"Hahaha—"
The Flowing Flame Crimson Dragon's body danced through the air, the flames around it rapidly forming blazing storms as it flew.
The surface of the Chaotic Star Sea's waters boiled rapidly, and the fish spirit beasts that had luckily survived the black poison quickly dove to the seabed.
With the blazing storm's enhancement, all the poisonous gas within the entire sea region was instantly burned away.
"Brother Centipede, you and I are both overlords of the Northern Sea—we should advance and retreat together. Today, I'll solve this little problem for you, and you can repay the beast debt later."
The Flowing Flame Crimson Dragon still had some feelings for the Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipede. After all, they were both Northern Sea overlords. If the Chaotic Star Sea were occupied by humans, her deep flame territory in the Northern Sea would also be affected.
"Sister Dragon, I don't have time to repay your beast debt. Little ones, no matter the cost, find that human and kill him!"
The Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipede led thousands of sea spirit beasts in pursuit toward the periphery of the Chaotic Star Sea, while the Flowing Flame Crimson Dragon just chuckled lightly:
"A hundred-thousand-year spirit beast, overlord of thousands of sea spirit beasts, actually being led around by the nose by a human—truly damages the dignity of spirit beasts."
The Flowing Flame Crimson Dragon disappeared into the clouds again, flying toward the depths of the Northern Sea and her exclusive territory. She had been awakened by that "damned" dragon centipede's calls and hadn't slept enough yet. She had to go back for a beauty sleep.
When the Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipede reached the periphery of the Chaotic Star Sea at the Western Sea border, it found the area completely empty—even Ignaz's human scent had disappeared.
"Find him! That detestable human can't have run far!"
...
Meanwhile, Ignaz, who had already distanced himself thirty to forty miles from the Northern Sea, saw a medium-sized island ahead.
"Go there!"
The Violent Bite Shark sensibly swam in the direction Ignaz pointed.
After Ignaz landed on the island, he took out a piece of Land Dragon Golden Melon rind and half of the Demon Whale's meat, throwing them in front of the Violent Bite Shark.
"Thank you. This is your payment!"
Ignaz cupped his hands to express gratitude, then walked toward the island's interior without looking back. His spiritual power swept across, taking in the entire island's scenery at a glance.
Aside from two or three thousand-year bird and snake spirit beasts, the rest were just some lower-year insect spirit beasts.
He found a relatively quiet, safe cave. After simply smearing some ten-thousand-year spirit beast blood around the cave's perimeter, he eagerly took out all eleven Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipedes.
At this moment, among the eleven spirit beast corpses, the thousand-year spirit rings on eight bodies had already dissipated—these were the thousand-year Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipedes that had died first.
The remaining three ten-thousand-year spirit beasts had purple spirit rings flickering around them, as if they might dissipate at any moment.
Seeing this, Ignaz didn't hesitate. He quickly walked to the ten-meter-long, 45,000-year Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipede's corpse and sat cross-legged.
He channeled his internal spirit power, drawing the 45,000-year spirit ring that might disappear at any moment onto himself. The massive energy contained within the spirit ring surged into Ignaz's body like torrential waves.
The dying remnant consciousness of the 45,000-year Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipede also flooded into Ignaz's spiritual sea.
However, after just a moment, the Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipede's remnant consciousness was shredded and completely devoured by the Blood Thunder War Spear.
Ignaz's spirit ring absorption process was remarkably smooth—only the moment when the spirit ring's energy suddenly surged into his body was somewhat painful. The entire subsequent absorption process remained under his control.
Within half an hour, Ignaz stood up excitedly and summoned the Blood Thunder War Spear. A faint blood dragon phantom coiled around the spear shaft, and a pair of small front claws resembling a one-year-old baby's hands had appeared.
The blood rust at the spear tip had turned dark red under the Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipede's poison attribute effect, with multiple blood lightning arcs surrounding it.
Ignaz gripped the Blood Thunder War Spear and thrust it explosively toward the cave wall.
CRASH—
Many rocks fell throughout the cave, and a spear hole about one meter deep appeared before Ignaz. When he looked closer, the stone wall inside the spear hole showed secondary damage.
Countless stone particles retained lightning arcs and traces of blood rust.
"Hahaha—"
"The blood rust poison of the war spear is finally complete!"
In Ignaz's plan, rust was an inherent characteristic of his martial soul, and adding poison-attribute spirit rings to it was necessary.
Now with two added, he was quite satisfied. Two poison-attribute spirit rings could fully activate the Blood Thunder War Spear's most essential killing blood attribute—after all, blood poison was also a type of poison.
"I wonder what effect my martial soul would have when striking actual flesh and blood?"
Just as he was preparing to drain all the fresh blood from the spirit beasts, Ignaz turned back to look. Within the 45,000-year Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipede whose spirit ring he had absorbed, there was still residual spirit power energy—and this energy was particularly strong.
Ignaz was overjoyed. "Excellent! Looks like a spirit bone dropped! I wonder what part spirit bone the Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipede could produce?"
He quickly pulled out a dagger and cut open the Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipede's belly. A light red, wide spirit bone revealed its true form.
"Looking at this length, width, and specific shape—this really is a torso spirit bone! Among the six major spirit bones, second only to the head spirit bone."
Though Ignaz had already anticipated it would be a torso spirit bone, when he held it in his hands, his mood was quite excited. After all, this was the first spirit bone dropped from his spirit beast hunting.
However, after the excitement faded, Ignaz stored the torso spirit bone away. He already had backup options for torso spirit bones.
Ignaz walked toward the other ten corpses. Even though they had no spirit power fluctuations within them, he still had to search—he couldn't miss any chance to obtain spirit bones. After all, these Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipedes had almost all died the same way.
But after examining them, he found no other spirit bones whatsoever.
"Sure enough, spirit bone drop rates are just low!"
Ignaz looked at the eleven spirit beast corpses present and stored one ten-thousand-year and two thousand-year corpses in his storage spirit tool.
Ignaz cut his finger, letting several drops of fresh blood fall onto the Blood Thunder War Spear. All the blood energy within the eight Nine-Heavens Dragon Centipedes in the cave transformed into streams of blood mist that surged into the war spear.
The blood dragon's crimson scales became brighter and more distinctly layered.
Just as he walked toward the seaside to check if the Violent Bite Shark was still there—
At that moment, on the not-too-distant sea surface, a Violent Bite Shark with several black scales on its dorsal fin was chasing a Giant King Squid that was 1,000 years older than it.
"A four-thousand-year Giant King Squid—I'll use you for practice! Perfect for adding to my meal."