Congratulations

"Tang San, level 39 control-type Battle Soul Elder. Please enlighten me!"

Lu Chen: ...

He was actually rather polite.

Before his words had even faded, masses of dark blue vines surged from beneath Tang San's feet, coiling toward Lu Chen. Eight hideous spider-leg lances spread from his back. Black light flashed, and he hurled a heavy, pitch-black round hammer straight at Lu Chen's face.

A sneak attack~

No martial honor!

"I was waiting for that trick!"

The Azure Dragon and Spirit-Suppressing Spear Martial Souls instantly possessed him, and two Soul Rings rose beneath his feet, blazing with brilliant purple light.

Azure Dragon's first Soul Skill: Spirit Suppression, all attributes +100%.

Spirit-Suppressing Spear's first Soul Skill: Dragon Shadow: Spirit Suppression, sharpness +100%.

The winding Azure Dragon silhouette did not soar into the air as it had before. Instead, it lowered its powerful draconic body to guard Lu Chen.

Azure scales covered him. After repeated improvements to his Martial Soul bloodline, Lu Chen could now extend his scales from his arms to his entire body. Multicolored light flowed over them, radiating dense fluctuations of Five Elements Attribute Soul Power.

His dragon claw gripped the Spirit-Suppressing Spear and thrust diagonally. With a flick and a knock, he used finesse alone to send the flying hammer, controlled by Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon and imbued with Soul Elder-level Soul Power, hurtling into the distance.

The basic attribute bonuses of a God-level Martial Soul were just that plain and unadorned!

The Dragon Soul Domain and Spirit Suppression Domain had already spread out, covering a fifty-meter radius around Lu Chen and enveloping Tang San, who had never been very far away.

Amid the dragon's roar, the continuous attribute reduction and spiritual tremors changed the expression of the rapidly advancing Tang San. He stopped almost instantly, then rapidly retreated at the urging of his keen combat instincts.

His hands turned white as jade, dancing through a series of afterimages as he flung out a multitude of differently shaped hidden weapons.

Among them, two iron orbs that hovered close together yet apart, and a black needle that radiated an intensely cold, sinister presence within his domain perception, were particularly "conspicuous."

After doing this, Tang San did not pause or pay any attention to whether his hidden weapons would achieve anything. Moving with strange, unpredictable yet extremely swift footwork, he was about to withdraw from the domains' range.

At this, Lu Chen could not help sighing inwardly.

Level 39 Tang San really was difficult to deal with. It was not because his Soul Power far exceeded Lu Chen's, nor because his External Soul Bone was overpowered. It was simply because Tang San had already undergone the baptism of an Immortal Herb at this point. That Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew had vastly improved his spiritual power!

By the standards of later generations, Tang San's spiritual power had probably already approached or even crossed the threshold of the Spirit Sea Realm.

His considerable spiritual power gave Tang San extremely fast reactions and an exceptional ability to gather and process information. For instance, upon detecting how troublesome Lu Chen's domains were, he had chosen to retreat swiftly instead of relying on his higher cultivation to charge straight at Lu Chen.

The Azure Emperor Spirit-Calming Art circulated furiously. Five Elements Soul Power transformed into protective astral Qi, covering Lu Chen's already highly defensive dragon scales.

A pair of azure-gold wings spread behind him. Facing the oncoming "wall of hidden weapons," many of which could pierce armor, Lu Chen neither dodged nor evaded. His wings beat forcefully, and he plowed straight through.

Clinks and clangs rang out incessantly, but ultimately, not a single hidden weapon could break through the sustained defense of his protective astral Qi's endlessly cycling Five Elements Attribute.

Even the eruption of the Mother-Child Soul-Chasing Life-Taking Orb merely coated the Azure Dragon wings in a broad swath of purple when they folded shut once.

Only the slender black needle-Yama's Invitation-was carefully knocked aside by Lu Chen with the Spirit-Suppressing Spear.

Almost instantly, Tang San was once again drawn into the range of both domains.

Seeing that his hidden weapons had achieved almost nothing, while the wing-assisted Lu Chen flew toward him at a freakish speed, ignoring the vines beneath him, Tang San's expression changed.

His first, second, and third Soul Rings flashed in rapid succession. Thick dark blue vines coiled upward, and countless Blue Silver Grass seeds, so tiny they were almost invisible, scattered out in an attempt to slow Lu Chen's flight.

Purple light flowed through Tang San's eyes as he watched for the best moment, then hurled a sticky blue-purple sphere of light!

Just in time!

Divine Suppression!

Azure Dragon Claw Strike!

At a thought, the Azure Dragon silhouette surrounding him reached forward. A sharp dragon claw covered in five-colored flowing light, with lightning crisscrossing over it, rose and tore down viciously, bearing a Divine Attribute so dense it was nearly ultimate.

The spiderweb sphere had no chance to unfold before it was torn into several pieces in midair. Before its highly poisonous liquid could drip down, it dissolved completely beneath the suppression of the Divine Attribute.

The next moment, Lu Chen, who held the advantage in speed thanks to his Azure Dragon wings, finally charged within five meters of Tang San.

