"So that's the situation."
At the dining table, Lu Ling explained everything sentence by sentence, finally managing to call Ye Xin Xia's soul back.
"I see. I look forward to getting along with you, Sister Ding." Having come back to life, Ye Xin Xia gave her a friendly smile.
"Uh, yes, little sister Xin Xia." Ding Yumian nodded distractedly.
So... I don't have to sleep with Lu Ling...
Just like that, the apartment Lu Ling had originally occupied alone suddenly had two more women.
One was a bomb whose fire Lu Ling needed to put out regularly, and the other was a cripple paralyzed from the waist down. Both were patients he needed to treat.
"Xin Xia, this is for you." Lu Ling took out a pendant on a chain.
At the sight of it, Ye Xin Xia's eyes lit up with delight.
"What a beautiful necklace."
Lu Ling rarely gave her gifts!
"This is a Nebula Magic Tool. It'll last you until you've fully cultivated the intermediate level."
"What?! This is too valuable..." As those words left her mouth, Ye Xin Xia instantly calmed down.
"It's one I no longer use. If you don't want it, I'll sell it."
"Thank you, big brother!" Ye Xin Xia's expression changed immediately. She cupped the necklace in her palms, unable to put it down, and even forgot about eating.
What's more, he had given it to her in front of Ding Yumian, thoroughly satisfying her competitive instincts toward another woman.
Lu Ling gave Ding Yumian an apologetic look.
Noticing it, she merely shook her head calmly.
How could she not know what Lu Ling was thinking? Xin Xia might not accept an outsider like her so easily. A little sister always needed reassurance.
Ding Yumian quietly watched their interaction, unable to suppress a smile.
More than half a year later.
Sweden.
Dark Baleful Forest.
A girl with twin ponytails lay on a white-haired person's back, her round little face utterly serious as she stared intently at the map in her hands.
"Lu Ling, this is the 'dungeon' we have the least information on, so we need to be careful."
"You've said that several times already. Is this place really that bad?"
"The unknown means terror. I need to make sure both of us can get out in one piece." Ling Ling thumped the white-haired young man's back, not joking in the slightest.
Lu Ling repeatedly voiced his agreement.
Come to think of it, they had already been traveling for... five months!
After stabilizing Ding Yumian's Calamity soul body, Lu Ling had whisked Ling Ling away to serve as his strategist on his demon-hunting adventures.
They had been gone for five months, departing from southern China, passing through Kunlun, crossing Turkey, and traveling to Athens before finally reaching this place-the last stop on their journey!
The destination he had truly wanted to reach.
Dark Baleful Forest.
This was a place rarely recorded in either books or the original novel.
The only thing Lu Ling knew was that this was the territory of dark creatures.
For instance, Jiang Yu's rare dark holy spirit contract beast, Night Rakshasa, had come from Dark Baleful Forest.
About half a year ago, when Lu Ling tried to break through to the advanced level of the shadow element, he had suddenly sensed an inexplicable guidance. Following his sixth sense, he had come here in search of that unknown, elusive answer.
After hearing what his master had said about his origins, Lu Ling had actually become quite trusting of this mysterious intuition.
After all... he wasn't "human," was he?
Even if he came away empty-handed in the end... the journey itself had already brought him considerable gains. Coming to the final stop was merely to verify his answer.
"There are so few demon beasts here. We've barely seen any along the way." Lu Ling released his mental power.
In certain respects, mental power at the eighth realm was far more useful than Ling Ling's detector.
At least the information it returned could go straight into Lu Ling's brain.
"This isn't a Safe Zone. The fewer demon beasts there are, the more it proves how abnormal this place is. Besides, when we left the city just now, no hunters were heading in the same direction as us, so there are pitifully few hunters here too. We need to be even more careful and watch out for powerful demon beasts launching sneak-"
"Blood Shadow Dark Domain, Myriad Forms!"
"Long Zhanye!"
"Space Rhythm, Time Lag!"
"Roar!!!"
Before Ling Ling could process what had happened, she found her viewpoint climbing higher and higher, while Lu Ling focused all his attention on casting magic in a particular direction.
Following his gaze, Ling Ling immediately felt a chill run down her spine!
"What kind of demon beast is that?! Why didn't the detector react at all?"
A pitch-black, tiger-shaped creature had already occupied the spot where they had just stood. Beneath the black tiger's four paws was a pit nearly two meters deep!
In other words, they had just been ambushed! If that blow had landed on her... she might have already met her end before even having time to activate her defensive magic equipment.
"Damn it, the shadow element doesn't work on it!"
Within the Blood Shadow Dark Domain, endless blood-colored spikes grew wildly. They were Lu Ling's most loyal soldiers of blood, carrying the sharpest spears as they bravely charged the enemy.
Yet the blood-colored spikes snapped one after another upon touching the black tiger. Even the Time Lag Lu Ling had added felt somewhat superfluous; the black tiger couldn't even be bothered to dodge damage that barely tickled it.
"It's most likely some kind of dark creature immune to black magic. Hurry and try another element! If shadow doesn't work, try light, its strongest counter," Ling Ling urged.
At that, Lu Ling immediately unfurled his domain of light.
Holy Radiance.
"Holy Radiance, Light Blessing, Holy Sword!"
"Zhu Nan, enhancement."
He condensed Light Blessing, originally a defensive spell, into several swords of light, and blessing-element magic increased their power by another fifty percent.
The swords of light fell, sending wisps of black smoke rising from the pitch-black fur, as though it were melting beneath the scorching blades.
The agonized roars proved that the black tiger had indeed suffered considerable damage.
"It worked!!" Lu Ling's expression brightened. "Sure enough, dark creatures all fear light and flames."
"Long Zhanye, hit it with a big one! I'll give you a blessing!"
"Roger, roger!" Long Zhanye began charging a breath of destruction. Before this purest power of destruction, this shadow-element black tiger surely wouldn't be able to withstand it. Lu Ling didn't remain idle either, likewise preparing a fire-element spell.
"Li Fire, Fierce Fist, Nine Flood Dragons!"
Accompanied by the radiance of a blessing, nine immensely thick flood dragons of flame erupted from Lu Ling's right fist, coiling around the Heavenly Star White Dragon's breath as they hurtled toward the black tiger.
"Hah~" Fury filled the black tiger's eyes as it instantly fired an ink-black pillar of energy from its mouth. In flight, that pillar of light actually split into countless black curtains of light, aimed straight at the Heavenly Star White Dragon!
"Change of Order, Reversal!"
"Chaos Vortex!"
Lu Ling's expression changed, and he activated his two most outrageously powerful defensive spells at the same time.
Order shifted; the vortex devoured.
Dragon breath and Li Fire plummeted; darkness dissipated along with light.
Boom!!!!
Within the forest wreathed in a dark aura, a mushroom cloud instantly erupted, towering as high as the sky.
Ten li from the explosion.
A woman dressed in a tight-fitting outdoor outfit raised her head, her expression puzzled. Even her extremely unflattering attire at that moment could not conceal her graceful figure and noble bearing.
"There are other people here?"