Douluo Dragon King: Here we come! Golden Dragon King!

After the Golden Dragon King's voice disappeared from Tang Wulin's consciousness, it never rang out again.

Tang Wulin waited for a long time, turning his palm over and over to look at it several times, and then closed his eyes and called out a few times in his mind, but there was no response.

"It appears and disappears intermittently, causing a commotion."

"You run off halfway through your sentence? At least finish what you were saying!"

Tang Wulin muttered something under his breath.

Of course, there was no response. The Golden Dragon King is always like this: when it wants to appear, it doesn't matter whether it's convenient for you or not; when it doesn't want to speak, you can shout until you're hoarse and it won't do any good.

Tang Wulin wasn't even sure if the old man was asleep in the Sea of ​​Spirit, although he didn't know whether divine beasts needed to sleep.

He put his hands back in his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and tried to close his eyes.

Tang Wulin rolled over, then rolled over again.

I can't sleep; too many things are on my mind.

He opened his eyes and saw Wu Changkong lying to one side, seemingly fast asleep.

"Teacher?" Tang Wulin called out tentatively.

"Um."

Wu Changkong answered very quickly, so quickly that Tang Wulin was startled.

He opened his eyes, turned his head to look at Tang Wulin, and didn't look like he had just woken up.

"You weren't asleep either," Tang Wulin said.

"I'm thinking about something," Wu Changkong said.

He didn't continue speaking, and Tang Wulin thought the topic was over. He was about to shrink back into his chair when he noticed that Wu Changkong hadn't looked away.

Da was looking at him, looking at him very intently.

That gaze made Tang Wulin inexplicably feel a little guilty.

"Tang Wulin," Wu Changkong spoke.

"Um?"

"You used to be."

"Have you undergone any special surgeries? Or any kind of rituals?"

Tang Wulin was stumped by the question.

He blinked, his mind racing.

Surgery? Ceremony?

He grew up in Aolai City. Although his parents were not wealthy, they never mistreated him.

He's barely been to the hospital, let alone had any surgery.

As for the ceremony?

Does awakening a martial soul count as a ritual?

"No," he answered honestly.

"I've always been in good health; I rarely even catch a cold."

Wu Changkong fell silent, his gaze carefully scrutinizing Tang Wulin.

"There's a monster hiding inside you."

Tang Wulin opened his mouth, wanting to explain, but how could he say it?

He never explained the existence of the Golden Dragon King to Wu Changkong from beginning to end.

On that occasion at the park bench, he chose to say "I don't know."

Now that he's suddenly changing his story and saying he does have something inside him, doesn't it sound like he's made up a story after being exposed?

He remained silent for a long while, and Wu Changkong did not urge him; he was waiting.

"……yes."

Tang Wulin finally spoke, but his voice was much softer than before.

"I do have one inside me..."

He paused for a moment, hesitating between "divine beast" and "monster" to decide which one to call it.

"It is a divine beast."

Its name is Golden Dragon King, and it is sealed inside my body.

It wasn't surgery, nor was it any kind of ritual; it was a genuine mythical beast.

The King of Divine Beasts.

After he finished speaking, the carriage remained quiet for a long time.

Wu Changkong's expression changed, taking on a more resolute yet heavy tone tinged with heartache.

His brow furrowed even deeper.

really.

The child even knew the name of the implant.

The evil of the Holy Spirit Cult far exceeded his imagination. Instead of randomly stuffing an inanimate object inside, they made the recipient clearly aware of "its" existence and even gave "it" a name with mythological connotations.

The King of Divine Beasts, the Golden Dragon King.

One emperor, two emperors, and four heavenly kings.

This naming method, which carries a sense of worship, is precisely in line with the consistent practices of the Holy Spirit Church.

It's impossible for a six-year-old child to come up with such a scenario out of thin air.

He must have been repeatedly instilled with these concepts, and may even have been repeatedly told during the ritual that "a divine beast lives inside you."

His statement that it was "neither surgery nor a ceremony" precisely demonstrates that the other party's methods were so sophisticated that even the child himself was convinced of their truth.

The highest level of transformation is to make the person being transformed believe that everything is natural.

Wu Changkong took a deep breath, looked at Tang Wulin for a long time, and then changed the subject.

"Your martial spirit," he said, "release it so I can see it."

Tang Wulin was stunned for a moment, not understanding why the topic suddenly jumped from the Golden Dragon King to Martial Soul.

But when the teacher asked, he did as instructed.

He stretched out his right hand, palm up, and a Blue Silver Grass sprouted from his palm. Unlike ordinary Blue Silver Grass, this grass had dense golden patterns all over its leaves, a tough stem, and thick leaves. It didn't look like an ordinary useless martial soul at all.

