Chapter 69: One Against Four! Battling a 50,000-Year Soul Beast!
The canyon air hung thick with the stench of venom and rotting foliage. Liu Yuan crouched behind a dense veil of purple vines, his gaze locked onto the gargantuan silhouettes shifting in the shadows ahead. A few paces behind him, Du Busi stood in absolute silence. The Body Sect Master's emerald eyes did not look at the monsters; instead, they remained fixed entirely on his disciple's back, carrying a heavy, unfathomable scrutiny.
In the harsh reality of the Soul Master world, the hierarchy of power between humanity and nature was carved in stone. A strict, unforgiving classification dictated the survival of anyone who dared venture into the wild. A Soul Beast boasting twenty thousand years of cultivation possessed the raw, destructive might of a six-ring Soul Emperor. Should a beast cross the fifty-thousand-year threshold, its sheer physical dominance and innate abilities allowed it to stand toe-to-toe with a seven-ring Soul Sage.
Liu Yuan had only just brushed the threshold of a Level 40 Soul Ancestor. Faced with such an absolute, crushing gap in cultivation, any sane mentor would have immediately grabbed their disciple and evacuated. Du Busi should never have even entertained the thought of asking the boy if he wanted to handle this alone.
Yet, Liu Yuan was a creature that defied conventional logic.
Du Busi kept a careful tally of his disciple's true capabilities. While Liu Yuan's superficial rank displayed a mere forty levels of soul power, his actual lethality painted a vastly different picture. The devastating mental damage projected by his Double Pupils, layered with the bizarre, unpredictable offense and defense of the Qilin Precious Technique, forged a monster in human skin. This was the same boy who, while still in his thirties, held the terrifying combat record of slaughtering a Level 50 Evil Soul Master in single combat.
Factoring in his complete burst power, Liu Yuan already stood firmly on the threshold of a Level 55 assault-system Soul King.
But the true anchor of his confidence lay in his nearly unsolvable second soul skill—the Undying Body. This singular ability granted him an absurdly high margin for error. A single misstep, a fatal miscalculation, or a lethal blow would not result in instant death.
Because of this, Du Busi had posed the question with a dual purpose. First, he needed to observe if his disciple possessed the sheer audacity to draw his blade against an overwhelmingly superior force. Second, he intended to forge the boy in the fires of absolute peril. Opportunities to clash with Soul Beasts that so vastly eclipsed one's own rank were incredibly rare. Such a battle would violently squeeze out every drop of Liu Yuan's latent potential, forcing him to perceive the microscopic flow of soul power while dancing on the razor's edge of life and death.
Defeat here held no shame. The chasm in cultivation realms was an objective reality. With a Level 98 Super Douluo guarding his flank and the Undying Body acting as a final safety net, this canyon transformed into the ultimate proving ground.
Du Busi kept these calculations locked behind his teeth. He merely stood with his hands clasped behind his back, waiting in silence for the boy's decision.
Liu Yuan did not disappoint him.
The young transmigrator stared down the three mountain-like, ten-thousand-year Pit Demon Spiders prowling through the rubble. His Double Pupils did not contract in fear. Instead, a burning, predatory eagerness ignited within those deeply layered irises.
He understood his own limits perfectly, just as he understood the colossal weight of the man standing behind him. With his life absolutely guaranteed by his master's presence, shrinking away from this limit-breaking challenge would be a pathetic waste of his own talents. The suffocating oppression radiating from the beasts ahead—the literal scent of impending death—was the perfect whetstone to sharpen and consolidate his newly formed Level 40 foundation.
"Master, I will take the vanguard."
Liu Yuan drew a slow, deliberate breath, forcing his racing heart to settle into a cold, rhythmic thud. He did not look back. "If my bones start breaking faster than I can heal, I will call for you."
A deep, rugged grin finally split Du Busi's weathered face. The old monster let out a low, rumbling laugh that vibrated through the damp air. "Good lad. You truly are my disciple."
He waved a massive hand dismissively. "Go. Fight with everything you have. Even if the sky collapses on your head today, this old man will hold it up for you!"
