The main ring and auxiliary ring could actually strengthen each other!

"Ring Devouring!"

Xiao Shenghe cried out inwardly. His purple-black main Soul Ring blazed, becoming a bottomless vortex that unleashed a powerful pull.

The deep-purple Soul Ring hovering above the Rock Armor Earth Dragon Lizard's corpse, its glow a dense earthen yellow, shuddered as though drawn by a Supreme Law. Then it turned into a streak of light and shot toward Xiao Shenghe.

It worked!

The Soul Ring reached him, but neither the expected violent surge of energy nor the frenzied backlash of a resentful soul came.

The seven-thousand-year Soul Ring touched the purple-black light around Xiao Shenghe and melted like snow beneath the sun. Like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, it was swallowed and absorbed by his main Soul Ring with a strange combination of docility and speed.

It happened faster than anyone could have imagined.

Within the Sword Qi Barrier Chen Xin had raised, the earthy-yellow Soul Ring's glow swiftly dimmed and shrank, then vanished entirely into the purple-black light flowing around Xiao Shenghe.

Xiao Shenghe trembled faintly. The lone purple-black Soul Ring beneath his feet flared, its patterns seemingly more intricate and profound, its color denser. A still, weighty presence like the earth itself now emanated from it.

His Soul Power surged like floodwaters bursting through a dam. It broke past the level-twenty bottleneck in an instant and continued to rise steadily.

Then something unexpected happened!

At the very instant Xiao Shenghe successfully devoured the Rock Armor Earth Dragon Lizard's Soul Ring with his main ring and completed the fusion—

"Ah, this..."

Sword Douluo Chen Xin, who had been standing guard with a calm expression, showed undisguised shock for the first time.

He snapped his head up. His sword-sharp gaze pierced the layers of dense foliage toward the sky.

Above the forest, where ancient trees had allowed only mottled patches of light through, the wind and clouds had changed without anyone noticing!

With Xiao Shenghe's seated figure at its center, the energy of heaven and earth within several hundred yards began to churn wildly.

It was not Soul Power, but the far more fundamental and vast Heaven and Earth Origin Energy!

It was forcibly drawn from every corner of the forest, from deep beneath the earth, and even from the void itself.

Pale-gold and earthy-yellow points of light, visible to the naked eye, streamed in from every direction like spirits answering a summons. They formed an enormous vortex of energy above Xiao Shenghe's head.

The vortex turned slowly, stirring the clouds high overhead. Light and shadow shifted sharply across that patch of sky, as though day and night were alternating in an instant.

An indescribable pressure quietly descended. It was not fierce, but it was deep as an abyss. Every Soul Beast lurking nearby,

whether ten, a hundred, or a thousand years old, lay trembling against the ground, not daring to make a sound.

Deep in the forest, several powerful presences that had remained hidden were also stirred. They swept toward the area in alarm and uncertainty, but when they sensed Chen Xin's undisguised sword intent piercing the heavens, they quickly fell silent again, not daring to pry.

This boy is only at the Soul Master level, yet he can cause a celestial phenomenon!

A storm of shock rose in Chen Xin's heart.

He had lived nearly a century and witnessed countless talented Soul Masters break through. He had also seen his share of energy tides when Titled Douluo advanced,

but he had never heard of, much less seen, a boy who had just absorbed his First Soul Ring—even as an "auxiliary Soul Ring"—and only reached the Soul Grandmaster level draw forth a resonance of heaven and earth on this scale!

This was no mere increase in Soul Power. It seemed more like...

A spontaneous "celebration" or "mark" from heaven and earth when some higher order of power and law was touched.

He thought of Xiao Shenghe's mysterious purple-black Soul Ring and that "Ring Devouring" process, so unlike anything ordinary.

Neither a normal Self-Created Soul Skill nor a Mutated Martial Soul could explain this.

Chen Xin keenly sensed that, alongside the pure essence of Soul Power in the gathering energy, there was a trace of some strange rhythm he had never encountered: searing yet profound, like the fire of stars or the restless stirring at the beginning of all things.

Xiao Shenghe was wholly unaware of the upheaval in the sky. His mind was completely immersed in looking inward.

Within his main Soul Ring, a strange Chaos Space seemed to have opened.

"Grandpa Sword, Grandpa Bone, the Rock Armor Earth Dragon Lizard's Soul Ring I just devoured didn't form a separate, complete black or purple ring inside me like an ordinary Soul Ring. It... was completely broken down and refined."

Chen Xin and Gu Rong both raised their brows.

Completely broken down and refined?

That ran directly counter to everything they knew about Soul Rings, which remained as independent stores of energy after a Soul Master absorbed them.

Chen Xin asked gravely:

"Broken down? Refined? What do you mean? A Soul Ring is formed from a Soul Beast's essence and the laws it embodies. How could it be broken down completely?"

Xiao Shenghe extended his palm and stirred his will.

No complete phantom Soul Ring appeared above it. Instead, an unusual halo of energy rose from his hand.

At its core were the starfire patterns of his purple-black main Soul Ring. Around them, streams of dense, solid earthy-yellow energy had been woven into the light.

"The earth-attribute defensive power it contained, and its immense life energy,"

Xiao Shenghe explained as he demonstrated,

"didn't remain separate. The essence of my Earth Soul drew them in and scattered them. Then... they could take the form of energy structures like earthen-yellow stone walls."

As he spoke, the earthy-yellow energy above his palm took the faint shape of several miniature walls, each covered in ancient rock patterns.

"See? They're no longer a separate 'Soul Ring skill.' They've become 'part' of my main Soul Ring's essential power—an extension of its attributes that I can call on and reshape at any time."

A spark of discovery shone in Xiao Shenghe's eyes.

"I call it—Magma Stone Wall!"

Bone Douluo Gu Rong could not help stepping forward. He stared at the fused energy, disbelief filling his hoarse voice:

"Does... does that mean absorbing a Soul Ring doesn't give you a fixed skill? Instead, it gives your essential power 'new material' and 'expanded attributes'?"

"Exactly, Grandpa Bone!"

Xiao Shenghe nodded firmly and withdrew the energy from his palm. His voice grew more impassioned.

"That's the true power of Ring Devouring! Through the 'One Main, Ten Auxiliary' structure, it theoretically lets me gain the energy of ten more Soul Rings than anyone else at the same Soul Power level."

"More importantly, it changes how Soul Rings are used at the most fundamental level. I don't simply 'wear' them and 'activate skills' anymore."

"I devour and fuse with the essential power of Soul Beasts, make that power entirely my own, and let the powers of different Soul Rings strengthen each other within my Earth Soul—so that one plus one becomes greater than two!"