Douluo Continent: Tonight, a Fairy Tale Descends

"The Azure Phosphorous Serpent King's Poison is a meat grinder on a large-scale battlefield. One soul skill can wipe out everything within a hundred feet. Ordinary soul masters simply cannot withstand your poison mist, and even if they have antidote pills, they have to stop and take them."

But if you stop, you become an easy target.

“So,” Eva continued, her emerald eyes gleaming in the candlelight, “you don’t need to worry about the titled Douluo matter. You just need to do what you do best and make sure that the Spirit Empire’s 100,000-strong army loses a third of its troops before they even reach the city walls.”

Dugu Bo remained silent for a long while. He looked at Eva, then at Ge Duo.

One woman leaned back in her chair, holding a cold teacup, while the other leaned against a tent pole, playing with herbs. Both women were more composed than the other, as if the 100,000-strong army and the three level-95 titled Douluo outside the city were just visiting relatives.

He wasn't stupid. He'd known Eva for so many years, he knew this woman's ways all too well. The more nonchalant she seemed, the more confident she was.

The fact that she dared to tell him not to worry about becoming a Title Douluo meant she was confident. As for where that confidence came from, she didn't say, and he wouldn't ask.

The first rule of working for Eva is: don't ask questions you shouldn't ask.

"Alright." Dugu Bo closed his eyes again and continued to regulate his breathing. "You guys decide."

Ge Duo casually tossed the herbs in her hand onto the table, her eerie green eyes sweeping over Dugu Bo.

“I’ve adjusted the formula for the toxins in your body, and the new pills will be ready in the next two days. Stop making the old batch for now, and double the dosage of the new pills. Your level 93 meridians can handle it.”

Dugu Bo nodded without saying a word.

Eva stood up and walked to the tent flap, lifting a corner of it. It was already dark outside, and the torches on the distant city walls flickered in the night, like a string of stars swaying precariously in the wind.

She gazed at the firelight, her smile still languid, but a chilling sharpness surged in her eyes.

“Three level 95s,” she repeated softly, then chuckled lightly, “Bibi Dong is really willing to invest this time. Fine, let them come.”

Meanwhile, in the wounded soldiers' camp of the Northern United City-States, Rapunzel was squatting beside a young soldier lying on a stretcher.

The soldier looked to be no more than seventeen or eighteen years old. A stray arrow had pierced his left calf. The arrowhead had been removed, but blood was still seeping around the wound, with an abnormal dark purple tinge around the edges. This was the residual soul power from the arrowhead eroding the wound, and ordinary hemostatic medicine was useless.

Rapunzel gently placed her hand over the wound, and a faint golden halo appeared in her palm.

The halo was very soft, like the first ray of sunlight shining through the clouds at dawn. The moment it landed on the wound, the dark purple ring began to fade slowly, and the bleeding slowed down significantly.

After a few breaths, the skin and flesh around the wound began to regrow at a visible rate, and the new skin closed up from both sides of the wound towards the center, leaving a light pink scar.

The young soldier stared wide-eyed at the light in her hand, his lips trembling several times.

"Thank you so much..."

His voice trembled with the shock of surviving a close call. When he was carried off the battlefield, several veterans glanced at his wound and shook their heads, saying that arrow wounds corroded by soul power were the most difficult to treat, and that his entire leg might be ruined.

Rapunzel didn't speak, but simply nodded slightly before standing up and walking toward the next wounded soldier.

She's been doing this since the first day she arrived in the North.

In the first few days after she arrived, there were more wounded soldiers here than she had ever seen in her entire life.

There were all kinds of injuries: broken arms and legs, burns from soul skills, and skin ulceration from poison-type soul skills.

She's busy from morning till night, sometimes not even having time to drink a sip of water.

But she never complained.

It wasn't because of any lofty ideals, nor because of any hatred of war.

She simply couldn't bear to see anyone die in front of her.

It might sound a bit sentimental, but that's really what Rapunzel thinks.

She grew up in a high tower, her only companions being the indifferent Gothia and the four stone walls. The birds that occasionally flew by outside the window and the wild grass that sprouted from the cracks in the walls were her few friends.

