...What had just happened?
Who was he? Where had he come from? Where was he going?
What was the ultimate truth of the universe? Who liked rabbits more, the Tang God King or Nick Wilde? Was the Dragon God's head really full of mush? Who had the higher IQ, the Silver Dragon King or the Golden Dragon King...
One question after another flashed through El's mind.
"What the hell..."
With an expression that could only be described as horrified, he glanced at the grilled fish in his hand, with one bite taken out of it.
What on earth had gone into this thing???
He felt that if he wandered onto the Food Wars! set next door, even his clothes would explode off him!
Refusing to believe it, El took another bite.
The skin was crisp and the flesh tender and fragrant. Though seasoned with only a little salt, it brought out the river fish's natural aroma beautifully. Paired with the unusual hint of fragrance from the perilla leaf, it was undeniably delicious...
But it absolutely wasn't delicious enough to make him contemplate the meaning of life!!
"How did she do it..."
Nibbling on his grilled fish, El frowned as he looked at Tang Ya, who was feasting beside him, Bei Bei, who was eating with refined manners, and Huo Yutong, who was still turning fish over the fire.
Maybe the will of the plane had flexed its muscles...
Ultimately, unable to figure it out, El dumped the question at the feet of the plane's will.
After all, Huo Yutong was the daughter of destiny. Any miraculous encounter she had must have been Heaven's Will at work.
El stopped dwelling on these trivial matters. Next, his plan to build connections and show off his talent still needed to proceed steadily.
The group divided up and enjoyed several grilled fish, and the camaraderie of sharing a meal brought El a little closer to Bei Bei and Tang Ya.
With everyone comfortably fed and satisfied, an opportunity arose to ask questions that were normally awkward to bring up.
Looking at El leaning against a tree trunk, eyes slightly narrowed and face full of contentment, looking for all the world like a lazy, well-fed cat basking in the sun, Bei Bei cleared his throat and asked curiously:
"El, there's something about you I'm very curious about. Would you mind clearing it up for me?"
"Of course, if you think I'm being too forward, just pretend I never asked."
"What is it?"
El raised his head. In the sunlight filtering through the leaves, his red eyes gleamed like exquisite pigeon's blood rubies.
Huo Yutong, who had been stealing glances his way, was stunned into immobility.
"It's about your Martial Soul..."
Bei Bei awkwardly covered his mouth with his fist and cleared his throat again.
In the Soul Master World, casually asking about someone else's Martial Soul and Soul Skills was extremely rude, and could even be seen as a provocation.
Even at Shrek Academy, the registration for incoming students recorded only their Soul Power Level. Their specific Martial Souls were left for the students themselves to reveal.
"Earlier, when you went to catch fish, you said you used the lightning attribute. But just now, you used a fairly high-level fire attribute."
"You have a true dragon-type Martial Soul, right? I've never seen a True Dragon Martial Soul that could control both lightning and fire..."
"That's all?"
El waved a hand, his sleeve tracing an arc through the air.
Wearing an indifferent expression that said, "What's the big deal?" along with a touch of smugness, he said:
"My Martial Soul is called Alatreon. It's a powerful True Dragon Martial Soul capable of controlling four ultimate attributes. You could say it's reached the legendary dragon king level!
"Besides ultimate lightning and ultimate fire, my Martial Soul can also control and wield ultimate water and ultimate ice!"
El lifted his chin, his pride plain for all to see.
Bei Bei's expression froze.
So did Tang Ya, who had been using a twig that had skewered a grilled fish to draw abstract lines in the dirt while occasionally glancing at Huo Yutong and El.
"F-four ultimate attributes?!!"
Was he kidding?!
How was that possible!!
Bei Bei and Tang Ya exchanged a glance, all four eyes brimming with disbelief.
As students of Shrek Academy, both of them understood exactly what an ultimate attribute meant.
Before El, only three Soul Masters with ultimate attributes had ever appeared on the Douluo Continent.
And all three of those powerful Soul Masters, each of whom had towered over an entire era, had come from their Shrek Academy!
The most famous of them was undoubtedly the Sea God Pavilion Master from over four thousand years ago, who had led a host of powerful figures to turn back the raging tide and help the Douluo Continent defeat the Sun Moon Continent!
But even those powerhouses, who embodied the very pinnacle of mortal might, had each been able to control only a single ultimate element.
Yet El claimed he could use the Four Extreme Elements!!
No way.
After the initial shock, that was the first thought to surface in both their minds.
"Mm-hmm."
But he didn't even give their doubts time to fully form.
El stood up. Dark purple scales surfaced across his skin, and his body grew taller and considerably more muscular.
