Qiu'er entered the Black Thorn Forest, where its sinister atmosphere made Qiu'er fear that they might encounter zombies.
• Qiu'er explained that a hundred-thousand-year Dark Demon Evil God Tiger had once fought the forest's Beast Kings and that its death had left behind the ghost slaves and Soul Power that transformed the area.
• Qiu'er urged Lin En to ride on her back as they traveled to the core to find and burn the Mutated Life Tree.
• Lin En used Word Spirit: Moment, and he and Qiu'er synchronized their spiritual power so they could race through the forest at extreme speed.

Lin En and Qiu'er tracked a group of Evil Soul Masters into the Black Thorn Forest and confronted the Zhongli Three Brothers. Wan Demon King intervened, capturing the brothers and declaring that the forest would consume them.

• Lin En used Kamaitachi to locate humans in the forest and recognized their foul presence as Evil Soul Masters.
• Qiu'er and Lin En found the Zhongli Three Brothers leading Holy Spirit Disciples, and Qiu'er identified three seven-ringers and four six-ringers.
• Qiu'er burned the four six-ringers to ashes with her Ultimate Fire, while Zhongli Tian, Zhongli Di, and Zhongli Ren escaped as smoke and surrounded them.
• The brothers summoned blood-colored beast souls, enraging Qiu'er because they had tortured Soul Beast souls.
• The Black Thorn Tree attacked the brothers, pierced Zhongli Ren, swallowed their summoned beast souls, and restrained all three.
• Wan Demon King appeared through the tree and said the captured brothers would become nourishment for the Black Thorn Forest.

Wan Demon King explained how he had lured Evil Soul Masters into the Black Thorn Forest, then sent Lin En and Qiu'er to the Mutated Life Tree. Lin En burned the tree, obtained its nine-thousand-year Soul Ring, and began absorbing it while Wan Demon King provided the captive brothers’ extracted memories.

• Wan Demon King revealed that he had used a ghostly maze to lure Evil Soul Masters into the Black Thorn Forest and feed them to its trees.
• At Qiu'er's request, Wan Demon King agreed to extract Zhongli and his brothers’ memories and sent Lin En and Qiu'er toward the Mutated Life Tree.
• Lin En and Qiu'er reached the tree, where Little Sage identified the venom on its vines as lethal, though Lin En was immune to poison.
• Lin En burned the Mutated Life Tree for an hour, and its death caused the assimilated Black Thorn Forest to wither as a deep-purple Soul Ring appeared.
• Wan Demon King warned Lin En that the Soul Ring was about nine thousand years old, gave him three memory spheres, and watched as Lin En began absorbing the ring with Qiu'er's protection.

After absorbing the Devouring Life Ancient Tree’s Nine Thousand Year Soul Ring, Lin En reached level thirty-three and gained Life-Eroding Metamorphosis, a Soul Skill that blurred friend-or-foe distinctions and let him assimilate vitality and fuse bloodlines. He tested the power with Qiu'er and realized it could merge bloodlines but could not evolve them into entirely new forms.

• Lin En absorbed the Nine Thousand Year Soul Ring and broke through to level thirty-three, becoming a seven-year-old Soul Elder.
• Lin En learned that Life-Eroding Metamorphosis could assimilate external vitality and redefine what his Immune System Martial Soul recognized as friend or foe.
• Lin En realized the Soul Skill could fuse previously incompatible bloodlines, while Wan Demon King mourned the loss of the Devouring Life Ancient Tree and left.
• Qiu'er joined Lin En, and he used Life-Eroding Metamorphosis to fuse the Devouring Dragon and Three-Eyed Golden Lion scales, as well as the Dark Golden Terrorclaw Bear and Netherworld Ghost Tiger claws.
• Lin En told Qiu'er that he could fuse bloodlines but could not evolve them into new forms, and Qiu'er encouraged him to keep looking for a way.

Lin En practiced Life-Eroding Metamorphosis and told Qiu'er he would leave the Star Dou Great Forest, promising to return. As they caught fish by the river, an imposing black-robed figure appeared beside him.

• Lin En practiced blending three bloodlines with his dragon blood and decided the Nervous System Martial Soul was too dangerous to cultivate for now.
• Qiu'er asked Lin En to stay or take her with him, and Lin En explained that his path lay outside the forest.
• Lin En promised to visit Qiu'er again, and she made him swear not to forget her.
• Lin En and Qiu'er went to the river, where he recalled its rare plants, Di Tian's blood, and the elusive hundred-thousand-year Golden Tortoiseshell.
• A black-robed figure with long black hair and a gold streak appeared beside Lin En.

Di Tian told Lin En about the Dragon Clan’s lost golden age and explained why he kept Qiu'er in the Star Dou Great Forest. He thanked Lin En for naming and caring for her, gave him a piece of Gold of Life, and received Lin En’s alchemical folding knife in return.

• Di Tian described the Ascension Dragon Pillar and blamed the human gods for its disappearance and the soul beasts’ heavenly tribulation shackles, while Lin En privately suspected the Dragon God War had been a misunderstanding.
• Di Tian explained that Qiu'er’s Power of Fate made her both blessed and vulnerable, so he kept her in the Star Dou Great Forest to protect her from calamity.
• Di Tian thanked Lin En for giving Qiu'er her name and shared how his parents had named him and given him a sword.
• Di Tian gave Lin En a small piece of Gold of Life and warned him not to place it with other metals or swallow it.
• Lin En accepted the gift and offered Di Tian an alchemical folding knife, whose inscriptions caught Di Tian’s attention.

Di Tian gave Lin En a folding knife and warned him about the dangers humans posed to Soul Beasts, while explaining why he believed they could never unite. He invited Lin En to seek refuge in the Star Dou Great Forest, then turned to catch fish after Qiu'er refused to share hers.

• Lin En explained the folding knife’s Alchemical Domain and how Dragon Script could turn it into a flaming longsword.
• Di Tian compared the knife with human Soul Tools and described how human ingenuity and fast cultivation had helped humans oppress Soul Beasts.
• Di Tian said Soul Beasts were divided and barbaric, and privately hoped his lord would awaken and lead them to greatness.
• Di Tian warned Lin En to be wary of humans and offered him refuge in the Star Dou Great Forest if he could not manage outside.
• Qiu'er returned with a bag of fish and refused to share them with Di Tian, who eyed a Ten-Thousand-Year Thunderclap Cat as a way to catch fish.

As Lin En prepared to leave the Star Dou Great Forest, he asked Little Sage about the significance of Di Tian’s scale and learned that he might be the likeliest heir to the Dragon God’s Godhood. Little Sage argued that the Godhood was the best foundation for Lin En’s ambition to become the Lord of Reality and Final Calamity.

• Lin En considered devouring Di Tian’s scale to obtain Dark Dragon Clan bloodline memory cells while preserving his Light Holy Dragon bloodline.
• Little Sage explained that the Dragon God was the only being to possess all nine Dragon Clan bloodlines and that the Dragon Kings and beast race had helped destroy what he cherished.
• Lin En questioned whether the Dragon God would grant his Godhood to an outsider from another world, and Little Sage concluded that Lin En was the most likely inheritor.
• Lin En said he could create his own Godhood, but Little Sage explained that the saturated Divine Realm made creating a new Godhood and realm exceptionally difficult.
• Little Sage told Lin En that the Dragon God’s Godhood was the only known foundation strong enough for his goal of becoming the Lord of Reality and Final Calamity.