"Become my servant, and I can consider letting you continue living in another form."
After saying this, Xu Zihuang released his right hand, allowing the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger to once again stand on all fours.
Soul beasts are generally extremely arrogant by nature. In many cases, they would rather self-destruct than easily allow human soul masters to obtain their soul rings and soul bones, let alone become servants to a human soul master.
But the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger before him did not behave as Xu Zihuang had expected—refusing to submit even in death. Instead, it calmed down at this moment and thoughtfully sized up Xu Zihuang.
The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's reaction actually made Xu Zihuang a little more patient. The power of the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger race even surpassed that of the Beast God Di Tian, the Golden-Eyed Black Dragon King. It truly possessed the potential to become an evil god. However, because cultivating as a Dark Demon Evil God Tiger required constantly devouring other soul beasts and human soul masters, it had been feared and hated by powerful soul beasts and human soul master experts alike. To this day, no member of its kind has ever successfully cultivated to the ten-thousand-year level.
If this Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, before him, was willing to become his soul spirit, naturally, he would not refuse.
Of course, even if Xu Zihuang were to truly form a contract with this Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, it would inevitably be a master-servant contract. Because, unlike Tianmeng Iceworm and the others, there could not be complete and unconditional trust between the two parties.
However, the main purpose of Xu Zihuang doing this was to make the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger understand its proper position.
With this thought, Xu Zihuang brought his slender middle finger and index finger together and tapped his brow. A speck of golden light drifted out and, under his control, merged into the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's sea of consciousness. What the light contained was the memory of the soul spirit fusion method.
"There are two types of contracts in the soul spirit fusion method: one is an equal contract, and the other is a master-servant contract. But you only qualify to sign a master-servant contract with me." Xu Zihuang looked down indifferently at the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger before him.
"Whether you perish here and now, or choose to become my servant and continue living in this form, the choice is yours. I believe you've already noticed, I bear the divine imprint of a deity within me. That is precisely why I am immune to the effect of your innate soul skill. In other words, if you become my servant, there is a very high chance that you will be able to attain immortality by following me in the future."
Just as Xu Zihuang finished speaking, a strange voice suddenly rang out from all directions.
"Welcome to the Arena of Life and Death. Only when one side dies will this life-and-death battle end, allowing you to leave this space. Countdown: five, four, three, two, one, begin."
Xu Zihuang's emotions did not waver in the slightest because of this strange voice. With a commanding tone, he coldly said to the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, "Now you should tell me your choice."
"Wuu wuu wuu—" The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger anxiously rushed forward and prostrated itself at Xu Zihuang's feet, continuously rubbing its head against his trouser leg. Its blood-red eyes were filled with fawning flattery.
Seeing that Xu Zihuang remained expressionless, it turned over to expose its belly in an attempt to please him, like an adorable little black cat trying to win its master's favor.
The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's sudden change caused the corners of Xu Zihuang's mouth to involuntarily curve upward slightly.
Facts had proven that even the most arrogant and violent soul beasts could not overcome the fear of death. Not to mention the enormous temptation of gaining immortality right in front of them.
But what Xu Zihuang did not know was that within the Arena of Life and Death, the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger could not even control its own self-destruction.
Now that its fate was completely in Xu Zihuang's hands, it was not difficult for it to make such a choice.
"Remember, you only get one chance." Xu Zihuang gave a faint smile. In the face of an absolute disparity in strength, he had no fear that the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger would harbor any schemes. With a thought, he chanted the incantation taught to him by Elder Yi and summoned a golden six-pointed star array.
The light from the six-pointed star array simultaneously enveloped both Xu Zihuang and the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger. Sensing the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's will, Xu Zihuang slowly released his spiritual power and initiated the summoning toward it.
The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's body floated upward uncontrollably until it reached the position of Xu Zihuang's chest. Although it felt somewhat strange about this miraculous soul spirit fusion method, the emotions deep in its eyes remained calm throughout.
Under Xu Zihuang's guidance, the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger raised one of its front paws and pressed it against Xu Zihuang's palm.
In this form, the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's tiger claws had completely lost their previous chilling, eerie gleam. Its small paws even had soft pink paw pads.
A pitch-black, chilling aura rippled outward from the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's body, and its life force was rapidly draining away. The moment its vitality was completely exhausted, the Arena of Life and Death space suddenly became blurred.
Space distorted, and with a lightness in his body, Xu Zihuang had already returned to the Douluo plane.
