Three days passed in the blink of an eye.
Heaven Dou City, Dugu Bo's mansion.
"Grandpa, you've only just come back for a few days, and you're going out again?"
Dugu Yan, dressed in a green dress, pouted as she tugged on Dugu Bo's sleeve. Her pretty face was full of reluctance. She had depended on her grandfather since childhood. Though she knew that as a Titled Douluo he often had important matters to attend to, this feeling of being separated again and again was really hard to bear.
Looking at his granddaughter, Dugu Bo's cold, stern features softened a little, but deep in his gloomy eyes there flashed a trace of barely noticeable worry. The toxins in his body had grown more and more restless lately; he had to go to that medicinal garden to suppress them.
He rubbed Dugu Yan's hair. His voice was hoarse but gentle.
"Yan Yan, be good. Grandpa truly has urgent matters to deal with. Train diligently at the academy. I'll be back in a few days."
Although still unhappy, seeing that her grandfather's expression was so grave, Dugu Yan could only let go, mumbling, "Then you have to come back quickly. And remember to bring something tasty for me."
"All right, all right."
Dugu Bo agreed repeatedly, gave a few more instructions, and then his body blurred. In the next instant he turned into a streak of emerald light, vanishing from the courtyard.
"Always busy, always something… there's only me alone in this house. Hmph, I'm going to find Lingling to play."
…
Leaving Heaven Dou City behind, Dugu Bo pushed his speed to the limit. The toxins inside him churned constantly, twisting his face into a ferocious grimace.
A streak of green light shot through the familiar dense forest, then across a bank of poisonous miasma that most people saw as certain death.
With his abilities as Poison Douluo, he naturally ignored these outer toxins. However, just as he was about to step into the core area of the Ice-Fire Yin Yang Well, his footsteps suddenly halted.
Something felt wrong—so wrong that it felt too right.
The poisonous miasma in the air seemed… gentler? Not weaker, exactly, but lacking some of its usual violent fury, as if some unseen force had combed through it. Furthermore, it was too quiet around him. Even the poisonous insects and strange beasts that usually thrived in this place's rich spiritual energy were deathly silent.
Was it an illusion?
Or… had someone entered before him?
Dugu Bo's heart sank as a wave of foreboding washed over him. His eyes grew razor-sharp; soul power surged beneath his skin. The ghostly outline of emerald scales appeared faintly upon his body. He carefully withdrew his aura, gliding forward like a silent specter.
The Ice-Fire Yin Yang Well appeared just as he remembered it: half icy blue, searing and surging; half crimson, radiating bone-piercing cold. Mist rose where the two extreme springs met, saturated with vast heaven and earth energy.
Yet beside that drifting mist—at the spot that should have belonged exclusively to him—there was now another figure standing there.
It was a youth, no more than ten years old by the looks of it, dressed in a well-tailored purple-gold robe. The hem of his clothes fluttered gently in the breeze stirred by the Ice-Fire Yin Yang Well. Golden thread traced intricate, ancient patterns across the fabric, glimmering faintly in the interwoven red-and-blue light.
The youth stood with his hands behind his back, facing away from Dugu Bo, quietly admiring this spectacle of nature. His posture was as calm as if he were strolling through his own backyard garden.
Dugu Bo's pupils shrank abruptly, his heart jolting. The outer regions of this Ice-Fire Yin Yang Well were shrouded in layer upon layer of toxic miasma, and its location was extremely secret. It was his greatest secret and his foundation for survival. Even his late son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter Dugu Yan knew nothing of it. How had this youth found the place? And how had he passed safely through a poisonous barrier that could kill even a Soul Sage?
"Who are you?!"
Dugu Bo's voice was icy cold, brimming with suppressed fury and killing intent. The terrifying pressure of a Titled Douluo surged toward the youth like a tidal wave.
"Why are you here? Speak!"
It was as if the youth in purple-gold robes only now realized he wasn't alone. He turned around slowly.
He had a handsome, determined face. His eyes were clear yet held a calm and depth far beyond his years. There was the faintest hint of a smile at his lips, and he seemed utterly unaffected by the oppressive aura that would make even a Soul Douluo's heart tremble.
The youth's gaze passed over Dugu Bo, and instead of answering, he chuckled softly. His voice was clear and bright.
"What a marvelous treasure trove favored by heaven and earth. Ice and fire in harmony, two extremes intersecting… it truly lives up to its name."
He paused briefly, then met Dugu Bo's almost blazing stare. His tone held a leisurely amusement that bordered on infuriating.
"As for who I am, and how I came here…"
"Senior, a blessed land like this, bestowed by heaven and earth, has always been something that goes to whoever is fated. Since when did it become the private property of a single person or clan?"
'Whoever is fated?'
