The Charm of Soul Pets

Zhan Ye’s initial combat strength was not that great. After Lan Huo’s Flame Lion had knocked away Zhan Ye, it obtained the chance to attack Chu Mu directly again.

Chu Mu took a glance at Zhan Ye. The reason why he had summoned it so early on was because he took into consideration the battles that would follow. If he could let Zhan Ye increase its strength to its peak sooner, then he would stand a greater chance of obtaining victory in the following battles.

“Huhu~!”

Zhan Ye got up again. As it was knocked away, Little Hidden Dragon had to face two Immortal rank opponents alone. This was difficult on Little Hidden Dragon as it had just reached pseudo Immortal rank a while ago.

“It’s still not dead yet?” Lan Huo swept a hateful glance at Zhan Ye.

It was just a Dominator rank soul pet, an insignificant fighting force in this Immortal rank battle. Lan Huo did not treat it seriously at all and decided to give it a fatal blow since it did not die from the last attack!

Zhan Ye’s initial speed was not that quick, so it naturally was not able to dodge a technique from an Immortal rank. It could only try its best to protect its vital parts when the opponent attacked it.

Intense heat rumbled and directly blasted Zhan Ye away again.

Lan Huo smirked and immediately turned his attention to Little Hidden Dragon, cooperating with his teammate to launch multiple attacks.

Hexfire had worked together for many years. Their combined fighting strength was much greater than their individual fighting strength.

“Ao!”

Little Hidden Dragon knew that it had to endure the pressure from the two enemies before Zhan Ye could raise its strength. Fortunately, its ghost property showed great effect when dodging enemy attacks and stalling for time, hence it would not be finished off quickly by its enemies.

Zhan Ye was also raising its strength constantly as the battle progressed. Although Hexfire had recognized Chu Mu, they seemed to have only watched the final match and did not know that Chu Mu’s Zhan Ye could keep raising its strength.

Increasing its strength without the enemy knowing was the best situation possible for Zhan Ye. Because, in order to defeat the six enemies, Zhan Ye would be a crucial breakthrough point when both sides were similar in terms of fighting strength.

Night continued slipping through the attacks from its two enemies calmly. The crossover between realistic dream and illusion made the two soul pets unable to properly distinguish the position of the real Night.

Zhan Ye was already at the back of the sun. The dark element here was denser than normal. Fire type was slightly suppressed by dark type here, the advantage of the environment neutralized the suppression.

Furthermore, the denser the darkness element in the surroundings were, the more effective the dreams that Night could create were.

A tail of fluttering white feathers crossed through the darkness. The places that it passed by had strangely changed......

Like an ink painting spreading out in the air, the environment that the two fire type creatures were in had suddenly changed. They had suddenly fallen into a bizarre darkness maze.

“Hmph, cheap tricks. You won’t fool me with this,” Lü Huo calmly scanned the illusion surrounding him.

Hexfire had been to many places, they had also encountered plenty of demon type creatures before. They were confident in their abilities in seeing through this kind of dream technique easily. Especially for Lü Huo who was rather proficient in soul remembrance. His knowledge regarding demon type creatures was fairly insightful. He could often judge the reality of the techniques through instinct alone.

“We seem to have been trapped by this dream maze,” said the female member.

“Relax, I will break it soon,” replied Lü Huo with confidence.

His eyes began flickering. Pale blue light sharply scanned the complicated darkness maze around him.

The maze was created by using chaotic torrents, darkness films, rampaging dark currents and messy black gales. A demon that truly possessed the power of darkness could generate those types of energy at will. However, it would not be able to unleash so much dark energy to create such a huge maze.

Hence, most of the energy that was in the darkness maze was actually fake. As long as they just passed through the fake area, it would naturally dissipate on its own.

“Follow me,” Lü Huo revealed a grin as if he was certain of the direction to take.

Lü Huo’s soul pet was a Green Flame Demon Queen covered in green flames. Green Flame Demon Queen bravely stepped into a dark torrent under Lü Huo’s order and did not use any defensive technique at all.

As expected, that dark torrent that looked menacing at first, as if one would be torn to shreds if they were to step on it. However, once it was actually touched, it suddenly dissipated on its own.

That was clearly an illusion.

Nü Huo saw that Lü Huo was able to determine the fake energy so easily and followed behind him in relief.

“This should be real, stay away from it,” Lü Huo pointed towards a dark gale energy that was rapidly spinning not far away from them.

Lü Huo ordered his soul pet to unleash a probing technique towards that dark gale!

“Huhuhuhuhu~!”

Raging gale howled crazily, the power of darkness within stung their skin. That was a cluster of real energy.

