Douluo Continent: On Becoming a God Through Science

Chapter 152 Stepping onto the Sea

"Roar! Didn't you say it's only natural for soul beasts to hunt soul masters? Fine, then die now!"

Understanding does not mean acceptance. Upon hearing this, Erming was greatly shocked and could no longer restrain himself, so he launched an attack on Youchen.

Of course, while he said "go to hell," Erming was actually thinking about capturing You Chen.

It also needs to get information about Sister Xiaowu from Youchen!

Since this damned human is unwilling to cooperate, we'll force him to say it!

"Er Ming!"

Da Ming let out a deep shout, whipping his tail to subdue Er Ming. Amid Er Ming's bewildered gaze, he said to You Chen, "Perhaps you're right, but even if lifespans and races differ, it doesn't matter. We and Sister Xiao Wu were never of the same race to begin with; we're just soul beasts. What connects us isn't blood, but emotion and spirit!"

Da Ming initially looked somewhat dejected, but quickly, as he spoke, that dejection faded and replaced by a resolute expression: "So what if Sister Xiao Wu becomes human? She's still family! That will never change!"

You Chen showed no change in expression in the face of the Ming Dynasty's resounding declaration.

After all... what the hell does this have to do with him?

If you're so capable and determined, why don't you just tell Xiao Wu yourself? Why are you telling him all this here?

"What a pair of clueless soul beasts. Are they just stirring up this pretentious nonsense because they're thinking of entrusting Xiao Wu to me?"

You Chen instantly discerned some of Da Ming's thoughts.

As expected, the next moment, Da Ming lowered his head and said sincerely, "Human, although you rejected Sister Xiao Wu, the fact that Sister Xiao Wu is willing to follow you proves that she trusts you. So—"

"Brother, how can you trust this guy! He just slaughtered so many of our comrades!"

Erming started shouting.

Rather than feeling indignant on behalf of its deceased younger brother, it was more out of resentment, because it had already guessed Da Ming's thoughts from his tone.

"Why, why would Big Brother want to give Sister Xiaowu to this trashy human! Even if it wasn't me, even if it was Big Brother!" Erming thought angrily.

"Shut up, Erming!"

Da Ming gave Er Ming a stern look and said, "What this human guy said is indeed true; the racial conflict between human soul masters and soul beasts is undeniable. But since he's willing to consider Sister Xiao Wu as human, what does that distinction matter to us?"

He turned his head and continued sincerely, "Human, you have such strength that you can protect Sister Xiaowu through this perilous period before she fully transforms into human form. In addition, you acknowledge Sister Xiaowu's human identity... Can I entrust Sister Xiaowu to you?"

"So what kind of reward can you give me?"

You Chen smiled slightly: "For your Little Wu sister, would you be willing to sacrifice yourself for me?"

Da Ming's pupils contracted. No matter what, it never expected that You Chen would suddenly say something that was tantamount to "you should kill yourself."

Erming had completely reached his limit.

"How dare you humiliate my brother! I'll beat you to death!!!"

Erming, realizing that his earlier collision hadn't killed You Chen, no longer held back.

I used 70% of my strength and didn't use the remaining 30% just to prevent unexpected situations and to allow me to retract some of my strength.

But how could such half-baked effort and speed possibly pose a threat to You Chen?

A cold glint flashed in You Chen's eyes. As soon as the Sacrifice Sacred Domain opened, the suppressive power of Er Ming's gravity field was instantly weakened by more than half.

To Erming's astonishment, she easily dodged his attack.

At the same time, You Chen couldn't resist showing off by using his supersonic sonic boom to mock Er Ming, saying, "I was just thinking that one punch wasn't enough."

The next moment, a dazzling golden sword appeared in You Chen's hand, with extremely sharp air blades gathered on its blade—a thousand strikes in an instant!

"Gooa!!!"

Erming let out a deafening scream, as if his back had been slashed by countless swords. Blood poured down like a river, instantly turning the surrounding ancient trees into a blood-red forest.

