Lin Qing Baited Beasts and Hooked Greedy Pigs, Steelback Apes and a Wind Baboon, Godslayer vs. God of Emotion (4K)

The brilliant sun hung overhead beneath a clear sky dotted with wisps of cloud.

Ancient trees towered all around, their crowns overlapping in layer upon layer. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in their branches and leaves, casting mottled patches of light and shadow across the ground. The fragrance of grass and trees filled the air, refreshing the heart and lungs.

During the Peerless Tang Sect era, the Star Dou Great Forest was at its peak, boasting enormous populations of soul beasts and a beautiful, pristine environment. Even in the outer region on the Star Luo Empire's side, there was a substantial chance of encountering formidable thousand-year soul beasts.

The moment he entered the Star Dou Great Forest, Lin Qing landed, put away his Flying Soul Tool, and continued on foot.

Flying high overhead for an extended period in this danger-ridden primeval forest was no different from a light goddess butterfly fluttering its wings in the darkness: it broadcast your location to every soul beast and practically stamped "living target" across your face.

Lin Qing had several target soul beasts in mind for his fourth soul ring. His first choice was, of course...

The dark gold terrorclaw bear!

A person had to have dreams.

A soul master without a dream was no different from Luo Sanpao, who spent all day eating radishes and farting. If even that useless creature could evolve into a radiant sacred dragon soaring through the nine heavens, someone with an ultimate martial soul had all the more reason to possess the heart of a true powerhouse, unwilling to spend his life beneath others!

The dark gold terrorclaw bear's fame shook the world. Its soul ring was the dream of every metal-attribute soul master on the Douluo Continent. Now that Lin Qing had awakened ultimate metal, how could he resist setting his sights on the overlord of metal?

"Achoo-"

Deep in Star Dou's Core Circle, the king of bears was sleeping in when a sudden chill struck him. He wiped his nose and muttered that the bastard Di Tian must be cursing him behind his back again. Then he rolled over lazily to go back to sleep, moving his dark gold dreadclaw to scratch his backside along the way.

Reaching into his Storage Soul Tool, Lin Qing took out a silvery-white sphere the size of an ostrich egg. Its metal surface was sleek and smooth. He pressed the mechanism at its base with his fingertip, and the sphere emitted a low hum as invisible fluctuations spread in every direction.

A Level 4 Soul Tool: the Gold Luring Device.

The Star Dou Great Forest contained all manner of creatures, unlike the Far North, which was a paradise for soul beasts of a single attribute. Finding a high-quality soul beast of a suitable age and compatible attribute was therefore no easy task. Unlucky souls might go several months without finding a suitable beast, only to end up dying in a beast's jaws.

When hunting for his second soul ring, Lin Qing had experienced firsthand how difficult finding a beast could be. After returning to Star Luo City, he had come up with a crafty idea. Borrowing the concept of using fragrance to lure soul beasts, he used the machine element's ultimate aura to imitate an ultimate-metal heavenly treasure, tempting metal-attribute soul beasts to come and devour it.

An imagination that roamed freely across the heavens was an admirable quality in a soul engineer. Although he had failed to control the lure's range on his first attempt, attracting a huge horde of savage, frenzied metal-attribute soul beasts that had nearly wiped out the Lin family, credit where credit was due: the experiment had been a tremendous success. Lin Qing had enjoyed an incredibly wide selection for his third soul ring!

Today, he would repeat the method, plugging the gaps and correcting the flaws. Rock solid!

Lin Qing baited soul beasts, specializing in hooking big, greedy pigs.

Maintaining his pace, Lin Qing slowly ventured deeper into the Star Dou Great Forest, allowing the lure's fluctuations to reach the mixed region.

The lure worked extremely quickly. In the time it took to drink a cup of tea, the first batch of metal-attribute soul beasts answered the invitation. Sharp whistles sounded from the canopy as burly figures flashed between the branches and leaves.

They were ape-type soul beasts, their muscular bodies covered in coarse black hair. Their hideous faces sported viciously protruding fangs, and pairs of blood-red eyes stared unblinkingly at the metal egg in Lin Qing's palm, radiating greed and bloodlust. Drool dripped through the gaps between their bared teeth.

Steelback apes were communal soul beasts commonly found in Star Dou's outer region. This small troop of thirty had been throwing its weight around the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest for years.

"Roar-"

With a deafening roar, a steelback ape noticeably larger than its companions leaped down. Its body, more than two meters tall when upright, slammed into the ground, crushing a broad swath of shrubs. Its shoulders were as wide as a city wall. This was unmistakably a thousand-year Steelback Ape King.

The other steelback apes followed their leader, surrounding Lin Qing in a semicircle as threads of dark light swept across their fur.

Hardness, the steelback apes' innate soul skill, greatly increased their defense. These soul beasts were on the same level as mandala snakes, a hundred and eight thousand miles beneath dark gold terrorclaw bears. Uninterested, Lin Qing put away the Gold Luring Device, raised his eyes to glance at the greed-driven ape king, and lightly crooked a finger.

