As they pressed deeper into the ancient forest, the journey transformed.
Each of Dugu Bo's children, guided carefully by the Elders, began to experience real battles for the first time — no longer just sparring or exercises, but life-and-death clashes with Spirit Beasts appropriate to their level.
Under the watchful eyes of their elders, they fought, bled, learned, and grew.
Their formations became tighter.
Their trust in each other deepened.
They moved, ate, fought, and slept with the unspoken cohesion of a unit forged by shared struggle.
By the time they neared their true destination, they were no longer merely a group of gifted youths.
They were becoming a family in more than blood — bound by fire and battle.
And then they reached it.
The outer edge of the domain where only the most ancient and terrifying Spirit Beasts roamed — those whose cultivation ages soared to 100,000 years and beyond.
Beasts whose very presence distorted the natural flow of Spirit Energy around them.
The forest grew unnaturally quiet as they approached.
The trees thickened, their roots and branches gnarled with age, glowing faintly with ambient Spirit Power.
The air itself felt heavier, thicker, like they were walking into the lungs of some slumbering god.
It was then that they saw it.
Floating above a sun-dappled clearing, radiant and terrible, was a creature beyond anything they had ever faced.
A massive butterfly, its wings easily spanning dozens of meters, each one shimmering with impossible hues — gold, silver, violet, emerald, all blending in hypnotic patterns that seemed to twist reality itself.
But it wasn't just its beauty that staggered them.
The pressure it radiated was overwhelming — an ocean of Spirit Energy so vast that it pressed down on their bodies like a physical force.
Xin stumbled first, his face draining of color.
The moment the butterfly turned its gaze toward them, a direct beam of Spirit Power crashed into his senses like a hammer.
He barely managed to turn aside before he doubled over and vomited violently onto the ground, his body reacting instinctively to the sensory overload.
Even Dugu Bo's expression tightened slightly, his muscles tensing, Spirit Power instinctively rising to shield the younger ones.
It was at that moment that a voice echoed across the clearing — a voice smooth, genderless, and filled with an ancient, weary disdain.
"Humans..."
The butterfly's wings beat once, and the forest trembled under the pressure.
The trees bent, as if bowing in submission.
This was not an ordinary Spirit Beast.
This was an ancient monarch, a being who had transcended simple survival and claimed its domain.
Before Dugu Bo could act, before the pressure could crush them further, the forest itself seemed to shift — the heavy, suffocating Spirit Power suddenly calming, like a storm slowing into a heavy mist.
From within Dugu Bo's Spirit Sea, Manchineel materialized into the real world without being summoned, stepping forward into the clearing with the effortless authority of an ancient king.
His form shimmered with a deep green and gold light, his aura bringing tranquility to the chaos, not through violence, but through sheer presence.
Even the massive butterfly's wings stilled slightly, the overwhelming pressure easing, as if the forest itself were bowing in recognition of an equal.
The butterfly's ancient, tired voice spoke again, this time carrying a thin thread of surprise — and familiarity:
"Old Tree..."
The massive being tilted its wings slightly, as if studying Manchineel more closely through timeless eyes.
Manchineel gave a soft chuckle, the sound like the creaking of old wood in a deep forest breeze.
He offered no bow, no sign of submission — only the quiet acknowledgment due to an old peer.
"Old Qian," Manchineel replied, amusement threading his voice.
"It seems you've been defeated by humans. How surprising." The butterfly — Old Qian, as Manchineel called him — gave a slow, echoing laugh, full of weariness rather than anger.
"Haha," Old Tree said, his voice resonating through the clearing,
"If I had been defeated... we would not be having this conversation."
He pulsed his Spirit Power once, briefly, not as a threat but as proof of his still overwhelming strength.
"I bonded with this human," Old Tree continued, his voice softer now, "not out of defeat... but choice."
A pause.
The massive butterfly seemed to shimmer more brightly for a moment, the colors of his wings deepening with emotion.
"It grew... lonely, in the heart of the Swamp," he admitted, voice heavy. "The world outside changes, rots, blooms anew — and yet we endure. Watching. Forgotten. The friends we both once had thousands of years ago are all dead. You, Old Ho, Old Nin, and Myself are all thats left."
He turned his luminous gaze toward Dugu Bo and the children behind him.
"No only that but, I felt there was no further progression in my cultivation," Old Tree said, a deep sadness hidden beneath his immense power.
"Sure, I grew stronger each century, my Spirit Energy denser, my control finer... but it felt like standing on the shore of a vast endless ocean with no bridge to the other side."
Listening quietly Old Qian beat his wings once, and Spirit Power rolled outward like a gentle breeze, carrying not malice, but longing.