"Er Ming!"

Da Ming exclaimed in surprise, immediately activating his Slowing Domain. He hurriedly transmitted his voice to You Chen: "Human Soul Master, stop! I can take this as a lesson for your disrespectful words to Er Ming, but if you attack again, even with Xiao Wu's connection, I will treat you as a mortal enemy! I can see your injuries haven't fully healed either. Do you really want to do something that will only bring you no benefit?!"

You Chen sensed the effects of the Slow Domain, glanced coldly at Da Ming, but did not make another move.

He looked at Da Ming and said calmly, "This fool gave me a big gift first, and then offended me time and time again. I don't know where you get the nerve to say you want to entrust Xiao Wu to me. As for Xiao Wu, what I want to do is my own business."

Da Ming remained silent, unlike Er Ming who retorted, "You were the one who slaughtered the soul beasts first." Both knew it was a pointless argument.

In the brief moment of its silence, You Chen turned and left without a second thought.

Only Da Mingchu remained standing there, deeply troubled and worried about not being able to get any information about Xiao Wu from You Chen, and then let out a sigh.

……

After absorbing the spirit ring, You Chen can leave the scene safely at any time.

The reason he stayed behind to argue with Da Ming and Er Ming was entirely to get revenge for what Er Ming had done to him, and to deliberately annoy them. As for planting a seed of resentment in Da Ming's heart, that was just something he did on the spur of the moment.

Having had this encounter today, the next meeting will be for real business discussions.

In the blink of an eye, another day has passed.

With You Chen's physique, he recovered to his full strength after only a short period of recuperation and soon arrived at Hanhai City, which is located in the western part of Douluo Continent near the sea.

Hanhai City was already a relatively prosperous coastal city, and its prosperity was further enhanced after the Beast Soul Merchant Guild deliberately raised the price of seafood.

You Chen only needed to use his spiritual power to probe slightly to discover that a number of powerful high-level soul masters had gathered here.

Instead of rushing out to sea, You Chen remained hidden in the city while unleashing his full mental power, completely enveloping the entire Hanhai City and beginning to gather intelligence on its current waters.

Although the intelligence gathered by the Beast Soul Alliance was already very detailed, it could not possibly be more efficient than You Chen's direct on-site investigation using his mental power.

However, its advantage lies in its broader scope of intelligence gathering.

You Chen's actions were primarily aimed at comparing the intelligence with existing information to determine if any aspects were outdated or erroneous. After all, information is highly time-sensitive.

"Have you heard? Earl Wilhelm's own fleet returned in a very sorry state the day before yesterday! Of the two hundred or so men on board, only five or six survived!"

"You must be kidding me! I heard that ship has Soul King level or even Soul Emperor level experts, as well as top-notch sailors and navigators. Even ten-thousand-year-old sea spirit beasts can't threaten them. How could this happen? You must be lying to me!"

"Why would I lie to you? If you ask me, it must be that those people were too greedy and recklessly exploited the resources of the sea, which angered the Sea God!"

Before long, You Chen obtained several pieces of useful information.

While Prince Xuexing was drawing attention away from the Beast Soul Merchant Guild, the guild's heavy spending did indeed spark a wave of overseas expansion.

Because it wasn't just the Beast Soul Merchant Guild throwing money around, other merchants like the Seven Treasures Merchant Guild, seeing the Beast Soul Merchant Guild's moves, worried that some new era of gold was about to emerge, just like the whale glue craze back then. So they all rushed into this market.

The price of seafood has been driven up to an unnatural level, and countless ordinary people and Soul Masters have been investing in coastal and maritime trade over the past six months.

Even if seafood wasn't anything special at first, with the help of so much capital, it has already been shrouded in a special aura.

There's no need for the Beast Soul Merchant Guild to specifically cultivate the market for soul beast resources; during the process of a large number of people going to sea, collisions with sea soul beasts are inevitable.

