When Qian Renxue and the others arrived, they found Chen Zhuo holding a gray-black pearl.
"What is that?"
Naturally, they had also witnessed the bizarre scene moments earlier.
"The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's life-bound Poison Core." Chen Zhuo smiled.
The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger was exceedingly cunning. After its body perished, it would attach its soul to its life-bound pearl, deceiving its enemies by feigning death.
How could the natives of the Douluo Plane have ever encountered such a trick?
Even Tang San had let it slip through his fingers, allowing it to open a spatial gate and flee to the Otherworld.
In the end, it had helped another world's chosen child of fortune defy heaven and change his destiny, attaining godhood.
One could say that this Evil God Pearl, which housed the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's remnant soul, was the greatest opportunity the beast had to offer!
"Stand guard for me."
Chen Zhuo glanced at Snake Lance Douluo and Dugu Bo, then opened his mouth and swallowed the Evil God Pearl whole.
Everyone watched a black Soul Ring emerge from the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's body.
"It really was a ten-thousand-year Soul Beast!" Qian Renxue and the others were filled with emotion.
It was hard to imagine that a Soul Beast capable of battling four Titled Douluo-level Soul Masters for so long truly had only a ten-thousand-year cultivation age.
This brat really was up to no good.
Qian Renxue had naively believed that Chen Zhuo was helping her hunt a hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast out of unwavering loyalty to Spirit Hall.
Instead, he had tricked them into working for him.
This fifty-thousand-year Soul Beast had been even harder to kill than a hundred-thousand-year beast like the Titan Giant Ape.
Activating a Martial Soul Avatar placed an enormous burden on a Soul Master.
Qian Renxue also withdrew her Martial Soul and began regulating her breathing where she stood.
Seeing that the battle had ended, the three women several hundred meters away hurried over as well.
With their current strength, they could handle weaker ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts.
Taking turns guarding the Titled Douluos while they recovered their Soul Power would be no problem.
Chen Zhuo began absorbing the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's Soul Ring while refining the Evil God Pearl.
Sure enough, the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's remnant soul appeared within his Spiritual Sea of Consciousness, still intent on possessing him.
This creature simply had far too many tricks for clinging to life.
Even if an ordinary Soul Master with fewer than nine rings obtained the Evil God Pearl, they would most likely fail to absorb it and have their body possessed instead.
"If you have anything to say, tell it."
A sphere resembling a black hole appeared before the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's remnant soul. Chains extended from it, trussing the soul up tightly before hauling it straight into the Main God Space.
Chen Zhuo's current mental power and physical constitution were no weaker than those of a Soul Douluo.
Naturally, he could absorb a fifty-thousand-year Soul Ring as his fifth Soul Ring.
There was nothing difficult about this step.
However, while refining the Evil God Pearl, an unexpected transformation occurred.
His Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils Martial Soul reacted violently as it absorbed the six kinds of origin power possessed by the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger.
His eyes felt itchy, as though something was growing inside them...
Outside, Qian Renxue and the others looked utterly astonished.
They saw a layer of golden light appear behind the seated Chen Zhuo.
Black, black, black, black, black-five black Soul Rings also appeared beneath him.
"Did he succeed?"
Dugu Yan and the others murmured joyfully, yet Chen Zhuo showed no sign of waking.
Unbeknownst to them, after absorbing the Evil God Pearl's origin power, Chen Zhuo's consciousness had entered another space.
He saw a dimly lit place.
There was a long table.
An old man with gray-white hair and a thin, hunched figure sat bent over the table, writing something.
Chen Zhuo was horrified. He had no idea why he was seeing this image, much less who this mysterious old man was.
Unable to see the old man's face, he instinctively looked at the manuscript the man was writing.
With just one glance, the strange characters on the manuscript seemed to come alive, imprinting themselves in his eyes and burrowing into his mind.
The Divine Realm.
The Evil God King, one of the Five Great God Kings, opened and closed his eyes, already seeing the scene in the Douluo Plane below.
He vaguely sensed a supremely evil law that shared the same origin as his own.
"The work of the first Evil God?"
The current Evil God and God of Goodness were both second-generation God Kings.
"Interesting."
The Evil God King also saw Chen Zhuo.
Like most deities in the Divine Realm, he had long wanted to relinquish his godhood and pass it on to a new successor.
His plans, however, were the same as those of the married pair of Second-Level Gods, the God of Food and the Nine-Colored Goddess.
