22 Black Emperor

After walking around for another few hours it was already noon as the boys sat down for a lunch break.

"When are we gonna find a soul beast that you want?" Long Yue asked Wang Wei.

"Don't worry we're almost there." Wang Wei said. "The most common place for a black emperor snake to appear is in the caves deep in this forest. Around the caves are soul beasts with cultivation bases of at least five-hundred-years. It is not that much considering that if we were in the nature realm the lowest cultivation bases we would find would be at least one-thousand-years. For now, entering the caves won't be a problem but once we are inside the caves the soul beasts are going to keep getting stronger. Eventually, we will find a strong black emperor snake. Let's just hope it is sooner rather than later."

"Okay, let's finish our lunch as fast as we can and go to those caves." Lee Zheng said.

After ten minutes the three boys set out to the caves. On their way, they encountered a few soul beasts but nothing they couldn't handle. Eventually, they made their way inside the cave. To their surprise the cave was empty and they couldn't find any soul beasts even if they tried.

"What is going on here I thought you said there would be a lot of soul beasts here." Long Yue said to Wang Wei.

"There should be." Wang Wei replied. "What could have happened for all the soul beasts to leave this place. Let's go further in and search for any clues." Wang Wei said.

After a while, they came into a large open space.

"I didn't find anything except for soul beast skeletons." Lee Zheng said.

"Yeah, me neither." Long Yue added. "Maybe soul experts killed all of these creatures."

"I don't think so. There were also a lot of freshly killed soul beasts lying around but there were no traces of humans. I think this was caused by a soul beast."

"But what soul beast could be so powerful. There shouldn't be any ten-thousand-year-old soul beasts around here." Lee Zheng said.

"I know there aren't but the strongest I saw that was killed had a cultivation base of five-thousand years. It was a four-clawed bat. I don't know what could've caused this but it must be strong." Wang Wei said.

Right at that moment, they heard something sliding over the ground. However, they couldn't see very well as it was inside a cave and the only light source was a small gap in the cave ceiling that led outside.

"What is that?" Long Yue said.

"I don't know." Wang Wei answered. "It probably is the thing that killed all the other soul beasts. Light up some torches and throw them around the cave so that way we have more light and we can see a bit better."

Long Yue and Lee Zheng lit up some torches and scattered them around the cave once they could see a little better they were surprised and Wang Wei was extremely happy.

"It is a black emperor snake! Not only that but it is a seven-thousand-year-old one. It must be the strongest soul beast here and the reason for the disappearance of all the other soul beasts." He said as he pointed at a pitch black snake that was at least twelve meters long and one meter in width.

"How are we going to defeat it?" Lee Zheng asked.

"Simple just as we defeated all the other snake type soul beasts we encountered on our way here." Wang Wei said."I will keep it in place for a few seconds and you attack it."

"Okay!" Long Yue and Lee Zheng said.

The next moment Wang Wei' soul jewel lit up. His eyes turned yellow and his pupils took the shape of lightning symbols. The moment the snake was paralyzed Long Yue and Lee Zheng their soul jewels lit up. The next moment blade sharp streaks of air and five flaming streaks flew towards the snake.

"Boom!"

The attacks landed but to their surprise, the snake was still ful of energy.

"What happened?" Lee Zheng asked.

"It is probably its scales." Wang Wei said. "This is a seven-thousand-year-old black emperor snake. We could have expected it to have insanely high defense. However, the scaled on its belly and under its jaw are really weak."

Wang Wei was about to use his soul technique again but this time he also summoned his snake claws and defensive scales. He walked over to the beast' mouth, which was bigger than himself. The fangs the snake had were just a bit shorter than Wang Wei. The snake was getting ready to attack as it opened its mouth. But right that moment Wang Wei used his soul technique and entered the beast' mouth.

"What are you doing? Are you crazy!" Long Yue yelled.

"Just trust me." Wang Wei replied.

The next moment he thrust his snake claws at the top part of the snake' palate.

"Don't you know how dangerous it is what you are doing?" Lee Zheng said.

"I know." Wang Wei said. "But this is the fastest way to kill it." Wang Wei said as he pulled back his hand.

After that, he quickly escaped the beast' mouth. He then stopped using his soul technique. The next moment blood started to pour into the snake' mouth. It started to squirm around and made intricate knots as life slowly disappeared out of its eyes.

"You killed a seven-thousand-year-old soul beast all by yourself!" Long Yue exclaimed.

"Yeah, I know. It is all thanks to my first soul technique but it will only be effective for a little while longer. As I keep encountering stronger soul beasts and soul experts its effects will become less and less as the opponents keep getting stronger. I think that eventually, the effects will only last for a second if I use it on a soul beast with a cultivation base of twenty-thousand-years or higher or if I use it on a soul king. By then soul experts are strong enough to be able to deal with a soul technique like this." Wang Wei said.

After he said all this the snake was done squirming and twisting and it lay there on the ground. Not moving even a millimeter. It was dead. The next moment a pretty dark violet soul jewel rose up from the snake' body.

"A seven-thousand-year-old unholy soul jewel." Lee Zheng said in awe.

"Okay, I will integrate with it. Keep me safe during the process. Okay?" Wang Wei said.

"Okay!" Long Yue and Lee Zheng replied.