Hearing these words, Dugu Bo was so enraged he laughed. A mere boy, whose aura suggested he was only around Soul Elder level, dared to spout such nonsense about heavenly treasures belonging to the fated in front of him? Truly ignorant of life and death.
"What a sharp-tongued brat. I don't care who you are, nor do I care where you're from. Since you dared trespass on this place today, there's only one path left for you—death. I'd very much like to see how hard your so-called fate really is."
Green light flared violently around him as Dugu Bo's nine soul rings rose at once—two yellow, two purple, five black. A vast surge of soul power erupted, making the springs of the Ice-Fire Yin Yang Well churn wildly.
He wasted no more words. In a blur, he shot forward like a ghost. A withered hand covered in the scales of the Jade Phosphor Serpent Emperor shot out with a reeking gust of wind, aiming straight for the youth's face. It was a wrathful strike from a Titled Douluo, its speed beyond imagination.
Yet just as his hand was about to brush the youth's robe—
Buzz!
Two indescribably terrifying auras descended without warning.
One was as heavy as an eternal mountain range, its ancient, primal pressure crashing down like the sky itself had turned into a giant invisible hand, pressing upon everything beneath. It made his breath catch in his throat and his soul power stall.
The other aura was at first like a deep, hidden undercurrent. Then it unfolded into an oceanic vastness, silently flooding every inch of space, turning the surrounding heaven and earth into its own domain.
Both auras were at the level of Titled Douluo.
Moreover, that boundless one made Dugu Bo's very soul tremble. He could feel a long-lost, razor-sharp threat of death, clearer than when he had once faced that freakish corpse-spirit master at the same time.
"What?!"
Dugu Bo's expression changed drastically. He forcibly halted his forward momentum, yanking his soul power back to guard his body. He stared, shocked and wary, toward the source of those auras.
Two figures appeared silently in front of the youth.
One stood ahead of him, the other behind, sealing off all possible paths of attack or retreat.
The man in front wore black robes. His face was hard and angular, his eyes still as a deep pool—that was where the mountain-like aura came from. Just by standing there, he seemed fused with the earth itself, immovable.
The other, to the youth's rear and side, was an old man of tall yet thin build, dressed in a simple gray robe with his hands clasped behind his back. His eyes flashed with tangible beams of light when they flickered, making others instinctively afraid to meet his gaze.
What made Dugu Bo truly wary was that the deadly aura that made him feel such a clear threat was coming from this gray-robed elder.
Two Titled Douluo—and certainly not ordinary ones. Especially the latter; his cultivation clearly surpassed Dugu Bo's, and seemed even stronger than Pope Qian Xunji had been back then.
"Rank ninety-five… or even a Super Douluo?!"
Dugu Bo's heart plunged. He finally understood why the youth was so unruffled, and why he had felt such inexplicable unease in the outer poisonous miasma.
Every muscle in his body tensed as he pushed his Jade Phosphor Serpent Emperor martial soul to full power. Green venomous mist coiled around him, yet he didn't dare make a rash move.
Even against just one of these two, he had no certainty of victory, never mind both—especially when one of them was utterly unfathomable. If this turned into a fight, his chances of escape were almost nil.
"You gentlemen… exactly who might you be?"
His voice was dry now, his gaze locked warily onto the gray-robed elder, more serious and on guard than he had ever been.
"I, Dugu Bo, have no grievance with either of you, as far as I know. Why break into my medicinal garden, and toy with me together with this brat?"
Even as he spoke, Dugu Bo's mind raced, combing through his memories, but he could not recall when such two monstrous experts had appeared on the continent, nor when he might have offended them.
The gray-robed and black-robed elders said nothing; they merely stood there in silence, yet their locked-on auras held Dugu Bo as securely as shackles.
At this point, the youth in purple-gold robes let out another light chuckle, finally breaking the suffocating stillness. He took a step forward and looked calmly at the battle-ready Dugu Bo.
"Senior Dugu, no need to be so tense. We're not here to seize your medicinal garden, nor to make sport of you."
"Let me re-introduce myself. This junior is Chen Yi.
"As for these two—" Chen Yi inclined his head slightly toward the elders behind him. "They are seniors from my sect. We have come today to wait for you here with only one purpose: to discuss a transaction with you… one that concerns your very life, as well as the future inheritance of the Jade Phosphor Serpent martial soul."
Though spoken in a moderate tone, each of his words rang like a hammer blow in Dugu Bo's heart.
His very life.
His martial soul's inheritance.
Dugu Bo's pupils contracted sharply. Gazing at this mysterious youth, Chen Yi, and the two Titled Douluo standing like guardian deities at his back, all his previous anger and killing intent were suddenly swallowed by a deeper shock and disbelief.
His life?
His martial soul's inheritance?
Could they… know about that matter? And if so, how?