If he passed on his godhood, he would pass on his wife's, the God King of Goodness's, along with it.
That young man below had the basic qualifications to inherit his godhood. He simply did not know whether the young man's wife possessed the God King of Goodness's spirit of loving all under heaven and never living for herself.
The Destruction God King likewise saw Chen Zhuo.
However, he was one of the few deities in the Divine Realm who had no intention of relinquishing his divine office.
He was the sort of deity who wanted to expand the Divine Realm further and put his ideals into practice.
Thus, he maintained a firm grip on the godhoods of the seven First-Level Gods under him-the Seven Sin Gods-ensuring that he held sufficient sway in the Divine Realm.
Yet that mortal youth truly was a prodigy rarely seen in millions upon millions of years.
Judging by his aptitude, he surpassed even the Angel God and Sea God, the two First-Level Gods who had recently ascended.
The Destruction God King began considering his options.
"Devastation, keep an eye on him." The Destruction God King summoned the God of Devastation.
The Seven Sin Gods involved his core authority, so he would naturally never loosen his hold on them.
Although the God of Devastation was also a First-Level God, he had developed the "mortal desire" to pass on his godhood.
If that human named Chen Zhuo could join his ranks, then who held the title of God of Devastation made no difference whatsoever to the Destruction God King.
The Asura God King was also appraising Chen Zhuo.
However, he had long since made arrangements for his godhood inheritance in the Douluo Plane.
He even had a favored candidate already.
Chen Zhuo's appearance surprised him somewhat, but that was all.
To him, passing his godhood to one person was no different from passing it to another.
They could discuss it if the young man managed to pass the trials he had left in the Douluo Plane.
The Snake God, who had been trembling beneath the auras of the God Kings, lit up when she saw Chen Zhuo.
This goddess was already certain that Chen Zhuo was the successor she had been searching for!
Especially when she saw his Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils, the Snake God felt as though an electric current had struck her.
What captivating eyes they were! Words could hardly describe them.
Born close to the Dao!
Worshipped by ten thousand snakes!
What troubled her was that several deities had already taken notice of this human.
There were even supreme God King-level deities of the Divine Realm among them.
And she was merely a lowly Second-Level God.
She could not even establish an inheritance site in the lower world and grant her followers God-Bestowed Martial Souls directly, as First-Level Gods could.
Second-Level Gods like her had to establish inheritance conditions in advance, then passively wait for someone who met those conditions to trigger them.
On a plane like Douluo, people generally had to reach level 90 before they could begin to receive their power.
But the problem was that if the other God Kings were interested-or even if the God of Devastation wanted to give away his godhood-they did not need to wait until that human youth reached level 90 before letting him undertake their inheritance trials.
By the time this Second-Level God's turn came, even the daylilies would have gone cold.
"No!"
The Snake God schemed inwardly. She had to make that youth inherit her godhood, even if it meant offending other deities.
"Ugh..."
A vast sea of knowledge flooded his mind.
With so much information forcibly crammed into his brain, Chen Zhuo felt swollen-headed and dizzy.
When he came back to his senses, the long table and the old man were gone.
He opened his eyes, but his original Triple Jade-Green Snake Flower Pupils had become Double Pupils.
Something really had grown.
He had gained another pair of pupils.
By absorbing the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's life-bound pearl, Chen Zhuo had unwittingly completed the highest tier of secondary Martial Soul Awakening for a Body Martial Soul: gold-grade.
His overall strength had tripled compared to before.
Beneath his feet, the five Soul Rings-black, black, black, black, black-also underwent a change after he awoke.
His first Soul Ring, obtained through the Transforming Serpent's sacrifice, had already been black tinged with red. Now, it transformed into the red Soul Ring exclusive to hundred-thousand-year beasts.
His second Soul Ring, copied from Dugu Bo's Eighth Soul Ring, also changed from black to red.
The Body Sect's secret method for increasing Soul Ring ages ten thousand years in the future had come naturally to Chen Zhuo, without a teacher...
At this very moment, Chen Zhuo's Soul Ring Configuration became Three Black and Two Red!
Yet no one present noticed this astonishing transformation, for their minds were entirely consumed by the strange phenomenon in the sky.
The phantoms of four deities-the Evil God King, the Destruction God King, the God of Devastation, and the Snake God-stood towering in the heavens.
They cast a glance upon the mortal world.
Before you continue