Lü Huo’s accurate judgement had let Nü Huo grow more confident in him, her gaze towards Lü Huo also showed something different now.

Lü Huo raised the corner of his lips. He was not the most handsome amongst Hexfire, and nor was he the strongest. However, that did not mean that he was not interested in the sole female member of Hexfire. In order to display his deep understanding towards demon type soul pets so that he could gain greater favor from Nü Huo, Lü Huo continued, “This kind of large scale dream technique greatly exhausts mental strength. If it does not cause direct effect to the opponent, then the exhausted demon is basically useless in the following battles. This dream beast’s dream is quite decent, but it can only deceive young and inexperienced brats like Tang Ang in the end......”

Lü Huo appeared to be very confident in himself, showing his deep understanding towards demon type creatures.

“This dark torrent is also fake too......” Lü Huo ordered his Green Flame Demon Queen to step into a dark torrent again. However, before he was able to finish, his expression suddenly changed and he immediately shouted, “Ah, no!”

Lü Huo was able to accurately distinguish between real and fake from the start. So, Nü Huo stepped into the dark torrent while putting her trust in him. When Lü Huo shouted in panic, she and her elemental soul pet had already stepped into the dark energy!

“Huhuhuhu!”

The powerful suction force pulled both Lü Huo and Nü Huo into the torrent. Sharp blade-like winds of darkness swept past and they fiercely tore at their soul pets and their bodies!

The dark torrent stirred at a high frequency. Lü Huo and Nü Huo desperately struggled against it as if they were drowning, but they could not escape from the suction and tearing force of the dark torrent as they had not put up their defenses in time.

The rapid revolution had caused the two of them to be in a dizzy state. When the dark torrent’s energy eventually dissipated in a while, their clothes were already torn to shreds and bloody cuts were everywhere on their bodies.

Lü Huo’s situation was still better. As a man, he had short hair, and it did not really matter if his clothes were torn or not. Getting bloody all over the body also would not be that horrible for him.

On the other hand, Nü Huo had worn a revealing robe. Her hair was completely in a mess, her tattered clothes revealed large patches of her bloody skin riddled with cuts. She was almost naked and looked extremely ugly. Her appearance was like a female ghost that had just crawled out of a dried well. (TL note: Sadako does have beautiful versions.)

Nü checked her appearance and became utterly furious!

She was not furious towards Night, but instead towards Lü Huo!

It was because of his confidence that she did not think to waste any stamina to deploy elemental defense before stepping into the dark torrent. In the end, he made a wrong judgement and yet he stepped in boldly like that!

Lü Huo was also extremely furious now. He could not understand just how did that fake dark torrent possess such terrifying offensive energy.

The darkness maze did not disappear after they had fallen into a dark torrent. The vast darkness maze still had many real and fake clusters of energy in it. Unless they had the confidence to destroy the maze from within, they still had to follow the rules of the dream that a demon type creature created.

“Didn’t you say that one was a fake!?” Nü Huo could not hold back her fury.

Lü Huo’s face had also turned green and he hurriedly explained, “In normal situations, there is usually a pattern to distinguish between the real and fake energy in a dream. You can judge the other energy clusters after finding out that pattern...... Unless this dream beast has already reached the realm where it can stack two dreams. In this case, I need to find the second pattern......”

“I don’t want to listen to your nonsense. Don’t let me step into such a place again!” shouted Nü Huo furiously.

Dual dream stacking was already the peak level illusion of the demon type creatures. Unless one could directly shatter the dream, they would only be able to break through by finding the pattern.

Dual dream stacking meant that there would be two patterns. Whether a cluster of energy was real or fake had to be checked and judged by using the two patterns simultaneously. This was a great challenge for a soul pet trainer’s experience and sensitivity.

Lü Huo was actually really well versed regarding demon type creatures. Normal people would not even know how to handle such real or fake dreams. However, he had never imagined that the darkness maze that dream beast unleashed would actually be a dual dream stacking.

He had found the first pattern, but what about the second?

At least he had not found it yet......

If he could not find the pattern, then he could only bash through. There were many dark traps laid in this maze. If they were to probe each trap with a defensive technique, then they would most definitely be exhausted by the time they got out.

In the distance, Chu Mu’s gaze pierced right through the complicated dream maze.

Before reuniting with Night, Chu Mu would also have been helpless if he had encountered such a dual dream stacking technique before.

Recalling Lü Huo’s confidence and the blunder he committed after that, Chu Mu also felt a little funny. That would be the result of belittling Night which had reached the top amongst the billions of powerful demons in the Demonic Burial Mound!