The market naturally formed around the activities of guarding, hunting, and selling sea spirit beast resources.

However, in the past two weeks, this wave of enthusiasm for going to sea has shown some signs of waning.

While the allure of profit is undeniable, the heavy loss of personnel has deterred many from pursuing their goals once their initial enthusiasm waned.

The most obvious reason for this is...

"Sea Soul Master."

Several powerful fleets did not suffer because of the sea spirit beasts, but instead encountered pirates and suffered heavy losses.

Judging from these people's discussions and the combat skills they mentioned displayed by the pirates, it's hard to imagine what kind of desolate and harsh environment could produce pirates who could even defeat a Soul Emperor...

This is clearly a regular Sea Soul Master disguised as a pirate.

As for legitimate sea spirit masters in the sea, You Chen couldn't think of any other forces besides Seagod Island.

Clearly, it was probably the excessive encroachment of land-based Soul Masters on the ocean that provoked the dissatisfaction of the Seagod Island.

Marine resources are secondary.

Importantly, during this process, a large number of sea spirit beasts were hunted down by human spirit masters.

Compared to the past, the rate at which sea spirit beasts die has increased tenfold or even a hundredfold.

As the effects of using more and more parts of sea spirit beasts as food or materials are discovered, sea spirit beast resources have begun to surpass some seafood products and become the mainstay of the market.

That was enough to trigger a strong reaction from Poseidon Island.

After all, under the rule of Seagod Island, the conflict between sea spirit masters and sea spirit beasts was not as acute as that between land spirit masters and land spirit beasts.

Land-based Soul Masters, who had little contact with Sea Soul Masters, could never have imagined that their rampant hunting of Sea Soul Beasts would attract attacks from Soul Masters. They would only regard these Sea Soul Masters as pirates who were after money.

Such actions by Poseidon Island would undoubtedly hinder You Chen's plundering of soul beast resources.

However, You Chen does not plan to respond to this for the time being.

His primary goal was naturally to complete the fifth and sixth soul rings of his second incarnation.

After absorbing the 100,000-year soul ring of the Holy Spirit Bird, You Chen obtained the healing soul skill "Holy Spirit's Grace" and the group-targeting attack soul skill "Holy Farewell".

The healing effect of the Holy Spirit's grace was already evident when facing Erming earlier. In addition to simple healing, those healed by the Holy Spirit's grace also receive a defensive buff that lasts for a very long time.

With the addition of the Sacrifice Sanctuary, You Chen's defensive capabilities are probably no less than the heights he has reached in terms of speed.

As for the Holy One, its attack method is to form countless pillars of holy light to punish the target, and it has a very strong special attack against negative attribute life forms such as evil and darkness.

However, if it is not used against a target, its power will probably only reach the level of 100,000 years.

But the strength of this soul skill lies in the fact that it is a lock-on skill. You Chen does not need to aim or control it separately; once the target is locked by mental power, it will automatically track and attack.

There's even another use: directly detecting hostility and evil. You Chen doesn't even need to use his mental power to lock on; he can just use it directly, and it will automatically attack.

It's practically a perfect skill for dominating weaker opponents in groups.

His soul power also surged to level 85 after breaking through the bottleneck.

Once he absorbs these two spirit rings, his spirit power level will definitely reach level 90.

For his second incarnation's spirit rings, You Chen prefers spirit skills or the high bonuses brought by higher age limits.

However, there is one soul beast whose soul skills are quite versatile and functional. Although its age is not particularly high, its bloodline as a top-tier soul beast gives it a bonus that is no less than that of a ferocious beast with an ordinary bloodline.

What's even better is that Seagod Island won't interfere with the hunting of this soul beast.

This lucky spirit beast is none other than the Demonic Tiger Whale King, which appeared in the original work.

Incidentally, they can also harvest a large number of demonic orcas to take back as resources for cultivation.