"Blue Silver Grass".

Tang Wulin said, "The spirit master said this is a mutation because the golden patterns on it are very unusual."

Wu Changkong looked at the Blue Silver Grass and nodded.

He extended a finger and gently touched the surface of the leaf.

The golden patterns lit up the moment his fingertips touched them, then returned to normal.

Tang Wulin put away the Blue Silver Grass and stretched out his left hand.

A blurry outline appeared above his palm, but it wasn't anything concrete.

It has no fixed shape; it is like a mass of energy enveloped in golden energy, pulsating slightly and emitting a light that flickers.

Wu Changkong stared at the golden stream of energy for a long time.

"Even the spirit medium can't explain what this is."

Tang Wulin said, "He said this martial soul is like a kind of energy, unlike a normal martial soul."

"Spirit rings," Wu Changkong said. "If you have any, show them."

Tang Wulin did as instructed.

A golden spirit ring rose from beneath his feet and slowly rotated around his body.

In the dimly lit carriage, the golden spirit ring stood out conspicuously.

Wu Changkong noticed a problem.

"Only one?"

Tang Wulin looked down and saw that there was indeed only one.

There was nothing there next to the Blue Silver Grass.

Then he froze, remembering that he had absorbed a hundred-year-old soul spirit.

The hundred-year-old soul that Tang Ziran and Lang Yue left him, contained in a transparent container.

A hundred-year-old spirit can provide two spirit rings.

Logically, he should have two spirit rings: one for Blue Silver Grass and one for his second martial soul.

But now Blue Silver Grass doesn't have any spirit rings, only its second spirit has a golden one.

"I clearly absorbed a hundred-year-old soul spirit, so how come I only have one soul ring? Where is the soul ring of the Blue Silver Grass?" Tang Wulin asked, puzzled.

Wu Changkong stared silently at the golden soul ring on Tang Wulin's body.

A hundred-year-old soul spirit corresponds to a yellow soul ring, while a gold soul ring is not included in any textbook's ranking system.

After a hundred-year-old soul spirit was absorbed, the hundred-year-old soul ring that should have been generated disappeared. In its place, a golden soul ring of unknown level was attached to a martial soul of unknown type.

The other martial soul didn't even get a single spirit ring.

There is only one explanation.

The century-old soul that was absorbed was used as some kind of nourishment and devoured by the implant within the body.

The golden spirit ring was not a product of a hundred-year spirit ring, but rather a leakage of the implanted body's own power.

This explains why only the second martial soul has a soul ring.

Because that second spirit wasn't a spirit at all, but rather an external manifestation of the implant within Tang Wulin's body.

It disguised itself as a martial spirit and parasitized the child's body.

The Blue Silver Grass didn't have a spirit ring because the implant took away all its nutrients.

Wu Changkong felt he had figured everything out. He looked at Tang Wulin, keeping those words to himself, and simply said, "Your martial soul situation is rather complicated. I will take a closer look at it for you after we arrive in Donghai City."

Tang Wulin was thinking about the same thing.

Where did the energy accumulated over a century go?

The spirit was snatched away by the divine gate, and then the first chain shattered, revealing the golden spirit ring.

Therefore, the soul's energy did not disappear into thin air; it was consumed by the Golden Dragon King.

Then the Golden Dragon King used this energy to break through a seal and incidentally put a soul ring on himself as a disguise.

As for why Blue Silver Grass doesn't have a spirit ring, it's probably because the Golden Dragon King never intended to leave him a single bite.

But this is good, at least he now knows what a golden spirit ring is.

Since Wu Changkong already considered the Golden Dragon King a monster, he felt that any further explanation would only make things worse.

Oh well, let him think that way. Anyway, thinking about it carefully, the definition of the Golden Dragon King as a monster doesn't seem wrong.

Just as Tang Wulin was about to say something to ease the tension, the carriage suddenly trembled violently.

A violent impact came from the bottom, as if something had exploded beneath the train.

The overhead lights flickered violently, and packages fell from the luggage racks.

One by one, passengers were thrown from their seats and rolled into the aisle.

Then came a loud bang.

The explosion came from in front of the train, muffled yet violent.

Then came the second and third tones.

The car windows resonated sharply in the shockwave, and the sound of shattering glass was mixed in between the explosions, drowned out by the screams of the crowd.

The entire carriage erupted in screams. Some were yelling for help, some were shouting to run, and some were calling for their mothers.

Before Tang Wulin could react to what was happening, Wu Changkong had already moved.

He got up so fast that it was hard to see; you only felt a gust of wind pass in front of you.

The Heavenly Frost Sword was already in hand, and the cold air emanating from its blade condensed into a white mist in the chaotic carriage.

"teacher!"

"Run to safety!"