The Martial Soul Skeleton, in Douluo Continent's Bone-Changing Susanoo

Chapter 109 Observing Bones, Skeleton, Soul Bones

Upon seeing a token symbolizing the identity and status of an elder of the Spirit Hall appear before him, the middle-aged Soul Emperor was immediately taken aback.

"So you are a disciple of an elder, sir. I am truly sorry, I did not mean to disturb your cultivation."

As he spoke, the middle-aged Soul Emperor glanced at the Soul Master's corpse he was dragging in his hand and explained, "Death Valley is extremely dangerous. Some outside Soul Masters enter the valley in order to obtain their desired Soul Rings, but they are unaware of the conditions inside and are easily ambushed by Soul Beasts, thus losing their lives."

"It may be a bit inappropriate to say it like that, but all we Spirit Hall can do for those visiting Spirit Masters is collect their corpses. Today's corpse is relatively intact; it's just that the lower half was eaten by a Spirit Beast."

After hearing this explanation, Xia Liang held the Elder's Token, put his hands behind his back, and said confidently, "I want to use this place as my training ground and will be in seclusion here for a long time. I don't want to be disturbed like today."

"Understood. I will immediately inform Bishop Sachs of your request upon my return, sir. May I ask which elder issued the elder's decree you hold? This will allow me to answer if asked by my superiors."

Xia Liang handed over the back of the Elder's Token.

Upon seeing the words "Bloodthirst" engraved on the back of the Elder's Token in a special material, the middle-aged Soul Emperor dispelled his suspicions. He simply buried the corpse in the ground and left immediately, no longer disturbing the body.

Xia Liang hadn't expected the Elder's Decree to be so effective. After this incident, there shouldn't be any more deacons from the Spirit Hall burying the dead in this cemetery.

A month later.

Death Valley, outer area.

In the valley forest.

Xia Liang sat cross-legged in the center of the cemetery, which was 300 meters in diameter, meditating. Five balls of dark purple ghost fire swirled around his body. Combined with the surrounding cemetery environment, it gave people a truly strange and terrifying feeling.

A faint black aura burst forth from his body. Xia Liang ended his meditation and used his X-ray vision to examine the thickness of his soul power.

It took about the expected time.

After a month of training in Death Valley, his soul power finally broke through from level 48 to level 49.

Next, all you need to do is convert the energy of a few pieces of ten-thousand-year-old cold marrow into your own soul power, and you can save most of your cultivation time and directly break through to the level 50 bottleneck.

We should also consider how to obtain the fifth soul ring.

Two weeks ago, the dark purple ghost fire found the Shadow Lord's trail.

These kinds of spirit beasts do indeed inhabit Death Valley.

Moreover, it's hidden in the core area of ​​Death Canyon.

Because the Shadow Lord releases a large amount of dark energy to cover its dwelling place as its own territory, the black and purple will-o'-the-wisp can only transform into Gastly and watch from afar, unable to get close at all.

The only certainty is that the Shadow Lord hidden in the core area of ​​Death Canyon has a cultivation level of over ten thousand years. Otherwise, no matter how good its bloodline is, it would be difficult to gain a foothold in the core area if its cultivation level did not reach ten thousand years.

With his current physical strength and mental power, he should be able to absorb a fifth spirit ring with a lifespan of over 40,000 years, even if it's a spirit ring of a higher level.

Xia Liang only hoped that the Shadow Lord in the core area wasn't too weak in cultivation.

To avoid being beaten to it, we should act quickly.

Suddenly, a strange sound caught Xia Liang's attention.

The rustling sound sounded like someone changing clothes, or like leaves rustling. With growing vigilance, Xia Liang immediately stood up and cautiously activated his X-ray vision, looking in the direction the sound came from.

Immediately afterwards, he saw the source of the sound.

What came into view was a giant spider with a diameter of over three meters. Its entire body was covered in a shiny, blackish-purple carapace. Its long legs had slender tips, and each step it took silently pierced the ground, demonstrating their sharpness.

Xia Liang spotted it, and it seemed to have spotted Xia Liang as well. Its eight long legs moved rapidly, creating a series of afterimages, and in the blink of an eye, it was in front of Xia Liang. Two of its front legs instantly rose up and thrust directly at Xia Liang's head.

