Sea God Island is located in the West Sea of the Douluo Continent. The surrounding waters are dominated by three overlords: the Evil Orca King, the Great White Shark King of the Demon Soul, and the Deep Sea Demon Whale King.
As the place where the Sea God attained godhood, the energy around Sea God Island is naturally the most concentrated. In theory, it could give birth to more than just three overlords.
However, due to the existence of the Deep Sea Demon Whale King, in the past 20,000 years, in order to break through the million-year bottleneck of transforming into a dragon, a large number of Soul Beasts with the potential to become 100,000-year Soul Beasts were swallowed into its belly before breaking through the 100,000-year bottleneck, becoming nourishment.
Only the Evil Orca King and the Great White Shark King of the Demon Soul, two Soul Beasts with top-tier bloodlines, were able to survive this cruel competition and finally break through the 100,000-year bottleneck.
The former was because the members of the Evil Orca clan were all powerful in combat. In groups, even the Deep Sea Demon Whale King was unwilling to provoke them easily, and they finally survived the period of achieving 100,000 years.
The latter's clan was weaker than the Evil Orcas, but it also had the protection of the Sea God Island's Sea Soul Beasts, so it didn't need to worry as much.
Overall, even the Deep Sea Demon Whale King wouldn't dare to say it could easily take them down.
But with the vastness of the sea, there was always room for other Soul Beasts to survive.
In the sea area radiating thousands of kilometers away from Sea God Island, the energy concentration dropped significantly, but with a larger number base, there were always Sea Soul Beasts that could reach the 100,000-year level.
And in the North Sea area of the Douluo Continent, there was a race that had long believed in the Sea God and lived in seclusion from the world—the Mermaid race.
This race had the upper body of a human and the lower body of a fish, the mermaids of human legends. You Chen preferred to call them the Mermaid race directly.
And the leader of the Mermaid race was known as the Sea Princess.
The current Sea Princess had lived until ten thousand years later, and in this era, she also had a terrifying cultivation of 590,000 years.
After all, it wasn't the vicinity of Sea God Island, and the energy concentration wasn't that high. In addition, the Sea Princess no longer needed to improve her strength to maintain her position among the Soul Beasts in the North Sea, so she wasn't in a hurry to improve her cultivation. After all, every time a Ferocious Beast broke through the 100,000-year bottleneck, it would face a terrifying Heavenly Tribulation a thousand years later. Before truly surviving it, no one knew if their hard work was just rushing to be reborn.
Although the bloodline of the Sea Princess as a Soul Beast was not as good as top-tier Sea Soul Beasts like the Evil Orca, it could definitely be called a quasi-top-tier Soul Beast.
A cultivation of 590,000 years was enough to rival a human level 98 Soul Master. In the sea, even an Ultimate Douluo could barely maneuver. Once this Sea Princess made another breakthrough and possessed a cultivation of 600,000 years, she would probably be able to confront an Ultimate Douluo head-on in the sea.
In terms of overall strength, the Sea Princess was definitely above the Evil Orca King.
But for You Chen, the difficulty of dealing with her wouldn't be too different.
Because compared to the Evil Orca King, the Sea Princess had a huge weakness: her physique.
It was difficult to judge human Soul Masters, but among Soul Beasts, the smaller the individual, the lower the physical strength.
If the physical strength of the Evil Orca King belonged to the first echelon under the Ultimate Douluo level, then the physical strength of the Sea Princess, whose overall strength was comparable to a level 98 human Soul Master, was probably at the bottom of the Super Douluo level.
Weak defense and weak vitality.
The Evil Orca King's size might be something that ordinary Super Douluos couldn't kill even after fighting for a long time, but the Sea Princess's size, which might only be a minor injury to the Evil Orca King, might mean half of her body was gone.
With You Chen's assassination ability comparable to a Grand Assassin, it was entirely possible to kill her in one fell swoop before the Sea Princess could even react.
On the other hand, a large part of the Sea Princess's strength was due to her powerful Spiritual Power. Spiritual Power was the greatest strength of this kind of Soul Beast.
But for You Chen, Spiritual Power was also his strength. Even if it was inferior to this Sea Princess, relying on the Star Tower in his spiritual sea for protection, he wouldn't be afraid of the opponent's spiritual attacks at all, directly reducing the Sea Princess's threat level.
And You Chen was a hexagonal player. Even if Spiritual Power couldn't play a role, other aspects were still at least at the upper-middle level of Super Douluo, enough to threaten the Sea Princess.
The most important thing to pay attention to when dealing with the Sea Princess was not the Sea Princess herself, but the Soul Beast groups that guarded her.
The Sea Princess could use the racial talent Soul Skill, Mermaid's Song, to connect the Soul Power of many Sea Soul Beasts, achieving an effect similar to the Soul Power fusion of seven-in-one in the original work.
