The pale yellow soul ring slowly rose and fell around Xiao Chen, all its soul power fluctuations sinking into his body.
Xiao Chen's aura far surpassed that of an ordinary One-Ring Soul Master who had just broken through, and his entire bearing had grown even clearer and steadier.
The training room was silent. Leng Yaoyu gazed at the boy before her, the amazement in her eyes lingering.
Ordinary Soul Masters could only gain one level of soul power after merging with a soul spirit, but little Chen...
After contracting the three-hundred-year Unyielding Soul Spirit, Xiao Chen had broken through three levels in succession.
Such cultivation talent could no longer be summed up by the word genius. It completely overturned common knowledge, shattering the conventions of Douluo established over the ten thousand years since soul spirits first appeared.
Leng Yaoyu slowly approached Xiao Chen and studied him closely, her voice filled with gratification and curiosity:
"Finished settling in with your soul spirit?"
"Yes."
Xiao Chen nodded gently.
"A three-hundred-year Evil Eye, combined with your martial soul-the soul skill it gave you must be extraordinary."
Leng Yaoyu raised her brows slightly and asked softly:
"What is your first soul skill? What does it do?"
She was filled with anticipation. An ordinary hundred-year first soul skill offered nothing more than a single enhancement, a simple attack, or basic defense.
But Xiao Chen's martial soul was unique. Paired with the rare Unyielding Soul Spirit, the resulting soul skill would definitely far surpass ordinary ones.
Xiao Chen concealed nothing, answering openly, "My first soul skill is Wither Head."
"Wither Head?"
Leng Yaoyu frowned slightly and pondered for a moment, her eyes full of puzzlement.
"No such soul skill has ever appeared in the continent's soul skill catalogs. It seems this is a skill unique to you."
Her curiosity grew. She waved a hand lightly and said gently:
"This isn't a suitable place to use it. Come with me to the private training room and demonstrate it for me."
"All right."
Xiao Chen answered and followed close behind Leng Yaoyu.
Passing through one white jade corridor after another, they soon reached a high-grade private training room inside the Spirit Transferring Pagoda.
The space was vast and open, its floor laid with specially made pressure-resistant soul-guiding alloy. Pressure-stabilizing barriers covered all four walls, capable of withstanding fierce bombardments from high-ranking Soul Masters. It was reserved for the pagoda's core disciples and powerful senior members to cultivate and test their moves.
"Go ahead and let loose."
Leng Yaoyu stood in the center of the training room, her soul power steady and restrained. Without adopting any defensive stance, she said calmly:
"Don't hold back. Attack me with everything you have. I want to see just how powerful your soul skill is."
In her view, however heaven-defying Xiao Chen's talent might be, this was ultimately only a hundred-year skill from his first soul ring. Its power had a fixed ceiling, and it could not possibly injure a Level 98 Hyper Douluo like her.
Xiao Chen did not demur. His expression grew a little more serious as he slowly raised his eyes. "Aunt Leng, here I come."
As his words fell, he willed it, and his pale yellow hundred-year soul ring instantly lit up.
Hum!
Thick, pitch-black mist surged from Xiao Chen's body. A cold, desolate aura of destruction enveloped the entire training room, and the temperature abruptly plummeted.
The black mist rapidly gathered and condensed, finally forming a hideous, terrifying black skull in front of Xiao Chen.
Sinister patterns marked the skull, and its eye sockets shone with an eerie white light. No violent soul power leaked from it, yet it carried an icy pressure that regarded all things with indifference. This was Wither Head.
"The form of this soul skill..." Leng Yaoyu's pupils tightened slightly, an inexplicable trace of discomfort rising within her. This looks far too much like an Evil Soul Master's...
No, little Chen has a darkness attribute.
Before she could think further, Xiao Chen lifted his fingertips slightly.
"Explode."
At that single word, the pitch-black skull suspended in midair shot forward at incredible speed, streaking through the air as a black afterimage and hurtling straight toward Leng Yaoyu.
Boom-!
A muffled explosion thundered out. The pitch-black mist burst apart, clouds of black vapor sweeping wildly outward and instantly engulfing Leng Yaoyu's body.
