Then Xiong Jun turned his gaze toward Zeng Tian, his eyes gleaming viciously. "Little runt, don't think you're somebody just because you've latched onto the Scarlet King. You have no right to be here!"
At Xiong Jun's contemptuous words, the Scarlet King's expression shifted slightly, his smile gradually fading.
What an utterly unreasonable brute. His strength was the only thing keeping him alive; with a temper like that, someone would have beaten him to death long ago otherwise.
But hearing Xiong Jun claim that Zeng Tian had no right to be there made the Scarlet King laugh inwardly.
He had sparred with Zeng Tian several times recently, and Zeng Tian had grown stronger with every bout. In their latest match, Zeng Tian's strength had already matched his own.
In fact, he had only managed a draw with Zeng Tian thanks to the advantage of his domain.
Without his domain, he was no longer a match for Zeng Tian.
And his own strength had improved considerably compared to before!
Thus, even setting aside Di Tian's intention to groom Zeng Tian as his successor, his strength alone fully qualified him to be there as the seventh ferocious beast of the Star Dou Great Forest.
Zeng Tian merely glanced at Xiong Jun, gave a soft snort, and ignored him.
Xiong Jun was indeed powerful; his Sky-Rending Claw could even injure Di Tian. But with Zeng Tian's current strength, there was no need for him to bow and scrape.
He might not yet be a match for Xiong Jun, but he could still protect himself.
"Brat, what's that supposed to mean?!"
With the Scarlet King refusing to acknowledge him and Zeng Tian ignoring him as well, how could the hot-tempered Xiong Jun endure it? He immediately slammed his palm onto the table and stood up.
Just as Xiong Jun erupted in anger, Di Tian raised his eyelids and waved a hand at him. "Enough. I asked the Scarlet King to invite Zeng Tian here."
"!!???"
At those words, Xiong Jun abruptly froze, first shocked, then puzzled.
Di Tian had summoned this fire-type lesser dragon? What exactly did he mean by that? Or was there something special about this fire-type lesser dragon?
Xiong Jun sat back down and began looking Zeng Tian up and down, as though trying to see right through him.
Meanwhile, after their initial shock, the other ferocious beasts present also began studying Zeng Tian, hoping to discern what was special about him.
Bi Ji's eyes were gentle as water, her surprise tinged with goodwill. When Zeng Tian met her gaze, she even smiled and nodded.
The Myriad Demon King narrowed his eyes as he looked at Zeng Tian, his thoughts unreadable.
Zi JI also shifted her gaze away from the Auspicious Beast and studied Zeng Tian curiously.
Their scrutiny lasted only a moment, however, before Di Tian spoke.
"Report on the state of the soul beasts in your territories over the past century. Myriad Demon King, you first."
The Myriad Demon King oversaw all the plant-type soul beasts in the Star Dou Great Forest, along with a third of its territory. To a certain extent, his report could represent the condition of the entire forest.
At this, the Myriad Demon King immediately spoke in a slightly hoarse voice. "The current outlook for soul beasts is far from optimistic. Over the past century, the number of plant soul beasts in my territory has increased slightly, but the number of animal soul beasts has fallen by roughly one percent.
"Human soul hunting isn't even the most pressing issue. The real problem is the loss of habitat. Human territory is expanding far too quickly.
"Especially over this past century, their soul tool technology and its widespread adoption have advanced tremendously. Low-level soul beasts pose less and less of a threat to humans. If this continues, humans will only nibble away at the Star Dou Great Forest faster and faster."
"It's the same on my side. The number of soul beasts has fallen by around half a percent, mainly because our territory has shrunk. But there is another important matter: the leader of the Fire Luan Bird Clan was unfortunately hunted down by humans. We have lost another hundred-thousand-year soul beast."
As she spoke, Zi JI sighed worriedly.
Over the past few centuries, humanity's appetite had grown ever larger. They had once only considered obtaining a hundred-thousand-year soul ring when breaking through to Titled Douluo. Now, they were already adding a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring as their eighth ring, and had even begun attempting to obtain one for their seventh.
Although quite a few Titled Douluo had also died at the hands of soul beasts, that had done nothing to reverse the situation.
As Di Tian listened to the ferocious beasts' reports, his brow furrowed ever more deeply.
In just a hundred years, six hundred-thousand-year soul beasts had been hunted down in the Star Dou Great Forest, while only five had risen to replace them.
And this was the Star Dou Great Forest, guarded by their gathering of ferocious beasts and blessed by the Auspicious Beast's fortune.
If even their situation was like this, he dared not imagine how terrible things were elsewhere.
My lord, when will you finally awaken and lead us in a counterattack against humanity?
Di Tian sighed inwardly.
The Soul Beast Clan's habitat was being squeezed away, leaving them weaker and weaker, while humans grew ever stronger and had recently even developed soul tools.
If this dragged on, he truly feared humanity would grow beyond their ability to handle.
Unlike humans, Di Tian and the others kept their reports extremely concise. Before long, all the ferocious beasts had finished.
Listening to their accounts, Zeng Tian realized that the soul beasts' situation was even worse than he had expected.
The lower ranks of soul beasts faced an overwhelming assault from increasingly powerful soul tools, while the upper ranks-especially those with a hundred thousand years of cultivation or more-faced the predicament of losing members faster than new ones could emerge.
Even with an Auspicious Beast doubling their rate of cultivation growth, a soul beast still needed fifty thousand years from birth to reach a hundred thousand years of cultivation.
Some fortuitous encounters might increase their cultivation age, but without an innate skill like devouring, those gains would be limited. They would still need tens of thousands of years.
And what about humanity's Titled Douluo?
A soul master usually needed only a few decades to progress from awakening their martial soul to becoming a Titled Douluo. The difference in their maturation times was more than a hundredfold.
Even if one hundred-thousand-year soul beast could be traded for ten Titled Douluo, soul beasts still could not replenish those losses. In the end, their high-level fighting forces would only dwindle.
That was also why Di Tian and the others would go so mad after the Auspicious Beast died.
They were already losing out in every exchange of casualties. Without the doubled cultivation growth provided by the Auspicious Beast, the gap between the old generation and the new would become even worse.
If that's the case, unless an overwhelmingly powerful soul beast emerges to sweep away all external threats, they'll be finished sooner or later if this war of attrition continues.
As he listened, Zeng Tian rubbed his chin and thought to himself.
Soul beasts possessed extraordinarily long lifespans, which was naturally a good thing.
The problem was that those lifespans also came with slow cultivation growth, low intelligence among younger soul beasts, and other issues.
More importantly, soul beasts as a whole had almost no inheritance to pass down. Their upper limits were essentially fixed at birth. Even after another million years, their strength would not change much.
Humans, however, could keep growing stronger through the knowledge they passed down.
Under these circumstances, unless a mighty figure emerged among the soul beasts and struck humanity hard enough to sever the continuity of its civilization, the longer time went on, the more certain the soul beasts' defeat became!