The Fight for the Soul Bone

Huang Shan's face slammed hard against the tip of the Fire Flame Lion King's rib, which gouged out a chunk of flesh. He let out a wail of pain.

On top of that, a needle-like pain stabbed through his mind. In his agony, Huang Shan felt as though his soul were about to leave his body, and in his daze, he seemed to see his dead father.

Once he came to his senses, Huang Shan immediately unleashed a torrent of foul curses, his fury in full force.

Seeing that Huang Shan was still lively after taking a Mental Shock, Su Tianyu used his mind to take an iron nail from his Soul Tool. He flicked his wrist, sending the nail whistling through the air toward the back of Huang Shan's head.

"Puchi!"

The nail pierced the back of Huang Shan's head, leaving a deep bloody hole from which a jet of blood spurted.

Then, as thick white brain matter flowed out, Huang Shan convulsed wildly like a man having an epileptic seizure, his arms and legs flailing.

After twitching for a while, Huang Shan stopped moving. Only brain matter and blood continued to ooze from the back of his head, making squelching sounds.

"You old bastard, you were cunning and treacherous, full of tricks. If I hadn't been here today, you might actually have gotten your way. Even I have to admire your luck and scheming."

Su Tianyu looked at Huang Shan's gradually stiffening limbs and spoke to his corpse with a sigh.

The old bastard had lived long enough to become a wily old fox, and his methods were sinister and vicious. Even Gu San, who had long been active in the Soul Master World and was skilled at hunting Soul Beasts, had fallen for his tricks. A Soul Master fresh out of a sect for training probably wouldn't have known he'd been sold off, or even how he'd died.

Su Tianyu hurried over to Huang Shan, who had fallen face-first onto the Soul Beast's corpse. Grabbing the old bastard by the collar, he casually tossed him aside and gazed fervently at the Soul Bone over the Fire Flame Lion King's left leg.

The Soul Bone floated quietly ten centimeters above the Fire Flame Lion King's left leg, radiating a dazzling array of colors. Visible to the naked eye, energies of different colors flowed within it like water, slowly moving up and down along the patterns inside the Soul Bone.

"So this is what a Soul Bone looks like?"

Su Tianyu stared in fascination at the Soul Bone, which resembled a shrunken human leg bone. The Soul Bone that had dropped from the Fire Flame Lion King was clearly not an animal bone; it was slowly transforming into a human bone. In less than three minutes, it finished taking the form of a human left leg bone and floated quietly above the Soul Beast's corpse.

Su Tianyu reached out and took the Soul Bone. After examining it carefully for a while, he put it into his Storage Soul Tool, then turned his gaze to the two mutilated corpses a hundred meters away.

"Sigh, I just joined a Soul Hunting team, and the whole team gets wiped out on my first Soul Beast hunt. Should I call that bad luck or good luck?"

Su Tianyu was utterly speechless. He had only wanted to join a Soul Hunting team and gain some experience, so why couldn't the heavens grant him that wish? Was he not a child of fortune, but a child of misfortune?

Su Tianyu had wiped out the entire team with his own hands, and his teammates had all harbored ulterior motives and plotted against one another. It wouldn't be wrong to say he had done the people a good turn. Otherwise, if those teammates had escaped, they might have become Fallen Soul Masters someday. By that reckoning, he was a good Soul Master.

"Jie... jie... jie."

At that thought, the corners of Su Tianyu's mouth curled up slightly, and he let out a series of strange chuckles.

Next, Su Tianyu went from one corpse to the next and searched all three for a while, only to find that they didn't have a single Gold Soul Coin.

After cursing them as poor bastards, Su Tianyu went to the Fire Flame Lion King's corpse and cut off its entire hide in one piece.

This was a top-grade hide that could be made into bedding or a mat. Moreover, it constantly gave off warmth, which could keep mosquitoes, insects, and the cold from bothering him when he slept outdoors.

Having packed up his belongings, Su Tianyu glanced casually at the three mangled bodies and headed out of the Star Dou Great Forest without looking back.

After this run of bad luck, Su Tianyu no longer planned to find another Soul Hunting team to train with. Instead, he went to settle down in Treasure Sword City, less than four hundred kilometers from the Star Dou Great Forest.

For now, his Soul Grandmaster cultivation was still a little too low. If he ran into a Soul Master at the Soul Ancestor level, his only choice would be to flee for his life. So he would focus on raising his cultivation, advance to Soul Elder, and apply to an advanced Soul Master Academy.

Treasure Sword City lay within the Haagen-Dazs Kingdom, close to Gengxin City in the Star Luo Empire to the south. Both cities were renowned across the Douluo Continent as cities of forging, with blacksmith shops of all sizes. They were sacred places in the eyes of many blacksmith Soul Masters with low Soul Power and civilian blacksmiths, no less revered than Spirit Hall was by Soul Masters.

At the entrance to Treasure Sword City, Su Tianyu, travel-worn from his journey all the way from the Star Dou Great Forest, looked up at the city before him and thought to himself.

Back at Nuoding Academy, he had stolen the complete Mysterious Heaven Skill from Tang San, but had only been cultivating it quietly all this time. As for the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer that Tang Hao had taught Tang San and that was stored in Tang San's mind, Su Tianyu had never put it into practice. He had long been coveting the Hidden Weapons recorded in the Mysterious Heaven Skill.

If he had possessed a Godly Zhuge Crossbow when hunting the Cyclops, could he have easily killed the two-thousand-year-old Cyclops without getting hurt?

He looked at Treasure Sword City before him. Its walls stood over a hundred meters high and were more than twenty meters thick, with watchtowers, arrow towers, beacon towers, and the like atop them.

A squad of fully armed Haagen Kingdom soldiers patrolled back and forth at the gate. Clearly, the kingdom placed considerable importance on Treasure Sword City, this city of forging.

Whether for repelling attacks from the Star Dou Empire or guarding against Soul Beast uprisings in the Star Dou Great Forest four hundred kilometers away, the majestic Treasure Sword City would serve as the kingdom's first line of defense.

Su Tianyu would begin forging Hidden Weapons here, and anticipation gradually rose in his heart.

After waiting in line at the city for less than a moment, Su Tianyu passed through the gates and entered Treasure Sword City.

After passing through the checkpoint at the gate, he was greeted by the clanging of iron being worked on both sides of the street. Many sturdy, bare-chested men swung their hammers, striking blocks of red-hot iron on their anvils. The clanging rang out through the entire street.

Examining the blacksmith shops on both sides of the street as he went, Su Tianyu wandered through the area of Treasure Sword City set aside for smithing.

Su Tianyu soon found a rather modest blacksmith shop in a secluded spot, with the words "Jerry's Blacksmith Shop" hanging above it.

While he was still standing at the entrance, before he had even gone inside, Su Tianyu felt a wave of scorching heat rush over his face.

At that moment, a thin, dark-skinned middle-aged man came out of the shop. Seeing Su Tianyu standing at the entrance, he looked slightly taken aback, then immediately came forward to greet him with a broad smile.