A thousand-year soul beast's intelligence fell far short of a human's, yet the Steelback Ape King could read considerable contempt in that gesture. Its unenlightened brain simply could not make sense of it.

Thirty against one. The advantage was clearly with the apes. Where did this human get his courage?

The ape king's chest heaved violently. It suddenly straightened, raised its right arm high, and hammered its clenched fist against its chest, sounding the signal for battle.

The steelback apes charged on all fours with strange, howling cries, trailing streaks of black afterimages. They vowed to tear this human who knew neither the height of heaven nor the depth of earth to pieces with their thick arms, using his scalding blood to uphold their leader's dignity.

"Hum-"

Soul power surged as rings rose from beneath his feet. Yellow, purple, purple: three soul rings exceeding the optimal combination universally accepted by Douluo's theorists spread outward and slowly pulsed around Lin Qing. Their flowing radiance illuminated his handsome, indifferent face.

The financial deficit had begun after Lin Qing broke through to Soul Elder. Level thirty had been a major turning point in his life. Before his ultimate martial soul's passive reduction in cultivation speed took effect, the Lin family had been comfortably well-off.

Within their means, Grandma Lin and Lin Lan had fed their family's little pride and joy plenty of spiritual treasures to strengthen his foundations and nourish his vitality, including the renowned whale rubber.

Shrek's Treasure Appraisal Fair was one of the few perks offered by the continent's top academy. Lin Lan had made a special trip to buy a piece of whale rubber, then brought it home during her break to nourish little Lin Qing.

With the cautionary example from another timeline still vivid in his mind, Lin Qing had carefully taken the whale rubber in small, repeated doses. Even so, he could not escape its side effects. He had spent an entire night burning with desire, then transformed into a furtive hamster the next morning, sneaking into a corner of the backyard to scrub his trousers.

Those childhood growing pains that left one unsure whether to laugh or cry had all become genuine fighting power. The bright yellow soul ring in the foremost position suddenly blazed with light. Countless silver motes appeared between heaven and earth, converging wildly like summoned, brilliant fireflies. In an instant, they formed a dazzling silver ocean.

"First soul skill, Zero Generation."

The machine element instantly broke down the miscellaneous elements in the surrounding environment, then reassembled them into pure machine power. Taking the form of high-density metal, it worked with Lin Qing's crafted soul tools to enhance his armaments.

A soul master's first soul ring was the foundation of his entire life, determining much of his future cultivation path.

Just look at Sea God Tang San ten thousand years ago. Following Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang's core martial soul theory, he had chosen to absorb a poisonous mandala snake for his blue silver grass's first soul ring. After that, there was no stopping him: ghost vines, man faced demon spiders... A dignified bearer of the Blue Silver Emperor Bloodline had cultivated himself into a poisonous vine.

Lin Qing's first soul ring, however, was exceptionally compatible with the machine element. It had come from a hundred-year ingot golden toad possessing a faint trace of the divine beast Three-Legged Golden Toad's bloodline. It was truly a rare, top-quality soul ring, laying the foundation for a combat style intimately tied to soul tools.

"Finger Gun, Bee Swarm."

Zero Generation activated. Silver metal spread from Lin Qing's fingertips, taking shape as long, slender gun barrels that solidified before his fingers, gleaming with a bone-chilling luster.

Bullets poured out like countless swarms of bees leaving their hives to hunt, trailing brilliant silver flames. Dense and innumerable, they wove a death net across the sky and earth, subjecting the steelback ape troop to broad, rapid, continuous fire. Overwhelming firepower and long-range suppression were displayed to their fullest.

Soul tools made through Zero Generation were the personal-use editions. As for the Open-Over Series... Lin Qing sold those, but never touched them himself!

Bee Swarm's hail of gunfire struck like a raging storm. Charging headlong at full speed, the steelback apes had no time to dodge the dark mass of fire descending on them. In that lightning-flash instant, their only possible defense was to raise their powerful arms and try to shield their vital points.

"Boom, boom, boom-"

Explosions erupted one after another, shaking leaves loose from the canopy. The steelback apes fell like wheat harvested in autumn, one after another. Severed limbs lay scattered through pools of blood as white and yellow soul rings floated into the air. Scarlet blood soaked the forest floor.

With the combined enhancements of Zero Generation and the machine element, the soul tools' power had reached a terrifying level. Lin Qing had created Bee Swarm specifically to clear the field. Mere hundred-year steelback apes could not withstand even a single exchange. After one baptism of gunfire, the troop that had once ruled a stretch of forest with its steel sinews and iron bones had suffered devastating losses.

"Aoo, aoo, aoo-"

The dust and smoke slowly dispersed. The only steelback ape still alive and gasping was the thousand-year ape king.

The Steelback Ape King stood dumbly amid its troop's corpses, clutching its blood-drenched body. Its flesh was mangled, riddled with charred holes too gruesome to look at.

Having lived for a thousand years, it had dealt with soul masters more than once or twice. In its memories, Douluo soul masters all activated their martial souls and revealed their soul rings, then joined in a hot-blooded battle of fists striking flesh, deciding both superiority and life or death!

But there was something wrong with this human! Was he even a proper soul master?

