Even with blood and tears covering her tight leather outfit, her breathtakingly full curves and slender, supple waist still traced a stunning, perfect silhouette.
As she ran with frantic, uneven strides, those enticing curves rose and fell, enough to steal one's breath. Her long, toned, straight legs left blood on the grass with every step.
Behind her, four middle-aged Soul Masters in fitted black clothing wore sinister grins as they closed in from all sides.
A yellow, yellow, purple soul ring configuration pulsed around each of the four men in black. All were three-ring Soul Elders, assassins sworn to die for their mission.
Against a young Soul Grandmaster who had only just acquired her second soul ring and was already a spent arrow, they steadily squeezed away every avenue of escape, like cats toying with a mouse.
Whoosh!
A vicious short blade sliced through the air, grazing the girl's ankle at a treacherous angle.
The girl let out a muffled groan, lost her balance, and slammed into the thick trunk of an ancient tree before sliding to the ground.
Pfft!
Blood spilled from the corner of her mouth, and her consciousness began to blur.
She braced her trembling arms against the ground and tried to rise again, but the exhaustion and searing pain coursing through every limb dragged what remained of her will, little by little, toward an endless abyss of darkness.
Was she going to die here?
Dai Mubai... you coward. You fled to the Heaven Dou Empire yourself, only to leave all the despair to me...
Endless anguish and icy bitterness welled up in her heart.
Just as she was about to close her eyes, a figure appeared at the edge of her blurred vision, beneath the ancient tree's shadows. At some unknown point, he had silently taken his place there.
It was a young man.
Clad in an understated ink-and-white robe, he stood tall and slender, his long, snow-white hair stirring gently in the forest breeze. His handsome features looked as though a deity had sculpted them, and his abyss-deep eyes gazed down upon the scene.
When had he appeared?
How could there have been no fluctuation in his aura at all?!
In the despair of approaching death, her instinct to survive overwhelmed all reason.
Her pale lips trembled. Summoning the last scrap of strength in her body, she instinctively let out a faint, hoarse plea:
"Help... help me..."
After uttering those words, her vision abruptly went black, and she collapsed limply beside the tree roots. Only her chest still rose and fell faintly.
"Boss, there's someone in the tree!"
By then, the four pursuing men in black had also noticed An Jing. Their steps abruptly halted, and viciousness blazed in their eyes.
Their leader swept a cold glance over An Jing. Seeing no manifested martial soul phantom, only a strangely dressed young man standing alone, his killing intent surged:
"This is a family matter between the Star Luo Imperial Family and the Zhu Family! Outsiders stay out of it!
"Kid, blame yourself for seeing something you shouldn't have. Remember to mind your own business in your next life! Fourth, kill him while you're at it. Leave no witnesses!"
One of the leaner black-clad Soul Elders sneered and shot off the ground like lightning. Two yellow soul rings and one purple flared beneath his feet, and his right hand transformed into a sharp claw that lunged straight for An Jing's throat.
On the tree trunk, An Jing's expression remained as still as an ancient well.
The Star Luo Empire? The Zhu Family?
The two names flashed through his mind, but he gave them little further thought.
Having only just arrived, An Jing had originally had no desire to meddle. But since these men had openly shown their intent to kill-and since this dying girl might be his best living source for understanding the current situation...
If he wanted to ask questions, he naturally had to swat the flies first.
Facing the fierce gust from the incoming claw, An Jing did not so much as blink. He did not release his martial soul, nor did even the faintest basic soul ring glow appear.
In the era of Douluo Dalu III: The Legend of the Dragon King, Soul Masters' control over their power had long since moved beyond the primitive stage of simply hammering away with soul ring skills.
Having condensed a soul core, developed his own system, and mastered fine control of spiritual power, his understanding of the laws of heaven and earth had already crossed the gulf of an entire era.
"Die!" the black-clad Soul Elder snarled, his claw now less than three inches from An Jing's neck.
At that moment, An Jing raised his right hand.
His five slender, pale fingers gently closed around empty space.
"Where did this wild man come from?"
Hummm-!
There was no earth-shaking explosion, nor any dazzling spectacle of light and shadow.
Yet in that instant, the space before the black-clad Soul Elder seemed to be drawn into an absolute vacuum by invisible hands of creation, then abruptly froze solid!
The sinister grin on the Soul Elder's face froze completely.
To his horror, he discovered that the energy of heaven and earth and the very dimensions of space within ten meters of him had been utterly locked down.
His blood, his soul power, even his thoughts-all sank into absolute stagnation at that moment.
"Spatial... lockdown?!"
The pupils of the three men remaining below shrank to pinpoints. Terror nearly tore their souls from their bodies, and they had not even had time to cry out.
An Jing drew his closed fingers back slightly, tightening his palm.
Crack!
A crisp sound, like shattering glass, rang out without warning.
That sealed expanse of space, like a mirror compressed by an invisible, immense force, shattered and collapsed!
The Soul Elder suspended within it could not even scream. In an instant, the warped folds of space crushed his entire body into an indistinct cloud of blood.
Violent, chaotic spatial turbulence swept back and forth within several meters like countless fine blades. Even fragments of bone were ground into dust in an instant and vanished into the spatial fissures.
Then the residual force brushed toward the other three below, like a breeze caressing willow branches.
The three Soul Elders, so ferocious only moments ago, abruptly stiffened. Then, in utter terror, they disintegrated inch by inch, becoming pure blood-red dust before vanishing into nothingness.
The wind ceased. The trees fell still.
Not even a large bloodstain remained, only a faint trace of blood in the air.
An Jing drifted lightly to the ground, his white robe snowy and untouched by dust.
He looked at his open right palm and smiled faintly.
His soul power remained. His cultivation remained.
That nuclear explosion had not taken away everything he had painstakingly cultivated. Not only was he truly alive, but his combat strength was entirely intact.
As for whose domain this place actually was...
An Jing turned and looked toward the black-clad girl leaning against the tree roots, who was clinging to a thread of consciousness out of sheer shock.
Beside the tree roots, the girl had fallen into a complete daze.
She had already prepared herself to suffer humiliation and die. Her last-moment plea for help had merely been a drowning person's instinctive attempt to grasp a life-saving straw.
But what had she just seen?
There had been no earth-shaking martial soul possession, no dazzling, supreme-quality soul rings. Even the ripples of soul power had been so faint that they were almost imperceptible.
This white-haired young man had merely stood there, raised his hand to press against empty air, and gently closed his fingers.
The four assassins who had driven her into a hopeless corner had been crushed into nothingness in an instant by some invisible, mighty force!
What kind of power was that?
A Soul King? A Soul Emperor? Or even... a lofty Soul Saint, a Titled Douluo?!
Before you continue