This allowed many 10,000-year Soul Beasts and even 1,000-year Soul Beasts that originally couldn't pose a threat to You Chen to hinder him.
If she was surrounded by many other Soul Beasts when fighting the Sea Princess, it was very likely that You Chen would have to spend a lot of energy dealing with these Soul Beasts.
Just like You Chen had the Star Tower and didn't worry about the Sea Princess's spiritual attacks, You Chen couldn't guarantee that his group spiritual attacks would be weakened under the connection of the Mermaid's Song, thus failing to work.
What's more, the Sea Princess was a 590,000-year Ferocious Beast, and it couldn't be ruled out that she had other 100,000-year subordinate Soul Beasts. You Chen could indeed instantly kill ordinary 100,000-year Soul Beasts, but this would require the use of some high-consumption moves, and it couldn't be guaranteed that the Sea Princess wouldn't seize the opportunity to attack other 100,000-year Soul Beasts and cause a fatal blow to him.
So the best thing to do was to find an opportunity when the Sea Princess was alone and kill her before the other guarding Soul Beasts could rush to her rescue.
However, killing the Sea Princess, if it couldn't be guaranteed that no news would leak out, almost meant falling out with Sea God Island.
The Mermaid race had always been repulsed by humans, but after all, they and Sea God Island had pure faith in the Sea God.
And the Sea God was also a human Soul Master before becoming a god. Whether the Mermaid race hated Sea God Island Soul Masters as much as they hated other humans was a big question mark.
No, there was no need to question it.
From Sea Maiden Douluo, this Saint Pillar Douluo who belonged to the Mermaid race and was half-human and half-Sea Soul Beast, it could be seen that there must be a close connection between the two sides.
Killing the Sea Princess, unless it was truly a stealthy assassination that no one knew about, You Chen couldn't possibly avoid leaking any information about himself with the number of Sea Soul Beasts here.
In addition, he had just hunted the Evil Orca King not long ago. Sea God Island would definitely connect these two Soul Beasts who had successively hunted 100,000-year Soul Beasts and Ferocious Beasts, and even directly regard them as the same person.
So would You Chen stop here and choose other Soul Beasts as his target?
Of course not!
This Sea Princess, whether it was the Soul Skill produced or the Spirit Ring age, You Chen was extremely satisfied, how could he miss it?
The Spirit Ring's improvement to Soul Masters was nothing more than Soul Power, physical strength, and Spiritual Power.
The former two went without saying. As for Spiritual Power, it wasn't only by absorbing the Spirit Ring of those spiritual Soul Beasts that it could be improved.
Even a ten-year Spirit Ring had the effect of improving the Soul Master's Spiritual Power. However, Soul Beasts under 10,000 years of age generally didn't have high intelligence, and the corresponding Spiritual Power improvement was negligible.
There were two factors why Soul Masters in the old era regarded 10,000 years as the best age for the fifth Spirit Ring.
One was that regardless of the age, every time a Soul Master put on a Spirit Ring, it was equivalent to installing a Martial Soul stabilizer, which not only restricted the barbaric growth of the Martial Soul's origin, but also protected the Soul Master. When absorbing the Spirit Ring, whether it was the shock from the unrefined Spirit Ring or the subsequent spiritual impact, it would be weakened accordingly.
This was also one of the reasons why the more Spirit Rings there were, the higher the age that could be absorbed in the next ring. The best limit age for each ring was close to doubling. The first few rings were fine, but it was still the same for the later 10,000-year Spirit Rings. A large part of the credit should be attributed to the restrictive effect of the previous Spirit Rings.
Why did You Chen clearly use the Soul Power Borrowing Technique, and the age of the second ring was 40,000 years, but the third ring only increased by 20,000 years, reaching only 60,000 years?
It could be seen from the insufficient stability of the Martial Soul's origin during the first three rings mentioned earlier that it was precisely because the Martial Soul's origin was not stable enough when absorbing the first three Spirit Rings that the ability to cope with the shock of the unrefined Spirit Ring was very poor.
And from the fourth ring onwards, after the Martial Soul's origin was completely stabilized, the calculation formula for the best age of the Spirit Ring began to be significantly affected by the number of Spirit Rings.
With the help of the Soul Power Borrowing Technique, You Chen was absorbing the fourth ring as if he was using the Soul Power strength of a level 60 Soul Emperor to break through. In addition, his Martial Soul quality, terrifying physique, and heaven-defying Spiritual Power, the best age was enough to reach 150,000 years, and the best age for the fifth ring could be around 300,000 years. It was not a problem to absorb a 600,000-year Spirit Ring for this sixth ring.