"No matter how high I climbed in age... There was no pathway beyond the one million year cultivation age. I was Trapped by the limits of cultivation."
What he did not know is Spirit Beasts were prevented from advancing by the divine—a ceiling most never realized.
And so, faced with eternal stagnation and crushing loneliness, Old Tree had chosen the only real path forward.
He had chosen to bond.
To join with a human.
To gamble his future on something new, something beyond the endless repetition of time.
Qian looked at Old Tree and nodded slowly, the gesture one of deep understanding rather than simple agreement.
"I have felt it as well," Qian said, his voice low, carrying the weariness of countless years.
"The stronger I grow, the tighter the shackle around my neck becomes."
He lifted his gaze toward the canopy, his silver-green wings fluttering softly as he looked beyond the forest ceiling, beyond the mortal world itself.
"It seems," he continued, a faint bitterness lacing his ancient voice,
"That once we reach a certain point, the Tribulations no longer offer a chance to ascend."
He exhaled slowly, a sound like the sigh of a thousand-year-old tree swaying in the wind.
"They come instead to kill us."
A heavy silence fell between the two spirits, thick with the weight of shared suffering.
"Truly," Qian murmured,
"We go against the Heavens themselves."
For a long moment, they stood there, the two ancient beings — forgotten kings of a crumbling era — gazing up at a sky that no longer held any promises for their kind.
Old Qian's massive wings quivered faintly, the colors dimming with remembered pain.
Then Manchineel spoke again, his voice quieter but no less firm:
"There is only one way for us Spirit Beasts to rise higher now," he said,
"Only one path left to ascend beyond our shackles."
His gaze returned to the butterfly's great, luminous eyes, unflinching.
"And that is to fuse with a human."
The words, spoken aloud, seemed to ripple through the clearing — not just a statement, but a truth etched into the very fabric of the world.
Manchineel gestured subtly toward Dugu Bo, standing silently behind him.
"At first," Manchineel admitted, "when this human—Bo — suggested it, I felt deep apprehension. Doubt."
Old Qian tilted his great head slightly, listening.
"But I have seen — and felt — real progress since bonding with him.
Manchineel's voice grew softer, almost coaxing:
"You, too, Old Qian," he said.
"You could reclaim your path — not simply sit here growing older, and heavier, without a true goal."
He turned slightly, gesturing toward one of the humans standing respectfully to the side — a figure slightly older than Bo, clad in Dugu Clan colors, steady and serious beyond his years.
"This one," Manchineel said,
"Dugu Jian. He is Rank 90 and with your help, he would break through to Titled Douluo."
"With him, you could achieve true progression again," Old Tree said. "Not merely surviving the centuries — but ascending beyond them."
Behind Manchineel, Jian stiffened slightly, realizing he was being presented—offered, even—to one of the oldest and most powerful Spirit Beasts he had ever seen.
Old Qian stood in contemplative silence and made no objection then turned to Jian without hesitation completely trusting his old friend.
His presence alone caused a visceral shift in the air — like the crushing weight of a mountain.
Jian, despite his discipline and pride, staggered slightly. His knees buckled under the pressure of Qian's direct gaze, and he dropped to one knee.
Qian approached, voice calm and solemn.
"Very well," he said. "Just tell me what I have to do."
The words were simple, but they sealed a pact that would alter the balance of everything.
Old Tree stepped forward, guiding the process.
Qian began to dissolve, his form shifting from physical to spiritual, unraveling into glowing threads of emerald and silver energy.
Jian's body tensed — his veins lighting up with Spirit Power that surged far beyond anything he'd ever known.
Three pulses of different colored light, spiraled into his body like comets.
Qian's Spirit Bones.
Long preserved, honed by battle and time, they fused into Jian's arms, chest, and skull — powerful relics of an ancient soul now entrusted to a human vessel.
Jian's body arched back, glowing from within as his Spirit Power exploded outward.
Lightning tore across the skies above the forest.
The clouds swirled in a vortex of golden and silver light.
The breakthrough from Rank 90 to 91.
The birth of a Titled Douluo.
And not just any — a Titled Douluo forged in harmony with a Spirit Soul over one million years old.
The air screamed.
The earth trembled.
Beasts fled in all directions.
All across Aurellan, cultivators paused in their training, eyes snapping open.
They felt it — a ripple that rolled through the land like a divine bell tolling.
And in one secluded palace chamber far from the forest, the Glowing Feather Douluo stood at a tall window, watching the golden clouds forming in the distant sky.
His eyes narrowed.
He scoffed quietly, voice like cold steel wrapped in silk.
"It would seem..." he said, "...things just got a little more difficult."