An Jing

The searing white light that had torn his soul apart still seemed to burn madly in the afterimages on his retinas.

An Jing's last memory was of the sun of destruction that had suddenly blazed to life above Shrek City.

It had been a true hell on earth.

Two Class 12 Fixed Soul Cannon Shells.

The terrifying detonation of those god-slaying weapons had swallowed the entire city of miracles, with its twenty thousand years of history, in an instant.

Violent spatial collapse had shredded all things, while terrifying heat and annihilation radiation bleached heaven and earth a deathly white.

Toward the end of the Douluo Continent's third era, technology and Soul Tools had become so advanced that they could even slay gods.

At the time, An Jing had been nothing more than a white-haired young man of common birth who had spent half his life cultivating bitterly.

His arrival in this world had been disastrously timed. He had missed the great tide of Tang San's ascension to godhood, as well as the golden age when Huo Yuhao founded the Spirit Pagoda. Instead, he had had the misfortune to land in the Legend of the Dragon King era, when the Abyss was stirring and sinister currents surged beneath the Holy Spirit Cult's surface.

Day and night, he had meditated, refined his blood and vital energy, worked metal, and crafted Battle Armor. After finally struggling his way to the rank of a level-seventy Soul Saint, he had successfully condensed a soul core within his body that fused space with soul power, officially joining the continent's backbone.

Yet he had merely been passing through Shrek City. He had not even had time to try the renowned Black Tortoise Grilled Fish in the eastern part of the city before the Holy Spirit Cult and the Spirit Pagoda's insane plot exploded into action.

Against god-slaying power capable of destroying heaven and earth, what did a mere level-seventy Soul Saint amount to?

Even though he had deployed his Two-Word Battle Armor at once, the savage spatial storm and torrent of energy had torn through his protective barrier in a tenth of a second, pulverizing both his flesh and his Battle Armor.

An Jing swore he never wanted to experience that agony of utter destruction, body and soul, a second time.

"Ugh..."

A slightly hoarse groan escaped his throat.

An Jing's eyes snapped open. His body instinctively tensed, and his hands moved to shield his vital points, his reflexes still caught in the instant before an ultrahigh-energy nuclear blast swallowed him.

Yet the radiation that should have seared his soul and the savage shock wave never came.

What met his eyes was neither the ruins of Shrek City, reduced to a charred crater, nor the icy underworld of hell, but a sea of lush green so dense it seemed primeval.

Enormous ancient trees blotted out the sky and sun. Their thick trunks would have taken more than a dozen people joining hands to encircle, and their luxuriant crowns spread like dark-green domes, splintering the sunlight outside into countless mottled shafts of gold.

There was no smoke or charred stench in the air. Instead, it was saturated with a rich, lingering fragrance of earth, along with... unbelievably pure natural energy.

"Where... where am I?"

Pressing his slightly throbbing temples, An Jing slowly rose to his feet.

He lowered his head and examined his hands. His fingers were long and well-proportioned, his skin gleaming with a lustrous, jade-like sheen. Cultivating his soul core and forging Battle Armor had left a thin layer of sturdy calluses across his palms.

His snow-white hair fell to his shoulders. Though his clothes were somewhat rumpled, the storage Soul Tool ring he carried still sat snugly on the middle finger of his left hand.

Even more incredible was that his blood and vital energy flowed like mercury, his soul power surged as vast and mighty as rolling thunder, and the perfectly round, crystalline soul core deep within his dantian was slowly rotating, ceaselessly drawing in and releasing the surrounding natural energy.

Level seventy!

Not only had he lost none of his soul power, but after enduring that storm of destruction, it even seemed faintly purer and more condensed.

"I'm not dead?"

Utter astonishment and disbelief flashed through An Jing's eyes. "Could I have had a Spring Autumn Cicada inside me all along, reversing time in a certain-death crisis and giving me another life?"

He took a deep breath. Cool, moist air flooded his lungs, swiftly clearing his muddled mind.

As a well-informed transmigrator, An Jing possessed far greater mental fortitude than most.

He surveyed his surroundings, his keen perception spreading outward like mercury spilling across the ground.

That probe left him frozen in place.

Rustle, rustle-

About a mile ahead and to his right, an enormous boar-type soul beast with black armor and huge bony horns was rooting for lingzhi beneath rotting wood.

The soul beast radiated a savage, pure aura. Judging by its growth rings and bone markings, it had at least five or six hundred years of cultivation.

Farther away, several brightly colored juvenile Man Faced Demon Spiders were spinning webs of glistening silk among the treetops.

Overhead, a flock of Netherworld Vultures with wingspans several meters wide even swept past with a shrill rush.

The ecosystem here... was far too primitive, far too wild.

"Something's wrong." An Jing knitted his brows, his eyes filled with bewilderment.

In the era of Douluo Dalu III: The Legend of the Dragon King, humanity's unchecked expansion of soul guidance technology and voracious demand for Soul Rings had driven wild soul beasts across the entire Douluo Continent to the brink of extinction.

Even the Spirit Pagoda's so-called "Star Dou Great Forest Reserve" contained only a scattered handful of endangered species kept in captivity under strict surveillance.

Humans relied on artificial soul spirits manufactured by the Spirit Pagoda to advance their soul power. Wild soul beasts had long since become specimens in textbooks and museums.

So what was going on with the scene before him?

The soul beasts here were not only numerous but wild and untamed, showing absolutely no traces of modern captive breeding or genetic modification.

Even the surrounding spiritual energy was so rich that this place felt like an ancient wilderness untouched by industrial development.

"Did that explosion blast me ten thousand years into the past? Or... was I swept into some undiscovered, independent god-level secret realm?"

No matter how hard An Jing thought, he could not make sense of it.

He had too little information, and blind guesses were pointless.

He straightened his clothes slightly and decided to leave this seemingly endless sea of trees first, find a human settlement or city, and learn what was really happening.

Yet he had barely taken a few steps when a flurry of hurried, disorderly sounds-air being sliced and blades clashing-abruptly shattered the forest's stillness.

"Catch her! Don't let her escape these woods!"

A cold voice brimming with murderous intent echoed through the forest.

An Jing's expression shifted slightly. With a light tap of his toes against a tree trunk, he sprang as lightly as a weightless feather onto a thick, slanting branch and looked down toward the source of the voice.

Among the dense undergrowth below, a slender, nimble figure in black was fleeing in panic.

It was a girl who looked only eleven or twelve years old.

She wore a somewhat tattered, tight-fitting black leather outfit. Blades had slashed it open in several places, exposing snow-white skin stained red with blood.

Her long black hair spilled untidily over her shoulders. There was not a trace of color in her exquisitely delicate face, and her once-lively eyes had grown unfocused and hazy from blood loss and exhaustion.

Yet even trapped in desperate straits and covered in wounds, the girl kept her teeth clenched without letting out a single cry of pain.

She forced her meager agility-type soul power into motion, her catlike form straining to leap through the dense woods.

Most striking of all was the girl's astonishing figure, utterly at odds with her youthful, immature face.