Jiang Hai walked alone through the Star Dou Great Forest with the bronze coffin on his shoulder, an indescribably incongruous sight.
Inside the bronze coffin, Ma Xiaotao rested with her eyes closed.
Traveling alone, Jiang Hai soon encountered a thousand-year soul beast.
It was a wolf-type soul beast wreathed in blue flames. Its savage eyes held a faint bloody gleam, and a light gust of foul-smelling air washed over him from its gaping jaws.
"A thousand-year Blue Flame Wolf. A pity it's only a little over a thousand years old!" Jiang Hai muttered to himself. He stepped forward to meet its gaze, and evil fire burst from his body. An aura of overwhelming ferocity suddenly erupted around him, as though a fire phoenix had descended.
A flicker of fear crossed the thousand-year Blue Flame Wolf's eyes. Without a moment's hesitation, it turned and fled.
Thousand-year soul beasts already possessed a certain degree of intelligence, and seeking fortune while avoiding danger was instinctive to all living creatures.
And so, like a dog emboldened by its master or a fox borrowing a tiger's might, Jiang Hai used Ma Xiaotao's intimidating aura to drive away many unsuitable thousand-year soul beasts along the way. There was also a hotheaded Great Strength Gorilla among them, but after a fierce fight with Jiang Hai, it too was beaten back.
Soul beasts held an advantage over humans in their greater strength and superior physiques, but Jiang Hai was a soul beast in human form, every bit the equal of an ordinary thousand-year soul beast.
Gradually, however, some of the two-thousand-year soul beasts he encountered began to give him trouble. When he met one he could not frighten away, he had to borrow Ma Xiaotao's power to drive it off.
Suddenly, the ground began to shake violently. Jiang