Black Snake Village.
It was a remote, impoverished village in the Heaven Dou Empire, bordering the Lost Trace Grand Canyon.
In days gone by.
Being close to this soul beast paradise, lush with water and vegetation, the villagers of Black Snake Village had made their living by fishing and hunting year-round, enjoying reasonably peaceful lives.
But over the past few years, floodwaters had surrounded the entire village.
The people of Black Snake Village could not escape, and even the Spirit Hall deacon who had come two years earlier to awaken the children's martial souls had been trapped here with them.
The village had completely lost contact with the outside world.
And so, the annual martial soul awakening ceremony came around once again.
This should have been a joyous occasion.
Yet the people of Black Snake Village could not bring themselves to celebrate.
In the past, if a family's child awakened a martial soul with innate soul power, even three days of feasting for all comers would hardly have been enough to celebrate.
But in Black Snake Village now.
If a child became a Soul Scholar, the entire family, young and old, would inevitably dissolve into tears.
There were no exceptions to the outcome.
Every household donned white mourning clothes.
"Children, line up. One at a time."
Dressed in a gray-white clerical uniform, Su Yuntao straightened his collar, his expression solemn.
In his eyes, no matter what circumstances they faced.
The martial soul examinations and awakening guidance that Spirit Hall provided free of charge to children of the appropriate age were sacred and inviolable.
Eight children who had reached the age of six looked at this distinguished visitor from a large town.
Their reserve held a measure of barely concealed admiration.
Fear also flickered in their yearning eyes.
Every child in Black Snake Village knew what awakening a martial soul with soul power meant.
The mere thought sent chills down their spines.
In the open space before the ancestral hall.
The awakening formation, composed of five crystals, had already been drawn.
With a wolf's howl, Su Yuntao completed his Martial Soul Possession.
One white soul ring and one yellow soul ring lit up beneath his feet.
His martial soul was the beast martial soul Lone Wolf, and he was a level 26 Power Attack System Battle Soul Master.
The martial soul awakening ceremony proceeded in an orderly fashion.
As had been the case two years earlier, most of the children awakened trash martial souls with less than one level of soul power.
"Zheng Qingqing, martial soul: Unicorn. Innate soul power: level 8!"
Su Yuntao was stunned by the result.
When he had awakened his own martial soul, his innate soul power had only been level 2.
And now he had uncovered a level 8?
The girl standing before the awakening platform looked bewildered at first, then covered her face and burst into tears.
"Next, Chen Zhuo!"
After an attendant led Zheng Qingqing away, Su Yuntao swept his gaze around. This was the last child whose martial soul had yet to awaken.
He had not held much hope to begin with.
A beneficial martial soul mutation like Zheng Qingqing's could not be replicated. It was a one-in-ten-thousand miracle.
Then both the awakening formation and the soul-testing crystal ball erupted with dazzling light.
"Chen Zhuo, martial soul: eyes? Innate soul power: level 10!"
The muscles in Su Yuntao's face twitched. He looked as though he had seen a ghost.
The boy before him actually possessed the peerless talent of innate full soul power!
As far as he knew, there were only three people in the world today with innate full soul power.
The strongest among them was Spirit Hall's current Supreme Pontiff-Bibi Dong.
"A pity it's a trash martial soul."
As far as Su Yuntao was concerned, what use could an eye martial soul possibly have?
Wasn't that a trash martial soul through and through?
After successfully awakening his martial soul, a flash of surprise crossed Chen Zhuo's face before his emotions settled into calm.
He found it perfectly natural that Su Yuntao considered his Blue-Eyed Three-Flower Pupils a trash martial soul.
In this era, the development of martial souls and the application of soul power were still in their Bronze Age.
Body martial souls would not begin to show their brilliance until ten thousand years later.
Watching Chen Zhuo calmly thank him, Su Yuntao merely assumed the child had been frightened beyond his wits and thought little more of it.
The martial soul awakening ceremony came to an end, bringing joy to some and sorrow to others.
At the home of Zheng Xiu, the village chief.
"Listen here, Zheng!"
"I've already lost one child. If I lose Qingqing too, I won't go on living!"
A woman held a little girl in her arms, already reduced to a flood of tears.
Zheng Xiu, the chief of Black Snake Village, wore a grim expression, the deep furrows on his forehead knotted together.
Damn it all! What sin had our Zheng family committed?
"Stop it! Stop it!"
"I'll go... I'll go ask, all right?" Zheng Xiu said through gritted teeth, on the verge of breaking down.
He swept his sleeve aside and left, making his way to a dilapidated tile-roofed house in the village.
"Uncle Chief, what's this about?"