Liu Yuan gave a sharp nod. The muscles in his legs coiled tight before exploding with kinetic force. He shot forward like an arrow released from a heavy ballista, tearing through the thick curtain of purple vines and launching himself directly into the sprawling field of rubble at the canyon's heart.
Suspended in mid-air, the overlapping irises of his Double Pupils snapped into focus, locking dead onto the vanguard Pit Demon Spider. A vibrant soul ring flared to life around his body. The crimson light swirling within his eyes compressed inward, condensing into a point of terrifying density.
'Spirit Ray!'
Two hyper-condensed, dark red beams of pure mental force erupted from his eyes. They crossed the spatial distance in a fraction of a second, slamming violently into the side carapace of the massive arachnid. Fueled by his newly acquired Level 40 soul power, the destructive output of his Spirit Ray had scaled to a frighteningly lethal degree.
The Pit Demon Spider boasted twenty thousand years of cultivation. Its hardened exoskeleton was thick enough to completely ignore the full-powered strikes of an ordinary Soul Ancestor. Yet, the moment the crimson rays swept across its flank, the dark, chitinous armor hissed and melted away like fresh snow tossed into a roaring furnace. The beam carved a deep, smoking trench through the shell, exposing the pulsating, miserable green flesh beneath.
"Hiss—!"
The Pit Demon Spider unleashed a shrill, ear-piercing shriek of agony. Its eight massive compound eyes flared a violent blood-red. The beast's bloated abdomen contracted sharply, and with a sickening wet thwack, dozens of thick, venom-soaked spider threads erupted through the air. The corrosive webbing fanned out like a cluster of heavy crossbow bolts, blanketing the sky above Liu Yuan.
Liu Yuan's boots slammed into the rocky earth. He knew the grim reality of fighting a control-and-toxin specialist like the Pit Demon Spider. If even a single strand of that webbing caught his limbs, pinning him into a static positional battle, the combined siege of three twenty-thousand-year monsters would tear him to bloody shreds in seconds.
His reaction was instantaneous.
'Qilin Precious Technique!'
An intense, ice-blue brilliance surged down his calves, wrapping his legs in a phantom glow. Liu Yuan executed the Qilin Step. His physical form blurred, leaving behind a trailing sequence of illusory afterimages that flickered across the jagged rocks.
Pushing his movement speed to its absolute zenith, he twisted and vaulted through the narrowest gaps in the descending net of venomous silk. The corrosive threads splashed against the stone around him, melting the rock into foul-smelling slag. Every time Liu Yuan's boots touched down behind a new piece of cover, his Double Pupils flared. Crimson rays lanced out from the shadows, executing a ruthless, highly precise campaign of long-range attrition.
Observing from his elevated vantage point, Du Busi gave a slow, approving nod.
The boy was exceptionally sharp. He didn't let the immense defensive power of his Undying Body or the sheer force of the Qilin Precious Technique go to his head. He refused to blindly charge into a chaotic melee.
Against ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts that held both a numerical advantage and overwhelming physical power, this calculated kiting tactic was the absolute optimal solution to minimize risk. The combat literacy Liu Yuan displayed on the field bore zero resemblance to a twelve-year-old boy. He moved, struck, and retreated with the cold, mechanical precision of a veteran hunter who had spent decades surviving the wilderness.
The slaughter in the canyon dragged on.
Liu Yuan's strategy yielded brutal results. Subjected to his high-frequency, surgical strikes, the vanguard Pit Demon Spider was rapidly deteriorating. Unable to land a single grazing hit on the elusive human, the beast's carapace was now riddled with smoking, melted craters. Its thick green blood pooled on the rocks, and its frantic, scuttling movements grew noticeably sluggish.
Meanwhile, Liu Yuan, leaning entirely on the deep footwork of the Qilin Step, hadn't suffered so much as a scratched sleeve.
Du Busi watched the one-sided harassment, his expression shifting into something deeply strange. He rubbed his chin, a thought crossing his mind. 'This little monster... is he actually planning to grind down three twenty-thousand-year beasts by himself? Does he intend to slaughter this entire nest without a drop of my support?'
