Li Mingzhu poked through the wolf's charred corpse, hoping to see whether, like other fanfic protagonists, he could get a top-tier external soul bone from a ten-year soul beast.
Using a spear he had taken from the Domain Space, he turned it over again and again. After searching the whole thing, he had not found so much as a hair.
"Ah! I just don't have that kind of luck."
After grumbling, Li Mingzhu put away what he was holding and set off again.
The earlier soul beast attack had given Li Mingzhu a little more confidence.
He no longer traveled as cautiously as before. He activated Martial Soul Possession and sprinted across level ground, using Airflight to cross any difficult terrain he encountered.
This greatly shortened the time it would take to reach the Void Netherstone ruins.
Li Mingzhu moved swiftly through the forest, watching tree after tree fall behind him. He encountered soul beasts along the way, but the moment they sensed his draconic might, they scattered in terror.
When he sensed that only thirty percent of his soul power remained, he found a flat boulder and sat down to regulate his breathing and replenish it.
Li Mingzhu pondered this. If he maintained this pace, he could reach his destination in less than four hours.
At the same time, his worry grew. While traveling just now, he had spotted a boundary marker set up by the Spirit Hall. His current location already counted as the depths of the Soul Hunting Forest.
He did not know whether his martial soul would work against older soul beasts. Although ten-thousand-year soul beasts in the Soul Hunting Forest were now even rarer than hundred-thousand-year soul beasts in the Star Dou Great Forest, running into one would still be bad news.
Ever since his martial soul awakening, the Ancient Void Dragon martial soul within him had constantly been accumulating spatial power outside itself. With that power, he could escape through spatial translocation if he encountered danger.
That was also what gave Li Mingzhu the confidence to come out soul hunting.
Rustle, rustle, rustle...
After recovering his soul power, Li Mingzhu was just about to activate Martial Soul Possession and leave.
Then he heard a sticky sizzling sound from the bushes. Flower stalks scraped against the vegetation, accompanied by muffled sounds of a flower bud opening and closing, drawing steadily closer.
Every muscle in Li Mingzhu's body instantly tensed. He lay flat against the boulder, deliberately slowing his breathing as his eyes fixed on the bushes where the sounds had come from.
Thick flower stalks abruptly smashed aside the bushes on both sides, revealing the hideous body of a gigantic Man-Eating Flower. Its thick, gnarled roots drove deep into the soil to steady it, while its enormous blossom slowly opened to either side, exposing densely packed rows of sharp teeth that radiated a chilling ferocity.
Seeing the Man-Eating Flower soul beast before him, Li Mingzhu silently cursed his own crow's mouth. He had spoken of trouble, and trouble had really come.
At the same time, he was filled with curiosity.
Normally, Man-Eating Flowers stayed in groups within their own territory and could not move. Yet the one before him could actually move on its own!
Judging by this soul beast's roots, it had only just reached roughly two thousand years of age. With such an unusual trait, it could not possibly be ordinary.
"Roar, roar, roar-!"
Just then, a tiger's roar rang out, and a Demon-Striped Tiger lunged at the Man-Eating Flower with its bloody maw wide open.
"This Demon-Striped Tiger is at least twice the size of the Man-Eating Flower. By the usual method of judging the age of tiger soul beasts, it has to be around eight thousand years old!"
Li Mingzhu restrained his pounding heart and activated Martial Soul Possession again. This time, however, he did not release his aura. Instead, he used his domain ability to conceal it as completely as possible. (The Ancient Void Dragon's domain abilities were mentioned during his awakening.)
Judging by the way these two beasts were clashing, there was a ninety percent chance this was a fight to the death.
He had to hide well and see whether there was a chance to fish in troubled waters.
The Demon-Striped Tiger attacked ferociously, giving the Man-Eating Flower no chance to escape.
It leaped straight into the air and raised its claws to slash at the Man-Eating Flower's mouth.
