Time flew like a shuttle, and in the blink of an eye, more than a month had passed.
"I've finally figured out that fellow Dugu Bo's routine."
On the outskirts of Sunset Forest, the door of a secluded house in Soul Hunting Town opened.
Clang, clang, clang. Metal rang against metal.
A suit of pitch-black metal armor over two meters tall emerged, with four enormous floating cannons behind its back.
It slowly raised its head, and red light lit up at its eyes.
The four enormous floating cannons behind it suddenly spat emerald-green flames, lifting it into the air and sending it hurtling toward the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
Soon, Ye Guixu reached the site of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and saw it shrouded in emerald-green poisonous miasma.
With the armor protecting him, Ye Guixu ignored the poisonous miasma and entered, taking in the scene within the valley.
A hot spring pool was divided into two halves.
The spring water was milky white on one side and vermilion on the other.
Though they occupied the same pool, the two were as clearly divided as the Jing and Wei Rivers, neither encroaching on the other.
This was none other than the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
All around it, immortal herbs and medicinal plants quietly grew, shimmering with radiant colors.
Ye Guixu recalled the information about the immortal herbs in the original Douluo Continent story, along with their respective colors, positions, and attributes, and identified them all using his full-spectrum array perception.
He immediately gathered every medicinal plant except the Ice and Fire Immortal Herbs.
He placed them in the armor's Inner Space.
Inside that Inner Space, their medicinal potency could be preserved without loss.
After stripping the place bare of all the other immortal herbs, he took out jade and iron implements and launched them toward the roots of the Ice and Fire Immortal Herbs, severing them.
He then drew them over with his spiritual power, making the Ice and Fire Immortal Herbs collide and cancel out their extreme heat and cold.
They landed in his enormous gauntlet.
Clang, clang, clang.
At that moment, the Void Star God helmet came off amid a ringing of metal.
Ye Guixu's head was revealed. Raising his hand, he quickly bit into the Ice and Fire Immortal Herbs and swallowed them, then took out the Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew and consumed it as well.
Soon, ice and fire collided within Ye Guixu's body, as though they would tear him apart.
His helmet covered his head once more, and Ye Guixu leaped toward the ice and fire spring.
He sank into the water and began refining the medicinal potency.
He also controlled two of the floating cannons behind the Void Star God Armor, sending them into the air to stand guard.
Yet as Ye Guixu sank into the spring water, a pitch-black, shadowy glow emerged from the Void Star God Armor, and none of the surrounding light could escape.
Like a black hole, it devoured the Ice and Fire Spring Water in a frenzy.
It poured that power into Ye Guixu's body, where it joined the power of the Ice and Fire Immortal Herbs in constantly scouring his flesh, tempering his body to greater strength.
At the same time, the Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew expanded Ye Guixu's Spiritual Sea.
The level of the Ice and Fire Spring Water fell at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Three days and three nights later.
With a splash, a suit of interwoven black-and-gold armor burst from the ice and fire spring and hovered in midair.
Looking at the considerably lowered Ice and Fire Spring Water, Ye Guixu clenched his fist hard, making his black-and-gold gauntlet clang.
"To think that performing the Ice and Fire Golden Body under Martial Soul Possession would take a few extra days, absorb more Ice and Fire Spring Water, and produce a tempering effect several times greater than Tang San's."
"My physical body should already be at the Soul Emperor level."
"Then again, Void Star God Sauron was originally a cosmic star god created with a black hole as his model. Not even light can escape a black hole."
"My spiritual power has grown stronger too. There's more I can do now."
Ye Guixu slowly raised his hand toward the Ice and Fire Spring Water, and an emerald-green glow lit up his enormous, interwoven black-and-gold claw.
In an instant,
The Ice and Fire Spring Water rapidly formed two enormous five-clawed dragons, one white and one red, each dozens of zhang long.
Under Ye Guixu's control, they continuously soared and coiled around the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
"Heh... I suppose this should be called Ice and Fire Dragon Soar!"
"It really does leave me feeling clearheaded and refreshed."
As Ye Guixu dispersed his spiritual power, the dragons of Ice and Fire Spring Water became waterfalls that crashed into the spring below, sending spray filling the sky.
"The Ice and Fire Spring Water is good stuff too. It can even injure a Titled Douluo. I'll collect some to take with me."
With Ye Guixu's spiritual power at work, the Ice and Fire Spring Water became two enormous streams that surged toward him and poured into his Inner Space.
