"Roar!"
With a roar, an utterly uncanny black radiance, as deep as an abyss, suddenly erupted from his corpse.
Within that radiance, a tiger's roar shook the surrounding wilderness, brimming with savagery and sinister menace, yet also boundless excitement and release.
A phantom Evil Shadow Demon Tiger, pitch-black from head to tail, with scarlet eyes and near-solid shadows and an ominous aura coiling around its body, suddenly tore free of the gradually cooling corpse!
It threw back its head and roared at the heavens, waves of sound rolling outward, as though celebrating its escape at last from that cowardly, foolish host who could never unleash its power!
Then the phantom Evil Shadow Demon Tiger abruptly turned its head, fixing its scarlet eyes on Dai Youheng, who stood nearby. Its gaze brimmed with longing, submission, and recognition!
It let out a low, urging growl, then transformed into a bolt of black lightning and hurtled toward Dai Youheng, vanishing into the space between his brows in an instant!
"Urgh!"
Dai Youheng's body jolted violently. He felt an immense surge of incomparably pure dark energy flood into his body like a river bursting through its banks, frenziedly merging with his original soul power.
His soul power level began skyrocketing at a terrifying speed. At the same time, every secret, application, and soul skill insight of the Evil Shadow Demon Tiger martial soul branded itself deep into his soul, becoming as natural as instinct!
Within his sea of consciousness, beside the Fate-Reversing Heavenly Demon Pill, the phantom of another colossal creature slowly gathered and solidified. It was none other than the untamable, sinister, domineering Evil Shadow Demon Tiger martial soul!
In his mind, the Snow Empress's voice sounded softly, carrying a trace of wonder and understanding. "Hehe, heteromorphic counterparts. When one personally finishes off the other, he naturally inherits everything the other possessed. His martial soul, his soul power, even his very existence."
"Twin martial souls, the Evil Shadow Demon Tiger and the Fate-Reversing Heavenly Demon Pill. Dai Youheng, you truly have become a monster now."
Feeling the new power surging and roaring through his body, along with that utterly different second martial soul, Dai Youheng slowly clenched his fists. A cold, satisfied smile appeared on his face.
A monster? Perhaps.
But in this world, only monsters could survive better.
He glanced at the pathetic simp's corpse on the ground. Rather than destroying it to erase the evidence, he froze it with ultimate ice to prevent it from rotting, then stored it in his soul tool. That simp's corpse might still serve a purpose someday.
From that moment onward, only one Dai Youheng remained in the world.
After killing that worthless version of himself and absorbing the entire source of his power, Dai Youheng did not leave immediately. He knew full well that leaving now would only arouse suspicion. The best disguise was to take over everything the other man had, including his identity and social connections.
He sat down cross-legged on the spot, closed his eyes, and sank his awareness into his body. He began carefully exploring the martial soul he had just acquired, the true power that should have belonged to this body-the Evil Shadow Demon Tiger.
Within his sea of consciousness, the pitch-black phantom tiger, its scarlet eyes like blood and ominous shadows coiling around its body, let out a low, satisfied growl.
Unlike the restrained, uncanny power of rules possessed by the Fate-Reversing Heavenly Demon Pill, the Evil Shadow Demon Tiger martial soul radiated pure, domineering darkness and destruction, brimming with bestial might.
"A mutated form of the Evil-Eyed White Tiger," Dai Youheng murmured as he carefully examined it. "Its physical strength is no weaker than that of a true White Tiger, its energy attacks are more corrosive and destructive, and its methods of attack are even stranger and harder to predict. It certainly deserves its place among the finest mutated beast martial souls!"
He felt a trace of regret that this powerful martial soul had been wasted on that simp for so many years. To use such formidable power to bow and scrape, wagging his tail and begging for scraps, was truly to cast a shining pearl into darkness.
As he extended his perception, the three soul rings floating around the Evil Shadow Demon Tiger martial soul came clearly into his awareness: two yellow and one purple.
Although that simp had been lax in his cultivation, at least the White Tiger Duke's Mansion had not shortchanged its illegitimate son when it came to his soul ring configuration. He still had the standard optimal combination.
The three soul rings were roughly four hundred, seven hundred, and fifteen hundred years old, respectively. He swiftly digested the information coming from the martial soul and soul rings, grasping the effects of these three soul skills:
First soul skill: Demon Tiger Body. Initially awakened the Demon Tiger bloodline, comprehensively enhancing his strength, speed, defense, and neural reaction speed by fifty percent. Faint shadow markings appeared across his body, slightly increasing his resistance to physical and energy attacks.
Second soul skill: Evil Shadow Soul-Rending Claw. Concentrated energy of the shadow and destruction attributes in both claws to unleash a swift, vicious rending attack. Its attack trajectory was uncanny, allowing it to bypass an opponent's physical defenses to a certain extent while delivering a slight shock and stabbing pain to the struck target's spiritual power.
Third soul skill: Shadow Surge. Made the evil shadow energy within his body churn like boiling water, sending him into a frenzied state. In this state, his strength, speed, defense, and spiritual power doubled. He could resist negative conditions to a certain extent, while his body's flexibility and explosive power increased. He could also perform short-range, small-scale shadow shifts to evade attacks.
These three soul skills could be considered mutated, upgraded versions of the White Tiger martial soul's common White Tiger Protection Barrier, White Tiger Fierce Light Wave, and White Tiger Vajra Transformation.
Three very practical soul skills, especially the Third Soul Skill's shadow shift... Dai Youheng assessed inwardly. They're countless times more powerful than when that good-for-nothing used them.
At the same time, he clearly felt the enormous increase in his soul power level. That simp's level-thirty-one soul power merged into his original level-seventeen soul power like a river flowing into the sea.
His soul power finally stabilized at level thirty-eight!
He had leaped from level seventeen to level thirty-eight, breaking through twenty-one levels in succession.
It seemed a little low, but it was actually reasonable. The further a soul master progressed in cultivation, the more the total soul power required for each level increased exponentially.
For a Soul Elder, the total soul power of someone in the teens, at the Soul Scholar or Soul Master rank, was not particularly immense.
At the Titled Douluo rank, even if a Soul Emperor poured all his soul power into one, gaining half a level would already count as a substantial harvest.
"A level-thirty-eight Soul Elder. Although there's still a gap between me and a Soul King like Xu Jiujiu, I've already caught up with most people my age. More importantly..." Dai Youheng flexed his fists, feeling the power surging within him. "Because the two of us shared the same origin, the foundation of the soul power I absorbed remains incredibly solid. And I have twin martial souls!"
Just as he had gained an initial familiarity with his new power, an azure figure raced over from the distance and landed lightly before him. It was the Wind Wolf Soul King guard.
The guard's breathing was somewhat hurried, but he bore no obvious wounds. Clearly, as an Agility Attack System Soul King, provided he did not fight his opponent to the death, keeping an early-stage Power Attack System Soul Emperor with a less-than-optimal soul ring configuration occupied and withdrawing
unscathed was no difficult feat.
Before you continue