The Fourth Soul Ring

Before his body could rebound and hit the ground, Lin Yuan curled the fingers of his right hand into a claw, blue flames rising from his palm.

With a flash, Lin Yuan moved like Li Siyuan seizing Li Keyong in Hua Jianghu: Bad Guys. Using the techniques of the Supreme Sacred Heaven and Earth Technique, he gripped Han Li's throat with one hand.

"Ugh, th-this... how is this possible?"

With his throat seized by Lin Yuan, Han Li felt his brain starve for oxygen. He could not muster even a shred of strength. Staring incredulously at the veiled man before him, he said in a trembling voice:

"You're not from the Star Luo Empire's imperial family at all. You're a transmigr—"

Lin Yuan's gaze turned icy. Rather than loosening his grip, he increased his strength, leaving Han Li unable to utter another word. Then, in the rare manner of transmitting his voice through Soul Power, he explained:

"As expected of the Evil-Exorcising Divine Thunder. Even against a Soul Master like me, who is neither demonic nor ghostly, nor aligned with darkness or evil, it can unleash such formidable destructive power."

"Even the golden lightning created by combining my two techniques cannot compare to it."

"Unfortunately, you have never cultivated any techniques. Your Soul Power is far less substantial than mine, and with the Imperial Scale Armor's enhancement, your defeat today was inevitable."

"If you must blame someone, blame your own lack of ability. Other than your martial soul, you had nothing to offer. You must have relied too much on the strength of your talent and martial soul, neglecting to temper your practical combat abilities."

"From now on, Douluo Continent will be under my command. Fellow countryman, you can rest in peace."

After saying that, Lin Yuan pressed his other hand against Han Li's forehead.

"Sp-spare me... I can offer..." Seeing Lin Yuan assume the same posture Li Siyuan had used to snap Li Keyong's neck, Han Li was frightened out of his wits and tried to beg for mercy.

Lin Yuan gave him no chance to speak. He suddenly exerted force with both hands, and with a crack, Han Li's head bent at an angle that defied the laws of physics.

Then he fell face-down onto the ground, his back toward the sky. Han Li's eyes were wide with agony; he had died with his grievances unresolved.

"Offering treasures won't help. Once I kill you, everything on you will still be mine."

As Lin Yuan spoke, he stepped forward, intending to loot the body out of habit.

At that moment, something bizarre happened.

Just as he was about to search the corpse, faint black motes of light began to emanate from Han Li's body.

The sudden change made Lin Yuan retreat with lightning speed, putting distance between them.

Yet the danger he had expected never came. Instead, the black motes slowly gathered together as they emerged, forming a black soul ring.

At the same time, Han Li's body flashed with green light and eerily transformed into a bamboo stalk roughly three meters long, its entire form radiating a lustrous golden sheen.

Its body became a translucent pale gold, its stalk about ten feet long. Fine golden lightning patterns covered it, its leaves glimmered with gold, and pale-gold Evil-Exorcising Divine Thunder continuously flickered across its surface amid swirling radiant clouds.

"This is a transformed soul beast—and a soul beast transformed from Ten-Thousand-Year Golden Thunder Bamboo."

Lin Yuan's eyes immediately lit up. Even with his usual composure, he could not help but feel exhilarated.

No matter how he thought about it, he had never expected this transmigrator's true body to be a transformed soul beast.

And it was the exact same Ten-Thousand-Year Golden Thunder Bamboo from the animation.

He did not know how the other party had managed to transform after only ten thousand years. Perhaps Golden Lightning Bamboo could only grow for ten thousand years on Douluo Continent, or perhaps there was some other reason.

In any case, this Ten-Thousand-Year Golden Thunder Bamboo had arrived at the perfect time. He had been worrying over what soul ring would be suitable for his fourth soul ring.

This bamboo had delivered itself right to his doorstep.

At the same time, he finally understood why the other party, despite possessing such a powerful martial soul and such a soul ring configuration, had almost no real combat ability.

So he had spent ten thousand years as a bamboo stalk and had never experienced any worthwhile battles.

"So when he mentioned offering... he did not mean offering treasures, but sacrifice. Was he trying to survive by offering himself? What a pity. This was a fight to the death. Even if you offered yourself as a sacrifice, I still would not have spared you."

Lin Yuan murmured inwardly. Just as he was about to take the Golden Lightning Bamboo somewhere secluded to absorb its soul ring, the golden light on its surface converged into a pale-gold Head Soul Bone.

"There is even an unexpected bonus. Unfortunately, it is only a ten-thousand-year Head Soul Bone. It would have been better if its age had been higher."

Shaking his head, Lin Yuan felt that this Soul Bone was somewhat underwhelming. Although it came from Golden Lightning Bamboo, its age was simply too low.

With a casual motion, he stored it in the Soul Tool ring hanging from his neck beneath his clothes.

Inside were the Heavenly Vial, a six-hundred-year Lone Bamboo left leg bone, a fifteen-hundred-year Thousand Illusion Bamboo Head Soul Bone, and some stolen goods that could not see the light of day.

Lin Yuan had originally planned to sell the Lone Bamboo Soul Bone and the Thousand Illusion Bamboo Soul Bone, but after receiving financial aid from Dai Mubai, Meng Baichuan, and the others, he had kept them.

After putting away the Golden Lightning Bamboo Head Soul Bone, Lin Yuan prepared to strip the Soul Tools from the other dead men before taking the bamboo away to find somewhere secluded and peacefully absorb its soul ring.

But then he noticed the injured and unconscious Zhu Qing.

"I nearly forgot about you."

Looking at Zhu Qing's pale face and the large amount of blood flowing from her body, he knew that if this continued, she would die from excessive blood loss.

Thinking of this woman's place on the must-eat list in Douluo One, he figured that if she died, it might alert other transmigrators and even prompt them to send people to investigate.

So he stepped forward to seal her acupoints and stop the bleeding, then carried her to the previous cave and stripped off her blood-soaked clothes.

Han Li had collapsed the cave entrance with a strike, which happened to prevent soul beasts from attacking.

After briefly admiring the fiery figure that had driven countless transmigrators mad.

He treated her wounds, applied medicine, and bandaged them.

He also used Firebird meat to stew a pot of soup for her.

That way, after she woke up, she would not be too weak to endure it and die inside the cave.

After finishing all this, Lin Yuan took Han Li's dead Golden Lightning Bamboo true body and eagerly went off to find a place to absorb its soul ring.

By the time Zhu Qing awoke from her weakness, it was already the latter half of the night.

Fortunately, the meat soup had finished cooking and had cooled down.

Driven by her instinct to survive, her body extremely weak, she could not care about anything else. She picked up the large ladle beside her and gulped it down.

After drinking it, she finally managed to save her life.

Only then did she realize that she was somehow inside a collapsed cave.

Through the faint sunlight shining in from the ventilation opening, she saw her bloodstained clothes, including her underwear.

The sight gave her a terrible fright. She instinctively covered her chest and looked down, only to see that the wounds on her shoulders and arms had already been treated by someone.

That person had even thoughtfully fashioned underwear for her with bandages, securely binding the fullness before her chest. Only a bottomless Somalia Trench remained.

At the sight, Zhu Qing's already pale face turned several shades whiter.

Only after seeing that her pants were still intact and that her body did not feel strange in any way did she finally let out a breath of relief.

Thank goodness, thank goodness, no one had taken advantage of her... my ass.

Her whole body had already been seen.