Chapter 177: Trojan Horse of Destiny
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In Lei Yin's soul bone space, boundless lightning illuminated the darkness. Silver-white currents, tinged with blue, wandered incessantly, like dancing dragons and snakes.
Within this void, numerous spears crafted from various metals floated. Refined iron, heavy silver, gold essence, mystic copper...
Lightning appeared out of nowhere, then vanished upon these metals, absorbed into them, transforming into another kind of power, accumulating continuously.
In the space's farthest corner, two clusters of brilliant starlight shimmered. Radiating this starlight were countless, constantly moving small insects with twelve segments.
They formed two spherical bodies, protecting the two individuals within, shielding them from the external lightning and void.
Although auspicious beasts were special, the energy contained within their soul rings wasn't actually that substantial, about the same as that provided by the mermaid Hai Yun in Amon's previous soul ring.
But beyond soul power, there existed an exceptionally unique and mysterious force, an ethereal yet real power that subtly influenced the development of all things, known as fate.
The threads of fate of the countless soul beasts living in Star Dou Forest converged here, forming a special, difficult-to-perceive ball of fate.
It resisted Amon, resisted being absorbed, emitting invisible interference, attempting to hinder Amon from absorbing the auspicious beast's soul ring.
This was the backlash of the entire Star Dou Forest's fate, the resistance of all the soul beasts' will.
"Heh... so this is why humans can't absorb auspicious beasts' soul rings? If one can't sense fate, then they'll definitely fail due to the influence of fate's power."
"Even if one senses it, they still won't succeed, because no one's fate can suppress the resistance formed by the convergence of the fate of countless soul beasts."
"Even if what's resisting isn't the main body of their fate, but just an insignificant offshoot..."
"However, I'm different... I possess the possibility of devouring them all in the future, so my fate can cover theirs."
Amon adjusted his monocle, chuckled softly, and with a thought, countless illusory Worms of Time pounced onto that ball of fate, constantly gnawing at it.
Di Tian, Bi Ji, Zi Ji, Xiong Jun, Wan Yao Wang, Xiao Wu, Da Ming...
At this moment, all the soul beasts in Star Dou Forest felt a sense of impending doom, as if someone had grabbed the back of their necks of fate.
Di Tian's attacking motion stalled, his eyes filled with unease. "What exactly is happening? Bi Ji, did you sense it?"
"Yes," Bi Ji nodded. "It's a bit like the feeling when the auspicious beast was born. It seems like something closely related to our future has appeared, but what I felt then was light and beauty, but now, I feel darkness and death."
"Could it be a soul beast completely opposite to the auspicious beast? Something that will cut off Star Dou Forest's fortune?" Wan Yao Wang's not-so-handsome face was covered in frost.
Zi Ji speculated, "Could it be Amon? He killed the auspicious beast, maybe he has some way to absorb the auspicious beast's soul ring, and then obtained similar power, but because he harbors ill intentions towards us, what we sensed is darkness and ominousness."
Di Tian pondered for a moment, "There's a possibility of that, and it also aligns with what the auspicious beast saw in the fate's revelation... Damn it."
......
The Sky Blue Bull Python, having fled back to the Lake of Life, found Xiao Wu. After hesitating for a moment, it still spoke the truth: "Xiao Wu-jie, Er Ming, he... died at the hands of humans."
"What? Er Ming died?" Xiao Wu's eyes glazed over for a moment, unable to believe it.
"Yes, he died to save me." The Sky Blue Bull Python recounted the events.
After listening, large drops of tears fell from Xiao Wu's eyes, and she said with a belly full of hatred: "Bi Bi Dong, it's you again! And... Di Tian!"
She hated Bi Bi Dong for killing another one of her relatives again, and she also hated Di Tian for taking Da Ming and Er Ming to meet the enemy, but not taking them along when retreating.
Suddenly, a strange panic arose in her and the Sky Blue Bull Python's hearts, a panic that even overshadowed the sorrow for Er Ming's death.
But they had relatively little contact with the auspicious beast, so they didn't quite understand what was happening.
In the deepest forbidden area of Star Dou Forest, a vast and majestic will awakened.
Silver-white light flickered, the voice was cold, dignified, and filled with boundless anger, "Di Tian, Di Tian..."
She didn't receive a response for a long time, and a trace of confusion flashed across her eyes.
A powerful will swept across the entire Star Dou Forest, and then, a phantom appeared beside the frightened and bewildered Xiao Wu and Da Ming.
"Little rabbit, little snake, where did Di Tian go?"
Facing the Silver Dragon King's inquiry, Xiao Wu and the Sky Blue Bull Python prostrated on the ground and replied, "The auspicious beast was killed by humans, and Di Tian chased after the murderer."
"So that's how it is... Tell him when he returns, at all costs, kill the human who absorbed the auspicious beast's soul ring!"
