At the Dugu Family estate in Heaven Dou City, an extremely displeased expression appeared on the youthful, sinister face of the green-haired Dugu Bo.
"Grandpa, what's wrong?"
A girl with emerald hair beside him asked curiously.
Dugu Bo lowered his hand. "Yanyan, I don't know either. These past few days, I've kept feeling as though someone has stolen something from me."
"Grandpa, with a Titled Douluo like you here keeping watch, who would dare come and steal your things?"
The speaker meant nothing by it, but the listener took it to heart.
Those words flashed like a spark of inspiration, jolting Dugu Bo's heart.
No one would steal anything while he was keeping watch?
Then what if no one was keeping watch?
Oh no, my medicinal herbs!
In a frantic rush, Dugu Bo went straight out the door, shot into the sky, and sped toward the outskirts of Sunset Forest.
"Grandpa! Grandpa!"
In the courtyard, Dugu Yan watched the panicked Dugu Bo, not knowing what had happened.
His heart burning with anxiety, Dugu Bo turned into a streak of green light and raced onward. Only when he reached the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and saw that the poisonous miasma was intact did he breathe a sigh of relief.
After passing through the poisonous miasma, however, he saw the empty interior, with pits and hollows everywhere, and was instantly dumbfounded.
"My... my medicinal herbs!!!"
He had discovered this valley many years ago, its spring waters containing terrifying powers of ice and fire.
Those two extreme powers clashed with each other. Neither ordinary humans nor soul beasts could remain here for long, or those extreme forces would inevitably make their bodies burst, killing them.
But he could use the extreme spiritual energy here to stay for a short time and suppress the toxins within his body.
A great many medicinal herbs also grew around it, containing terrifying power and toxicity.
Apart from some poisonous herbs and the singular velvet sky chrysanthemum, which he could identify,
he had never dared tamper with any of the other medicinal herbs. He had carefully tended them for so many years, yet now someone had dug them all up.
Dugu Bo's aura erupted, and the phantom of his Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor martial soul appeared behind him.
His eyes were bloodshot, his breath came like a bull's, and he roared as though driven mad:
"Damn it! Who was it? Who dared steal from my territory?! That damned little thief!"
His roar shook the valley.
"You damned bastard! If I catch you, I'll flay your skin and tear out your tendons, and make you taste the agony of ten thousand poisons devouring your heart!"
His eyes filled with murderous intent, Dugu Bo walked over to the Ice and Fire Mandarin Duck Pot with a grim expression. Seeing that even the level of the Ice and Fire Spring Water had dropped, his expression grew uglier still.
"Damn it, they even stole so much of this terrifying Ice and Fire Spring Water! That damned thief!"
Murderous intent seethed within Dugu Bo.
The Ice and Fire Spring Water contained terrifying powers of ice and fire. Even a Titled Douluo could not remain in it for long, which showed just how powerful it was.
Suddenly, he spotted a line of writing left on a cliff face, and his expression froze.
"This treasure land belongs to me, the Clear Sky Douluo. Trespassers will be killed. Left by Tang Hao, the Clear Sky Douluo!"
"The Clear Sky Douluo? Isn't he rumored to appear in Nuoding City from time to time?? Why would he come here??"
Dugu Bo's expression was extremely ugly.
There was no one on the Douluo Continent who did not know Tang Hao's name.
The youngest Titled Douluo, he had killed two Titled Douluo from Spirit Hall immediately after his breakthrough and gravely wounded Pope Qian Xunji, who had died of his injuries!
How could Dugu Bo afford to provoke someone like that?
And why had that man appeared here?!?
Damn it, he even stole my wonderful treasure land...
Curse him!
Dugu Bo felt he might now suffer the loss of this treasure land, but he could not resign himself to it.
After turning it over repeatedly in his mind, Dugu Bo cursed, "Damn it," his expression ugly.
He could only leave for now, planning to observe from the outskirts for a while and see whether Tang Hao really would come here.
This treasure land was the key to curing his poison. There was no way he could give it up.
While Dugu Bo cautiously kept watch outside the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well,
in an ice-bound valley on the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest, Ye Guixu was locked in fierce combat with a suit of pitch-black armor identical to his own.