Lin Qing watched the Steelback Ape King question its beastly existence. His expression was not particularly fierce, only filled with the calm indifference of someone accustomed to this.

With the season-two update, washed-up soul masters and soul beasts who fought using only martial souls and instinct were doomed to get ambushed by whatever soul tool their opponent whipped out, then howl their eyes out. The new tool for climbing the ranks was physical-magic dual cultivation!

"Aoo-"

A shrill howl pierced the clouds. The Steelback Ape King finally reacted. Terrified out of its wits, the soul beast could not muster even the slightest courage to avenge its kin. It desperately lowered its back and darted through the forest. At this life-or-death moment, it had to trust an ape's natural advantages in the woods: climbing, leaping, and running away!

The black figure swerved left and right, deliberately squeezing through narrow gaps between ancient trees. This was survival instinct etched into its genes. If it could use the terrain to shake off the human, it could preserve its life. A lost troop could be rebuilt. If its life was lost, everything was lost!

"Whoosh-"

The Steelback Ape King heard a sound. In the blink of an eye, the roar of jetting air went from distant to close, as though a giant beast's icy breath had fallen against the back of its neck. It did not dare turn around, afraid of seeing something that would shatter its resolve.

The scrape of metal came closer still, almost right beside the ape king's ear this time. The Steelback Ape King turned its head in stiff, mechanical jerks. Its trembling eyes met a fingertip mere inches away. At some point, a jet-powered Soul Tool Thruster had appeared on the finger's owner's back, its exhaust flames crackling.

"Eek, eek..."

A humanlike plea crossed the Steelback Ape King's ugly face as it tried to make peace. The next instant, it saw fire flare brightly inside the silver gun barrel once more.

"Boom-"

Blood sprayed. One shot blew its head apart.

The headless corpse fell to the ground. A thousand-year soul ring separated from the Steelback Ape King's body and slowly rose, its beautiful, eerie purple glow illuminating Lin Qing's calm profile. The machine element covering his fingers quietly receded.

With the battle over, Lin Qing checked the steelback ape troop's corpses one by one. As expected, he collected exactly zero soul bones. Steelback apes had no tender, delicious edible parts, and the smell of blood would attract all manner of bloodthirsty soul beasts. This was no place to linger. Lin Qing decided to change direction and continue onward, activating the Gold Luring Device again.

Over the next four hours, Lin Qing encountered four more soul beast attacks. Their fighting strength was much the same as the steelback ape troop's, and the battles were so effortless they were not worth mentioning.

This was Star Dou's outer region, after all. The quantity and quality of metal-attribute soul beasts left much to be desired.

As he considered whether to risk venturing deeper into Star Dou in search of soul beasts, Lin Qing's gaze suddenly shifted. He sensed signs of combat off to one side. The two soul power fluctuations were extremely weak. For soul beasts, they would amount to ten-year cultivation at most. If they belonged to soul masters, those masters probably had not even absorbed their first soul rings.

Ordinarily, Lin Qing would pay no attention to such an embarrassingly low-level, hair-pulling scuffle. Yet the machine element's sensitivity to metal picked up another piece of information.

One of the two combatants carried a soul tool, likely one far above its bearer's soul power level.

A flash of insight shot through his mind. Lin Qing suddenly realized something.

The White Tiger Duke's Mansion stood outside Star Luo City, and the portion of the Star Dou Great Forest within the Star Luo Empire happened to be where the entire story began. Encountering Huo Yuhao, who had packed his bags and set out alone to hunt for a soul ring, would therefore be perfectly reasonable.

At that thought, Lin Qing immediately switched off the metal lure and rushed toward the fierce battle at full speed.

"Aoo!"

A ten-year wind baboon bared its teeth, preparing its innate soul skill inside its wide-open mouth. Opposite it stood a boy who looked eleven or twelve, with a well-proportioned build. He wore simple gray cloth clothes and carried a small bundle on his back. His short black hair was neat, and his deep-blue eyes held a determination beyond his years.

From far away, Lin Qing recognized that vividly familiar scene!

Hey, I made it!

Godslayer vs. the young God of Emotion!

The wind baboon lived up to its reputation as a godslayer. Pushing off the ground with both feet, it bravely leaped at its prey. It swung its head and spat out the ball of light it had been building up, while both hands reached for Huo Yuhao's shoulders.

An inexperienced newborn calf, Huo Yuhao watched the wind baboon's fierce eyes in a fluster. Gripping the White Tiger Dagger tightly, he instinctively stabbed at the ball of light. This was the keepsake his mother had left him, and the only weapon that could protect him now!

A battle between kings could end only in death!

The instant the two met at close range, the White Tiger Dagger devoured the wind baboon's light-ball soul skill, activating a foot-long blade radiance. The wind baboon caught Huo Yuhao by the shoulders. In pain, he swept the dagger upward, cleverly striking the wind baboon's chest with the fearless posture of a warrior sliding beneath a tiger!

One strike, one kill. A white soul ring appeared!

The final whistle blew. Huo Yuhao had scored the match-winning kill against the ten-year wind baboon!