abnabooks Chapter 5 The Prey
Chapter 5 The Prey
Mingfei realized this.
Most Soul Masters prioritize Animal-type Soul Beasts because the skills attached to their Soul Rings are often offensive, defensive, or supportive, which is more straightforward.
Plant-type spirit beasts often possess special and bizarre skills in their spirit rings—such as poison, parasitism, and mental interference.
For Hades Sword, this "unusual" quality is actually an advantage.
He went through the possible targets in his mind.
Dark Demon God Tiger.
The moment the thought popped into his head, Mingfei dismissed it.
The Dark Demon God Tiger is indeed a top-tier dark attribute soul beast, but it is a ten-thousand-year-old existence, and may even possess the combat power of a hundred-thousand-year-old beast.
In the original story, even when Da Ming and Er Ming joined forces, they couldn't defeat their opponent.
This demonstrates the terrifying nature of their combat power.
Later on, if Tang San hadn't been the protagonist, he would have almost died at its hands.
That deathmatch arena is incredibly shady.
In the past, it was only used for delivering vegetables.
Then he thought of Ghost Tiger.
Speed-type spirit beasts excel at stealth and surprise attacks; thousand-year-old ghost tigers are not uncommon in Sunset Forest.
If a Ghost Tiger's soul ring is attached, the soul skill will likely be related to speed and stealth, which would be very suitable for the Hades Sword, which requires assassination.
But Ghost Tigers are hard to find.
This kind of spirit beast is a master of concealment. If it doesn't want you to find it, you won't see it even if you walk right past it.
Mandragora snake.
Ming Fei remembered this very clearly: in the original novel, Tang San's first spirit ring was the Mandragora Snake.
It is highly venomous and aggressive, and the venom of the Datura snake has both paralyzing and corrosive effects.
If attached to the Hades Sword, the blade would be poisoned, making it a good choice.
However, the Datura snake is too large. A thousand-year-old Datura snake can grow to more than two meters long and can swallow an adult in one gulp.
Even with the Hades Sword, it's unrealistic for a seven-year-old child to directly confront a thousand-year-old Datura Serpent.
Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear.
No.
That was a terrifying existence that even titled Douluo had to avoid.
Mingfei shook his head, dismissing these unrealistic ideas.
He needs those he can hunt, not those that sound impressive but are actually beyond his reach.
He began to assess his own abilities.
He possesses innate level 20 soul power and zero soul rings.
This means he has no soul skills, and all his battles rely solely on the sharpness of the Hades Sword and the enhancement of its icy soul power.
The Hades Sword's quality far surpasses that of ordinary martial souls, making it capable of cutting through gold and jade with ease. However, he had no confidence that he could break through the defense of a thousand-year-old soul beast with a single strike.
Physical strength, the awakening of the Hades Sword seems to have a positive effect on his body as well.
He could feel that his reaction speed, strength, and endurance were all significantly better than those of ordinary people.
But it's only "a little stronger." Compared to true Soul Masters, especially those Beast Soul Masters who rely on their physical abilities, the gap is still quite significant.
Mental strength is one of his greatest advantages at present.
After the Hades Sword awakened, coupled with the relationship between the two people, his mental strength also increased significantly, and his perception range was much wider than that of other Soul Masters of the same level.
He could clearly sense any creature with soul power fluctuations within a fifty-meter radius, a distance that was quite extraordinary for someone at the Zero Ring level.
Their greatest reliance is the underworld.
The underworld is more than just a storage space.
Mingfei could sense that he could sink his consciousness into the underworld at any time.
No, not just consciousness, but the whole body.
If he so chooses, he can instantly disappear from reality, enter the underworld, and then reappear in another location.
The distance is limited.
The maximum displacement he can currently achieve is about thirty meters, and it cannot be used continuously. After each use, the underworld needs a short "cooling-down" period to stabilize the spatial passage.
But this ability is already terrifying enough.
If you can't beat them, run away; if you can't run, hide; if you can't hide, assassinate them.
Assassination.
Ming Fei narrowed his eyes.
This is the correct way to use the Hades Sword.
He is not a Soul Master, nor a warrior; he is an assassin.
The underworld is his invisibility cloak, and the Hades Sword is his dagger.
He doesn't need to confront the thousand-year-old soul beast head-on.
He can lurk in the underworld, wait for the right moment, and then strike with a fatal blow when his opponent is most vulnerable.
This requires patience.
Mingfei swallowed the last bite of the biscuit and stood up.
He didn't rush into the forest, but instead began to wander around the outskirts.
The outer perimeter of Sunset Forest is mostly inhabited by low-level soul beasts that are ten or a hundred years old, which are not worth hunting for Ming Fei.
His first spirit ring requires at least a thousand years; a spirit ring that is too low is not worthy of the Hades Sword, nor is it worthy of his innate spirit power.
However, the surrounding spirit beasts can be used as practice targets.
Let him become familiar with the use of the Hades Sword, with traversing the underworld, and with hiding and tracking in the forest.
More importantly, he needs to understand this forest.
On the first day, he found a stream on the outskirts and followed it north for about two miles. He found a natural cave on a sheltered hillside.
The cave wasn't deep, only three or four meters, but it was enough for him to live in by himself.
The entrance to the cave is blocked by a clump of bushes, making it difficult to spot from the outside.
Mingfei cleaned up the cave and laid out a layer of dry grass, which served as a temporary shelter.
The next day, he hunted down his first soul beast.
It was a hundred-year-old Crimson Flame Scorpion, half a meter long, dark red all over, with a deadly venomous stinger on its tail.
Mingfei found it under a rock by the stream; it was lying there sunbathing, completely still.
Mingfei did not approach rashly.
He squatted on a tree ten meters away and observed the Crimson Flame Scorpion for a full half hour.
Its activity range, reaction speed, and attack methods have been confirmed.
Then he sank into the underworld, emerging from the shadows behind the scorpion, and Hades' sword precisely pierced the junction between the scorpion's head and torso.
One sword kills.
The Crimson Scorpion didn't even have time to swing its tail hook before it stiffened and died on the rock.
Mingfei looked at the scorpion's corpse, hesitated for a moment, and did not absorb its soul ring.
A hundred-year-old spirit ring would offer limited improvement to him and would also "pollute" the spirit ring configuration of the Hades Sword.
He wanted the first spirit ring that was over a thousand years old, and he had no intention of compromising on any of them.
But he can take the corpse to the underworld.
He tried to connect his consciousness to the underworld, imagining "pulling" the corpse of the Crimson Scorpion into it.
A flash of gray light, and the scorpion's corpse vanished from the stone.
At the same time, the complete corpse of a Crimson Flame Scorpion appeared in the underworld, lying quietly on the scorched earth.
The gray fog churned, like a shark that had caught the scent of blood.
Mingfei could sense that the underworld was "digesting" the corpse.
It's not about devouring, but a gentler process.
The remnant soul of the Crimson Flame Scorpion was absorbed by the gray mist, and the energy of the corpse slowly seeped into the earth of the underworld, causing the scorched land to tremble slightly.
The effect was negligible.
The corpse of a hundred-year-old soul beast is not even a drop in the ocean when it comes to the expansion of the Underworld.
But Mingfei didn't care; this was just the beginning, a process of accumulation.
If one isn't enough, have ten; if ten aren't enough, have a hundred.
On the third day, he hunted down three hundred-year-old soul beasts.
On the fourth day, there were five.
On the fifth day, he encountered a ghost wolf that was about eight hundred years old.
.....