"Only by killing him can I leave?"
The enormous dragon eyes locked onto Gu Ping'an.
Fight? He couldn't land a hit!
Flee? He couldn't get away!
And every time he touched that silvery-white, five-colored Blue Silver Grass, he lost some of his soul power.
Even his physical condition was deteriorating, leaving him weaker and weaker.
"I'm from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect! You can't kill me!"
"If you kill me, our sect master won't let you off!"
The giant fire dragon's voice sounded fierce, but inwardly he was trembling.
"Do you mean Yu Yuanzhen?"
Gu Ping'an took a couple of steps and spoke thoughtfully.
"That old dragon is indeed formidable, but do you think he'd go to war over you?"
The giant fire dragon choked on his words.
Yu Yuanzhen truly wouldn't go to war over him.
He was merely an ordinary clan member whose martial soul had mutated.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have been "volunteered" to join the team that handled their dirty work.
Scenes from the past rose in his mind.
Just because his martial soul wasn't the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon, his clansmen looked down on him.
Even the resources that should have been his were withheld, and he had nowhere to lodge a complaint.
He couldn't even run away. Running meant betraying the clan.
"Aaaah!"
"No! I won't accept this! I won't!"
The giant fire dragon threw back his head and roared, his aura actually growing somewhat stronger.
"Did he just... break through on the brink of death?" Gu Ping'an looked momentarily stunned.
Wasn't breaking through on the brink of death usually a privilege reserved for protagonists?
Still... even that was useless unless his strength underwent a qualitative change, allowing him to forcibly break through the Time-Space Barrier I'd laid down.
"Entangling Devour!"
With a thought from Gu Ping'an, five thick ropes of Blue Silver Grass shot straight toward the giant fire dragon.
With his mind crumbling, the giant fire dragon was already a step too late by the time he noticed and tried to dodge.
One thick rope of Blue Silver Grass wrapped tightly around one of his dragon legs.
The other four followed close behind, swiftly binding his remaining three legs and his neck.
"Roooar!"
His soul power drained away, his vitality ebbed, and a distinct feeling of weakness washed over him. The giant fire dragon went completely berserk.
Snap!
Snap!
Snap!
The Blue Silver Grass ropes repeatedly pulled taut and slackened, each tug producing a strained twang.
Creak!
It was the sound of Blue Silver Grass breaking.
What terrifying strength!
Gu Ping'an silently marveled at the sight.
Even with his soul power and vitality being devoured and his body weakened, he could still tear apart ropes woven from countless strands of Blue Silver Grass.
"The Blue Silver Grass still isn't strong enough!"
With a sigh, he made the Blue Silver Grass grow and reconnect the broken sections.
Gradually, the struggling grew weaker and weaker until the giant fire dragon vanished, revealing the soul master with the fire dragon martial soul.
The Blue Silver Grass ropes unraveled, then wove themselves into relatively thinner ropes before binding the fire dragon martial soul master again.
"You seem to have run out of strength?"
Gu Ping'an stood a short distance away and asked with a concerned expression.
"Are you dying?"
"What will happen to your wife and daughter?"
"Do you think another man will take your wife?"
"Do you think someone will bully your daughter?"
"Will she call someone else Daddy?"
"Aaaah!" The fire dragon martial soul master's face twisted grotesquely, as though he had imagined something horrifying.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
Several sprays of blood burst from the fire dragon martial soul master's body. His aura rapidly faded until it disappeared entirely.
Gu Ping'an froze. He hadn't intended to kill him so quickly!
If the man had sincerely begged him, he might have shown great mercy by crippling his cultivation, one arm, and one leg, then letting him leave.
"Little brother Ping'an, are you all right?"
Seeing that it was over, Dugu Yan and the others hurried over anxiously.
"Don't worry, I'm fine." Gu Ping'an gently shook his head, signaling that they needn't worry.
Yu Long also appeared silently nearby.
When Gu Ping'an had indicated that he didn't need to intervene, he had still been somewhat worried.
He hadn't expected Gu Ping'an to single-handedly wipe out an assassination team led by one Soul Saint and two Soul Emperors.
Those Soul Kings and Soul Ancestors hadn't stirred so much as a ripple.
"Still too weak!"
Gu Ping'an looked at the silvery-white Blue Silver Grass in his palm, threaded with gold and marked with five-colored patterns.
If he were a Soul Saint, he could have easily wiped them all out without even using his time-space abilities.
"Let's return to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well first. I'll settle this score with the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect later."
Gu Ping'an brought the incident to a temporary close.
If he remembered correctly, that old dragon from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect was genuinely formidable.
During Bibi Dong's Soul Hunting Operation, she had apparently dispatched four Titled Douluos to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect, and it had ended with one dead and two seriously injured.
