What?! No, absolutely not! Xiao Yao, you want to become my Soul Ring!

A breeze swept across the creek in Spirit Creek Valley, carrying the fragrance of flowers and grass, but it could not disperse the solemnity gathering in the air.

Xiao Yao nestled against her mother, her small hand unconsciously clutching the Deer Antler Comb.

She looked up at Xiao Shenghe, then turned to her mother, the Clouded Deer Chieftain. Expectation, nerves, and a quiet resolve shone in her clear eyes.

She tugged gently at her mother's fur and asked in a low voice, with a child's tentative hope:

"Mom... that thing... can we tell Brother Shenghe?"

The Clouded Deer Chieftain's tender gaze sharpened slightly.

She did not answer at once. Instead, she raised her eyes and gave Xiao Shenghe a long look.

It was a complicated gaze, searching and appraising, yet carrying an unspoken wish to entrust something precious to him.

The other Soul Beasts by the creek seemed to sense it too. Their murmurs and rustling gradually faded as curious and grave eyes turned toward the mother, daughter, and human boy.

After several breaths of silence, as though she had finished weighing the matter, the chieftain spoke, her voice lower and clearer than usual:

"You mean... our Clouded Deer clan's unique Secret of Symbiosis?"

"Yes!"

Xiao Yao nodded hard. The light in her eyes brightened with the excitement of sharing a great secret, though a faint tremor lay beneath it.

The Clouded Deer Chieftain reached out a forehoof and stroked her daughter's head with exquisite gentleness, comforting and encouraging her.

Then she looked at Xiao Shenghe again, her gaze now open and resolute.

"All right. Since this is what you wish, and a chance for our clan,"

"Xiao Yao, tell this young man yourself."

With her mother's permission, Xiao Yao took a deep breath, as though gathering every scrap of courage she had.

She let go of her mother's fur, took a small step forward, and stood before Xiao Shenghe.

She tilted up her face, her hands clasped nervously before her, her fingertips faintly white. The air around them seemed to freeze.

Sword Douluo Chen Xin's fingers stilled on his sword hilt, and the casual look vanished from Gu Rong's gaunt face. Every Soul Beast, including the White Spirit Deer, held its breath.

Xiao Yao's lips moved several times. At last, her clear words, trembling slightly, sounded one by one through the hushed Spirit Creek Valley:

"Brother Shenghe..."

She paused. Her long lashes fluttered like the wings of a startled butterfly, as though she were gathering her last bit of courage.

Around them, dozens of Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts stopped breathing at once.

The glow on the White Spirit Deer's coral-like antlers ceased to flow;

the chill breath exhaled by the Ice Crystal Lion King congealed into a cloud of frost that lingered in the air;

the Spirit Bird folded its shimmering wings and perched motionless on a branch, like a sculpture of colored glass.

"I... could I..."

Her voice dropped lower, yet somehow pierced the utter silence.

She gripped the comb until her knuckles paled. Her gaze, however, grew steadier as she looked straight into Xiao Shenghe's eyes and delivered a declaration that could split stone and startle the heavens:

"Become your Soul Ring?"

Click.

Soul Ring?

Those two words struck and echoed inside his skull again and again, each syllable carrying the bloody tang of rust.

They were not a question, but the most absurd, coldest statement imaginable.

A chill erupted not from outside him, but from deep within his marrow, from the soul that had just sworn to "protect this haven and them with my life."

It shrieked up his spine, freezing his blood and stiffening his muscles as it went. Even his breath felt full of ice shards.

Hunt her? No... impossible!

He roared inwardly, but the sound lodged in his throat and became a voiceless tremor.

Images flashed through his mind, colliding wildly:

the weighty trust and hope that transcended their species in the chieftain's eyes when she placed Xiao Yao's hand in his;

the fragrance of grass and trees when he entered Spirit Creek Valley, and that fleeting, dreamlike peace after the Soul Beasts had set aside their hostility;

the tender vow that had risen in his heart to protect her innocence forever when he stroked Xiao Yao's hair and gave her the comb...

Now those warm, bright memories were stained a hideous bloodred by the words "Soul Ring."

I promised to protect them... and they want to offer her up? The young shoot I want to shelter... is asking to become part of my power? Even if it means she ceases to exist?

The absurdity clenched his heart like an icy hand, squeezing it with a pain that nearly suffocated him.

His ears rang. Every sound around him—the wind, the creek, the others' breathing—fell away,

leaving only the roar of blood against his eardrums and those childish words looping endlessly through his mind, growing louder each time.

He even began to wonder whether his soul had suffered some hidden injury during the fight with the Evil Soul Master, one he had failed to notice until it produced this horrifying hallucination.

"Wh... what?!"

The cry finally tore free of his chest.

But none of his usual clarity remained in his voice. It came out hoarse and warped, like the last breath forced from a broken bellows, filled with a terror and brokenness he did not recognize in himself.

It was not a question so much as an instinctive refusal of the reality before him.

He jerked his head up, the movement sluggish because his body had gone rigid.

"Let me explain, you three."

The chieftain stepped forward.

"Our Clouded Deer clan is born with a divine ability called the Secret of Symbiosis."

"To cast off this body in exchange for merging with your soul... it sounds mad, doesn't it?"

The Clouded Deer lowered her head and gently touched the back of the young Soul Master's hand with her damp nose. Her voice was ethereal and distant, as though it came from deep within the forest.

"Our clan has lived in this mist-shrouded valley for generations."

"We live long enough to witness the rise and fall of several dynasties. Yet it is as though an invisible chain binds us here. We can see the sky, but we can never fly beyond it."

She paced a few steps, her hooves soundless on the damp moss.

"I have seen too many of my kin reach the end of their long years, their strength fading little by little until they become a handful of soil in this valley and return to nature."

"There is nothing wrong with that. It is the fate of us Deer Souls."

She turned her head and fixed her clear eyes on the Soul Master.

"But you are different. There is a light in your eyes, a light that wants to break through something and reach someplace far away."

"It reminds me of our clan's oldest legend."

"The legend speaks of a form of life beyond the mortal world, one that stands above the shackles of life, death, and all their rules. We call it 'God.'"

A faint tremor entered the Clouded Deer's voice, born of longing and resolve.

"On our own, we could spend our entire lives striving and never touch that realm."