Her understanding of life was simple: as long as there is still a breath left, one should live on.

Of course, there is another, more practical reason.

[Reputation Points +12]

[Reputation Points +8]

[Reputation Points +15]

The numbers flashing on the system panel were the best reward. Rapunzel had completely fallen in love with the feeling after spending a few days in the wounded soldiers' camp, and her reputation points would rise every time she healed a wounded soldier.

Although the increase per battle wasn't much, the sheer volume of rewards made it all worthwhile. After a battle, thousands of soldiers were wounded, and she was busy from morning till night every day. Her reputation points skyrocketed as if she had a cheat code.

This is much more cost-effective than helping Ge Duo refine medicine at the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well before.

Refining pills is both mentally and physically demanding. It takes several days to refine a single batch of pills, and the reputation points gained are less than what you get in half a day now.

Not to mention that at the Yin-Yang Well of Ice and Fire, she was nominally Ge Duo's student, but in reality, she was just an exploited free laborer. Her hair was cut off to be used as a catalyst, her soul power was used to nourish the alchemy furnace, and in the end, all the pills she refined were labeled "Ge Duo's product," and all the reputation points went to Ge Duo. She couldn't even get a sip of soup.

Things are different now. Every time she heals a wounded soldier in the Northern Army camp, the soldier is moved to tears and thanks her profusely. The medics and nurses around her look at her with grateful eyes, and the veterans who have retired from the front lines privately call her "the blonde angel."

Every time she passed through the wounded soldiers' camp, she could hear people behind her whispering, "That's her, the healing female soul master who can heal wounds with a wave of her hand."

This feeling, how should I put it, is pretty great.

However, the reputation points were just a side effect. What truly made Rapunzel willingly work from dawn till dusk was the wondrous feeling of the power of the God of Life flowing through her body.

Her martial soul, "Golden Hair," already possessed healing power, but that power wasn't particularly strong before, so she always considered herself a control-type soul master. But everything changed after the God of Life chose her.

Each time she channeled her soul power to heal someone's wounds, the golden aura emanating from her palm would become several times more intense than the last time.

Every time she watched those bloody wounds gradually heal under her hands, her soul power seemed to come alive, even more active than during meditation and ascetic practice.

The feeling was wonderful, as if her body was telling her that this was what she should really be doing.

It wasn't just the healing effect that was getting stronger. Rapunzel could clearly feel that her total soul power was also increasing.

It's not the kind of subtle, almost imperceptible growth that comes after daily meditation, but rather a visible increase that surges upwards after every major battle.

When she first arrived in the Northern Territory, she was still hovering on the threshold of Soul Emperor. Now, her soul power has broken through level 64 and is continuing to rise at an unbelievable speed.

The core requirement of the God of Life's trial was singular: to save more lives. And this goal seemed tailor-made for her. Unlike other examinees who had to undergo various tricky and bizarre trials, she only needed to do what she did best: use her own hands to heal the wounds left by war.

With each wounded soldier she heals, her healing power increases. With each life she saves, her divine examination progress advances one level.

This is a positive cycle: the stronger the healing power, the more people it can save; the more people it saves, the greater the power the God of Life rewards it with.

So what was a disaster for others was an unprecedented opportunity for Rapunzel.

The battlefield is never short of wounded soldiers, and each wounded soldier is a stepping stone for her to ascend to godhood.

Of course, she wouldn't tell anyone this. She would just continue working in the wounded soldiers' camp, continuing to be a quiet, gentle, and detached doctor.

As soon as her thoughts drifted away, Rapunzel shook her head inwardly, suppressing those thoughts back into the depths of her consciousness, and then walked toward the next Soul Master who needed treatment.

It was an old soldier lying in the corner, his left arm neatly severed below the elbow by some kind of sharp soul skill. The cut was wrapped in a thick layer of hemostatic gauze, and blood had seeped out, staining the gauze dark brown.

The veteran didn't groan, he just closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, his lips were dry and white, and his breathing was shallow and rapid.

Chapter 517 Zhu Zhuqing's Injury

Rapunzel knelt down beside him and reached out to untie the blood-soaked gauze.

