[DD]: 96 (Patreon)

In mid-air, seeing the Dark Devilgod Tiger charging at him, Han Li's face showed a panicked expression.

As his soul power surged, ice and fire arrows continuously shot toward the Dark Devilgod Tigerr. In his haste, some arrows exploded mid-flight before even reaching their target.

The Dark Devilgod Tiger leisurely dodged in the air, occasionally launching light blades and gray dark demon evil lightning at Han Li, as if toying with him.

Despite Han Li's continuous attack and retreat, attempting to keep the beast at bay, the distance between them grew shorter.

Suddenly, a black light appeared in front of Han Li's bow, indicating the activation of a soul skill.

This wasn't the first soul master the Dark Devilgod Tiger had encountered. Though it found it odd that it hadn't seen any soul rings on this human, it was familiar with such situations.

Instinctively, it increased the power of its dark demon evil lightning, aiming at the incoming arrows. To its surprise, the moment the lightning touched the arrows, it was deflected away.

Yes, it was deflected.

This was Han Li's fifth soul skill, which he named Vector Arrows. It didn't have strong destructive power but came with two extremely annoying abilities.

One was Repel, and the other was Buoyancy, both of which were automatic. Additionally, Han Li could control the direction of the deflection. As for the floating effect, he needed to break through the enemy's soul power defense first.

The Dark Devilgod Tiger's massive body paused in mid-air. Although it knew both soul beasts and human soul masters had various strange abilities, it was the first time encountering something like this, where even energy attacks were deflected. This caught it off guard.

However, it had little time to react because, in the next second, black light continued to flicker from Han Li's side, and one arrow after another flew toward it.

What frustrated the Dark Devilgod Tiger was that whether it used energy attacks or its body to intercept the arrows, they would always be deflected.

The most crucial point was that these arrows, besides the automatic deflection capability, had no destructive power. Even if shot directly at its eyelids, they wouldn't break through its defense.

As for dodging, the human's attack this time was a dense bombardment, leaving no room for evasion unless it was willing to land and let the barrage pass.

But if it landed, the damned human would escape from its sight. His flying speed was not much slower than its own.

Thus, after being repeatedly deflected by this humiliating attack, the Dark Devilgod Tiger erupted.

"Roar!"

A much more furious roar than before echoed. The long tail trailing behind it, resembling a curved black hook, transformed.

The curved hook straightened like a long spike, charging at the arrow rain with extreme sharpness, piercing the void.

Then, an incredible scene unfolded. Though its tail didn't touch any arrows, the moment its soul power exploded at the tail's tip, the space ahead seemed to solidify, and all incoming arrows halted mid-air.

With another tremor, the tail's tip emitted a ripple, and the void ahead seemed to turn into a water surface, with ripples spreading as the tail stirred.

The affected arrows instantly lost their momentum, dissipating into soul power and vanishing into the air.

Seeing this scene from afar, Han Li immediately turned to flee, his speed increasing by a few notches.

The Dark Devilgod Tiger, having been made so disheveled by Han Li's arrows, was already determined not to let its prey escape. With a surge of gray aura enveloping its body, it left a gray path between its original position and Han Li, appearing less than ten meters behind Han Li.

It had finally used its sprint skill.

This time, it abandoned its previous playful attitude, extending its forelimb heavily toward Han Li's head.

However, at that moment, Han Li, who had been fleeing, suddenly stopped in his tracks.

For the first time, the Dark Devilgod Tiger saw all of Han Li's soul rings. Centered on the unusually ornate bow, five soul rings—black, purple, black, black, black—were neatly arranged.

At this moment, all five soul rings lit up simultaneously, and the arrow nocked on the bow was the one Han Li had been carrying on his back.

The Dark Devilgod Tiger sensed something was wrong, but its attack was already in motion, amplified by its sprint, making it impossible to stop.

It quickly tried to activate its Evil God Protection, but Han Li, having prepared for so long, wouldn't let it succeed.

"Buzz."

The Dark Devilgod Tiger's head felt as if it had been struck by a massive hammer, its mind immediately falling into a daze, its thoughts slowing significantly. The activation of the Evil God Protection was abruptly interrupted.

In the next instant, the tiger saw the human across from it break into a brilliant smile, his entire being radiating dazzling red and white light that swiftly enveloped the tiger's body.

It was immobilized. Its thoughts hadn't recovered, and its body suffered the same fate, frozen in the air as if painted on an invisible canvas.

Powerless, it watched as Han Li's arrow entered its mouth and burrowed into its abdomen.

Once again, it felt the strange power from the arrow barrage, causing it to float and exposing its soft underbelly to the human.

Move, move now!