Even without the Spirit Ring age doubling card that ignored the Spirit Ring burden, You Chen's seventh ring was enough to absorb a million-year Spirit Ring, the true limit age of the Spirit Ring in theory!
However, at that time, the total Spirit Ring age that You Chen's second body would bear would reach 1.9 million years, close to 2 million years!
Bearing a 2 million-year Spirit Ring with the cultivation of a Soul Saint...
Unless You Chen subsequently relied on his first body to successively break through the two major bottlenecks of Titled Douluo and Ultimate Douluo, undergoing two sublimations of life level, or the Godly Elephant Suppressing Prison Strength had a huge breakthrough, I'm afraid the second body would not be able to attach any more Spirit Rings.
A little off topic, let's go back to the question of regarding 10,000 years as the best age for the fifth ring.
The second factor was naturally the Spiritual Power improvement from absorbing the first few rings.
Even if it wasn't as good as the Spiritual Power improvement of Spirit Rings above 10,000 years, after four Spirit Rings, plus the fact that humans' natural Spiritual Power talent was far superior to Soul Beasts, there was a high probability that the Spiritual Power would reach the Spiritual Communication Realm, which was the so-called 100 points of Spiritual Power in later generations.
In addition, with the resistance to Spiritual Power shock from the four Spirit Rings, normally, a 10,000-year Spirit Ring could be successfully attached as the fifth Spirit Ring.
And the Sea Princess, the target that You Chen was now preparing to hunt for a Spirit Ring, was a Soul Beast with Spiritual Power as its main attribute.
After absorbing this Spirit Ring, You Chen's Spiritual Power would definitely be able to directly enter the late stage of the Spiritual Domain Realm and walk a not-so-short distance.
And a better result would be that the Sea Princess directly dropped a head Spirit Bone. In this way, after absorbing her head Spirit Bone, You Chen's Spiritual Power would definitely be able to reach the peak of the Spiritual Domain Realm, and there was a good chance that he would directly cross the threshold of the Divine Origin Realm. If You Chen added the Tears of Autumn Water that he had deliberately saved until now, this good chance could be boldly increased to 100%.
Spiritual Power greatly affected the Soul Master's thinking speed and insight, indirectly improving the talent in many aspects such as comprehending the Martial Soul's origin.
Using Divine Sense for research and study would definitely greatly improve the efficiency of You Chen's subsequent cultivation plans.
Under various factors, You Chen was determined to get the Sea Princess.
Following the direction indicated by the sea chart, You Chen soon began to hurry on his way again.
Flying from the West Sea to the North Sea took You Chen a full day, even at his speed.
The output of resources in this world, such as rare minerals and marine plants, was more likely to occur in places with higher energy concentrations.
This was also why the West Sea of the Douluo Continent had become the most popular sea area for exploration fleets in the past half year.
And this North Sea was the second most popular sea area after the West Sea.
However, just like the Sea God Island's Soul Masters disguised as pirates to plunder fleets in the West Sea, greatly discouraging the enthusiasm of adventurers, in this North Sea, a large number of Soul Beasts began to attack ships in an organized and systematic manner.
In addition, pirates were rampant in the less resource-rich South Sea and East Sea.
Now, You Chen directly regarded all pirates as Sea God Island's Soul Masters.
Although Sea God Island was located in the West Sea area, it was nominally the controller of the entire sea, the holy land in the hearts of all Sea Soul Masters, and it was not surprising that its tentacles spread throughout the East, West, North, and South Seas.
You Chen even suspected that in this North Sea area, there were Sea Soul Masters directly colluding with the Soul Beasts ruled by the Sea Princess.
However, these were not problems that You Chen needed to deal with at the moment.
Although many Soul Master fleets returned in defeat, they also explored many situations in the North Sea area.
The Crystal Palace was seen by a Soul Master whose ship was destroyed by Sea Soul Masters, chased by many Sea Soul Beasts, and fled back in a panic.
According to his description, it was a palace hidden in the deep sea.
Although the specific location was somewhat vague due to the panicked escape, Beast Soul Commerce still measured the approximate location based on his escape route.
As for on-site investigation? You Chen couldn't bear to let his good employees waste their time in such a dangerous place.
Although this layer of verification was lacking, and it couldn't be ruled out that the person was lying in order to earn intelligence money, You Chen was willing to believe it when he thought of the title of Sea Princess.
It seemed that only the Mermaid race in the North Sea was qualified to live in such a place.
No mistake, first release in 69shu.
And if that Soul Master really lied and You Chen made a trip for nothing... then naturally he could only be evaporated from the world.
Yes, evaporated from the world in the literal sense. Ignis should be very happy to take on this task.
As he went deeper into the North Sea, You Chen gradually began to believe that the Soul Master was indeed not lying.
Because, along the approximate location measured by Beast Soul Commerce, he began to clearly see the traces of the several Soul Beast groups that were attached to the Mermaid race.
