Amid endless nothingness and darkness, Nan Zhuliu once again saw that "giant cocoon," woven from converging strands of brilliant golden light so dense they had almost become solid.
The golden cocoon was so enormous that, standing before it, Nan Zhuliu was like a mayfly before a mountain.
Suddenly, a pair of blood-red eyes brimming with savagery and the urge to destroy snapped open inside the golden cocoon.
In that instant, their gazes met.
The next second, the void seemed to shatter, collapsing with a thunderous crash, all of it falling upon Nan Zhuliu, who was as insignificant as an ant.
Inside a simply furnished room with an antique charm.
A boy who had clearly still been asleep jolted awake. Two brilliant golden, blade-shaped horns crowned his head, a few strands of gold mingled with his clean, short black hair, and large patches of diamond-shaped golden scales covered both sides of his cheeks and his forearms.
Nan Zhuliu's heart hammered like a drum, pumping at a frantic pace. His mind was filled with that colossal golden cocoon and those terrifying blood-red eyes.
He had already lost count of how many times he had dreamed of that golden cocoon lately.
Unlike before, those blood-red eyes that had suddenly opened unmistakably revealed that something terrifying was alive inside the golden cocoon.
People said what occupied your thoughts by day appeared in your dreams at night, but what exactly did this dream mean?
Nan Zhuliu could not make sense of it, no matter how hard he thought. Suddenly, a spark of inspiration flashed through his mind.
Abruptly remembering that today was the day of his Martial Soul awakening, Nan Zhuliu hurriedly climbed out of bed to wash up.
In the bathroom.
Looking at himself in the mirror, with two horns on his head and fine diamond-shaped golden scales covering his face, Nan Zhuliu could not help giving a helpless smile.
Over the ten thousand years of soul master development on the Douluo Continent, there had been no shortage of human-soul beast unions, human-beast hybrids, or cases where a body mutated during a Beast Martial Soul awakening and acquired some of the Martial Soul's traits.
Yet Nan Zhuliu was neither.
According to his parents in this life, Nan Zhuliu had become this way because his mother, who possessed a lightning-attribute dragon Martial Soul, had eaten an unidentified spirit fruit while pregnant.
After eating that spirit fruit, his mother's Martial Soul had unexpectedly evolved, but she had also gone into premature labor, giving birth to Nan Zhuliu, who had possessed some draconic traits from birth.
When Nan Zhuliu heard this, he was utterly speechless.
Whose general was this, so astonishingly fearless that she dared put something in her mouth without even knowing what it was?
Fortunately, nothing had gone wrong. Had his luck been a little worse, he might have set a new record for a transmigrator's fastest speedrun through the Douluo Continent.
Never mind how he would have completed that speedrun.
Having lived two lives, Nan Zhuliu possessed tremendous mental resilience. Not only did he pay no mind to the strange looks from others, he was actually particularly excited about it.
While this appearance that set him apart from ordinary people had drawn plenty of strange looks in everyday life, it had also given him a powerful physique far beyond that of an ordinary person.
He had only turned six a few days ago, yet his physique already matched or even surpassed that of some one- or two-ring soul masters.
So, gaining such a powerful physique from birth and getting a head start over his peers at the starting line in exchange for a few draconic traits still seemed well worth it to Nan Zhuliu.
His good looks had not suffered anyway. It had even added a touch of swaggering, domineering majesty to him. Who could see him without declaring that this child had the makings of a God King?
After breakfast, Nan Zhuliu went to a quiet chamber with Nan Zhou, his father in this life.
Nan Zhuliu's parents in this life were guards for the president of a merchant association. Their cultivation was not particularly high; both had only five rings.
Although they were only Soul Kings, that level of cultivation could be considered a strategic asset in any country.
Nan Zhou took out six jet-black stones and arranged them in a hexagonal formation on the floor.
This was the most primitive and convenient method of performing a Martial Soul awakening ceremony on the Douluo Continent.
It was different from those clans and sects of some standing, which had fixed days each month for awakening their disciples' Martial Souls.
A small household like Nan Zhuliu's would perform the Martial Soul awakening ceremony as soon as a child reached the proper age.
Without waiting for his father to remind him, Nan Zhuliu had already stepped into the center of the formation on his own.
Nan Zhuliu's heart tightened slightly. What Martial Soul he would awaken was already beyond doubt, but its strength would come down to luck.
As the saying went, the rich relied on inherited Martial Souls, while the poor relied on mutations.
As the Martial Soul awakening ceremony began, Nan Zhuliu was enveloped in warm golden light. When his vision gradually grew indistinct, he once again saw that golden cocoon and those terrifying blood-red eyes.
"Human, why do you carry this exalted one's bloodline?"
A cold, sinister voice, filled with shock and fury, exploded beside Nan Zhuliu's ears like a thunderclap.
Before he could grasp what those words meant, the scene before him changed again, returning him to the quiet chamber.
Something seemed to awaken deep within his body, and Nan Zhuliu's throat bobbed twice with difficulty.
Then he let out a long cry he could not suppress, a high, ringing dragon roar that resounded throughout the chamber.
An invisible, stifling pressure descended in an instant. Nan Zhou, who possessed a Beast Martial Soul, immediately felt as though an immensely heavy boulder had appeared out of thin air and pressed down upon his shoulders.
A speck of deep blue light suddenly shone from a lightning mark that had appeared at some unknown point between Nan Zhuliu's brows.
The next second, fierce lightning erupted from his body, surging and roaring as it rampaged through every corner of the chamber.
Nan Zhuliu's forearms, which had previously borne dragon scales only on the backs of his hands, were soon covered in golden scales. These dragon scales also seemed somewhat thicker and heavier than usual, making each forearm look like a solid bracer.
Then a long, slender spear appeared in his hand, cold and menacing, with a broad, sharp head and violent arcs of electricity constantly winding and circling along its shaft.
Nan Zhou stared at the scene before him, dumbstruck.
Without a doubt, Nan Zhuliu's Martial Soul had mutated, and the mutation had been for the better.
Nan Zhuliu carefully examined the spear in his hand, marveling inwardly.
"Is this your Martial Soul?" Nan Zhou asked uncertainly, looking at the spear in his hand.
Nan Zhuliu shook his head. "I feel like this spear isn't my Martial Soul. It should be something like an innate companion weapon."
If Nan Zhuliu remembered correctly, in the original story, Xian Lin'er's Azureflame Dragon Martial Soul, which in a sense belonged to the Golden Dragon lineage, also possessed an innate spear that accompanied her Martial Soul from birth and imitated the Golden Dragon Spear.
Judging by that, his Martial Soul should at least be on par with Xian Lin'er's Azureflame Dragon Martial Soul.
Recalling what that cold, sinister voice had just said about him possessing its bloodline, Nan Zhuliu thought his mutated Martial Soul might well be an existence unrivaled in the present age.
At that thought, Nan Zhuliu could not help the corners of his mouth curling upward. Now I'm set.
With a thought from Nan Zhuliu, the spear withdrew into his bloodline as though it were part of his body, and the dragon scales on his arms returned to their usual appearance as well.
Only when that terrifying pressure faded did Nan Zhou suddenly feel much more at ease.
He took a deep breath to steady his excitement, but his voice still sounded slightly shaky. "Zhuliu, give your new mutated Martial Soul a name."
Nan Zhuliu lowered his eyes in thought, then said firmly, "Let's call it the Prison-Subduing Dragon."