Even if this race were wiped out by You Chen, they wouldn't have any objections to the fact that they don't understand biodiversity and only know how to fawn over the Sea God. They even managed to label the Demon Soul Great White Shark, a soul beast that eats its own kind, as a "kind soul beast."

With the diverse intelligence brought by numerous people who went to sea, You Chen has confirmed the approximate location of the Demon Orca pod's activities during this period.

Without much hesitation or extra preparation, You Chen began his journey across the ocean using only his own body.

Even though he already knew the approximate location in advance and had the spiritual detection range of the Spirit Realm, the ocean was too vast. You Chen still flew over the ocean for a full day and night before finally finding the trace of the Demon Orca.

These monstrous killer whales were traveling in groups, resting near a rocky island on the ocean shore.

You Chen used his spiritual power to investigate from a distance. Of these hundreds of demonic orcas, nearly a third had grown to adulthood, each with a body length of twenty to thirty meters, which meant they had ten thousand years of cultivation.

The remaining two-thirds, the longest of which was only about ten meters, were all thousand-year-old soul beasts.

Although individually weaker than the Deep Sea Demon Whale, the Demon Orca, as a top-tier soul beast of the ocean, possesses the ability to fight beyond its level.

Even if they are only at the thousand-year level, they still possess combat power comparable to human Soul Kings. A few with pure bloodlines or who have been developing for a longer period of time can even rival human Soul Emperors.

Those at the ten-thousand-year level are at least comparable to human Soul Saints, and many have even reached the strength of ordinary Soul Douluos.

Perhaps it was because the Demon Orca King, Evil Tiger, wanted to maintain his absolute position as leader. In You Chen's observation, there were no powerful beings among this group of Demon Orcas who had reached the title level. The Demon Orca with the highest age of about 50,000 years of cultivation had an impure bloodline and relatively weak life force, and was only at the peak level of Soul Douluo.

Now, it's unclear whether the demonic orca king has gone out to forage, swim, play, or visit another colony; You Chen couldn't find any trace of it here.

"In that case, let's try out my new skill."

You Chen's purpose in setting sail was to collect some soul beast resources to use for his cultivation back home.

Poseidon Island itself was hunting Demon Orcas, so You Chen felt that hunting Demon Orcas wouldn't cause a conflict with Poseidon Island, and he had no worries.

The crimson eighth spirit ring suddenly lit up.

Eighth Soul Skill - Farewell!

Whether it's the Demon Orca, the Demon Soul Great White Shark, or the Deep Sea Demon Whale, the violent factors on these extremely bloodthirsty sea spirit beasts far exceed those of ordinary spirit beasts. You Chen directly chose the automatic attack mode to detect evil.

In an instant, countless beams of light fell from the sky.

You Chen sensed the state of the pillar of light and tried to control and influence it with his mental power. As expected, it went smoothly. Even when it entered automatic attack mode, the automatic authority of this soul skill could still be revoked at any time, and it could be controlled by You Chen's will.

These demonic orcas are Yu Chen's training materials, and he doesn't want his soul skills to directly smash them to pieces.

Therefore, the system primarily used automatic attacks, supplemented by manual control, and with minimal mental effort, it manipulated the Holy Light Pillar to launch a fatal attack.

With You Chen sparing no effort in unleashing his soul power, most of the thousand-year-old and hundred-year-old demonic tiger whales were killed or injured in an instant.

The numerous ancient demonic orcas hurriedly protected their young, but they soon discovered that this seemingly ordinary beam of light possessed extremely powerful destructive force.

Even with their cultivation levels of ten thousand years, they would suffer severe damage if they were to take the attack head-on.

But it was already too late.

Under You Chen's holy attack, more than two-thirds of the hundreds of demonic orcas were instantly wiped out, and the remaining less than one-third were also severely injured.

Only the strongest of the demonic orcas, comparable to those in Contra, suffered minor injuries.

You Chen raised an eyebrow slightly.

