Several days earlier, at an inn at the entrance to the Star Dou Great Forest.
A purple figure quietly stepped through the inn's doors and vanished into the Star Dou Great Forest.
This was an utterly ordinary sight, but...
"Was that person just now..." The golden-haired girl froze slightly, her gaze lingering on the inn's doorway.
Then the girl suddenly smiled to herself.
Her teacher attended to countless affairs every day. How could she possibly appear on the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest at a time like this?
Perhaps she had simply imagined it.
"Nana, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?" Seeing his younger sister looking distracted, the silver-haired boy immediately asked with concern.
"Nothing. I just mistook someone for someone else."
"That's good. But honestly, you didn't need to come along with me. With Ghost Elder watching from the shadows, what could happen to me?"
"Besides, this isn't training. Even Yan didn't come along."
Xie Yue looked at his younger sister rather helplessly.
"Hehe, Yan was just stung because you broke through to Soul Ancestor before he did, big brother. Otherwise, he would have tagged along ages ago."
Hu Liena chuckled, a foxlike liveliness in her eyes and brows, but the next second, her smile slowly faded.
Not only that, but the formerly noisy inn also fell into a deathly silence, as though time had frozen.
Everyone's eyes turned toward the inn's doorway.
A black-clad boy with loose black hair was slowly entering the inn, accompanied by an enormously fat figure in black robes.
Leaving the black-clad boy aside, all the fat on the black-robed figure beside him was shrouded beneath his robes. From a distance, his rotund body resembled a huge ball of flesh and looked utterly ridiculous.
But no one dared laugh.
An aura of death coiled like a python around the hearts of everyone in the inn.
An expert! An absolute powerhouse!
A Soul Emperor? A Soul Saint? Or even a Titled Douluo?!
No one dared move.
As the two walked, a strong, fishy sea odor spread around them, most of it coming from the Soul Master who resembled a ball of flesh.
The unfamiliar smell stung everyone's eyes red.
Experienced Soul Masters immediately realized that these two were by no means land-based Soul Masters, but Sea Soul Masters from the distant ocean.
Just what did this unfamiliar powerhouse from afar intend, releasing his oppressive aura so brazenly?
No one dared speculate.
Most merely prayed silently that this strange pair would leave soon after finishing their business.
Wherever the pair passed, everyone silently withdrew their gazes and stared fixedly at the things on their own tables, as though some treasure worth scrutinizing lay there.
Even Hu Liena and Xie Yue quietly lowered their eyes, not daring to look any longer.
Even with her exalted status as the Supreme Pontiff's disciple, Hu Liena did not dare offend an expert of unknown rank for no reason in a place like this.
Fortunately, the black-clad boy merely approached the counter, took out a few Copper Soul Coins, and arranged them in a straight line on its surface.
Then he picked out a vegetable pancake and, without paying any attention to the waiter who had already wet himself in terror, turned toward the inn's doorway.
Throughout this, the obese powerhouse merely followed silently behind the black-clad boy without a word.
At this, quite a few people breathed sighs of relief.
It seemed these two would not linger in the inn. Otherwise, they would have to consider whether they needed to sleep on the streets tonight.
After all, an expert who made no attempt to conceal his aura hardly looked easy to get along with.
If he suddenly declared in the middle of the night, "You think you're worthy of staying under the same roof as me?!" wouldn't they be done for?
Hu Liena also breathed a sigh of relief, but she committed this incident to memory.
Although she could not discern the obese powerhouse's rank, she reckoned there was an eighty-percent chance he was a Titled Douluo.
Sea Soul Masters rarely ventured onto the continent, let alone experts of this caliber.
The appearance of such a powerhouse meant something major was bound to happen. She had to investigate it thoroughly for her teacher!
With this thought, Hu Liena quietly raised her eyes and glanced at the black-clad boy.
At that very instant, the boy suddenly glanced back at her. His deep eyes rested on her for a moment before he withdrew his gaze.
But that single glance sent a shock through Hu Liena's heart.
Utterly unconcealed killing intent. He had come for them!
Cold sweat broke out all over Hu Liena, and her small hands abruptly clenched.
The next moment, a black shadow swiftly enveloped Hu Liena and Yan. Amid startled cries from the inn's patrons, the brother and sister vanished from the spot.
"Ghost Elder! Do you know where they came from?"
Dangling unceremoniously in his hand, Hu Liena still called out, hoping to learn something about those two.
"I don't know. I've never seen such a powerful Sea Soul Master either."
As an agility-attack Titled Douluo, Gui Mei pushed his speed to its limit, sprinting with all his strength while carrying one person in each hand.
At that moment, his sole objective was to bring the two Spirit Hall geniuses back completely unharmed.
As for the enemies' origins, that would have to wait for a detailed investigation afterward.
As they spoke, an enormous shadow suddenly blotted out the sunlit sky. Gui Mei looked up and saw a mountain-sized figure plummeting from high above, crashing straight toward his position.
"The area's too large! There's no time!!"
"Fourth Soul Skill: Thousand Shadow Assault!!"
Nine great Soul Rings instantly appeared behind him. As the fourth flashed, Gui Mei immediately split into several clones, two of which seized Hu Liena and Xie Yue and fled swiftly into the distance.
"Martial Soul Avatar!!"
Gui Mei's true body roared, transforming into an enormous black shadow before charging head-on toward that mountain-sized body.
Boom!!!
The massive body slammed into the ground. There were no fluctuations of soul power, only the destructive force of an utterly enormous body crashing down upon the earth.
Amid flying sand and stones, the mountainlike body suddenly began to condense and shrink, finally becoming a figure wrapped in black robes.
It was none other than the imposing, obese black-robed man from the inn.
"A level ninety-six Peak Douluo?"
Gui Mei abruptly leaped out of a pool of shadow. With his Martial Soul's ability to turn partially incorporeal, he had naturally suffered no injuries. He stared at the obese black-robed man before him, his expression grave.
The next moment, Gui Mei's expression changed again.
"Oh no!"
He could clearly sense that he had lost contact with all his clones.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, Hu Liena lay on the ground, staring in horror at the Soul Rings behind the boy before her.
"A Six-Ring Soul Emperor, and... they're all Ten Thousand Year Soul Rings?!"
"How is that possible?!"
The black-clad boy slowly approached Hu Liena, both hands radiating a faint white glow, with the golden character for "void" inscribed on each palm.
Just as the black-clad boy raised his hand, he suddenly paused and sharply shifted his gaze toward a corner of the forest.
"Could it be that you... intend to interfere?"