Biqi lifted her hand, releasing a sweep of soul power that wrapped around Jiang Qingtong and Xiao Xiao. Only then did her gaze fall upon the Three-Eyed Golden Lion. Her expression softened.
"Auspicious Beast, why aren't you staying in the Core Zone where you belong? It's far too dangerous out here."
"With the Scarlet King following me, I'm not in danger," the Three-Eyed Golden Lion shook its head and replied to Biqi.
"The Scarlet King's strength isn't all that great…" Biqi gently rubbed the lion's head, then asked, "You said earlier you had some vague feeling that you had to come find these two humans?"
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion shook its head again, then raised a paw to point at Jiang Qingtong.
"Mostly her! I have this strange, inexplicable premonition—I must come here and make contact with her. As for why… I don't know."
Both it and Wang Dong shared this inexplicable pull toward Jiang Qingtong.
For Wang Dong, the change had come after the restriction was triggered and he awoke from unconsciousness. For the Three-Eyed Golden Lion, however, the feeling arose only today—precisely when Jiang Qingtong and her group set foot in the Star Dou Great Forest.
It was hard not to suspect that some hidden hand was pushing events from the shadows.
Hearing the lion's words, Biqi's gaze also settled on Jiang Qingtong. At the moment, Jiang Qingtong was unconscious, and Biqi could see nothing outwardly unusual about her.
After a moment's thought, Biqi said, "Let's go back and see Di Tian. Perhaps he will know the reason."
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion nodded, and together they returned to the Core Zone of the Star Dou Great Forest.
When Di Tian learned that the Auspicious Beast had gone to the Outer Zone, his cold eyes shifted toward the Scarlet King standing nearby. The Scarlet King instantly felt a crushing pressure descend upon him.
"I made you the Auspicious Beast's protector, and this is how you protect it?"
After a long moment, Di Tian's voice rang out, cold as ice.
Hearing this rebuke, the Scarlet King pressed himself even lower to the ground, his body trembling.
"Di Tian… please forgive me!"
Though humans ranked the Scarlet King among the Top Ten Savage Beasts, he knew full well that for a soul beast of his mere two hundred thousand years of cultivation, there were beings in the Extreme North who could more rightfully hold that title.
Before Di Tian, he had no resistance whatsoever.
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion spoke up to defend him:
"Di Tian, it's not his fault. I'm the one who insisted on finding this human!"
"Oh?"
Di Tian's brow furrowed in mild puzzlement.
Biqi then recounted what had just happened. After hearing both their accounts, Di Tian asked,
"You say you have some strange, inexplicable feeling… that you must approach this human?"
The Three-Eyed Golden Lion nodded.
"That's right."
As the Emperor Auspicious Beast, the lion carried the fate of the entire soul beast race. Such a feeling could not be without cause. Could there be something extraordinary about this human?
Di Tian took Jiang Qingtong and Xiao Xiao from Biqi's hands. With a casual toss, he discarded Xiao Xiao to the side, his eyes fixing on Jiang Qingtong, still unconscious with eyes closed.
Just from looking, he could see nothing remarkable. He raised a hand and pressed it to her brow, sending a vast tide of spiritual power into her sea of consciousness—only to have it instantly flung back out!
Feeling his spiritual power outright rejected from Jiang Qingtong's spiritual sea, a ripple of surprise—something he had not felt in tens of thousands of years—flickered through Di Tian's heart. His brows drew together as he stared at her.
"There's a powerful force deep within her soul—power strong enough to bar even my spiritual power!"
"Even your spiritual power can't probe her soul?" Biqi's voice trembled with shock.
Di Tian was the foremost powerhouse with nearly nine hundred thousand years of cultivation! In this era, before the Lord's complete revival, he was the single most powerful existence. And yet his spiritual power could not enter Jiang Qingtong's spiritual sea?
Could this human be a god reincarnated?
Just then, Jiang Qingtong's body began to radiate golden light. The Mirror-in-Flower martial soul flew out from within her, and around the crystalline blossom, a faint crescent moon shimmered in and out of sight.
One purple, two black—three spirit rings appeared, rhythmically pulsing.
Seeing such a spirit ring configuration, Di Tian's expression darkened further.
A human genius—the mortal enemy of soul beasts.
The more innately gifted a human, the greater the disaster they spelled for the soul beast race.
Seeing his expression, the Three-Eyed Golden Lion quickly said,
"You can't kill her! Absolutely not, Di Tian!"
Hearing this, Di Tian reined in the coldness in his gaze, gently soothing the Auspicious Beast.
"Until we understand what's going on with this human, I will not kill her. Rest assured."
"Even after you understand, you can't!" the lion pressed. "I like this human!"
Di Tian sighed helplessly.
"Auspicious Beast, how many humans have you even met? Humans, as a species, are all liars."
"Don't soul beasts lie to each other as well?" the lion shot back.
At that, Di Tian fell silent. He said nothing more.
Meanwhile, Jiang Qingtong was unaware that she had just escaped the threat of death at the hands of the continent's strongest being. Her soul was in a vast, dazzling golden space.
But to her shock—Jiang Shengyu was there too!
Impossible!
Whether Jiang Shengyu or Jiang Qingtong, they should be one and the same soul. If this was a soul space, how could two people exist here simultaneously?
What's more, both of them realized that half their shared field of vision was gone. Here, they seemed to be entirely separate individuals—yet their thoughts and senses remained perfectly synchronized.
They were stunned—utterly stunned.
"What's going on?" Jiang Shengyu and Jiang Qingtong blurted out in unison.
A strange voice answered as they puzzled over it.
"Simple. Although this space is where your soul has arrived, for convenience of conversation, I have brought you—your personalities—here in separate form."
The voice was strange: sometimes male, sometimes female, weaving countless tones together, yet blending into perfect harmony as if from a single being.
Golden threads began to weave before their eyes, outlining the figure of a person—so beautiful that one could not tell if they were male or female. The being smiled warmly at Jiang Qingtong and Jiang Shengyu.
What they had said was clear: Jiang Qingtong and Jiang Shengyu's souls were not actually split, but were being manifested here as separate personalities purely for ease of dialogue.
"Who are you?" the two asked in unison.
The being regarded them calmly and answered,
"I am the one who brought you to the Douluo Continent, the one who granted you Mirror Flower, Water Moon. You may call me Fate. I am the Fate of the Douluo Continent."
The sound was like the praise of ten thousand voices, leaving the two of them momentarily dazed.
Only after a long moment did Jiang Shengyu find his voice again.
"So you're the one who let me transmigrate? And the Mirror Flower, Water Moon martial soul—that was your gift? So… you're my cheat?"
"Mmm… you could put it that way," Fate tilted their head in thought, then nodded.
Jiang Qingtong followed up immediately.
"Then why are you only showing up now? I've already cleared several dungeons! Since when are cheats this irresponsible?"