However, just as Liu Yuan shifted his stance, preparing to lock in his victory and deliver the killing blow to the crippled demon spider, the battlefield dynamic violently fractured.
Perched atop a high, shadow-draped boulder at the rear of the canyon, a creature that had been lying in absolute stillness finally moved.
The Singing Cricket.
Without warning, the beast flared its dark golden, translucent wings, vibrating them at a terrifying frequency.
A bizarre, deeply oppressive acoustic rhythm instantly washed over the entire canyon. The air itself seemed to ripple and distort with the soundwaves. This was the true, terrifying utility of the Singing Cricket—it was a natural-born battlefield priest, a support-type Soul Beast capable of turning the tide of any engagement.
The moment the high-pitched drone pierced Liu Yuan's eardrums, a violent wave of vertigo crashed through his skull. His vision swam. The soul power that had been circulating flawlessly through his meridians suddenly felt like thick, freezing mud. His muscles locked up, and the flawless, flowing rhythm of his Qilin Step forcefully dragged to a halt, lagging by a fatal half-beat.
The effect on the enemy was the exact opposite.
Upon absorbing the acoustic rhythm, the three Pit Demon Spiders erupted with a sickening surge of crimson energy. A thick, blood-colored membrane rapidly materialized over their smoking wounds, sealing the damage. In the span of a single breath, their physical speed, raw power, and feral aggression spiked by several terrifying degrees.
'Dammit!'
Liu Yuan clamped his teeth down hard on the tip of his tongue. The sharp, metallic taste of copper flooded his mouth, the sudden spike of intense pain forcefully ripping his consciousness out of the sonic daze.
His immediate instinct was to vault over the arachnid vanguard and assassinate the Singing Cricket orchestrating the buff. But the newly empowered Pit Demon Spiders refused to give him a fraction of a second to breathe.
The crippled spider, now fueled by a berserk frenzy, launched itself high into the air at a sickeningly unnatural angle. Its eight massive, razor-sharp legs extended outward like a cluster of descending heavy spears, blotting out the light above him.
His mental focus still fractured by the lingering echoes of the cricket's song, Liu Yuan's body failed to execute the evasion command in time. It was a fatal, microscopic lag.
Squelch!
A sickening, muffled tear of flesh echoed over the rocks. A jagged spider leg, thick as a tree trunk, drove straight through Liu Yuan's left shoulder like a siege ballista bolt. The sheer kinetic inertia of the beast's descent slammed him brutally into the stone floor, pinning him to the earth in a spray of dust and blood.
Before he could even register the impact, a second demon spider scuttled over his paralyzed form. Its ferocious, dripping mouthparts snapped open, and a pair of massive, venom-slicked chelicerae plunged violently into his chest cavity.
Even with the absolute regeneration of his Undying Body actively fighting the damage, the sheer, catastrophic trauma of having his flesh and bone violently punctured sent a wave of heart-wrenching, blinding agony through his nervous system.
Driven into a bloodlust by the continuous, maddening drone of the Singing Cricket, the three demon spiders swarmed his pinned body. They had no intention of letting their prey suffer slowly. Their massive, hairy bodies pressed down, mandibles clicking frantically as they prepared to rip this arrogant human limb from limb and feast on his remains.
Crushed beneath the suffocating weight of the arachnids, Liu Yuan could feel the hot, putrid breath of their mouthparts hovering mere inches from his throat. The stench of rotting meat and acidic venom burned his nose. Pinned under the absolute, inescapable suppression of their raw power and cultivation rank, the transmigrator finally felt the icy, desperate shadow of true death creeping over his skin.
"Master! Now!" Liu Yuan roared, his voice tearing through the chaos with the last ounce of air in his lungs.
At the exact millisecond the demon spider's razor-sharp chelicerae snapped shut, aiming to cleanly sever Liu Yuan's head from his shoulders—
BOOM—!
The oxygen in the entire canyon was violently sucked away in a single instant. The sky above warped, the very color of the world draining away as an apocalyptic tide of jade-green soul power descended from the heavens like a crashing meteorite. The energy hit the canyon floor, detonating with a catastrophic, devastating roar.
Du Busi had made his move.
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