The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger had reverted to its original appearance, floating lifelessly in midair. The black aura emanating from its body transformed into rings that swept toward Xu Zihuang's body and enveloped him.
Although the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's cultivation was only approaching seventy thousand years, its origin power was even stronger than that of ordinary hundred-thousand-year soul beasts, comparable to ferocious beasts that had survived at least a second heavenly tribulation. However, Xu Zihuang's physical constitution had long surpassed normal limits. After these forces merged into his body, they quickly fused with the soul power within him. The entire process brought no pressure whatsoever.
Gradually, Xu Zihuang's body turned a deep, sinister black within the aura. The four soul rings of his Purple Radiance Thunder Prison Dragon martial soul also slowly emerged.
Red, red, red, red. Four blood-red soul rings shone brightly.
Xu Zihuang and the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger had only remained in the Arena of Life and Death space for less than a minute.
The moment Xu Zihuang's figure reappeared, Ye Guyi immediately moved closer. Her full chest rose and fell slightly as she let out a relieved breath.
In the current situation, Xu Zihuang had clearly achieved his goal as planned. Moreover, the fusion with the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger had gone exceptionally smoothly.
"This is…"
The Sacred Unicorn silently followed behind Ye Guyi, looking at Xu Zihuang and the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger not far ahead with uncertainty and surprise. It felt extremely familiar sensation toward this contract method. Long-buried memories were stirred.
This was an ability from the plane where it had once lived.
At this thought, its gaze instantly became fervent.
It seemed that it was not only itself, but there should be other existences from their plane who had unintentionally arrived in the Douluo plane as well. Perhaps Xu Zihuang and Ye Guyi, it could find a way to return to their homeland.
While Ye Guyi and the Sacred Unicorn each harbored their own thoughts, a pitch-black soul ring rose from beneath Xu Zihuang's feet and solidified at the position of his fifth soul ring. As soon as he channeled a trace of soul power into it, a surging evil aura immediately soared into the sky. Even a strange layer of gray appeared on Xu Zihuang's skin.
Summoned by Xu Zihuang, Tianmeng Iceworm also awakened. It mobilized its spiritual origin and instantly elevated the fifth soul ring bestowed by the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger to the hundred-thousand-year level.
Unlike the previous four hundred-thousand-year soul rings, the blood-red hundred-thousand-year fifth soul ring from the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger had slightly dimmer light, but its eerie blood-red color was even more vivid. The awe-inspiring, surging evil aura resembled misty gray radiance.
Not long after, on the foundation of these five soul rings, another blood-red sixth soul ring appeared.
The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger had granted Xu Zihuang both a fifth and a sixth soul ring, two hundred-thousand-year soul rings in total. In truth, with the profound foundation of the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, it could have provided Xu Zihuang with at least three soul rings at once. However, Xu Zihuang already had better choices in mind for the last three soul rings of his second martial soul.
The Deep Sea Demonic Whale King Demon Emperor, the Beast God Di Tian, and Niu Tian, whose body had already evolved into the Azure Heavenly Dragon, were his targeted candidates.
Although the fifth and sixth soul rings granted by the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger each only came with one soul skill, the power of those soul skills was clearly greater than those from the previous four soul rings. After all, the innate talent of the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger race spoke for itself. Moreover, when a hundred-thousand-year soul ring only carried one soul skill, its energy was not dispersed.
The quality of the hundred-thousand-year Dark Demon Evil God Tiger soul rings was undoubtedly higher than that of the twenty-thousand-year ferocious beast soul rings. It was equivalent to two ferocious beast-level soul rings, each carrying an exceptionally powerful soul skill.
The fusion process between Xu Zihuang and the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger lasted more than an hour.
The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's physical body completely transformed into energy and dissipated into the air.
The black aura on his body surface gradually converged. Xu Zihuang's entire being was filled with an indescribable sense of power. As a super soul beast, the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger had no weaknesses whatsoever. Apart from its innate soul skills, what it excelled at most was strength.
From the surface, the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger was inherently a strength-attribute soul beast.
After Xu Zihuang absorbed the origin power of the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, the attribute that improved the most was naturally strength. Not only that, but his soul power cultivation also leaped from level 78 to the peak of level 79, just one step away from breaking through to the eight-ring Soul Douluo realm.