After storing twenty cubic meters of each kind of Ice and Fire Spring Water separately, Ye Guixu stopped using his spiritual power.
"Let's leave a little mark."
Ye Guixu looked at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, stripped bare by his plundering.
Using his spiritual power, he left a line of writing directly on a stone wall in the valley:
"This treasure land belongs to our Clear Sky Sect. All trespassers will be killed! Left by Clear Sky Douluo Tang Hao!"
For murder and arson, Clear Sky Douluo; for deliverance from suffering, the Void Star God.
After reciting those words inwardly, Ye Guixu's lips curled into a cold sneer.
To set up a certain rat in the gutter, he had not spent a single day idle over the past month or so.
Every few days, he would slip into a nearby town or village and use Void Star God Sauron's unique "Brainwave Connection" ability to find a few low-ranking mercenaries or passersby and lightly alter a detail deep within their memories.
"Clear Sky Douluo Tang Hao seems to have appeared in the villages and towns around Nuoding City."
With three people spreading the tale, a tiger became real; even falsehood became truth.
All the more so when this was true to begin with.
In just one month, the same piece of news was circulating throughout the area around Heaven Dou City:
The Clear Sky Douluo who had wreaked havoc in Spirit Hall and killed two Titled Douluos back then had appeared again.
Meanwhile, Spirit Hall was already frantic over the massacre of Holy Soul Village.
The peerless genius capable of bursting the crystal ball was gone, the village had been slaughtered to the last person without a single survivor, and now word had spread that Tang Hao had appeared near Nuoding City.
With new grudges piled atop old hatred, Spirit Hall immediately dispatched more personnel to patrol, question, and track people around Nuoding City, like a net drawing ever tighter.
The one caught in that net was precisely the rat hiding in the gutter.
Over the past few days, Tang Hao had been so irritated that he almost wanted to smash things.
He had intended to stay by Tang San's side, but now Spirit Hall's people kept appearing nearby, and he had to keep Tang San's identity from being exposed.
He had no choice but to keep moving, hiding, and taking detours.
He could not even get a peaceful night's sleep. No sooner had he closed his eyes than sounds of Spirit Hall's patrols came from afar, forcing him to get up and find another place again.
He vaguely sensed something was wrong, but could not put his finger on the problem.
It was as though an invisible hand was pushing him into the light, little by little.
"Damn it, who the hell is behind this?"
Crouching behind an old tree, Tang Hao watched a squad of Spirit Hall Soul Masters pass in the distance with torches raised. He cursed under his breath, then vanished into the darkness once more.
After leaving a little mark at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, Ye Guixu controlled the Void Star God Armor and flew straight into the sky.
After leaving the poisonous miasma, he found that the moon was high overhead.
"I haven't eaten in days. I'll head back and take care of that."
Returning to the little house where he had stayed for a month, he filled his stomach, packed up the everyday supplies inside, and set off toward Star Dou Great Forest under cover of night.
Although he could also search for Soul Beasts in Sunset Forest to obtain a Soul Ring, his month of observation had shown him something.
That old poisoner came once every seven days and stayed for two days each time.
Why have any dealings with that old poisoner now?
Use immortal herbs as a redemption code??
Heh.
Why bother!
Once I'm a little stronger, I'll simply subdue him and make him a gardener. He can work hard growing immortal herbs for me and tending the flowers and plants inside!
Soul Hunting Town, on the outskirts of Star Dou Great Forest.
Early in the morning, sunlight spilled in from outside the window.
Ye Guixu slowly opened his eyes. After washing up, he opened the window and looked out at Soul Hunting Town as it gradually grew lively, considering what kind of Soul Ring he should obtain.
His physique had now reached the Soul Emperor level, he possessed the powerful Void Star God Martial Soul, and his spiritual power had been enhanced by the Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew.
Combined with Sauron's sixfold enhancement of spiritual power after Martial Soul Possession, he could completely disregard the Soul Shock of a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast.
"Only a Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring would give this Martial Soul the prestige it deserves."
"Let's see which Soul Beasts would be suitable first."
Afterward.
Ye Guixu purchased some everyday supplies in Soul Hunting Town, then set off toward Star Dou Great Forest.
Turning to the other side of the story, while Ye Guixu was preparing to obtain a Soul Ring, Dugu Bo was ill at ease.
"What's going on? Why have I kept feeling so unsettled these past few days?"
Before you continue