The Dark Devilgod Tiger, whose intelligence was on par with humans, had never felt so humiliated before. Not even when it fought the Titan Giant Ape at the core area did it feel this way.

Since its birth, from the moment it gained memory, it had always been the one toying with others. Even in its weaker days, it could easily trick unintelligent soul beasts into fighting each other, swooping in to claim victory when both sides were exhausted, devouring them both.

But today, a human Soul King, despite having odd soul rings, great spiritual power, and peculiar soul skills, was still just a Soul King.

A mere Soul King had toyed with it, outsmarted it and even managed to lodge an arrow in its body. This was unforgivable.

Just a little longer, just a moment more, and once it broke free from this strange situation, it would ensure that the human before it would die without a complete corpse.

Then, it saw Han Li's mouth curl into a slight smile again. After casually launching another attack, Han Li's body plummeted downward.

As the Dark Devilgod Tiger's body floated once more, its mind had just begun to clear when three large holes appeared in its body, one of which directly obliterated most of its heart. An explosion resounded behind it.

Its body floated in the air for another three seconds before plummeting to the ground.

Boom!

The heavy body crashed to the ground, and the Dark Devilgod Tiger's senses finally returned. However, it could feel its life force rapidly draining, just as it had when devouring other soul beasts, only this time, the roles were reversed.

Struggling, it lifted its head and looked at the human still a hundred meters away. Seeing it look over, the human soul master smiled even more brightly, a smile that seemed incredibly detestable to the tiger.

The Dark Devilgod Tiger heard no more sounds. By reading the lips of the soul master, it understood the last word he spoke: "Explosion!."

Transparent ice quickly enveloped the Dark Devilgod Tiger, and inside the ice, a multicolored toxin spread at an unimaginable speed, corroding its flesh.

In the end, a grayish soul ring appeared in place of the tiger.

Inside the ice, only a pool of multicolored poison, a pitch-black bead, and an extremely oddly shaped soul bone remained.

"Ice-Fre Domain, activate."

A green light flashed, and Han Li once again used his domain to freeze the ice block in place, wrapping it with his spiritual power and even adding a luxurious layer of divine power membrane.

The black bead inside the ice trembled twice before completely losing its movement as if it had become a dead object. Only then did Han Li breathe a sigh of relief.

...

In the Divine Realm, after observing Han Li's actions, everyone's eyes turned to the God of Evil.

"Don't look at me. Everyone decided to let me choose a beast from Douluo to weaken the soul beasts. You all saw it—he intercepted the bead himself. I didn't intervene, so you can't blame me."

"As for the matter of inheritance, I won't interfere. Consider it a small gift for him."

Evil quickly shook his head, distancing himself from the situation.

Watching the drama unfold was enjoyable enough; he didn't want to get involved. With the suddenly changing attitude of Shura and the involvement of Emotion, both of whom were quite powerful, along with Destruction's keen interest in the boy, Evil had no intention of dragging himself into the mess.

As Evil's words fell, the Divine Realm's God Kings fell silent again, and the gods turned their attention back to the scene before them.

...

Han Li looked at the ice block before him, finally showing a satisfied smile.

Good, the set goal was achieved without any slip-ups.

Moreover, the Divine Realm had indeed been very supportive, monitoring the entire process, which helped him achieve another of his objectives.

Thinking of this, he glanced casually towards the core of the Star Dou Forest, his lips curling slightly.

"Xiao Li, how's the situation?"

Two figures rapidly descended toward Han Li's position, speaking with urgency. They were Guang Ling and Azure Luan.

"Thank you, Master and Uncle-Master. It was perfect, just as planned."

Han Li looked at their slightly pale faces, knowing this was due to excessive consumption of martial fusion. He bowed earnestly in thanks and then pointed to the ice block behind him.

"No need to thank us. It's just some soul power consumption; it'll recover on its own in half a day. Let me see what's there."

Guang Ling moved him aside and looked towards the ice block.

"Huh, where's that huge tiger? Oh, it got poisoned? A gray soul ring, a black bead? Another neidan? And what's this, a bone left behind, or is it an external soul bone?"

Circling the ice block, Guang Ling marveled at the sight, feeling that he had gained much knowledge.

"Forget it, I'll call everyone over and ask you later. Right, give your Martial Uncle a piece of the Pine Spirit Mushroom. I've run out of stock, and his consumption is greater than mine. Let him recover first."

With that, Guang Ling took off again, heading towards where Dugu Bo and the others were.

Left behind, Han Li and Azure Luan exchanged glances and both smiled, shaking their heads.

Han Li quickly retrieved a piece of Pine Spirit Mushroom and handed it to Azure Luan. After some thought, he popped a piece into his mouth as well, then began to examine the items left on the ground.