The moment Zheng Xiu saw Chen Zhuo, the village chief dropped to his knees before him.
Tears and snot came pouring out at once.
"There's no need for this! Uncle Chief, please get up."
Unable to help him to his feet, Chen Zhuo could hardly fail to understand what he had come for.
But he could not refuse him, either.
Over the years, Zheng Xiu had often helped his family make ends meet.
Chen Zhuo immediately said, "I'll volunteer for this offering. Little Qingqing will be all right."
At those words, Zheng Xiu's eyes instantly reddened.
He stood up, repeating, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
The so-called offering was a sacrifice.
Every year, Black Snake Village had to present tribute twice to the "Lord River God."
And this so-called tribute consisted of human sacrifices who possessed soul power.
It was not that the people of Black Snake Village had never considered resisting.
But the price of resistance was bloody.
Floodwaters encircled the village, cutting off their livelihood.
Only after the sacrifices resumed would the Lord Snake God allow the villagers of Black Snake Village to go out hunting once a month.
Apart from Master Su Yuntao, all the adults in the village with soul power had already been "offered up."
This year, only Chen Zhuo and Zheng Qingqing met the requirements for a "human sacrifice."
Sighing heavily, Zheng Xiu returned home, where his wife and daughter crowded around him to ask how it had gone.
"That's wonderful!" A smile blossomed on Zheng Qingqing's face.
As long as they could hold on for another six months, Spirit Hall would discover that a deacon was missing and surely send someone else to investigate.
Then their village would be saved.
Smack!
Zheng Xiu slapped his daughter across the face.
"Hey! What are you doing?"
"So what if that wretched Chen Zhuo has innate full soul power? He only awakened a trash martial soul. How could he compare to our Qingqing?"
Fiercely protective of her daughter, Mrs. Zheng glared at Zheng Xiu in fury.
She kept insisting that her daughter was a born genius, and that as long as she grew up safely, she would become a distinguished figure in the empire and Spirit Hall.
Zheng Xiu no longer wanted to deal with either of them.
The sacrifice to the River God was the village's foremost concern, and many matters still awaited his coordination and planning as village chief.
Now that the sacrifice had been chosen, there was no time to lose in holding the ceremony.
Meanwhile, Chen Zhuo received the finest treatment Black Snake Village could offer.
A warm bath strewn with fresh flowers, and noodle soup with eggs and cured meat.
The children drooled at the sight of the peeled boiled eggs.
Yet not one of them clamored for a bite.
Everyone knew this was a "last meal before the executioner's blade." It was not something they could eat.
Of all the adults and children sacrificed to the River God in the past, no one had ever been heard of returning to the village.
Chen Zhuo sat in the boat, his hands and feet bound with straw ropes.
Fresh flowers and burning candles adorned the space around him.
No one wept for this orphan.
Only the fishermen sang little tunes to see him off.
There was no need for them to row alongside him. The river would carry the sacrifice to the River God on its own.
"Ah..."
At the sight, even Su Yuntao could not help letting out a sigh.
He truly had the will, but not the strength.
He understood that this so-called "River God" could not possibly be a deity!
It was probably a fallen human soul master, or a soul beast that had developed humanlike intelligence.
Whichever of the two it was, it was not something a mere Battle Soul Master like him could handle.
He could only hope that the pigeons caught earlier would carry their pleas for help to the outside world.
As long as Spirit Hall learned of their plight, they would still have hope of survival.
Aboard the wooden boat bearing the sacrifice, Chen Zhuo neither cried nor fussed, behaving nothing like a child his age.
His calm stemmed from the fact that he was a transmigrator.
He was not an ordinary citizen from Blue Star who had stumbled into transmigration through a stroke of outrageous luck.
Before coming to this world, he had already possessed supernatural abilities. He had never been an ordinary person.
As if performing a magic trick, Chen Zhuo freed himself from the ropes in an instant.
But he also understood that, faced with this seemingly insoluble predicament.
Whether in his previous life or his current one.
It was not something he could resolve as a six-year-old child.
The wooden boat drifted downstream.
It sailed into a vast expanse of thick fog.
Chen Zhuo had never considered jumping into the water to escape. He knew the "River God" clearly possessed the ability to control the current.
Entering the water would only make him die faster!
After an unknown length of time, Chen Zhuo distinctly sensed the wooden boat suddenly stop.
The current no longer lapped against its planks.
The broad river sank into an eerie stillness that made his hair stand on end.
Even the faintest breath could be heard clearly.
Chen Zhuo, who had been sitting in the wooden boat with his eyes closed in concentration, opened them.
He knew the River God had arrived.
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