Thousand-Year Soul Spirit

The ten-thousand-year Crystal Bear was like a bulldozer. Everything in its path was covered in a layer of crystal, then shattered into dust.

This was the Crystal Bear's defining trait.

Long Yue looked at the half-crippled Unicorn Dragon. Dark yellow crystals had grown over its body as well, quickly spreading across half of it.

The ten-thousand-year Crystal Bear planted a foot on the Unicorn Dragon, instantly shattering its draconic body into countless crystals that scattered across the ground.

"Roar-!" The Crystal Bear bellowed in fury.

"The best way to fight a soul beast like this is to find a teammate with powerful ranged attacks."

Long Yue glanced at the ten-thousand-year Crystal Bear. This kind of soul beast had bronze skin and iron bones, with its only weakness at the back of its neck... and even that was merely a relatively vulnerable spot.

If a soul master lacked sufficient strength, even a direct hit to the back of the Crystal Bear's neck would fail to break through its defenses.

This was a ten-thousand-year Crystal Bear. Anyone below a Four-Ring Soul Ancestor could not possibly kill it in a single blow, even by striking a vital point.

Unfortunately, Long Yue neither possessed the strength of a Soul Ancestor nor had any particularly powerful ranged attacks. Close combat had always been the fighting style that suited him.

"Mountain Dragon, possess me!"

Long Yue shot up to three meters tall. A layer of enormous brown scales covered his entire body, and a thick tail packed with terrifying muscles dragged behind him.

His Mountain Dragon King martial soul proved that his body was his finest weapon.

Long Yue threw a punch straight at the ten-thousand-year Crystal Bear's chest. The terrifying force compressed the air until it erupted in violent explosions.

The Crystal Bear was not agile, nor did it intend to dodge. It raised an arm to block Long Yue.

Crack-!

The Crystal Bear staggered half a step. After a sharp crack, its arm hung limply at its side.

You actually dared to pit your strength against a Mountain Dragon? Who do you think you are, Xiong Jun, the Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear?

Having crippled one of the bear's paws, Long Yue immediately put some distance between himself and the Crystal Bear. Dark yellow crystals had already appeared on the draconic arm he had used to attack.

It doesn't matter. As long as I kill this soul beast, the crystals will slowly recede...

Both the Crystal Bear and Long Yue favored aggressive close combat.

Naturally, every punch in their clash struck flesh.

In just half a minute, Long Yue's entire dragon-clawed arm had been completely encased in crystal and shattered, yet not a drop of blood flowed from the wound.

A closer look would even reveal a trace of dark yellow crystal spreading into Long Yue's body.

If he did not finish off this Crystal Bear soon, Long Yue himself would die from the spreading crystals.

"River!"

His second soul ring blazed, and enormous torrents burst forth simultaneously from the sky and the ground.

The grassland ravaged by their battle instantly became a vast, flooded expanse where countless rivers converged.

"Glug, glug..."

The Crystal Bear's head vanished beneath the churning river water. For the first time, the massive beast showed panic before Long Yue.

If all it had to do was hold its breath underwater, the Crystal Bear was perfectly capable of that.

Ordinary bears, including bear-type soul beasts, generally possessed an instinctive ability to hold their breath underwater. This ability had evolved to meet survival needs such as catching fish and crossing rivers.

Long Yue had read that the Ice Bears of the Far North were particularly adept at holding their breath.

To hunt seals, Ice Bears would wait quietly beside breathing holes in the ice. When a seal poked its head out, they could swiftly dive underwater and hold their breath for as long as a minute.

That was merely a ten-year Ice Bear. A ten-thousand-year bear-type soul beast could only hold its breath for longer.

But no matter how well the Crystal Bear could hold its breath, it could not withstand Long Yue forcing water directly into its lungs.

"Good."

Outside the Spirit Ascension Platform, En Ci could not help admiring his disciple's clever thinking-or rather, his dirty trick.

If the Mountain Dragon King could only roar and compete with its enemies in strength, acting like a reckless close-combat brute, wouldn't that make it part of the Golden Dragon King Lineage?

