Douluo: Emerald Poison Emperor

Just by looking at it, Chen Ming felt that there was probably some kinship between his Emerald Scorpion Emperor and the Ice Jade Scorpion. Perhaps tens of thousands or even a million years ago, the Ice Jade Scorpion lineage was a branch of the Emerald Scorpion. However, due to developing ice attributes through mutation, they migrated to the extreme northern lands. After countless generations and the passage of time, they completely shed their venomous traits and evolved into the current Ice Jade Scorpion.

Logically speaking, the Ice Jade Scorpion's soul ring has extremely high requirements, and its soul bones can only be absorbed by those with pure ice attributes.

But the problem lies in this: although he currently does not possess ice attributes, for various reasons, it is not entirely impossible for him to absorb the soul ring of a ten-thousand-year Ice Jade Scorpion.

Moreover, considering the quality of the Ice Jade Scorpion and the power displayed by the Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion martial soul in Hu Yuhao's hands after ten thousand years, Chen Ming was slightly tempted.

"Why not give it a try and absorb the Ice Jade Scorpion's soul ring?"

But he needed to maintain a balance between ice and fire to acquire the Eight Petal Immortal Orchid and the Infernal Delicate Apricot. These two herbs would temper his body with ice and fire. If he absorbed the Ice Jade Scorpion's soul ring, the extreme ice quality would surely add a significant ice attribute to his martial soul beyond its existing poison and death attributes.

If that happened, he would likely lose the ability to interact with the Infernal Delicate Apricot. If he only consumed the Eight Petal Immortal Orchid, he might reach the level of ultimate ice attributes and also gain a potent cold poison, which seemed like it could solve the fundamental problem of his poison attribute being weak against ice and fire.

"Not a bad idea."

"Master Chrysanthemum, Master Ghost, why don't we lure this scorpion soul beast to a more distant location first and see what abilities it has before deciding?"

"Sure, let's watch and see."

Although the extreme northern lands are a sanctuary for ice-attribute soul beasts and greatly enhance their ice properties, the quality of that scorpion, which is likely on par with the Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear, would undoubtedly make it formidable under the enhancement of the northern lands.

However, after Chen Ming obtained the seeds of the Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum Douluo managed to resolve part of his inner conflict. With the resonance of his martial soul, he successfully broke through from level 94 to level 95.

As Ghost Douluo had mentioned previously, if one of them broke through first, the other would surely be pulled forward as well. Therefore, Ghost Douluo also broke through the barrier from level 94 to 95.

The progress from level 94 to 95 is far greater than from level 93 to 94. Not only did their soul power increase significantly, but even their martial souls improved in quality, becoming true super martial souls. Their martial soul fusion ability became almost twice as effective.

A mere ten-thousand-year ice-attribute scorpion? Even if it were a hundred-thousand-year ice-attribute scorpion or two of them, the current Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo wouldn't feel any fear.

Of course, this was before the soul masters of this era became aware of the existence of the three kings of the extreme northern lands.

Currently, the Ice Empress has a cultivation age of around 380,000 years, having survived three tribulations. Its strength is roughly equivalent to a level 97 titled Douluo and, under the enhancement of the extreme northern lands, could hold its own against a level 98 titled Douluo.

Within the Ice Jade Scorpion clan, the Ice Empress is not the only beast of such caliber. There are also several hundred-thousand-year soul beasts and tribulation-surviving beasts.

However, these beings all reside in the core region of the extreme northern lands. The Ice Empress, busy preparing for its next tribulation, had no time for other matters. The hundred-thousand-year soul beasts and tribulation-level beasts also had their territories and would not wander recklessly.

As a result, unless they went too far, hunting this Ice Jade Scorpion wouldn't cause much trouble.

Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo discussed the matter briefly. Ghost Douluo soon scouted the area using his concealment ability and found a grove inhabited by only a few ordinary thousand-year ice-attribute soul beasts. After some planning, they decided to lure the Ice Jade Scorpion into the grove and deal with it there.

For some reason, Chen Ming seemed fated to encounter groves or canyons whenever hunting soul rings. Nine out of ten times, he would end up in such places.

Chrysanthemum Douluo hid with Chen Ming in the grove, while the agile Ghost Douluo provoked the Ice Jade Scorpion, luring it toward the grove. About thirty to forty minutes later, Ghost Douluo successfully enraged the Ice Jade Scorpion, which followed him furiously into the grove.

A ten-thousand-year soul beast possesses intelligence comparable to humans. However, their growth process often makes these theoretically intelligent creatures act somewhat naive or even slightly foolish.

As the Ice Jade Scorpion approached the grove, it paused briefly, sensing that this seemed like a trap set by its enemies.

Yet, as a member of the Ice Jade Scorpion clan, one of the three kings of the extreme northern lands, its pride was immense.

This particular Ice Jade Scorpion had just passed the ten-thousand-year mark and was at a stage where it had intelligence but found it difficult to set aside its pride. In simple terms, it had trapped itself in a situation where retreat would be too humiliating.

As a result, even though it sensed something was off, it used its pride as a justification to push forward and charge into the grove head-on.

If an older Ice Jade Scorpion had been present, nine out of ten of them would have lovingly smacked this young one on the head, letting it reflect quietly beneath the ice for a while.

Unfortunately, this Ice Jade Scorpion had ventured out from the core area of the extreme northern lands on its own, with no other Ice Jade Scorpions nearby.

After entering the grove and noticing that the small bug it had been chasing had suddenly stopped running, the Ice Jade Scorpion raised its pincers high and slammed them heavily onto the ice. Dozens of ice pillars of varying sizes erupted from the ground, stabbing fiercely toward Ghost Douluo.

This attack was impressive in both execution and power. Under the enhancement of the extreme northern lands, even a typical Soul Sage wouldn't dare to casually withstand these ice pillars rising from the ground.

However, Ghost Douluo was a speed-type titled Douluo. What appeared ferocious to others seemed as slow as a crawling turtle to him.

Without even activating his soul rings, Ghost Douluo easily dodged the ice pillars with a few flickers of his figure and appeared behind the Ice Jade Scorpion.

Before the scorpion could react, Ghost Douluo's third and fourth soul rings lit up, and his figure split into multiple clones.

Although each clone was fragile—so weak that even a one-ring soul master could shatter them—they all possessed the speed of a speed-type titled Douluo and half of Ghost Douluo's strength.

The ghostly figures launched simultaneous attacks from various angles, targeting the joints and weak points between the Ice Jade Scorpion's armored plates.

In an instant, four of the scorpion's eight legs were disabled, and its tail was forced to droop. Only a few clones attempting to sever the scorpion's pincers were destroyed by the struggling creature.