Although it seemed like less than two levels of soul power increase, Xu Zihuang's soul power foundation was astonishingly deep. The total soul power gained from crossing nearly two levels was enough to allow an ordinary Titled Douluo to break through their soul power bottleneck.
Another reason was that fusing a soul spirit was different from directly absorbing a soul ring. During soul spirit fusion, part of the soul beast's origin power was used to condense spiritual consciousness, so the energy was divided.
If Xu Zihuang had killed and directly absorbed the soul ring from the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, he would undoubtedly have broken through to level 80 in one go.
However, although the soul ring's age had been forcibly elevated to the hundred-thousand-year level by Tianmeng Iceworm, the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger itself was still far from reaching the level of a true hundred-thousand-year soul beast. It would require some time to settle and gradually complete its evolution.
The situation with the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger was still different from that of the earlier Thunder Hell Vine.
The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's spiritual origin fell into silence within Xu Zihuang's sea of consciousness. But before falling silent, it had given Xu Zihuang its inner core, the source of all its power, as a token of allegiance.
Since it had already made such a choice, holding anything back would be the most foolish thing to do. Moreover, from Xu Zihuang's past actions, it was known that what he had said earlier contained not a shred of falsehood. Signing a master-servant contract with Xu Zihuang indeed caused it to abandon its dignity, but compared to the generous rewards, that was nothing at all.
Because soul beasts were destined to be unable to become gods.
The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's inner core was a pitch-black bead that emanated both cyan and blue radiance. It quietly resided in Xu Zihuang's lower abdomen, slowly pulsing. Then, as the black light on Xu Zihuang's body surface converged, it vanished from sight.
Xu Zihuang's gaze slightly condensed as he sensed the changes within his body. This black bead from the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger contained vast energy divided into six attributes, including the energy of lightning. Compared to Elder Mu's light-attribute True Dragon Dragon Core, it was even more suitable as the embryonic form of his third soul core.
This meant that the dragon core he had once most desired when entering Shrek Academy had now become something he could take or leave.
At that moment, Xu Zihuang sensed something unusual. He turned his head instinctively and looked behind him.
A pair of enormous black wings spread out behind him, blotting out the sky. These black wings were not in the bony black winged form of the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger, but existed somewhere between an energy body and a physical entity, giving them an illusory texture.
The edges of the black wings constantly shifted in shape, yet their overall form remained very stable.
And the attribute of these black wings was a singular, supreme evil attribute.
"External attached soul bone, Evil God Wings." Xu Zihuang almost blurted out the origin of these black wings. Standing before the silver moon, he turned around, and in that instant, it seemed as though even the silver moon dimmed.
The three pairs of angel wings behind Ye Guyi fluttered once as she came before Xu Zihuang. Her delicate brows furrowed slightly as she murmured, "An externally attached soul bone of the supreme evil attribute."
She had already learned about the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's inner core from Xu Zihuang beforehand. However, this externally attached soul bone, the Evil God Wings, had been somewhat unexpected.
"This externally attached soul bone seems to be able to connect with the energy of the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger's core bead." Xu Zihuang nodded. After briefly sensing it, he withdrew the Evil God Wings back into his body.
"But all of this will require time to experiment with."
Ye Guyi said nothing more. Instead, she and Xu Zihuang simultaneously looked up toward the Sacred Unicorn.
An externally attached soul bone of the supreme evil attribute did indeed somewhat resemble the abilities of evil soul masters, but that depended on who the user was. With Xu Zihuang's temperament, there was no chance he would be affected by it.
Just like the sixth soul skill of Xu Zihuang's Golden Eyes martial soul, Soul Touch, that soul skill could devour a creature's soul power and feed it back to himself, yet Xu Zihuang had never once used it.
Power itself had no distinction between good and evil.
And right now, what was more important was to negotiate with the Sacred Unicorn.
The Sacred Unicorn was also sizing up Xu Zihuang and Ye Guyi. With profound meaning, it said, "I believe this should be our second meeting."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here are the chapters for today (づ￣3￣)づ╭～
"Don't forget there are chapters available on Patreon."
"From Douluo to Godhood by Defy 30 Advance chapters."
"Douluo: Far North Invincibledo 30 Advance chapters."
"Douluo Peerless: Living as an Evil Soul Master 40 Advance chapters."
"Douluo Dalu 2:Peerless Tang Sect Dawn of Sun and Moon 40 Advance chapters."
[email protected]/facficmax10--------(@→a)