Contests of strength were the Golden Dragon King's business. Why should a Mountain Dragon King concern himself with that?

The Mountain Dragon King's greatest power was his ability to control mountains, rivers, and earth veins. Legend had it that when the Mountain Dragon King grew angry, natural disasters would strike the entire continent.

In that sense, rather than calling the Mountain Dragon King a beast martial soul, it would be more accurate to call it a domain-type martial soul.

Long Yue clearly understood his Mountain Dragon King martial soul and knew how to develop it in the future.

The ten-thousand-year Crystal Bear was half drowned. The powerful currents had even scoured its flesh open, exposing its lungs and other organs.

Long Yue not only forced floodwater into the Crystal Bear's lungs, but also turned the rivers into something akin to high-pressure water jets, inflicting damage through sheer water pressure and momentum.

Moreover, what Long Yue summoned were rivers, not the streams of water conjured by water-attribute soul masters.

Besides water, a normal river also carried silt, gravel, and fragments of rock.

Long Yue could control the quantity and speed of this "built-in ammunition," turning his River soul skill into an enormous natural grinding wheel or water cutter.

However, Long Yue was only a Two-Ring Soul Grandmaster at present. Such precise control caused his soul power to plummet.

The River soul skill ceased, and Long Yue's body, transformed by Dragon Transformation, charged toward the heavily wounded Crystal Bear.

Crack, crack-!

His sole remaining dragon claw plunged into the Crystal Bear's neck. The high-pressure currents had torn the flesh there wide open, leaving it utterly defenseless.

Long Yue snapped the Crystal Bear's cervical spine outright.

"Eek, eek..."

The Mountain Sprite soul spirit jumped up excitedly and began to evolve. In the Spirit Pagoda's terminology, this was called spirit ascension.

The hundred-year Mountain Sprite soul spirit grew taller and taller. Its red face became an even more vivid, almost dripping crimson, and fangs sprouted in its mouth.

If the Mountain Sprite had previously been a cute little monkey, it had now become an Ape Monster that struck fear into the heart.

Soul spirits and soul masters shared a bond of minds. Having become a thousand-year soul spirit, the Mountain Sprite was now even more intelligent. Naturally, it knew that Long Yue disliked his soul spirit looking like a green-faced, fanged demon.

Thus, the Ape Monster turned back into a harmless-looking, cute little monkey.

Should battle require it, this cute little monkey, which seemed to possess little fighting strength, would instantly transform into a powerful Mountain Sprite.

While Long Yue underwent spirit ascension, quite a few soul beasts passed by him. Deterred by his fearsome presence and the Crystal Bear's corpse beside him, none of the low-ranking soul beasts wanted to be the bird that stuck its head out first.

Undergoing spirit ascension inside the Spirit Ascension Platform without anyone standing guard was extremely dangerous. Yet even Long Yue had never imagined that he could complete the transformation from a hundred-year soul spirit to a thousand-year soul spirit in a single attempt.

What a good fellow that ten-thousand-year Crystal Bear was. It saved me so much effort.

The spirit ascension did not last long. Long Yue's powerful body fully withstood the age of the thousand-year soul ring.

He slowly opened his eyes. In that instant, two seemingly tangible beams of light burst from them.

The soul beasts gathered around him, eyeing him hungrily, received quite a fright.

The instant Long Yue opened his eyes, an immensely powerful, domineering aura swept outward from him in every direction like a surging tidal wave.

The soul beasts scattered like birds and beasts, fleeing into the distance without caring which way they ran.

Having achieved his goal, Long Yue turned his head and pressed the rescue button on the back of his hand.

Dying inside the Spirit Ascension Platform did not mean truly dying, but soul masters still had to endure the backlash.

For instance, Long Yue had lost an arm inside the Spirit Ascension Platform. If he did not receive treatment after leaving, that arm might suffer lasting weakness.

There was no need to keep risking himself inside the Spirit Ascension Platform.

Long Yue turned into a streak of light and vanished from the spot.