And under his meticulous Microscopic perception, the energy concentration was also gradually increasing.
This gave him more and more of a feeling of "going deep into the core."
You Chen didn't rush to continue going deeper. He carefully wandered around the positions of several Soul Beast groups and observed them. He immediately discovered that they vaguely presented a formation of outer ring guards.
His eyes lit up. He took out the sea chart, drew on it, added the positions of several groups, and modified and adjusted some wrong landmark positions. Then, he used the method of calculating the center of the circle to mark a new "Crystal Palace" location.
The difference between the two Crystal Palace landmarks on the map was only a few centimeters, but in reality, it was probably a difference of hundreds of kilometers.
If You Chen's calculations were correct, and he was a little unlucky, he might really have to search for a long time in this vast sea.
After all, this Crystal Palace was located under the sea, in deep water, and it was not as convenient to investigate as the landmarks on the surface.
Then, just as You Chen calculated, he concealed his aura and successfully found the location of the Crystal Palace.
The size of this Crystal Palace was even larger than the Soul Master described. Rather than a palace, it was more like a huge underwater ruin hidden in a trench. Its area was close to a small city.
If he wanted to find the Sea Princess's location, the fastest way was naturally to sweep with Spiritual Power.
But You Chen would have to be crazy to do that.
That would be equivalent to directly giving up his advantage as an assassin hidden in the dark.
If he really wanted to see the Sea Princess, he didn't need to be so troublesome at all.
The Mermaid race, along with their vassal groups, had a very high sense of companionship compared to the three overlord Soul Beast groups of Sea God Island.
Just to lure the Sea Princess out, to put it extremely, You Chen could completely kill 1,000-year Soul Beasts near the coast of the North Sea of the Douluo Continent, attracting 10,000-year Soul Beasts, killing 10,000-year Soul Beasts, attracting tens of thousands of years of Soul Beasts... and so on, directly fishing out the Sea Princess.
But at that time, not to mention that the Soul Beasts would gather into a large army, it might even attract support from Sea God Island.
Sweeping directly with Spiritual Power, although it wouldn't cause such an exaggerated consequence, the essence was the same.
With the Sea Princess's Spiritual Power, which was very likely stronger than his current one, it was hard to say who would discover whom.
You Chen had gone to such great lengths, collecting information in advance and exploring in person, wasn't it all to be as secretive as possible and not alarm others and other forces?
Now that things had come to this, he would naturally repeat the old trick, just like he used his clone to pay attention to the Evil Orca King's Spiritual Power consumption, and directly use his sensory abilities to find the Sea Princess's location.
Thinking this, You Chen directly plunged into the water with a plop and swam towards the depths of the trench.
With You Chen's five senses, even in an uncomfortable environment like underwater, he felt like a superhero.
Clearly, he hadn't activated the full map of Divine Power, yet he was still able to perceive the surroundings with clarity, knowing exactly when and where someone might appear.
It didn't take long for You Chen to find a safe location, where he split into six Starlight Avatars.
The essence of these Starlight Avatars remained soul power. With You Chen's current control over soul power, he quickly shaped them into the forms of soul beasts found in this underwater Crystal Palace.
From the size of the main entrance of the Crystal Palace, it was evident that the larger soul beasts, such as the Sea Demon Elephant and the Sea Whale, were excluded from moving around inside.
Considering the role of the guards, the primary soul beasts were likely from the more agile species, mainly the Sea Knife Fish and the Seahorse clans.
You Chen's avatars also transformed into these two types of soul beasts, swiftly navigating through the Crystal Palace, trying to locate the core palace as best as they could.
The six avatars moved ahead like patrol ships, while You Chen himself nestled in the center of the search circle formed by the six avatars.
The reason for choosing stealth instead of playing the role of a patroller to extract information from other patrollers was twofold: first, this method was inefficient for searching, and second, being questioned could easily reveal his true identity.
By using avatars, he could still maneuver in case of unexpected discovery.
As long as he wasn't identified as a human intruder, even if he were temporarily captured, it would have no impact on You Chen; instead, it could divert some of the patrollers' attention.
The journey deeper was surprisingly smooth.
You Chen noticed that the number of guards around had significantly decreased, but the quality had greatly increased.
The Sea Soul Beasts he encountered were increasingly elite, and among them were likely some strong enough to contend with soul fighters.
The figures of the mermaid clan gradually began to dominate.
You Chen naturally became vigilant, as this indicated he was getting closer to the core area of the Crystal Palace.
At that moment, after not encountering any other Sea Soul Beasts, he suddenly turned a corner and came face to face with love.
Without any warning, without a hint of footsteps or ripples in the water, one of You Chen's avatars collided with a mermaid wearing a crown at the corner.
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