He held the jade bottle up high like a sacred relic, its icy exterior reflecting the light dramatically.
Before he could bask in their reactions, She Long snatched the bottle from his hands with a swift flick.
"You're telling me these tiny pills can evolve a martial soul?" She Long's tone was skeptical, bordering on scorn. His narrowed eyes scrutinized the jade bottle.
The atmosphere was heavy with disbelief. After all, the very concept of evolving a martial soul was legendary, mythical. Even Qian Daoliu himself had never spoken of something like this.
Lin Yuan scowled, "You can't just snatch someone's gift!"
She Long barely turned his head, the lance in his hand still shimmering with cold killing intent. "You don't want to know what I can snatch next."
He stepped forward with casual menace.
But before things could escalate further, Qian Renxue's calm voice rang out.
"Uncle She Long, please pass on the jade bottle."
She Long hesitated. "Young Master, these things could be dangerous—"
Qian Renxue resisted the urge to rub her forehead. Dangerous? If only they knew the real danger was the person who brought the jade bottle, not the pill.
She smiled slightly. A plan had already formed in her mind.
"Lin Yuan, since you emphasize this is a Martial Soul Evolution Pill, why don't you prove it to us?" she said with just the right amount of amusement to make it sound like a test… and a trap.
Lin Yuan blinked. "Me?"
Qian Renxue's smile vanished. "Or who else? You claim it's real. Or was this just a lie to gain favor?"
Without waiting for him to squirm further, she nodded to She Long. "Uncle, pass him one pill."
She Long nodded grimly. He opened the bottle delicately and tilted it.
A single pill rolled out—perfectly round, jade-green with golden threads swirling faintly on its surface. A warm medicinal fragrance immediately filled the area. Even the two Titled Douluo looked surprised.
The atmosphere shifted. The casual disbelief turned to uneasy curiosity.
Lin Yuan, suddenly aware of the growing attention, took the pill with shaking hands.
'System, are you sure this is safe?'
[System Notification: All system-made products are guaranteed safe. Side effects: None.]
'…Good enough.'
He threw the pill into his mouth and sat cross-legged without another word.
The moment it entered his stomach, a surge of foreign power, law-like and ancient, began coursing through his veins. His blood boiled, bones trembled, and a strange dark red light pulsed from within his body.
Then it happened.
Lin Yuan leapt to his feet, aura bursting.
"Abyss Spider Emperor—Possess!"
Immediately, a deep hum echoed in the Elder's Hall courtyard, and a shadow of a spider more larger than before, surged behind Lin Yuan. It materialized into the ghostly, towering form of a spider, but unlike any ordinary one.
The spider's eight legs were long and jagged, like obsidian blades. Its entire body was cloaked in a shroud of dark energy that seemed to warp the air itself. Its eyes were like six glowing crimson orbs arranged like cursed stars , which stared forward with such intensity that even seasoned guards felt a chill crawl up their spines.
Anyone without sufficient willpower would feel their vision dim, as if their souls were being dragged into an endless abyss just by making eye contact with the spider phantom.
Lin Yuan's own body was enveloped in a full-body transformation. His figure became covered in black carapace-like armor, sleek and oppressive. His arms ended in clawed gauntlets, his shoulders were jagged with spikes, and from his back, eight bone-like spider limbs extended outward , long, segmented, and clicking unnervingly as they moved.
Every step he took left spiderweb-like cracks in the ground, not due to strength, but the oppressive death energy rolling off of him like a wave.
She Long and Ci Xue immediately raised their guards. She Long's Snake Lance glowed faintly, and Ci Xue's palms tensed as if preparing a soul skill.
Even Titled Douluo instinctively reacted to the terrifying aura of Lin Yuan's transformed state.
But Qian Renxue stood still.
Her purple eyes gleamed as she analyzed the form before her.
'So this is is the evolution of Death Spider Emperor… The Abyss Spider Emperor.'
'This is far beyond the Death Spider Emperor. The transformation has gone beyond a beast martial soul. It's a full manifestation , a full-body armour type. Those don't appear unless a martial soul reaches an exceptionally high tier.'
Her mind raced, recalling the obscure records kept by Spirit Hall on martial soul classifications.
'In today's Douluo Continent, martial souls are divided by common knowledge into four tiers: low, medium, high, and top-level.'
'But above those… are the rarest classifications — the so-called Ultimate Martial Soul and the even rarer God-level Martial Soul.'
'God-level souls can't be awakened naturally — they require divine bloodlines or divine inheritance. But an Ultimate Martial Soul is something a human can awaken by pure talent. This will be common knowledge in after 10000 years later in the Douluo Dalu 2 era..'
'Tang San's Clear Sky Hammer, despite its strength, was only a top-level martial soul. Even the upgraded Blue Silver Emperor martial soul didn't reach this abyssal intensity.'
Qian Renxue watched as the black energy coalesced around Lin Yuan's legs and arms, making the small insects in the courtyard instantly drop dead, their souls devoured by invisible tendrils of death.
' This… is Death. Pure, unrefined, and oppressive. The Abyss Spider Emperor walks the path of Death and Darkness.'
' If my knowledge is correct this type of Ultimate martial soul must even have an exclusive domain type skill.'