Chapter 7: Predator and Prey
A pale mist of poison drifted through the air, spreading out until it became transparent and invisible. The massive wild boar trapped within it let out a muffled grunt, its limbs convulsing violently as foam spilled from its mouth. Moments later, it collapsed to the forest floor with a dull thud, dead.
A white soul ring slowly rose above the corpse, marking the successful kill.
Li Chang'an slithered forward at a leisurely pace, his long emerald-green body gliding over the forest floor. As he neared the fallen beast, he couldn't help but compare their sizes. This thing was enormous—far bigger than the rabbit he'd devoured earlier. Swallowing it whole was out of the question.
"Looks like I'll have to eat it in pieces," he muttered to himself.
Opening his jaws, he revealed not just venomous fangs but rows of jagged, saw-like teeth—an evolutionary trait unique to the Emerald Scale Snake Emperor. Unlike real-world snakes that relied solely on constriction or venom, his current body was built to tear, crush, and consume like a shark. His bite strength could shear through flesh and bone alike.
With ease and efficiency, Li Chang'an began tearing into the wild boar, ripping off chunks of meat and swallowing them whole. Its thick hide posed no challenge, and even the bones cracked under his powerful bite. Soon, the bulk of the corpse had disappeared into his swollen abdomen, leaving only the most indigestible bits—intestines, gallbladder, and other miscellaneous organs—scattered across the ground.
Despite its low cultivation age, the wild boar's immense mass contained far more energy than the rabbit. But after slowly making his way back to the cave to digest the feast, Li Chang'an discovered something unexpected: the gain in cultivation was disappointing.
Only about ten years.
That was the same increase the rabbit had given him, and yet the wild boar had clearly been a superior kill in every regard. The issue, he realized, lay in his own growth. After absorbing the rabbit's energy, his body had grown larger, and with that growth came a proportional increase in the energy required for further advancement.
That meant one thing: this method of rapid growth had diminishing returns.
As he continued to evolve, ten-year soul beasts would no longer provide any meaningful gains. If he wanted to maintain his pace, he'd have to hunt century-old beasts and beyond.
But for now, let's leave the soul beast body to digest in peace.
Meanwhile, back in his human form...
Li Chang'an sat cross-legged on the bed in his room, cloaked in a faint shimmer of soul power. His breathing was calm and steady as he meditated, drawing in the ambient energy of the world through a basic soul master breathing technique. It was nothing advanced—just the standard meditation method taught in the Academy—but with his innate full soul power talent, the results were anything but ordinary.
After a while, he opened his eyes, a gleam of clarity within them. "Level thirteen," he whispered.
After obtaining his first soul ring, he'd jumped to level twelve almost instantly. In just a few days of quiet cultivation, he'd broken through another level. To most people, this would be considered meteoric progress.
But Li Chang'an wasn't satisfied.
This rate of growth wouldn't last. It was only because his soul power was still in the lower ranks that he could advance so quickly. The higher his level climbed, the more energy it would take to make even the smallest improvement.
The historical records were clear: even those born with innate full soul power rarely became Titled Douluo before seventy or eighty years old. Only a rare handful ever reached that level in their fifties or sixties. Tang Hao, for example, had been hailed as a once-in-a-century genius for becoming a Titled Douluo at forty-four.
But then there was Tang San and his merry band of Sea God-blessed freaks—becoming Titled Douluo in their twenties. That wasn't talent. That was divine intervention.
And that divine intervention would eventually turn into a divine tyranny.
By the time Li Chang'an hit his peak naturally, the world would already be under Tang San's heel. The God Realm would be sealed, the path to godhood severed, and Douluo Continent reduced to nothing more than the Sea God's personal playground. The so-called divine order Tang San built was nothing more than a system of control disguised as peace.
And what would he be? Just another unremarkable Titled Douluo, fading into the pages of history.
"Not a chance," he muttered.
He hadn't transmigrated just to play background extra in someone else's legend. He would forge his own path—even if that meant challenging the very heavens.
Li Chang'an knew he had roughly twenty years. Twenty years to seize the opportunities scattered through the original story. If he didn't become strong enough to interfere by the time the Vast Sea Barrier appeared, then all hope of ascending to the God Realm would vanish. The best he could hope for would be survival—and he wasn't the type to settle for that.
He had to become a Soul King before twelve. A Soul Emperor by fifteen. Soul Sage by seventeen or eighteen. Soul Douluo by twenty. All so he could stand a chance at obtaining the Sea God's legacy and climbing to divinity.
Impossible? For anyone else, maybe. But he had a trump card.
A smile crept across his lips.
"The soul beast clone... I finally understand its true value."
Ever since the Emerald Scale Snake Emperor body had begun devouring other soul beasts, Li Chang'an had noticed a strange phenomenon. He could feel a faint trickle of energy flowing into his human body, strengthening not just his soul power, but his physique as well. The connection between the two bodies ran deeper than he'd imagined.
Though the feedback was small, it was constant—and it was free. Over time, that would amount to a massive reservoir of extra power.
Compared to other transmigrators who received overpowered systems or god-level martial souls right out the gate, this ability to share power with a soul beast clone seemed modest. But it was real. Reliable. And unlike a system, it wasn't bound by a UI or cooldowns. It was his—utterly and completely.
He'd even discovered that the energy transferred from the clone didn't have to be absorbed right away. It could be stored—somewhere between the two bodies, or perhaps in some unknown metaphysical space. He didn't care where, only that it worked.
And now, he could feel that the stored power had accumulated significantly.
It was time to make use of it.
He closed his eyes once more, and with a breath, opened the floodgates.
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