The scales were generally diamond-shaped, each one reversed with its pointed tip facing upward, arranged in the exact opposite direction from those of ordinary dragons.
Two layered dragon horns emerged from El's forehead. Within their dark purple sheen, the shifting fluctuations of several elements were faintly visible.
Alatreon Martial Soul, possession!!
Purple, purple, black-three Soul Rings pulsed around El,
Ultimate lightning, ultimate water, ultimate ice, and ultimate fire-four powerful attributes danced and floated in El's dragon claws as clusters of elemental energy.
They were as docile as little kitties trying to please their owner.
A small wave of elemental turbulence swept through that little patch of space,
At the same time, under the intense suppression of his bloodline, Bei Bei discovered to his horror that not only could he no longer control or draw upon the lightning element in this area, but even activating Martial Soul Possession was extremely difficult!
Wh-what a powerful Martial Soul!
Its bloodline stood even above Ancestor Xuan's Radiant Sacred Dragon!!
The shock delivered by this unprecedentedly powerful Martial Soul was so overwhelming that, to Bei Bei and Tang Ya, even El's Soul Rings, which far exceeded the normal age limits, seemed almost insignificant.
Yet before the two could push their hearts back down from their throats, an even more horrifying revelation arrived.
"Besides these four elements, I can also control a special kind of energy that comes directly from my Martial Soul."
There was a second round?!
Bei Bei's body, which had only just relaxed, stiffened again. A sense of mortal danger welled up from deep within his bloodline.
The Four Extreme Elements dissipated. A layer of special energy coated El's dark purple dragon claws, occasionally sending flashes of red-black lightning through the air.
"I call it the dragon element."
"As for what it does, anyone struck by it will be completely unable to use elemental abilities unless they remove or neutralize the Dragon-Attribute Energy clinging to them!"
...Holy shit.
Fine. He won.
For a moment, Bei Bei genuinely didn't know what to say.
Looking at the proud-faced boy, he only found his voice again after a long while,
"El, from now on, unless you're with friends and companions you trust completely, never display your talents so freely again."
Too terrifying.
If other factions learned of talent like this, their first thought would undoubtedly be to recruit him. If that failed, elimination would come next!
At best, he would be hauled off for breeding.
Especially by the Sun Moon Empire...
If they learned that a monster like El had appeared in the Douluo Three Kingdoms, they would stop at nothing to eliminate him!
"Mm-hmm, of course I know."
El nodded and released his Martial Soul Possession. His body shrank a little, returning him to the well-behaved-looking boy with black hair and red eyes.
"I only did it because you two aren't bad people."
"Besides, even if you were bad people, you couldn't beat me anyway..."
As he spoke, he didn't forget to turn and wink at Huo Yutong, who had been gazing at him in admiration the whole time:
"Right, Yu Tong?"
"Mm-hmm, El is the strongest!"
The little Huo girl nodded eagerly, stars in her eyes.
...In truth, she hadn't understood anything just now.
Ultimate attributes, dragon element, True Dragon Martial Souls-she knew nothing about any of those concepts.
But that didn't stop her from knowing El was amazing!
After all, El was the person who had said he could resurrect her mother and make her a god!
...Well, maybe he wasn't a person...
Thinking of the two big dogs that had appeared alongside El, and Di Tian, who had torn through space to arrive, Huo Yutong blinked her spirit eyes.
But that didn't stop El from being her angel!!
Looking at the two children, one brimming with smugness and the other with admiration, Bei Bei and Tang Ya exchanged a glance, bitter smiles appearing on both their faces.
What troubled Bei Bei was that El was so flamboyant that something would probably go wrong sooner or later.
Still, he knew this wasn't entirely El's fault.
It was understandable. If he had such a heaven-defying Martial Soul, he could be even more arrogant than El...
Tang Ya, meanwhile, was disappointed that she wouldn't be able to bring the two of them into the Tang Sect.
When she had heard about the secluded clan, her heart had already gone half cold, and she'd felt there was little hope.
She had still intended to try. After all, whether there were dates on the tree or not, it was worth giving it a whack with a pole.
But now that El had revealed a Martial Soul as powerful as Alatreon, Tang Ya instantly knew she had no chance.
Every faction would surely groom a monstrous genius like this as a successor to its leader. How could they possibly allow him to join a sect that had long since fallen into decline?
Helpless, Tang Ya could only abandon the idea.
No matter how much she wanted the two of them to join the Tang Sect, she knew that for geniuses backed by an established legacy like theirs, the Tang Sect Secret Arts would, at most, be flowers added to an already splendid brocade.
Before you continue