As its forelegs lifted, the body inevitably arched upwards as well, allowing Xia Liang to see its abdomen.

A layer of fluffy green fur covered its abdomen, along with a nauseating mucus—a highly corrosive and deadly poison.

The giant spider that suddenly attacked was not the Human-Faced Demon Spider, but the Death Demon Spider.

It appears that this Death Spider has fought with other soul beasts; an arrow has been shot into one of its fluffy green fur folds, and the golden arrow in energy form is still embedded in the spider's abdomen.

The golden energy arrow that wounded this Death Spider was likely a Soul Skill, indicating that it had previously fought against Soul Masters with Bow and Arrow-type Martial Souls.

As the Death Spider raised its front leg to stab, Xia Liang did not hesitate to activate his third soul skill, Bone Dragon Transformation, gaining half an hour of access to spatial attributes.

Using his spatial leap within a ten-meter radius, he dodged the Death Spider's long-legged thrusts and instantly appeared behind the Death Spider's body.

As the Necromancer Skeleton Martial Soul was released, the dark purple ribs covering Xia Liang's body rapidly grew a skeletal right arm, and the huge skeletal palm slammed down on the back of the Death Spider.

Just then, the Death Spider spat out spider silk towards a large tree. As the silk wrapped around the tree trunk, its body quickly moved away from its original position, as if being pulled away by the silk, thus dodging the blow from the skull's palm.

Judging from the series of actions just now, this Death Spider clearly possesses a certain level of thinking ability. For a soul beast without mental attributes to be able to think like a human, it is most likely a ten-thousand-year-old soul beast that has already gained intelligence.

Indeed, Xia Liang saw through his X-ray vision that the soul power flowing within the Death Spider was black, indicating that its cultivation level was at least over 20,000 years.

Just as the Death Spider cleverly used its silk to dodge the skeletal claws' strikes, its entire body suddenly transformed from flesh and blood into a spider-shaped skeleton in Xia Liang's eyes.

The white spider skeleton, including the seven spider legs, has all its bones in white except for the left foreleg, which is blackish-purple.

Today's X-ray vision has reached the level of bone-observing mirrors, allowing eyesight to dissect the flesh, veins, and skeleton of living beings at will.

Just now, in Xia Liang's eyes, the Death Spider transformed from a flesh and blood body into a skeleton, which was due to the bone-viewing effect of his X-ray vision.

The skeleton of this Death Spider has a different bone color on its left foreleg compared to other spider legs, which could very well be the prototype of a Soul Bone.

Why would Xia Liang have such a conjecture?

During his month-long training in Death Valley, he had observed the skeletal forms of countless soul beasts. Even soul beasts with over 30,000 years of cultivation had white skeletons.

The overall skeletal structure of this Death Spider is white, but its left foreleg is a distinct blackish-purple.

Therefore, Xia Liang quickly made the connection between the unusual-colored bone and the nascent soul bone. It was possible that the energy gathered after death would give birth to a real soul bone.

The original work states that a 100,000-year-old soul beast will inevitably bestow upon the killer a soul bone that they themselves do not possess.

In other words, the generation of soul bones is random and comes with a certain completion mechanism.

If the dark purple left foreleg of the Death Spider's skeleton is indeed the prototype of a soul bone, then wouldn't that mean that the soul bone was created before the soul beast died?

This clearly contradicts the original work's description of the soul bone.

An idea suddenly popped into Xia Liang's mind: the skeletons of most soul beasts are white, so what about the skeletons of 100,000-year-old soul beasts? Would they all be different colors?

For example, the soul bone that Xiao Wu produces is pink.

So after she transforms from flesh and blood into a skeletal form, all her bones will turn pink, which means that all her bones are the prototype of soul bones, and it depends on which part of the soul bone the killer is missing.

Xia Liang regrets that when he first met Xiao Wu, his X-ray vision hadn't yet reached the level of bone observation. He couldn't see the specific color of Xiao Wu's skeletal structure.

However, if one kills the Death Spider in front of them and obtains its left leg bone as desired, it would indirectly prove that the skeletal, heterochromatic bone is the prototype of the Soul Bone.

(End of this chapter)