Like all lock-on skills, Sainthood is by no means a guaranteed hit or a kill.

Even though You Chen had allocated more of his Saintly power to target the strongest of the demonic orcas, the fact that they only suffered minor injuries was the best proof of this.

By weakening the sacred energy through the sea and reefs, the attack that would have severely damaged them was greatly reduced, eventually becoming sufficient to withstand.

Furthermore, while Saint's Fare, as a group attack skill, does meet the standard of a 100,000-year soul skill, it is not like the Ming X Ark, which is stronger when attacking a group than when attacking a single target. Its power is naturally not comparable to a 100,000-year single-target soul skill. Even if all the Saint's Fare beams are concentrated on a single target, it is only as strong as a tens of thousands of years single-target attack soul skill.

If it weren't for the amplification of soul power brought by You Chen's Stardust Dragon Martial Soul, which brought his soul power strength close to that of a Super Douluo, ordinary ten-thousand-year-old evil tiger whales probably wouldn't have considered him a threat and wouldn't have achieved such terrifying results.

Just as You Chen was silently analyzing and comprehending the strength of the Saintly Soul Skill, the demonic orcas seemed to mistakenly believe that You Chen had suffered too much damage, and they unleashed their inherent ferocity, launching an attack on You Chen.

Beams of blue energy carrying the power of decomposition shot towards You Chen.

In the ocean, the attack power of these demonic killer whales can be said to have been increased by an additional level.

However, such an attack naturally had no effect on You Chen; it only reminded him that it would be better to finish up the remaining tasks.

The eighth spirit ring began to rotate once more.

"Sainthood".

With a low growl, the pillar of sanction, bringing despair to the demonic orcas, once again fell from the sky.

Soul rings and soul skills do not have a clear cooldown time. If you have to say, it's the consumption of soul power and the power fluctuation when using a soul ring.

The higher the age of the soul ring and soul skill, the stronger the soul power vibration, and repeated use amplifies this effect. This is the hidden cooldown time.

However, for You Chen, unless he used the same 100,000-year soul skill from the same soul ring more than ten times in one go, the vibration of the soul ring was practically nothing.

As for the consumption of soul power?

Offensive soul skills are always heavy consumers of soul power. Soul Douluo-level soul power can only be used three or four times before needing to be exhausted.

But for You Chen, who possesses a soul core... the soul power consumed during this analysis time has almost recovered.

Holy light once again enveloped the entire sea.

Half a time later, the crimson stain on the sea had not faded, but all the corpses had been taken by You Chen.

Before this trip, You Chen specially asked the research department to create a soul tool for him with a built-in refrigerator effect. All the soul beast corpses, including the Emperor Golden Lion Beast and the Holy Spirit Bird, were kept in it for cold storage and preservation, so there was no need to worry about them spoiling.

You Chen collected the corpses of the demonic orcas and did not leave. Instead, he landed on the rocky island, concealed his aura with the Breath Concealment Technique, and waited silently.

The entire Demon Orca genotype consists of only a few hundred individuals. If a branch of a genotype with over a hundred members goes missing, it's obvious that the Demon Orca King will come looking for them.

However, before the Demon Orca King could arrive, a group of uninvited guests came to the place.

The spiritual energy silently enveloped and observed; the leader was dressed in purple, followed by a group of soul masters in yellow robes.

You Chen glanced at their attire and immediately confirmed that they were Soul Masters from Seagod Island.

You Chen silently intensified the operation of the Concealing Breath Technique, wanting to see what these guys from Seagod Island were after.

There was no need for mental energy to probe; with You Chen's current hearing, he could directly hear their undisguised conversation.

"Lord Shurano, the Holy Pillar summoned us here because he sensed the movements of those demonic orcas, right? But we can't find any trace of them here; they must have already left, right?"

"No……"

Shurano, dressed in purple, revealed a grave expression: "Bloodstains... there was undoubtedly a fierce battle here!"

(End of this chapter)