The explosion of Wither Head was extraordinarily violent, and the black mist it released was even stranger. Extremely adhesive, it clung stubbornly to the soul power shield surrounding Leng Yaoyu.
The next second, something unbelievable happened.
The gentle soul power flowing over Leng Yaoyu's body actually dimmed and dissipated at a speed visible to the naked eye! She was a Level 98 Hyper Douluo!
However heaven-defying Xiao Chen's talent might be, he was only level 13.
Her once-abundant soul power rapidly drained away and weakened, like water escaping a pool with a hole in its bottom.
Not only that, her stamina was quietly fading as well. A faint sense of weakness crept into her limbs, and her physical condition declined in every respect.
Stamina loss, dissipating soul power, and full-body weakness!
Multiple debuffs stacked upon one another, silently eroding her body.
Leng Yaoyu's expression abruptly changed, shock filling her cool features as she instinctively circulated her soul power to resist the black mist's erosion.
Yet that strange withering power was like maggots clinging to the bone, ignoring soul power defenses. No, it was coming for her soul power, targeting it directly and continually weakening it.
Even as a Level 98 Hyper Douluo, she distinctly felt herself growing weaker!
The immense soul power of a Hyper Douluo erupted from her entire body, forcibly dispersing the black mist around her and clearing away every negative effect.
She stared blankly at the upright, composed boy nearby, disbelief filling her eyes. Is this really a hundred-year soul skill?
Xiao Chen's Wither Head not only possessed considerable power, but also inflicted an uncounterable, continuous weakening effect!
Soul power dissipation, stamina loss, full-body weakness-every effect was extraordinarily heaven-defying, never mind the fact that these negative effects stacked.
She had only broken free by using overwhelming strength against someone far weaker. There was no counter to this.
But if a Soul Ancestor came along and carelessly took this attack, they would probably lose the ability to fight on the spot.
Even a Hyper Douluo like her could clearly feel herself weakened to a certain extent after taking a direct hit, and she had only forced her way free with her powerful soul power.
An ordinary Soul Master, or a one-ring or two-ring Soul Master of comparable rank, would instantly lose their fighting strength upon being struck by Wither Head, unable to fight back at all.
"Little Chen, can your soul skill inflict multiple negative effects?"
Leng Yaoyu hurried forward.
"Yes."
Xiao Chen nodded slightly and explained truthfully:
"After it hits the target and explodes, it applies a continuous withering effect, draining soul power, reducing stamina, and leaving them weakened for a long time."
After hearing his explanation, Leng Yaoyu fell completely silent.
She had lived for nearly a hundred years and seen countless soul skills, yet she had never seen such an outrageously powerful first soul skill.
Considerable damage and uncounterable negative effects.
How was this a hundred-year soul skill? Even a thousand-year or Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Skill might not possess such terrifyingly bizarre effects!
It was hard to imagine how frightening this skill would become if Xiao Chen raised his Evil Eye soul spirit to ten thousand years!
Leng Yaoyu gave Xiao Chen a long look, the shock lingering in her eyes, and said gravely, "Little Chen, don't become obsessed with the power of your martial soul!"
Innate Full Soul Power, an unprecedented Wither Martial Soul, an unyielding mutated soul spirit, and a bug-level first soul skill that overturned everything she knew.
To this, Xiao Chen could only say, So if I haven't turned the cheats off, that means they're on?
At that moment, she felt immensely fortunate-fortunate that compassion had moved her to adopt this child six years ago, and fortunate that Xiao Chen's heart now leaned toward righteousness and he had never strayed.
"Don't worry, Aunt Leng. I can control my own martial soul."
Xiao Chen gazed at the deeply shocked Leng Yaoyu before him, a trace of composure passing through his eyes.
In truth, he had another martial soul he had yet to reveal: the Command Block. What puzzled him was that whenever he tried to summon it, the Command Block resisted-a resistance toward this world.
Tonight, he would get to the bottom of why.
The Command Block hidden within his body, which had always refused to manifest on the Douluo Continent, was his greatest trump card.
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