Soul Masters constantly slaughtering one another over resources was the norm. Unless one could spend an entire lifetime sheltered under some protection, living without a care, sooner or later one would have to confront this bloody reality.
Tang Mo took one look outside and felt certain they had run into highway robbers...
The carriage Yue Guan had rented closely matched his own tastes. Its paintwork was lavish, and its cabin was even studded with numerous gemstones of various sizes. Anyone could tell at a glance that whoever rode inside was either wealthy or noble.
From the moment Yue Guan rented the carriage, Tang Mo had vaguely guessed what he intended to do.
Although Soul Masters below rank forty could collect a monthly subsidy funded by the two great empires from Spirit Hall, having no criminal record was a prerequisite.
In other words, Soul Masters wanted by Spirit Hall or either of the two great empires could not collect subsidies.
Unable to collect subsidies from Spirit Hall, and wanted by the authorities besides, such Soul Masters could only make a living licking blood from the edge of a blade.
Those with some principles became mercenaries, simply taking money to get things done.
Those without principles were like the Soul Masters outside the carriage, robbing travelers outright.
Those with absolutely no principles became certain people's death soldiers, acting entirely on their orders.
"Woo, woo, woo..."
The robber Soul Masters let out strange cries as they closed in on the carriage. The closer they came, the more conspicuous the Soul Rings circling their bodies became.
Four Soul Rings circled the bandit leader: two yellow and two purple. By the common knowledge of the Soul Master World, this was the ideal Soul Ring configuration.
The other bandits had only three Soul Rings each. Most had one white and two yellow, while only one minor leader, who looked like the second-in-command, had one yellow, one white, and one purple.
"The leader's name is Qie'ersi, and his Martial Soul is the Earth Giant Ape. The Earth Giant Ape is said to be the weakened product of a detrimental mutation of the Titan Giant Ape, capable of using a weaker version of earth power to a certain extent. He was once a member of the Heaven Dou Empire's Expedition Team. A few years ago, he deserted while taking part in suppressing a principality's civil war, and ended up on the Heaven Dou Empire's wanted list," Yue Guan said indifferently.
If he had not been choosing targets for Tang Mo to practice on and draw his first blood, why would a grand Titled Douluo like him have taken an interest in a mere Soul Ancestor's history?
Thus, even as Yue Guan recounted Qie'ersi's history word for word, his tone did not fluctuate in the slightest. After all, an ant could never stir a ripple in his heart.
Tang Mo did not reply upon hearing this. His figure merely faded away before Yue Guan.
Watching Tang Mo vanish as though a giant eraser had wiped away every trace of him in an instant, Yue Guan's pupils involuntarily contracted.
In Yue Guan's eyes, this move of Tang Mo's qualified as a self-created soul skill. Countless Soul Masters spent their whole lives in vain without necessarily creating a unique soul skill of their own, yet Tang Mo had created one at just six years old. This alone showed how extraordinarily gifted he was.
Of course, a self-created soul skill alone would not have been enough to make Yue Guan lose his composure like this. What truly astonished him was how powerful Tang Mo's self-created soul skill was.
The technique Tang Mo used was called Illusion Barrier. On the surface, its principle resembled that of a chameleon changing its skin color: both blended the user into the surrounding environment.
For that reason, in the early stages of practicing Illusion Barrier, the user's body could easily fail to adapt to changes in the environment.
For example, the instant one left the woods and stepped onto a road, one's body could easily remain in camouflage colors, failing to change its appearance immediately to match the road's tones.
Thus, beginners could only use this technique to lie hidden in one place for a long time, either to scout the enemy or seek an opportunity for a one-hit kill.
Once Illusion Barrier was cultivated to a profound level, one could overcome the inability to change one's outward colors in time when the surroundings suddenly changed. As long as one could achieve this, it was little different from invisibility.
However, the heartbeat, breathing, and faint breeze created by movement remained significant flaws that had to be overcome separately.
The main reason Yue Guan's pupils had contracted was that, at the very moment Tang Mo turned invisible, he had actually failed to detect how Tang Mo had vanished without a trace under his gaze.
Had he not caught Tang Mo's faint heartbeat and breathing, he might even have thought that Tang Mo had used spatial power right under his nose to teleport away, rather than lifting the curtain and stepping down from the carriage like a normal person.
The carriage curtain stirred slightly as the invisible Tang Mo slipped silently out. Using Flocculent Steps and deliberately suppressing his heartbeat and breathing, he quietly approached Qie'ersi.
At that moment, Qie'ersi was spouting arrogant threats at the carriage, completely unaware that death was drawing closer to him little by little.
"Listen up, whoever's inside! I only want your money, not your lives. Hand over your valuables, and I'll spare you. Otherwise, heh, heh, heh... I'll show you what it means for a white blade to go in and a red blade to come out... uh, uh... hhk, hhk..."
Halfway through his speech, Qie'ersi suddenly raised his hands in terror and clamped them tightly over his neck. His unfinished words abruptly became meaningless gasps, and soon air began leaking incessantly from deep in his throat like a broken bellows.
Great gushes of blood suddenly poured between his fingers. Even pressing hard over his throat could not save his slit windpipe. He could only watch helplessly as he approached death, step by step.
Even without being driven at full power by Soul Power, the Dark Gold Dreadclaw, an external soul bone, could still easily slice through a person's windpipe without picking up so much as a speck of blood afterward.
With the Dark Gold Dreadclaw's sharpness coupled with Tang Mo's hand speed, Qie'ersi only noticed something wrong with his body after Tang Mo had slit his throat and begun attacking his next target.
Thud! Thud! Thud...
Soon, Qie'ersi crumpled to the ground like a heap of sludge, still clutching his throat. The other bandits panicked at the sight, unsure whether they should flee or search for the invisible enemy among them.
Before the bandits, scattered like loose sand after losing their leader, could make a choice, the sounds of heavy bodies hitting the ground rang out one after another beside them.
One should not assume that Qie'ersi was their only leader just because this band numbered only eleven. In fact, to make them easier to manage, Qie'ersi had divided his ten subordinates into two squads, each squad leader effectively commanding five men.
The moment Tang Mo struck, he eliminated every bandit leader, Qie'ersi included.
With no one left to lead them and an invisible enemy confronting them, an emotion called terror began spreading through the bandits.
Yue Guan drew aside the carriage curtain and watched everything unfolding a short distance ahead with keen interest. He had originally expected to see Tang Mo forced out of invisibility by physical discomfort after his first killing.
Unexpectedly, however, Tang Mo did not leave his invisible state. Instead, he continued slaughtering the bandits, as though he did not care in the slightest about a life passing away before his eyes.
He remembered very clearly that his own first killing had taken place in the Star Dou Great Forest.
Back then, he had faced a Soul Hunting team of five. Seeing him all alone, the team had harbored malicious intentions, planning to kill him and seize all his savings.
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