"Eight Spider Lances!"

"Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon!"

"Purple Demon Eye!"

After unleashing several attacks in succession, a hand crossbow resembling a black box appeared in Tang San's palm...

Unfortunately, he no longer had a chance to use it.

Ultimate Lightning, Divine Suppression, Five Elements Soul-Calming!

He paid no attention whatsoever to the eight hideous purple-black Spider Spears stabbing at him from blind spots all around his body.

Lu Chen gripped tightly with his dragon claw. Under the full-force influence of Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon, he withstood the Spiritual Shock of the Purple Demon Eye head-on. Without the slightest tremor, the Spirit-Suppressing Spear drove straight into the chest of the shocked Tang San.

Power that stood at the absolute pinnacle among Soul Masters of the same level, carrying the destructive might of lightning, nearly shattered his opponent's entire left chest!

A glint of cold light arrived first, then the spear struck like a dragon~

"You... my... poison..."

Looking at Tang San lying on his back, his body ravaged by the lightning and additional five-element effects carried by the Spirit-Suppressing Spear, his eyes filled with unwillingness, Lu Chen planted his spear against the ground. His face gradually returned from purplish-black to its normal white, and he panted heavily, but he still smiled as he said:

"You wanted to use the Eight Spider Lances to create some distance, ideally poison me too, so you could safely drain me or pull back and stack your hammer strikes, right?"

"Didn't expect me to take it head-on?"

"Rest in peace. By the way, your mother's Soul Bone works really well~"

Tang San projection: ⊙△⊙???

[Congratulations]

The gray mist dispersed, and Tang San's projection vanished completely. The Simulation Battle Device also displayed a congratulatory text box.

Just as Lu Chen had thought, after the poison was weakened by his Divine Attribute, with Ultimate Wood assisting his recovery and, most importantly, the Hundred-Thousand-Year Blue Silver Emperor Soul Bone Skill, Nirvana Healing, the battle simulation system determined that Tang San's Eight Spider Lances could no longer directly inflict fatal damage on him.

The result was naturally that Tang San died, Lu Chen was injured, and Lu Chen won the final victory.

This rather difficult battle also gave him a basic understanding of his current combat strength.

At the cost of some injuries, he could defeat level 39 Soul Elder Tang San. Ordinary Soul Ancestors most likely were not his match.

As for Tang San after level 40 and ordinary Soul Kings...

With a Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring creating an enormous attribute gap in his opponent's favor, his chances of victory were slim.

This combat strength might not have seemed impressive, but Lu Chen was currently only a Soul Master who had yet to reach level 16.

In short, his future was promising!

With his current physical strength, as long as he could temper his spiritual power, it was entirely possible for him to absorb a Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring directly as his second ring!

Reliving that winning spear thrust, Lu Chen discovered that he seemed to have fallen in love with the feeling of defeating an opponent.

Then what more was there to say?

Battle simulator, activate again!

Forget everyone else for now. Keep projecting Tang San according to the same standards as before. This time, I'm going for an injury-free victory!

The wonderful days of simulation always flew by.

A day later, when Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo set Lu Chen and the other two down beside a dense forest outside Spirit City, both Xiao Wu and Lu Yun looked exhausted. After being carried through the air for so long, they really were about to throw up~

Only Lu Chen remained full of vigor.

"Little Chen, I'll sneak you into Spirit City next. It might be a little uncomfortable, so bear with it." Ghost Douluo spoke with an intensely furtive air. "Yue Guan, stay here and guard Village Chief Lu Yun and Xiao Wu."

Chrysanthemum Douluo nodded and gently cautioned, "Be careful with everything!"

Spirit City was not so easy to sneak into. Across the entire Douluo Continent, Ghost Douluo was probably the only one who dared beat his chest and declare he was confident he could do it.

After a few brief instructions, Ghost Douluo directly released his Martial Soul Avatar. His entire body turned into a cloud of black mist that could only be described as vaguely humanoid, which swept over to envelop Lu Chen.

Unlike earlier, when he had merely been carried through the air, the instant the black mist touched Lu Chen's body, its cold, eerie presence almost made him instinctively release his Martial Soul. But since he had been warned beforehand, he held himself back.

"Off we go~"

As the increasingly ethereal voice rang out, the black mist, along with Lu Chen inside it, gradually turned translucent in the sunlight. Merging into the shadows along the way, it sped toward the nearby Spirit City!

As the two approached, Spirit City's magnificent walls, eighty meters tall and over thirty meters thick, loomed right before them!

Finding a corner, the translucent mist swiftly ascended the wall. A few seconds later, the two had appeared inside Spirit City!

Looking into the distance, they could see the magnificent golden-domed building halfway up Martial Soul Sacred Mountain, Spirit Hall's nominal center of supreme power-the Pope's Hall!

However, magnificent though it was, it was not their destination.

Their gaze traveled farther upward. At the summit, a building less than a third the size of the Pope's Hall stood quietly, its entirety gleaming white as jade.

That was the Worship Hall.

The place that enshrined the golden plaques of successive generations of Titled Douluo, and also the altar where the Angel God's Godhood Inheritance began!