Dark Bell

At this moment, on the platform.

Several people stood silently watching the train.

They wore Federation Public Security Bureau uniforms, the silver badges on their chests faintly reflecting the platform lights.

There were seven or eight of them.

They stood in different positions, seemingly scattered yet faintly forming an encirclement.

The leader was a man in his early thirties.

Lean and capable, with sharp eyes, he stared unblinkingly at the train doors.

He spoke in a low voice, but one clear enough for the team members beside him to hear.

"According to the intelligence..."

"An Evil Soul Master has entered this train."

"That Evil Soul Master does not seem to have made a move yet."

"So when the time comes, we need to act quickly, lest we cause even greater casualties."

The others nodded.

"Yes."

Then, the train doors slowly opened.

People streamed out in a lively bustle.

A young man left amid the crowd.

His pace was neither hurried nor slow. He made no deliberate attempt to avoid anyone, as though he were merely an ordinary passenger.

But if someone looked closely...

They would discover that everyone within half a foot of him unconsciously kept a subtle distance from him.

The man instinctively glanced over.

Ripples rose in his heart.

He could not explain why.

The instant that young man appeared, his gaze had been drawn to him without his control.

It was a feeling he could not put into words.

"Captain."

At that moment, a voice rang out.

It brought him back to his senses.

The man shook his head slightly.

By now, the crowd had thinned considerably.

Yet that Evil Soul Master had still not come out.

It seemed the target was still inside the train.

He made a hand signal first, and the team members moved at once, rushing into the train entrance.

Yet moments later, they stood in the empty carriage, staring at one another.

The seats were arranged neatly.

The ceiling lights glowed softly.

But throughout the entire train...

There was not a single person besides them.

Someone asked in confusion.

"Where is he?"

"Was the intelligence wrong?"

Meanwhile, at the exit of the soul train station.

The evening breeze carried the city's distinctive nighttime scent of ordinary life, along with faint music drifting from afar.

Cao Xin glanced back at the train sitting silently on the platform, then at the Federation Public Security Bureau members hurrying into the carriages, before withdrawing his gaze.

Interesting. They had arrived rather quickly.

Unfortunately, they were still one step too late.

And if he had not come...

That train would not even have reached this station.

At that moment, a little girl noticed Cao Xin, and her eyes suddenly lit up.

Then she tugged at the clothes of the woman beside her and said brightly.

"Mommy, that big brother is so handsome."

Drawn by her daughter's cry, the woman looked over.

Yet all she saw was a cluster of fallen leaves drifting slowly down.

Half a month later...

Inside a hidden Holy Spirit Cult stronghold in Heaven Dou City.

At this moment, Na Nali's expression was incomparably gloomy.

She had a beautiful face and looked only slightly over thirty, dressed in tight black-and-red clothing.

She was one of the Holy Spirit Cult's Four Heavenly Kings and the person in charge of this core stronghold.

During this period, she had been arranging for her subordinates to launch attacks against the Federation...

In order to obtain enough living beings for the Holy Cult's use.

But for some unknown reason, more than half of the Evil Soul Masters who had accepted attack assignments had died without a sound.

They had completely lost contact midway through their missions.

They had not even been able to find their bodies.

Not only had this reduced the resources they obtained, it had also made the cultists too afraid to accept missions.

They feared that they too would die for no apparent reason.

After all, among those dead Evil Soul Masters...

Even the weakest had been Four-Ring Soul Ancestors.

The stronger ones had even been mighty Seven-Ring Soul Sages!

One had to know that a Seven-Ring Soul Sage was already enough to serve as the backbone of a faction.

An Eight-Ring Soul Douluo could guard an entire stronghold.

And there was even less need to mention a Nine-Ring Titled Douluo.

They were all high-ranking figures within a faction.

Although there were far more Titled Douluos in this era than in previous eras.

The status of Titled Douluos...

Had not been greatly affected.

And this Heaven Dou City stronghold was also one of the Holy Spirit Cult's few core strongholds.

Therefore, a Titled Douluo was stationed here.

And now, because too many subordinates had died...

Although many people feared Na Nali's strength, they still privately said in all kinds of ways that she was unworthy of her position.

They said she could not even protect her own subordinates, and that every mission she arranged was nothing more than sending people to their deaths.

This infuriated Na Nali to the extreme.

She wanted nothing more than to kill them all.

But she also knew...

Killing them all would only unsettle the Holy Cult's people.

It would make her position within the cult even more awkward.

So she could only endure it.

At this moment, killing intent burst from Na Nali's eyes.

She had better not find out who had done this!

Otherwise, she would make them taste every kind of torture the Holy Cult had to offer, leaving them unable to live or die!

At this moment, Cao Xin had arrived outside this stronghold.

Over the past half month...

He had also eliminated quite a few Evil Soul Masters.

Thus, he had learned of many Holy Spirit Cult strongholds within the Federation.

However, to avoid alerting the enemy, he had carefully selected among those strongholds and ultimately chosen this one, guarded by a Super Douluo.

He had already thoroughly explored the smaller strongholds whose strongest members were only Soul Sages or Soul Douluos.

Basically, one sword stroke meant one stronghold.

But they offered almost no improvement to his comprehension.

Therefore, he needed opponents with more weight.

Although challenging Titled Douluos would have been safer with his current strength.

Still.

His comprehension had hit another bottleneck.

Either he could let nature take its course and slowly grind through it.

Or he could face danger and force a breakthrough.

He chose the latter.

Thus, Cao Xin chose this Holy Spirit Cult stronghold guarded by an Evil Soul Master with the cultivation of a Super Douluo.

After all, he bore his old man's mark. If he truly encountered mortal danger, his old man could tear through space and descend.

It was a deal with nothing to lose and everything to gain.

That confidence also allowed him to remain as calm as usual when facing a Super Douluo, without the slightest burden.

As for Soul Power cultivation...

With Upgrade Pills.

He did not lack it at all.

Upgrade Pills were absorbed perfectly and had no side effects.

Even if he had not taken the Immortal Path, but instead followed the Douluo Plane's traditional soul master path...

As long as he consumed an Upgrade Pill formed from a Peak Quasi-God, he would immediately step into the Peak Quasi-God realm.

That was the absurdity of Upgrade Pills.

They turned everything into nourishment...

Skipping over centuries of accumulation and ascending to the heavens in a single step.

But if he took that traditional path...

Tang Hao would block him from becoming a god.

And if he wanted to force his way to godhood purely through Upgrade Pills, he would be no different from those Evil Soul Masters of the Holy Spirit Cult.

At the very least, he would have to be like the Demon Empress...

Either devour tens of millions of living beings.

Or devour a host of powerful experts.

And finally, break through to godhood.

But gods made that way were also trash.

Third-Level Gods, and without god positions at that.