In his room, Tianlin transformed the Fire Spirit Pearl into a red-gold soul ring and began absorbing it.
The ring fused with Tianlin like it was always part of him, causing him no harm. He just needed to ensure that his body's attributes didn't exceed their limits from the pearl's power.
Ning Fengzhi's Soul Guidance and Bone Tempering method worked again. Most of the energy was used to boost his attributes; the rest tempered his soul bones.
After tempering with the Earth and Fire Spirit Pearls, Tianlin's two previously lower-aged soul bones—the 100,000-year Blue Silver Emperor Left Arm Bone and the 100,000-year Gale Demon Wolf Right Leg Bone—should both rise to 300,000 years.
The Dark Gold Dreadclaw Bear's right arm bone could also surpass 500,000 years.
The Nuwa descendant once said that to maximize the soul bone armor's power, Tianlin's skull and trunk bone needed to reach one million years, and the limb bones needed to surpass 500,000 years each. For Tianlin now, this wasn't impossible—he still had three more Spirit Pearls to absorb.
The real problem was the trunk bone. A million-year trunk bone was hard to find. The Deep Sea Demon Whale King had enough cultivation, and with some tempering, could break through a million years.
But according to the Sea God's Nine Trials, that would be Ning Rongrong's final test, and the Deep Sea Demon Whale King was perfect for her soul ring. Tianlin didn't want to take it from his wife, so he'd have to find another way.
An hour later, the Fire Spirit Pearl's soul ring was fully absorbed, unlocking fire-element immortal arts.
Four new soul skills:
Sky Fiend Battle Aura: Group buff, doubles attack power, can stack with other martial soul buffs.
Purgatory Sea of Fire: Large-area fire attack, able to burn everything before it.
Fire Shield: Complete immunity to fire attacks, can reflect them or absorb fire energy to power up the next attack.
Summon God—Fire God: This Fire God is not the native Douluo one, but a deity from the Sword Immortal world, sealed within the Fire Spirit Pearl.
Tianlin finished his practice. Although the Spirit Pearls gave him huge benefits, they had drawbacks: they didn't directly increase his soul power like regular soul rings did. He was still stuck at level 94, with a slightly loosened bottleneck, but it wasn't something he could break through quickly.
After spending another month refining his soul bones, Tianlin had no time for further seclusion. Nearly three years had passed since Ning Rongrong went to Sea God Island.
He recalled that, in the Sea God's Nine Trials, only the first and third (crossing the Sea God's Light and tide-body refining) took a lot of time, about a year each.
The second, fourth, fifth, and sixth were all combat tests and didn't take long. By now, Ning Rongrong should be almost at her sixth test. Tianlin needed to quickly defeat Tang Chen and bring him to Sea God Island.
At dawn, Tianlin checked out of his rented room and left the small city, heading toward Slaughter City. With his current strength, he was confident he could handle the King of Slaughter.
After all, even though the King of Slaughter possessed Tang Chen's martial soul, soul power, and soul bones, he lacked Tang Chen's combat experience and couldn't use his signature skills like Ring Explosion or the Great Sumeru Hammer. At most, he could wield 70-80% of Tang Chen's power.
Returning to the familiar gloomy town, the bar at the gate looked the same, with a few degenerates guzzling Bloody Marys, each eager to enter Slaughter City.
But the bartender had changed. Being a bartender at the entrance to Slaughter City was a high-risk job—one could be killed by crazed degenerates at any time.
"Hello, what can I get you?" The bartender greeted Tianlin expressionlessly.
"Entry to Slaughter City," Tianlin said directly.
The bartender nodded. "Then please drink a Bloody Mary first. I'll prepare it for you."
The rules hadn't changed: entry required drinking blood.
Tianlin had refused before, and now he was even less interested. He grabbed the bartender by the collar. "If you don't want to die, just let me in."
"Heh, a pretty boy and so arrogant! But he's a newcomer afraid to drink a Bloody Mary—he looks delicious. I wonder how his blood tastes?" A burly man licked his lips, eyeing Tianlin greedily.
His lackeys also looked hungry. Not even inside Slaughter City yet, they were already addicted to Bloody Marys. Such people wouldn't last long in there.
Tianlin glanced at them. The leader's name was marked black, the others purple—though tinged with black.
In Tianlin's view, yellow meant "shouldn't be killed, just taught a lesson." Purple was optional—depending on whether they'd repent and atone. Black meant absolutely unforgivable—they must die.
"One who must die, plus a bunch who refuse to repent—I don't need to be polite." Tianlin's eyes flashed as a terrifying killing intent erupted.
The burly man and his lackeys felt as if they were in hell. Their blood froze and their bones snapped—Tianlin could now use killing intent as a physical attack.
In an instant, they were all dead with no remains.
"Deathgod Domain?" The bartender was terrified. "You're a Deathgod who passed the Road to Hell."
"That's right. You've heard of the name 'Sword Asura,' haven't you?" Tianlin said coldly.
"Youngest ever hundred-victory champion, became a legend in Slaughter City in just two years…" The bartender, a Slaughter City outsider, naturally knew the name. "My apologies, sir! I didn't realize it was you. I'll open the gate right away."
Tianlin released the bartender, who nervously went to the bar, switched a hidden mechanism, and opened the entrance to Slaughter City.
Tianlin jumped in, passing through a sea of corpses to the city gate. He took out his 9527 token from his soul tool.
The two armored guards at the gate, seeing this, immediately opened the gate, thinking he was just a new outsider.
Stepping inside, the outer city looked the same as before—dark and lifeless, without a glimmer of light. But the population had dropped sharply. Where once there were starving, skin-and-bones people barely surviving, now only a few scattered figures remained.