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After dealing with the pack of Flame Demon Lions, every soul beast they encountered afterward felt considerably less threatening by comparison.
A mere handful of thousand-year soul beasts — none of them could hold a candle to the existence that a pack of Flame Demon Lions represented.
Bai Chen and Yuan En Yehui continued pressing deeper into the Elementary Spirit Ascension Platform, and then they encountered it.
"Roar! Roar!"
Dark golden fur, a massive blocky head like a small hill, striking sharp claws, and those fierce crimson eyes — it was unmistakably the Dark Gold Terror Bear that Bai Chen knew so intimately.
This was already the third time Bai Chen had encountered a Dark Gold Terror Bear, though of course not counting the situation with Bear Lord himself — during his time in the core zone of the Star Dou Great Forest, that version of Bai Chen had never gone up against Bear Lord face to face.
This particular Dark Gold Terror Bear served as the Spirit Ascension Platform Guardian standing between the Elementary and Intermediate Spirit Ascension Platforms.
The Spirit Ascension Platform was in truth an entire world unto itself, only that as one ventured deeper inward, the strength of the soul beasts would grow progressively higher — just like the Star Dou Great Forest of old — and the Spirit Pagoda had divided it into sections accordingly.
In order to prevent lower-tier soul masters from mistakenly wandering into a higher-tier Spirit Ascension Platform, the Spirit Pagoda had specifically stationed Spirit Ascension Platform Guardians at the boundaries between low-tier and high-tier platforms.
Spirit Ascension Platform Guardians differed from ordinary soul beasts within the platform in two key respects.
The first and most obvious difference was their sheer overwhelming power. In order to cut off the path leading to higher-tier Spirit Ascension Platforms, the strength of a Guardian was invariably extraordinarily great — as evidenced by the Dark Gold Terror Bear standing before them right now.
The Dark Gold Terror Bear was the undisputed king of bears, capable not only of matching ten-thousand-year soul beasts at the ten-thousand-year level, but a mere hundred-year Dark Gold Terror Bear could already defeat an ordinary ten-thousand-year soul beast.
One should understand that in a three-ring soul master battle, the suppressive force is far fiercer than in a two-ring battle. After defeating a ten-thousand-year soul beast, even a soul master whose cultivation approached the level of a Title Douluo would turn pale — for a ten-thousand-year soul beast in a three-ring battle possesses combat power on par with a Soul Emperor.
And the entry limit for the Elementary Spirit Ascension Platform was the peak of three rings...
Even if seven Soul Venerables joined forces, by all logic there should be no possibility of defeating a Soul Emperor-level Dark Gold Terror Bear — which effectively sealed off any chance of lower-tier soul masters entering the Intermediate Spirit Ascension Platform.
The second difference was that Spirit Ascension Platform Guardians were crafted from soul bones.
In this era where soul beasts teetered on the brink of extinction, if you asked which faction possessed the greatest number of soul bones, it would undoubtedly be the Spirit Pagoda, which had built its fortune upon researching soul spirits.
They had fashioned soul bones into Spirit Ascension Platform Guardians, making these Guardians' power far closer to what these creatures had possessed in life.
For everyone else who entered the Spirit Ascension Platform, this was undoubtedly terrible news — it meant the opponents they faced were far stronger than ordinary soul beasts.
But for Bai Chen, this was actually good news.
Because he knew exactly what soul bone this particular Dark Gold Terror Bear had been crafted from.
The Dark Gold Terror Bear's right palm bone — the most precious of all soul bones a Dark Gold Terror Bear could drop, and also the external soul bone he himself possessed at the two-ring stage.
Of course, given that this Dark Gold Terror Bear was only a hundred-year-old specimen, its strength would certainly be inferior to the one whose bone he currently possessed — but regardless, this was still the right palm bone of a Dark Gold Terror Bear, and out in the wider world it would be considered an absolutely priceless treasure.
As long as he successfully defeated this Dark Gold Terror Bear, he could claim that soul bone and make its power his own.
As for the pursuit that would come from the Spirit Pagoda side of things — that problem he could hand off to Zang Xin. He trusted that the Vice Sect Master of the Tang Sect was more than capable of smoothing over that kind of trouble.
What mattered more than future complications was the present moment.
"Yuan En, fall back and get clear."
Bai Chen said calmly:
"Your current strength cannot yet intervene in a battle at this level."
"...Mm."
In Yuan En Yehui's memory, this was the first time Bai Chen had ever spoken to her without a smile on his face.
His gaze at this moment was locked dead onto the Dark Gold Terror Bear, not daring to deviate even the slightest.
The fact that someone as powerful as him was wearing such an expression was already more than enough to convey what level of opponent this was.
Faced with an enemy like this, she would only be a liability here.
So she gave a single nod, then turned and ran.
"ROAR!"
Seeing her attempt to flee, the Dark Gold Terror Bear let out a thunderous bellow and moved to give chase, intent on ending her life.
"Don't ignore me!"
At that moment, a figure suddenly flickered and teleported directly in front of it, delivering a kick straight to the side of its neck.
An astonishing sight unfolded — the massive Dark Gold Terror Bear was actually staggered by that kick, stumbling backward two full steps.
"Damn, this thing's head is rock solid."
Bai Chen landed on the ground, grimacing with mild annoyance.
The Dark Gold Terror Bear's physical defenses were truly terrifying. The part of his foot that had made contact with it was now tingling with numbness, yet the bear appeared completely unfazed, as though it hadn't felt a thing.
This was remarkable, because Bai Chen's strength already far surpassed the level of a Great Soul Master or Soul Venerable.
During the past year, Bai Chen had discovered in the course of slaying soul beasts of other elemental attributes that he had a chance of devouring and absorbing his opponent's soul skills — however, when slaying soul beasts that possessed only power attributes, no matter how many he killed, he could never obtain their abilities.
Instead, as the number of power-type soul beasts he devoured accumulated, he had a chance of gaining physical enhancements.
The probability was the same as the probability of obtaining soul skills — one in fifty.
In other words, if elemental soul beasts granted him various soul skill statistics and mechanics, then power-type soul beasts granted him pure, unembellished raw stat increases.
Throughout this intense Spirit Ascension Platform expedition, he had consistently refrained from using martial arts techniques in his battles against soul beasts, keeping his body's movements largely calibrated to complement Yuan En Yehu's level of strength, so it hadn't been particularly obvious — but in truth, his physical strength had already approached the level of a Soul King.
Only, physical strength of that tier was clearly insufficient to truly injure this Dark Gold Terror Bear — and it had actually made the bear even angrier.
"GRRR——"
It let out a furious roar, reared up its sharp claws, which blazed with a dazzling dark golden radiance.
As the holder of its soul bone, Bai Chen knew all too well what it was about to do.
Yet rather than retreating, he stamped his foot against the ground and launched himself forward at tremendous speed, charging directly into its incoming attack.
"ROAR——"
The Dark Gold Terror Bear's eyes blazed with savage ferocity as its claws came crashing down, as if trying to tear space itself apart.
Yet this was ultimately only an "as if" — a hundred-year Dark Gold Terror Bear was not yet capable of achieving that.
The proof was that not a single scratch appeared anywhere on Bai Chen's body. Instead, the colorless barrier that had materialized before him at some unknown moment bore several fresh claw marks.
The Spatial Barrier — if Spatial Shift had granted Bai Chen extraordinary mobility, then this Spatial Barrier had greatly amplified his defensive capability.
Unfortunately, like Spatial Shift, this soul skill could not be released continuously.
Bai Chen leaped straight up from where he stood, soaring high into the air, and locked eyes with this formidable Dark Gold Terror Bear.