234: He's handsome, that's all!

The final punch landed with a boom, and blue-purple lightning splattered in all directions like a spider web, crackling as it whipped up a storm of bone fragments.

Su Ling slowly straightened his back. Within the gaps of the spider-webbed skull, the once raging soul fire had become dim and listless.

A dark gold token quietly appeared in his palm; it was the token symbolizing his status as the person in charge of the outpost.

As mana gurgled from his fingertips into the token, complex patterns immediately surfaced on it, emitting dots of cold blue light.

He raised his hand in the air, and his Divine Soul power condensed into a profound rune at his fingertip, falling straight onto the Fifth-Rank Bone Demon's remaining soul fire like a meteor.

At this moment, the Bone Demon's aura plummeted, leaving only the weak fluctuations of the fourth-rank level, with no power to resist at all.

The brilliant Azure Heaven Thunder Method Su Ling had just unleashed had long since battered its Soul Power Origin until it was incredibly weak.

Only when the Soul Seal had completely merged into the Bone Demon's soul fire and he clearly felt the connection of absolute control through the token did Su Ling tap his toe on the ground, his body leaping up like an arrow to land steadily beside Lu Tao and the others.

"Settled?"

Lu Tao stepped forward and asked with a familiar smile on his face.

Su Ling nodded slightly, his tone flat yet carrying a hint of playfulness. "Mhm. If I didn't give it a beating, it wouldn't be easy to take in."

The Soul Power of a Fifth-Rank Bone Demon was originally matchless. If he had tried to forcibly plant a Soul Seal during its Peak, there was a high probability of failure due to Soul Power backlash.

Now that it had been beaten into a state of extreme weakness, subduing it was naturally twice as effective with half the effort.

With a thought from Su Ling, the massive skeletal remains slowly crawled up and then knelt on one knee with a thud. A Divine Soul voice, mixed with deep fear and a bit of reluctance, rang out in everyone's minds:

"Master."

"Recover your Origin Qi here, then report to the outpost later."

Su Ling waved his hand, and a wisp of Nine Nether Mana flicked from his fingertip, sketching a Spirit Gathering Formation on the ground.

"Yes, Master."

The Bone Demon responded respectfully, its massive body quickly shrinking to the size of an adult human.

Then the bones separated and scattered, leaving only that skull with the flickering soul fire to sink into the depths of the bone land like a ghost to hide.

Although most of the remaining Death Qi in this place had been absorbed by it earlier, it was still enough to recover from its injuries.

Witnessing this scene, Li Yichen and the others' admiration for Su Ling rose by several degrees.

Especially Li Yichen, who had participated in the Jinhun Realm plane war; he had seen many feats of Nascent Soul Stage Experts, but most relied on the power of Magic Treasures and the utility of Spells to crush the Demon Species.

He had never seen anyone use pure Body Refining combat methods to beat a fifth-rank Demon Species into submission.

Furthermore, over the years, Lu Tao had mentioned to them more than once that Su Ling's attainments in Divine Soul Spells were also unfathomably deep.

Li Yichen couldn't help but secretly imagine: if Su Ling exerted his full strength by combining Divine Soul and Body Refining methods, what a shocking sight would that be?

As a fellow Peak Nascent Soul, he told himself he could contend with a Fifth-Rank Bone Demon, or even kill it if he went all out, but it was absolutely impossible to achieve such an effortless crushing victory.

Such a stark disparity made Li Yichen feel a bit ashamed.

Fortunately, although Lu Tao usually loved to joke and had a bit of a loose tongue, he always kept his mouth shut about things Su Ling specifically told him not to spread.

If Li Yichen and the others knew that Su Ling was actually a Nascent Soul Cultivator who had survived a Lightning Tribulation strike, they would probably be even more awestruck and treat him like a god.

Su Ling's Divine Soul power spread out like a tide, sweeping across the surrounding hundreds of miles. After confirming there were no other Demon Species above the fourth rank emerging, he spoke calmly: "This matter is settled, let's head back."

"Let's go, let's go!"

Lu Tao immediately perked up and hurriedly threw out a glowing taixu boat. He grabbed Su Ling's arm and flew up. "Quick, tell me about that Azure Dragon Combat Method of yours, it's way too cool!"

"Want to learn?"

Su Ling glanced at him, his lips curling into a half-smile. "You should have said so earlier, I'll teach you!"

"Nonsense! Why would I ask if I didn't want to learn!"

Lu Tao rolled his eyes hard, then switched to a fawning smile, rubbing his hands together sheepishly. "Um... that dragon phantom you manifested, do you have to Cultivate the Azure Heaven Thunder Method to trigger it?"

Su Ling shook his head and said casually, "No need."

"Great! I knew it!"

Lu Tao slapped his thigh in excitement and laughed loudly. "Let's go, let's go. When we get back, you have to teach me properly. I absolutely must manifest a golden dragon phantom!"

"A golden dragon phantom?"

A strange look appeared on Su Ling's face as he secretly grumbled to himself. This guy probably only wanted to learn because he thought the dragon phantom looked majestic enough, right?

After returning to the outpost, Su Ling did not keep anything to himself and taught everything about his modified Eight Forms of the Azure Dragon.

Lu Tao was usually a bit lazy in his Cultivation, but when he encountered something he was truly interested in, he became exceptionally diligent.

In just a few days, he had mastered about seventy to eighty percent of the core essentials of the Eight Forms of the Azure Dragon.

He used the Immortal Golden Body Art to drive his physical strength, supplemented by the sharpness of the Taibai Sword Qi. Compared to Su Ling's domineering ferocity, the Eight Forms of the Azure Dragon he performed had a bit more of a piercing edge.

The dragon phantom that appeared was not the pure gold Lu Tao had imagined, but a white-gold color mixed with gilded patterns, surrounded by a faint spiritual light that gave off a sense of holy majesty.

Even so, Lu Tao was overjoyed and practiced diligently all day long.

Anyway, being handsome was all that mattered!

Over the next week, the sounds of dragon-like roars would occasionally echo from the canyon near the outpost. The sound waves shook the mountain rocks loose, scaring the hidden low-level Bone Demons and ghosts so much that they didn't dare show their heads.

Half a month later, Lu Tao, who had finally had his fill of the new technique, returned to the main hall and immediately found Su Ling, who was looking through the inventory records.

"Brother, I'm going into secluded meditation for a while!"

"What?"

Su Ling looked up, his eyes filled with disbelief as he scanned Lu Tao up and down. "You said you're going into secluded meditation?"

Heaven have mercy!

If True Lord Lu Feng knew that his habitually lazy Disciple had actually taken the initiative to request secluded meditation, would that face, which always maintained a cold CEO persona, show a hint of a smile?

This was truly a rare occurrence.

"I'm about to break through a realm, so isn't secluded meditation normal!"

Lu Tao rolled his eyes, waved his hand, and turned to leave. "If there's nothing important, don't disturb my Cultivation. You handle the outpost's affairs for now!"

Su Ling was the one in charge of Shadow Prison Canyon after all!

On the other hand, he was at most just a drudge attached to Su Ling's name.

The world had truly turned upside down!

Su Ling was speechless and teased, "Got it, hurry up and go, you... Late Nascent Soul Stage."

"Screw you!"

Lu Tao turned back and gave him the middle finger before walking away with large strides.

After laughing at his back for a few moments, Su Ling continued to handle the outpost's business.

While he had been in secluded meditation for many years, everything at the outpost had actually been kept in perfect order by Li Yichen.

Unfortunately, Li Yichen was on the verge of a Breakthrough and had already collected his mission rewards to report back to Shadow City.