At the bottom of the ocean, sprawled beside an unfathomably deep trench, the Deep Sea Demon Whale King was devouring endless quantities of deep-sea krill and fish.
Ye Yu couldn't help feeling a trace of emotion.
In his previous life, he'd heard online that the Deep Sea Demon Whale King wasn't the rampaging scourge that Sea God Poseidon and Sea God Island claimed—"a beast intent on devouring the infinite sea"—but rather a reclusive and irritable old fellow who stayed put in the Demon Whale Sea.
When he was in Vast Sea City, he had asked a sea chart dealer to gather maps of various forbidden zones.
Later, in the city's library, he'd read dossiers on the Deep Sea Demon Whale King.
From the records of the Heaven Dou Empire, the Star Luo Empire, and the Spirit Hall since their founding, the Deep Sea Demon Whale King had never once left the Demon Whale Sea,
never once gone on a rampage,
and never attacked coastal cities like Vast Sea City.
If the Deep Sea Demon Whale King truly wanted to devour the endless sea,
with Poseidon already ascended to the Divine Realm,
and the Sea God Island's High Priest bound to guard the island—unable to lead the island's Title Douluo to hunt it down—
it could have wreaked havoc anywhere it pleased.
But it hadn't.
Clearly, it was very likely an irritable but wrongfully maligned old whale.
As for why Poseidon framed it—
naturally, it was to set up the Demon Whale King as the great villain, scare the Sea Spirit Masters and Sea Spirit Beasts of the endless sea, and proclaim himself the savior,
thereby gathering faith, condensing a divine position, and finally becoming a god.
Although Ye Yu felt a bit of sympathy for the Demon Whale King,
he was still human—and perspective determined allegiance.
He had come to the endless sea for one reason:
to hunt powerful sea spirit beasts and give his third Martial Soul, the Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion, its next Spirit Ring.
And that meant the Demon Whale King could not be spared.
Facing such a colossal creature,
Ye Yu stood atop the void, his mind moving as he first spread the Blue Silver Domain,
then summoned the Blue Silver Spirit Jade Tree Martial Soul.
He unleashed his Seventh Spirit Ability—Blue Silver Spirit Jade Tree True Body!
In an instant, the Martial Soul expanded in a blaze of blue-silver light, growing at an astonishing rate.
In the blink of an eye, it became a towering giant with a trunk more than fifty meters thick, soaring over two thousand meters high, its crystal-blue foliage like a vast canopy supporting a starry firmament—majestic and breathtaking.
Immediately, Ye Yu chained his first six Spirit Abilities:
First Spirit Ability – Undying Rooting!
Second Spirit Ability – Starlight Absorption!
Third Spirit Ability – Tribulation Ascension!
Sixth Spirit Ability – Parasitic Devour!
Under their combined effect, the True Body grew even larger.
The massive surge of Spirit Power from the Blue Silver Domain, the Martial Soul's True Body, and the six preceding abilities immediately alerted the Demon Whale King below.
Before it could reach the surface,
Ye Yu activated the first ability of his Eighth Spirit Ring—Advent of a World of Flowering Trees!
By now, he had received the sacrifices from six top-tier spirit beasts—Skydream Ice Worm, Snow Empress, Ice Empress, Ice Bear King Xiao Bai, Ice Devil Titan King, and Xiao Wu—each with over 100,000 years of cultivation.
He had also condensed a second Spirit Core, this one of ice and light attributes.
His physical body had soared in strength, and his eighth ring's age had broken the million-year threshold.
Thus, when he combined Blue Silver Spirit Jade Tree True Body with Advent of a World of Flowering Trees, the summoned tree's size reached unprecedented extremes:
a trunk over a hundred meters thick, and a height of five thousand meters.
Countless colossal Blue Silver Spirit Jade Trees erupted from the sea, their crystal-blue vine-like bodies lashing toward the Demon Whale King.
The beast bellowed in rage, launching Spirit Ability after Spirit Ability.
It spewed storms of crackling lightning spheres from its gaping maw,
and from its blowhole, blasted searing blue energy beams in sweeping arcs—
but though these attacks damaged the massive trees,
they could not shatter them.
And if they could not be destroyed outright,
then with the True Body's terrifying vitality and regeneration speed,
the damage vanished in mere moments.
Soon, the trees had fully ensnared the Demon Whale King's enormous body.
Since his goal was to claim its Spirit Ring,
Ye Yu controlled the bindings to transform into countless crystalline blue lances,
piercing deep into the creature's body and ending its life.
He then lifted the carcass to the surface.
Scarlet motes of light spilled from the corpse, coalescing into a crimson-gold 990,000-year Spirit Ring above it.
A torso Spirit Bone from the Demon Whale King surfaced alongside.
Ye Yu stowed the Spirit Bone away,
then sat cross-legged upon the corpse, summoned his Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion Martial Soul, and began absorbing the ring.
As a near-million-year spirit beast, the Demon Whale King was formidable indeed—
even in death, its soul lurked within the ring, plotting to ambush him.
But Ye Yu activated his second Martial Soul, Spirit Eyes' first Spirit Ability: Soul Shock
The compressed Spirit Power of two and a half Spirit Cores instantly transformed into pure spiritual power.
With his already vast spiritual power, he blasted the Demon Whale King's soul into fragments.
After the Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion absorbed the sixth ring,
Ye Yu followed the sea charts he had and went to the Evil Spirit Orca Sea to hunt the Evil Spirit Orca King. He absorbed its seventh Spirit Ring for his third Martial Soul, Ice Jade Emperor Dragon Scorpion.
Then he tracked down a 500,000-year-old Seven-Colored Peacock Mantis Shrimp and took its life for the eighth ring.
For the ninth, he wanted a Spirit Ability that granted a clone technique.
He scoured the endless sea for a sea spirit beast over 100,000 years old with that trait—
but instead of a suitable beast,
he found a vast, unending continent.
Upon landing,
he concealed his identity and quickly learned the local tongue.
This was the Vast Continent—
a land of countless warring states, chaotic as the Spring and Autumn era of his previous life's China.
Because a Spirit Master's growth relied so heavily on talent,
each nation poured resources into developing soul tool technology to bolster their power.
Among them was a nation called—the Sun Moon Kingdom.
The Sun Moon Kingdom?
Upon hearing the name,
Ye Yu investigated and discovered its royal family possessed the Sun and Moon Martial Souls,
and they were said to have a hidden inherited Martial Soul called the Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon.
He was certain now—
this was the Sun Moon Continent he had been searching for.