After speaking, the phantom dissipated, and the Silver Dragon King's will departed.
Her injuries were simply too severe. Just the awakening of her will exhausted her mind. She needed a long period of slumber to recover from her injuries, otherwise, the injuries would only continue to worsen.
If it weren't for the fact that Star Dou Forest's fate had been touched by something outside of the soul beasts, she wouldn't have even carried out this brief awakening.
Xiao Wu blinked her eyes and said to the Sky Blue Bull Python, "Da Ming, isn't Di Tian already doing that?"
The Sky Blue Bull Python shook its massive head: "I'm not sure, we just need to relay the message verbatim."
......
Under the gnawing of numerous Worms of Time, the ball of fate finally completely disappeared. With the final obstacle gone, Amon smoothly and completely absorbed the soul ring bestowed by the auspicious beast.
His momentum rose steadily, soaring again and again, instantly reaching level seventy.
Naturally, the energy within the auspicious beast's soul ring alone couldn't have allowed him to directly reach this level, but in these three years, he had absorbed hundreds of soul bones!
When a Soul Master reaches a bottleneck where they need to absorb a soul ring to continue improving, the soul power they continue to cultivate won't disappear, but will all be reflected after absorbing the soul ring.
The accumulation of soul power brought by hundreds of soul bones was enormous. If not for the restriction of not having a soul ring, he would have been a Limit Douluo long ago!
Yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black—six soul rings floated from Amon's body.
Among them, the sixth soul ring wasn't ordinary black, but a deep, dark color that seemed to devour everything, different from the rose-gold soul ring that Huo Yuhao obtained during the Peerless Tang Sect era.
This was because Huo Yuhao's was obtained through sacrifice, with the auspicious beast willingly giving itself, while Amon's was forcibly absorbed through his own power.
The former carried the auspicious beast's blessing, presenting a sacred gold, while the latter was filled with resentment and hatred, so it revealed an ominous black.
Amon glanced at Yan Jin beside him. Through the connection with the Worms of Time in her body that were sorting out her energy, he knew that her absorption was far from complete.
The soul ring brought by Chi Wang contained far too much energy. Even with the assistance of numerous Worms of Time, Yan Jin's absorption was very difficult.
Amon then ignored her, and with the assistance of countless wandering Worms of Time, he transformed into starlight and left the soul bone space.
"Trojan Horse of Destiny," this was the name of Amon's sixth soul skill. It didn't bring a direct increase in combat power, but it made Amon very satisfied, and its effect was stronger than he expected.
It expanded the domain that Amon could steal to the concept of "fate"! This was a domain that very few people, or soul beasts, in Douluo could set foot in.
Amon could steal the fate of people with lower ring numbers than himself without any abnormality, but he could only steal it as a whole, and couldn't perform more precise operations.
To describe it in the words of Pallez of Lord of Mysteries, it was: He will follow you home, and then, you will find that your parents regard him as their son, your wife regards him as her husband, your children regard him as their father, your friends, everyone you know, will think that he is you, and you will become a "fate-less one", losing connection with everything in the real world, dying bit by bit.
However, this replacement of fate wasn't without limitations. Soul Masters of the same rank as Amon, or above, wouldn't be affected.
They wouldn't have their fate stolen, nor would they be deceived by Amon's replacement. In their eyes, Amon was still Amon, not the "fate-less one" whose fate had been stolen.
"Fate Stealing" was permanently effective, and the target of each steal was only one. To perform the next steal, one could only return the previously stolen fate first.
If it was just like this, "Trojan Horse of Destiny" seemed a bit useless, because it couldn't help Amon fight against more powerful existences.
As for existences of lower rank, Amon could easily crush them now, so there was no need for a new soul skill at all.
But "Trojan Horse of Destiny" brought another more important ability, and that was that it connected all Amons together through the power of fate!
In the past, the connection between Amons was limited by distance. Once a certain distance was exceeded, the connection between Amons would be broken, and they could only roughly sense the location and life and death, which made communication inconvenient.
But now, under the power of fate, all Amons could communicate directly, conduct spiritual interaction, and could also hold an Amon meeting at any time to conduct an "all-Amon referendum."
In addition, Amon's main body and avatars, and avatars and avatars, could use this connection to steal each other's skills, regardless of distance.
He no longer had to worry about losing important stolen soul skills after a clone died.
He only needed to prepare in advance and let the clone in a safe place steal the soul skill before the clone died, then the loss would only be a clone, nothing more.
This also greatly enriched his combat methods.
From now on, it wasn't just the Amon who carried well-matched soul skills who had powerful combat power.
All Amons distributed in various places, under the connection of "Trojan Horse of Destiny", would have the strength to kill Titled Douluos!
Although only one aggregated Amon had such ability at the same time, it was already terrible enough.
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