Sword light crisscrossed and sparks flew as the two Void Swords struck a series of metallic booms through the air.
The mimic Sauron was forced back again and again. Beside them, a black eagle with a ten-meter wingspan kept swooping down from above, its sharp talons wreathed in golden light, each strike aimed at tearing Ye Guixu apart.
Ye Guixu drove the mimic back over a hundred meters with one slash, flipped aside to evade the eagle's talons, and calmly studied the replicated "himself."
A quarter of an hour earlier.
He had followed an aura of intertwined ice and darkness to this valley and discovered an Ice Giant Serpent coiled within.
Its scales were icy blue, their edges entwined with black markings, and its cultivation was around fifteen thousand years.
The serpent studied him for several seconds, then its body began to writhe and transform.
As its scales churned, it actually became a suit of Void Star God Armor exactly like his own. It even mimicked the floating thrusters behind him and slowly rose into the air.
Ye Guixu immediately decided: he would make it his soul ring.
This creature would surely give him a pleasant surprise.
After several exchanges, he figured out the soul beast's capabilities.
It possessed a complete mimicry ability much like that of a Mirror Shadow Beast, capable of replicating seventy percent of its target's strength and every soul skill it had witnessed firsthand.
When Ye Guixu revealed the Void Sword, it summoned a Void Sword as well.
At the same time, however, this soul beast's presence also alerted the local overlord, a black eagle.
Its peace disturbed by the two bizarre-looking metal constructs, the eagle flew into a rage and actually joined forces with the mimic Sauron to attack Ye Guixu from both sides.
Seeing that its prolonged assault had failed, the mimic Sauron abruptly split into three, charging simultaneously from three directions.
The black eagle beat its wings and rose into the sky, its sharp talons poised to strike.
"Looks like your mimicry time is almost up."
Ye Guixu burst forward toward them.
Once he reached a certain distance,
"Space-Time Vortex."
Golden light exploded, instantly enveloping the entire sky.
The three mimics and the black eagle froze in midair at the same time.
Ye Guixu did not hesitate. The mimic Sauron had already witnessed the entire process of him using Space-Time Vortex. If he did not finish it now, that would be the next move it replicated.
His figure flashed, and the Void Sword swept out, striking first at the two duplicates.
Sword light passed through them, and the duplicates dissolved into a sky full of energy fragments.
Immediately afterward,
he gripped his sword with both hands, gathering soul power along its blade. Emerald light blazed as he slashed fiercely down at the final mimic's neck.
Clang!
Sparks flew as the blade swept across.
The metal head flew high into the air.
The thrusters behind Ye Guixu erupted again. Like a streak of black light, he doubled back, his sword tracing a perfectly straight path as he sliced off the head of the Black-Winged Great Eagle, which was likewise frozen in midair.
Space-Time Vortex ended.
The two corpses crashed heavily to the ground.
The mimic Sauron reverted to its true form, an icy-blue giant serpent, utterly bereft of life.
Two pitch-black soul rings slowly rose.
Ye Guixu landed, and the four floating cannons behind him rose on their own to stand guard, establishing defensive lines in four directions.
He sat cross-legged, a dark glow emanating from his body as he drew the two soul rings before him and slowly absorbed them into his body.
The lingering soul resentment of the ten-thousand-year soul beasts frantically tore at his Spiritual Sea.
With a body at the Soul Emperor level and spiritual power at the peak Soul King level, amplified sixfold while wearing the Void Star God Armor, he completely disregarded the soul resentment and the violent soul power scouring his body.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy Star he had placed in his inner space began to flicker faintly. Ye Guixu knew nothing of this.
At that moment, his soul power level climbed steadily.
21, 22, 23... only at level 30 was it forcibly stopped because he had yet to obtain his third soul ring.
Even so, the power accumulated from the immortal herbs and Ice and Fire Spring Water continued surging within him, awaiting the next opportunity to break through.
Ye Guixu sensed the soul skills conveyed by the two soul rings and was instantly ecstatic.
"I knew it would be this!!"
As the two soul rings pulsed up and down around Ye Guixu, he raised his left hand, and a piece of crystal-clear ice condensed above it.
"Void Profound Ice!"
"Old friend, it really is you!"
Before you continue