Seizing the Soul Tool
Su Tianyu stared greedily at the middle-aged man across from him, a malicious smile appearing on his face. Of the two Soul Rings that had risen around him, one suddenly lit up.
"First Soul Skill, Golden Pupil Illusory Realm!"
An invisible force of spiritual power spread out from him, instantly covering everything within a radius of three hundred meters. After the light distorted, a graveyard littered with bones and shrouded in billowing black smoke appeared before the three of them.
"Help! Have I come to hell on earth? There are bones everywhere! I don't want to die!"
At the terrifying sight before him, the coachman's hair stood on end. His body shook uncontrollably, and he cried out in alarm, his face full of fear.
The middle-aged man on the carriage calmly took a ring from his robes and slipped it onto his finger. He watched Su Tianyu approach with an indifferent gaze, seemingly oblivious to the eerie, terrifying scene around him.
"Oh?"
Seeing how calm the middle-aged man was, Su Tianyu could not understand why a commoner could remain composed after seeing a Soul Master use a Soul Skill.
But it did not matter. A commoner was still a commoner; without Soul Power, everything he did was in vain.
"Mental Shock!"
Under Su Tianyu's control, the spiritual power roaming the domain surged toward the two men on the carriage like rolling waves.
The invisible, rippling Soul Skill quickly reached the middle-aged man. Just as it was about to strike his face, the ring on his finger suddenly flashed, and a transparent, circular shield enveloped him securely.
The Soul Skill slammed into the transparent shield, sending ripples across its surface. After it canceled out several waves of Mental Shock attacks, the shield gradually dimmed, losing the dazzling white brilliance it had when first activated.
"The ignorant truly know no fear. How dare you show a Soul Master such disrespect? Are you tired of living?" Su Tianyu berated the middle-aged man, his face dark.
"A Soul Master? So you're a Soul Master! You put on such a lofty air before a commoner. What have I done wrong?" the middle-aged man roared indignantly.
"You didn't take the initiative to bow when you saw a Soul Master, and you even dared glare at me. That's what you did wrong. Did you really think the treasure in your hand could get you out of here safely?" Su Tianyu snorted coldly and attacked again.
The Soul Skill crashed against the shield again like a raging flood or a savage beast, with creaking sounds coming from the repeated impacts.
Under the sustained assault of several waves of spiritual Soul Skills, the shield finally gave way and shattered, revealing the two figures who had been hiding beneath it.
Seeing the shield shatter and vanish like a bubble, the middle-aged man's face filled with despair. Deep down, he bitterly regretted it. Of all the things he could have done, he should never have offended a Soul Master. The weak, white-ringed One-Ring Soul Master he had encountered before had blinded him. He closed his eyes in anguish as memories surfaced in his mind.
It had been a stormy night, with lightning flashing and thunder crashing. While wandering through the orchard on the mountain behind his home, he had suddenly discovered a cave in the grove, exposed when rainwater washed away a section of the mountainside. Looking into the pitch-dark cave, he had eventually gone inside, driven by curiosity.
After venturing deep into the cave, he had found a half-open stone door at the far end. He had entered and discovered several oddly shaped pieces of iron inside. Realizing they were worthless things, he had cursed his bad luck under his breath. Just as he was about to leave, one of the rings had suddenly lit up, making him wonder whether it was a treasure he did not recognize.
The thought had filled him with delight, and he had immediately decided to take it home. As for the other pieces of iron that had not lit up, he had left them untouched, taking only the glowing ring out of the cave and back to the village.
Back in the village, he had examined the ring from top to bottom but still could not tell what it was. He had simply kept it on him, never expecting that this unremarkable decision would save his life.
Watching the middle-aged man close his eyes, Su Tianyu calmly mobilized the spiritual power in the domain to attack again.
The ripples of the Soul Skill pierced both men's bodies, contorting their faces and drawing blood from their mouths and noses. They looked at Su Tianyu, gurgling incessantly, as if they wanted to say something to him. But before they could make a sound, their eyes glazed over and they fell.
Looking at the two fallen bodies, he strode over to the middle-aged man's corpse and quickly removed the ring from his finger.
After turning it over in his hand for a while and carefully examining its craftsmanship and patterns, Su Tianyu realized it was an almost extinct spiritual-type Defensive Soul Tool. He estimated that the ring in his hand was the only one of its kind in the Douluo I era.
"What a pity it's defective. I wonder if the damaged parts can be repaired. But restoring it completely would probably be harder than climbing to heaven!"
Looking at the rust-covered ring in his hand, Su Tianyu could hardly blame the commoner for not selling it. He probably could not have found a buyer even if he had tried, so he had kept it on him and discovered how to activate it by chance.
"Don't think death can keep your secret safe. I still don't know where you got this ring, so let me see where it came from."
After cursing the stiff corpse a few times, he immediately lit up his First Soul Ring again.
A black space appeared within the domain, and black chains extended from a rift. Under Su Tianyu's control, they pierced the man's skull, then yanked hard.
A transparent soul was quickly dragged out of the body by the black chains, which swiftly retracted into the black space.
Inside the Black Soul Realm, Su Tianyu's spiritual form slowly appeared. Looking at the soul trapped by the chains, he reached out, picked up one end of a chain, and activated the Soul Control Chain's soul-searching skill.
Countless images appeared in his mind. He quickly sifted through the irrelevant memories until he reached the scene of the middle-aged man discovering the cave exposed by the collapse in the rain.
Su Tianyu quickly browsed through the images in the memory, and he could not help being overjoyed. The middle-aged man had taken only the glowing ring; the other pieces, including the arm and leg pieces and the largest chest piece, were all still safe in the cave.
"Ha ha, it really came without the slightest effort! This is a complete set of Soul Tool Armor. The ring alone is an extinct spiritual-type Defensive Soul Tool. As for what types of Soul Tools the other pieces are, I can hardly wait to find out!"
Looking at the middle-aged man trapped by the Soul Control Chain, Su Tianyu could not help marveling at his own good luck. If a Soul Master or a Titled Douluo had found it instead, they might really have been able to restore it completely.
Although the Douluo I era was unlike the age ten thousand years later in Douluo II, when Soul Tools were everywhere, Spirit Hall at least had some ability to repair damaged, incomplete Soul Tools. It had that old monster, the Great Enshrined Qian Daoliu, and the Angel God's inheritance family had been passed down for nearly ten thousand years. No one knew what hidden foundations and records it might possess.
Su Tianyu put the ring in his palm into his bracelet, picked up the coachman's and the middle-aged man's corpses, one in each hand, and headed once more toward the territories on the outskirts of the Heavenly Eye Forest where Soul Beasts roamed.