Judging from that, there was a strong chance that even the two Titled Douluos, She Long and Dugu Bo, wouldn't be a match for Yu Yuanzhen.
At the same time, a letter flew into the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
"The boy who escaped from the Breaking Clan over a year ago has appeared again.
He also showed up with three girls at the Seven Treasures Trading Company's headquarters in Heaven Dou City and bought four pieces of whale rubber.
One of the girls was even Poison Douluo Dugu Bo's granddaughter."
Holding the letter, Ning Fengzhi softly read out its main contents.
"Uncle Gu, Uncle Jian, what do you think?"
"A lecher." A trace of disdain appeared on Chen Xin's face.
"Back then, there were rumors that he vanished into thin air right under the nose of a Soul King from the Breaking Clan. I suspect his martial soul has spatial abilities, and that he's very talented." Gu Rong's focus differed from Chen Xin's; he placed more emphasis on the boy's talent.
"Uncle Gu is right. The fact that this boy could enter and leave the Breaking Clan without being caught at six or seven years old is enough to demonstrate his talent.
Otherwise, so many factions wouldn't have searched for him after the Breaking Clan leaked the information."
"Uncle Jian's judgment was slightly off, though. The letter says the whale rubber they bought was ten thousand, fifteen thousand, twenty thousand, and thirty thousand years old, respectively.
Dugu Bo probably wanted to conduct some research and sent them to buy it."
Hearing this, Chen Xin looked momentarily taken aback. He had indeed misjudged the situation.
"Right, speaking of which, I ran into Dugu Bo when I took Rongrong to the Star Dou Great Forest to hunt for a soul ring over a year ago.
He had his granddaughter and a little boy with him then.
But that boy looked completely different from the description we'd uncovered."
"A little boy?" Ning Fengzhi tapped his fingers lightly against the tabletop, a thoughtful look appearing between his brows.
Dugu Bo was reclusive and cold. Why would he possibly bring along a boy who had nothing to do with him?
Appearing together with Dugu Yan.
A boy!
"Uncle Jian, do you think the boy you encountered in the Star Dou Great Forest over a year ago could be this boy?"
"That... shouldn't be possible, should it?" Chen Xin hesitated.
"Fengzhi, aren't you overthinking this? If they were the same person, how could I have failed to recognize him?"
"Uncle Jian, what if he also has the ability to change his appearance?" Ning Fengzhi looked seriously at Chen Xin.
For over a year, none of the factions had uncovered any information. It was quite possible that the boy possessed an ability to change his appearance.
"I'll instruct our disciples to pay closer attention to information about Dugu Manor."
"What a pity he didn't come to our Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect to read back then."
At the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, Gu Ping'an had no idea that Ning Fengzhi had arrived at the correct conclusion through a mistaken line of reasoning.
The reason they hadn't found him for over a year was that he had spent most of his time cultivating within the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
Of course, even if he knew, he wouldn't have cared much.
He had two Titled Douluos, She Long and Dugu Bo.
Apart from a top-tier power like Spirit Hall, who would dare openly fall out with him?
"Little brother Ping'an, look."
Dugu Yan stood amid a carpet of Blue Silver Grass, her body enveloped in an extremely faint, five-colored glow.
Gu Ping'an's brows gradually knitted, puzzlement rising in his eyes.
They could practice the Five Elements Rotation Technique, but its effects seemed far weaker than they were for him.
Was it because they lacked the five elemental attributes?
When he looked at Xiao Wu, her situation was the same.
Yu Long and Shui Bing'er had only recently begun learning about meridians and acupoints and were still feeling their way forward.
"It seems I don't need to worry at all about anyone using the Five Elements Rotation Technique against me. They're already far behind me at the starting line."
Gu Ping'an swept his gaze around before letting it settle on Shui Bing'er.
It looked as though she would still need some time to learn the Five Elements Rotation Technique.
In that case... I can do a few other things first.
The light of a soul skill flashed, and ten clones appeared.
Five clones headed south and five headed north, soon leaving the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
"Ping'an, what are you sending your clones out to do?" Xiao Wu, who had nothing to occupy her, asked curiously.
In the past, Gu Ping'an's clones had hardly ever left the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
"I'm testing whether I can send my clones to the Far North to catch a soul beast for Shui Bing'er ahead of time and bring it back."
"What about the other five?" Xiao Wu pressed.
One group heading north and the other south clearly meant two different tasks.
"To find a million-year soul beast! And see if they can find an ultimate wood-attribute soul beast while they're at it."
The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was trapped in an isolated space deep within the Lake of Life, surrounded by a group of ferocious beasts.
He certainly couldn't go there in his real body.
As for an ultimate wood-attribute soul beast, that truly was just something to look for along the way.
Before you continue