As the gauze was peeled away layer by layer, the flesh at the cut surface had turned somewhat black, which was the necrotic tissue left over from the erosion by soul power.

The veteran's temples throbbed with pain, but he gritted his teeth and remained silent, his good right hand gripping the edge of the stretcher so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

Rapunzel didn't speak. As her palm covered the broken surface, the moment the golden halo lit up, the old soldier's tightly clenched fingers suddenly loosened. It wasn't from pain, but from the comforting warmth, like soaking in a hot spring, with every pore on his body opening up.

Under the golden light, the necrotic tissue gradually faded from its black color, and fresh granulation tissue sprouted little by little from the edge of the cut. Although the severed limb could not regenerate, at least the wound would no longer fester.

"Alright." Rapunzel withdrew her hand, her voice soft. "The wound won't get worse, but my arm... I can't make it grow back."

The veteran looked down at his healed arm, remained silent for two seconds, then grinned. "Being alive is a blessing, losing an arm is nothing. Thank you, young lady."

Rapunzel nodded and stood up.

She walked toward the next wounded soldier.

The ground in the wounded soldiers' camp was muddy from days of comings and goings, a mixture of snow, mud, and dried blood, making it difficult to walk on.

The air was filled with the smell of blood, herbs, and some indescribable stench of decay—the smell of wounds that had festered for too long without being treated.

Rapunzel was already used to the smell; after spending so many days in the wounded soldiers' camp, her nose was almost numb.

When she got closer, she realized that she vaguely remembered this person.

It was a woman lying on a stretcher.

It was described as lying face down, but it was more like someone had hurriedly turned him over and placed him on a stretcher, with a coarse blanket soaked in blood underneath him.

The black, tight-fitting outfit was ripped open from the back by a sharp weapon, revealing a shocking wound underneath.

It runs diagonally from the right scapula to the left waist, like a ferocious centipede crawling on the back, with the skin and flesh at the edges rolled outwards, revealing the bone.

The blood had congealed into semi-solid, dark red lumps around the wound, but with each breath she took, new drops of blood would seep from the depths of the wound.

The woman did not faint.

Her hands gripped the edge of the stretcher tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force, her fingernails digging into the fibers of the coarse cloth.

Her forehead was covered in cold sweat, and her long, dark hair was soaked through, clinging to her pale cheeks in strands. But she didn't utter a sound from beginning to end, only clenching her teeth. Her cat-like eyes were half-closed, the pupils slightly contracted due to the intense pain, yet they remained as cold as ice.

Rapunzel recognized those eyes.

The Netherworld Cat, Zhu Zhuqing.

The quiet and agile attack-type Soul Master among the Shrek Seven Devils had met them once during the Soul Master Competition.

She never expected to run into Zhu Zhuqing here.

Shrek Academy is on the side of the anti-Soul Alliance, so it's not surprising that Zhu Zhuqing, as one of the Shrek Seven Devils, appeared in the Northern Territory.

But Rapunzel remembered that Zhu Zhuqing seemed to be from the Star Luo Empire. The Star Luo Empire had its own army and defense zone on the southern front of the alliance, so why would a Star Luo person like her come to the northern border to seek refuge with Eva?

Rapunzel didn't voice her question. The first rule she learned in the wounded soldiers' camp was not to ask where someone came from.

The people who come here include local garrison troops from the northern border, former members of the Heavenly Dou Army, stragglers who fled from the south, and wandering soul masters.

War uproots people from their original positions and throws them wherever they are. Asking too many questions will only reopen old wounds.

She knelt down beside the stretcher, stretched out her hand, and a faint golden halo shone from her palm.

The moment Zhu Zhuqing saw her squat down, a very subtle ripple flashed in her cat-like eyes. It was a hesitation—a recognition of the other person, but not quite sure if the other person had also recognized her.

Her lips moved, but she ultimately said nothing.

Rapunzel didn't speak either. She simply kept her hand focused on the gruesome wound on Zhu Zhuqing's back.

The moment the golden light fell on the edge of the wound, Zhu Zhuqing's fingers tightened sharply around the edge of the stretcher, making a soft cracking sound.