As the saying went, clouds followed dragons, and winds followed tigers. Powerful winds wrapped around its claws, lending them astonishing speed. Caught completely off guard, the Man-Eating Flower had no time to dodge, and its hand-like leaves were torn clean off.
The Man-Eating Flower seemed to shriek in pain. The instant the Demon-Striped Tiger landed, it spat a mouthful of thousand-year corrosive venom at its face.
That thousand-year-old glob of phlegm truly packed a terrifying punch. The Demon-Striped Tiger's face was immediately corroded into a bloody mess.
While the Demon-Striped Tiger was distracted by the pain, a vine beneath the Man-Eating Flower turned into a wooden spear and stabbed toward its eye.
Unable to react in time, the Demon-Striped Tiger lost an eye.
The Demon-Striped Tiger let out a roar. Its wounds stopped worsening, and its imposing aura multiplied several times over. Several wind blades formed around it and slashed toward the Man-Eating Flower.
That roar had been the Demon-Striped Tiger's innate ability, Demon Tiger's Wrath.
Before coming here, Li Mingzhu had researched the soul beast species along his route and learned some of their innate abilities. What he could not understand, however, was why these two soul beasts were fighting to the death. Unlike humans, soul beasts had great difficulty getting treatment for their injuries. Once they realized an opponent was hard to kill, they would usually retreat in the face of the difficulty.
Having suffered at the vines' hands, the Demon-Striped Tiger used wind blades to sever the Man-Eating Flower's roots and vines one after another. Whenever the Man-Eating Flower tried to counterattack, the Demon-Striped Tiger pulled away. Thanks to its wind abilities, almost none of the Man-Eating Flower's attacks could hit it.
Watching the Demon-Striped Tiger's tactics, Li Mingzhu freely praised it for having developed intelligence.
"That's it. Why charge in recklessly? Just kite it!"
The Demon-Striped Tiger's hide offered strong enough protection that the Man-Eating Flower's phlegm attacks did little more than inflict psychological damage.
But the Man-Eating Flower seemed to have gone mad, frantically spitting corrosive venom at the Demon-Striped Tiger.
Its vine attacks simply were not agile enough. Only its venom could blanket the area and leave the Demon-Striped Tiger nowhere to dodge.
After a prolonged exchange of attacks and evasions, corrosive venom covered the Demon-Striped Tiger's body. Its once-glossy fur had been corroded away completely, leaving it looking exactly like a shaved dog.
The Man-Eating Flower was no better off. Its vines had all been severed, only a single leaf remained beside its enormous mouth, and the roots it used to move were covered in cuts.
After slicing off the Man-Eating Flower's last leaf with a wind blade, the Demon-Striped Tiger stopped keeping its distance. It charged into close combat, seemingly intent on tearing its opponent apart with its claws!
It opened its jaws and bit toward the seemingly helpless Man-Eating Flower.
Meanwhile, several scarlet markings rapidly spread along the Man-Eating Flower's roots. Flaming spikes suddenly sprouted all over its body, and scorching heat erupted with a thunderous rush. To think this Man-Eating Flower commanded the power of fire!
The Man-Eating Flower's transformation also shocked Li Mingzhu, who had been watching the show.
There were many varieties of Man-Eating Flowers, and they were numerous, but when it came to the most badass among them, that title belonged to the Sun Man-Eating Flower.
Ultimate Douluo, the fourth installment of Douluo Continent, was an era when demons of every stripe ran wild.
Every kind of cheat-tier martial soul existed! The little dragon-man protagonist steamrolled his way through everything.
In the class challenge matches before their trip to the Elven Star, the strongest fifth-year student, Hua Linhan, had the Sun Man-Eating Flower as his martial soul. Its formidable power had given the protagonist's team plenty of suffering.
In the end, if the protagonist's team had not shamelessly turned on their cheats, using the Martial Soul Fusion Skill of two Soul Kings to unleash an attack comparable to a Titled Douluo's, Hua Linhan would never have lost. (This might differ somewhat from the fourth installment's description, but it was broadly correct.)
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