From the opponent's gaze, he could see its shock and bewilderment.
This was perfectly understandable. Having served as the guardian of the Spirit Ascension Platform for so long, the creatures it had faced were either soul beasts with fewer than ten thousand years of cultivation, or soul masters below the Soul Ancestor level. It had simply been too long since it had encountered an existence that could match it in strength.
So when its most powerful attack was blocked, it was only natural that it would be this stunned.
Bai Chen curled his lips into a cruel smile. His black tail hook shot out viciously, driving straight toward the eye of the century-old Dark Gold Terror Bear.
Instinctively, the bear tried to raise its hand to block — but in that single moment of distraction, it felt a sharp, piercing pain surge through it.
Somehow, the long tail hook had already wound around its outstretched hand and plunged deep through its eye socket into its skull, rapidly devouring its life force.
"Roar——"
The Dark Gold Terror Bear let out a furious, rage-filled bellow and raised its claws once more.
"Hmph!"
Bai Chen narrowed his eyes slightly. Knowing when to press and when to retreat, he retracted his tail hook and launched himself backward through the air.
But it was painfully obvious — this speed wasn't enough. Before he could fly out of the Dark Gold Terror Bear's attack range, its razor claws would tear him to shreds first.
Therefore…
"Boom!"
A thunderous crack rang out. Bai Chen's wings, which had been a deep violet-black, suddenly shifted to cyan, and his flying speed increased explosively —
(Page continues) — managing to dodge the blow unleashed by the Dark Gold Terror Bear in its berserk state.
Watching this sure-kill strike land on nothing, the Dark Gold Terror Bear refused to accept it. It bared its fangs, gnashing them furiously, and instinctively lifted a leg to give chase.
But the moment that raised foot came down onto the ground, a deafening explosion erupted beneath it.
Blazing white lightning tore open the earth. At some unknown point, Bai Chen had buried a dark mine in the soil before it. Without engaging its brain, the bear had stepped squarely onto it. The violent shockwave threw its massive body off balance, sending it toppling backward.
At that same moment, cyan threads whipped around rapidly, coiling loop after loop around the Dark Gold Terror Bear's body, cinching tight against its flesh.
Worthy of being a Dark Gold Terror Bear — the Wind Threads that could slice other soul beasts to ribbons fell upon it and simply could not break through its defense. They were no different from ordinary string.
But for Bai Chen, that was enough. All he needed was this brief window where the opponent could not move freely — even if that window lasted only a single instant.
Bai Chen beat his wings swiftly and closed the distance to his opponent.
Outside the Spirit Ascension Platform, Zang Xin watched this scene through the large screen, and his gaze gradually grew distant.
It's starting again. Here it goes again.
Only those who had truly fought Bai Chen at full strength knew where his real terror lay.
Although none of Bai Chen's individual soul skills were exceptionally powerful, for someone like Zang Xin, none of them reached the level of being truly troublesome. His real menace lay in his ability to weave all these capabilities together seamlessly in battle, leaving his opponent completely unable to predict what he would do next.
His arsenal was simply too comprehensive — dozens of soul skills that could handle almost every conceivable situation.
Like right now: the Dark Gold Terror Bear's attack and defense were unquestionably superior to Bai Chen's, yet it was being cornered step by step by this comparatively "weaker" opponent —
Bai Chen closed in on the Dark Gold Terror Bear's face once more. His tail hook's tip gleamed with a bone-chilling light. The bear desperately channeled its strength, trying to struggle free of the Wind Threads binding its body.
But right at that moment, the ground beneath it suddenly changed color, turning a shade of black like murky swamp water.
Dark Swamp — a soul skill that altered the properties of matter, granting the affected area dark-attribute characteristics.
Upon contact with the new substance generated by the Dark Swamp, the strength of whatever touched it was rapidly sapped, while the power of darkness invaded and disrupted the flow of soul power within.
Not a particularly fearsome soul skill on its own — yet combined with the Wind Threads, it effectively suppressed the Dark Gold Terror Bear's movements.
Bai Chen rushed up to it and, seeing its blood-soaked face, felt a flicker of genuine admiration stir within him.
Truly worthy of being a Dark Gold Terror Bear. Even with its head pierced through, it could still mount this many attacks.
The feeling of admiration did nothing to slow his body. His tail hook thrust out again — this time targeting the other eye.
The Dark Gold Terror Bear jerked its head aside just in time, narrowly saving its most vital organ from another direct hit.
But its face was still pierced through by Bai Chen.
"Roar!"
Overwhelmed by pain, it exploded with strength even greater than before. In its violent struggle, it flung Bai Chen — who had latched onto its body — far away.
The sole remaining eye now held not a single flicker of reason. Only rage.
"How is this thing still not dead..."
How durable can this thing possibly be?
Worthy of being a soul beast renowned for its absolute offense and defense.
But this was as far as it would go.
Bai Chen landed lightly on a tree branch. He extended a hand toward the Dark Gold Terror Bear and said, in a calm, unhurried voice:
"Evil Explosion."
In an instant, the Dark Gold Terror Bear's body froze solid.
Its eye still held a gleam of disbelief — but it was already powerless to reverse its fate.
"Boom——"
A violent explosion rang out. Its head blew apart entirely, and deep violet-black blood splattered across the ground.
Bai Chen's tail hook, as a weapon, was undeniably threatening — not only incomparably sharp, but carrying an evil attribute on top of it, making it nearly the most powerful single-target offensive tool currently at his disposal.
But compared to its role as a direct attack weapon, it actually had an even more terrifying identity.
It was an injector of evil energy.
The special property of Bai Chen's Evil Explosion was this: the denser the evil attribute accumulated inside an enemy's body, the more powerful the explosion.
Normally, it was extremely difficult to get evil attribute energy inside an enemy's body — but Bai Chen's tail hook solved that problem perfectly. It could rapidly inject evil energy into a target, laying the groundwork for the subsequent detonation.
In other words, from the moment Bai Chen's very first strike landed, the scales of victory had already tilted heavily in his favor. Everything he did afterward was simply to make his victory even more impossible to overturn.
In this era, he lacked the spiritual power of Tang San, and he lacked the physical strength of Tang Hao — but he possessed a rich and ruthless array of methods —
If Tang San was a mage, and Tang Hao was a warrior, then the Bai Chen of this era was an assassin — exploiting every kind of specialized technique to create an opening, then seizing that opening to deliver a one-hit finishing blow.
Like a cunning, venomous serpent: without overwhelming strength, but incomparably slippery, pinpointing the gaps in an enemy's defenses to inject lethal venom, using methods entirely his own to claim victory.
With a thunderous boom, the Dark Gold Terror Bear's colossal body crashed to the ground, dissolving into scattered motes of golden light.
The soul beast that in the original story had required the entire main cast working together with everything they had to defeat — had been slain by Bai Chen alone.