Chapter 854: Capturing the Tiger-Striped Monster

Bang bang bang bang…
The intense clashes lasted for several hours before the tiger-striped monster’s frenzied roars gradually subsided. Xiao Hei then brought good news: “Father, his energy is almost depleted.”
“Good, it’s finally almost over.”
Su Che let out a long sigh. “What a tough and difficult opponent.”
Tian Yin quietly reminded him, “We still need to be careful. It could be a disguise.”
“I understand,” Su Che nodded. “Anyway, I won’t let Xiao Hei go.”
After a while, the monster’s roars stopped completely. In the end, the mental message it sent was still a threat: “Wait and see! I won’t spare you!”
Then, silently, it must have truly passed out.
“This guy’s mouth is just as tough as his bones. After all this time, he still refuses to beg for mercy,” Su Che thought to himself. He then said to Xiao Hei, “Hold him tightly. I’m going to bring you both inside.”
“Okay, Father,” Xiao Hei nodded in agreement.
Swish!
Su Che brought Xiao Hei, who was hundreds of feet tall, along with the tiger-striped monster he had captured, into the Immortal Prison.
The tiger-striped monster had been held by Xiao Hei the whole time, so Su Che could have tried to bring them both into the Immortal Prison earlier. But considering that this invulnerable creature might still have resistance, there was a risk it could cause unimaginable destruction to the inner world of the Immortal Prison. As the saying goes, it’s easy to invite a deity but hard to send them away—this current situation was safer.
After entering the Immortal Prison, Su Che sent Xiao Hei to the sixth layer of the Creation Divine Tree. Throughout the process, Xiao Hei never let go, following Su Che’s instructions to never release the tiger-striped monster.
Standing beneath the Creation Divine Tree, Xiao Hei’s size decreased significantly, and the size of his palms shrank as well, allowing him to expose the monster’s head and chest. Of course, its waist, abdomen, and limbs were still firmly held by Xiao Hei.
It was risky to loosen his grip, as the monster might be pretending to be dead and revive if released.
Sssss…
The Creation Divine Tree swung several sharp vines at the monster’s head, trying to pierce through it. But after trying for a while, the tree said helplessly, “It doesn’t work, Master. Even though he’s unconscious, his skin is extremely tough, and his skull is incredibly hard. I can’t get through.”

“That’s not surprising.” Su Che nodded inwardly; he had been fully prepared for this.
Xiao Hei’s double-edged battle axe was almost broken from the repeated impacts, yet the guy’s head still seemed unharmed. What kind of abnormality, what terrifying defense!
In his own universe, not to mention the great immortals, even those top-tier demon gods from ancient times couldn’t compare to him in terms of toughness.
The legendary Water God Gonggong, whose scalp was said to be the hardest and who could break the Mount Zhou that supported the heavens, didn’t do so with his physical body but through the power of water itself…
“Then let’s use the power of the Heavenly Dao to extract his soul first.”
Su Che didn’t intend to enslave his soul, mainly because he was only at the level of a First Heaven Immortal Emperor and couldn’t enslave those stronger than immortals.
Moreover, this tiger-patterned freak was clearly more powerful than ordinary immortals.
Secondly, such a dangerous individual, even when unconscious, couldn’t be left unattended by Xiao Hei to be sent alone to the enslavement space on the fourth floor of the Immortal Prison.
Extracting his soul here and turning his body into an empty shell was the safest approach.
Huhuhuhu…
The power of the Heavenly Dao in the Immortal Prison acted on the tiger-patterned freak’s body, forcibly extracting his soul.
This should have been quite simple—any creature inside the Immortal Prison would be completely suppressed by the power of the Heavenly Dao. It had always worked before.
But today, it proved quite difficult.
The connection between the freak’s soul and body was extremely strong, allowing the power of the Heavenly Dao to extract his soul only bit by bit. A little too much force would cause it to get stuck.
After fifteen minutes of slow extraction, somehow triggering a nerve in the freak, his body suddenly convulsed violently as he instinctively struggled, though he remained unconscious.
Snap!
Xiao Hei threw away his battle axe and struck his forehead with a finger.
Only then did the freak stop convulsing and become quiet again. Looking at Xiao Hei’s finger, it was completely deformed, as if broken. Fortunately, Xiao Hei’s self-healing ability was strong, and it returned to normal in no time.
Su Che and Lao Hei silently marveled once again—this time, for the umpteenth time—“What a hard skull…”
Continue extracting!

The extracted soul energies, stored in the Tree of Creation, would transform into another form to facilitate Su Che’s ability to read them. Of course, Su Che wanted to figure out the identity and origin of this tiger-patterned creature—what universe it came from, why it had such a powerful physique, what it was searching for in chaos, and why it targeted Tian Yin. All these matters needed to be clarified. The process of extracting them bit by bit was extremely slow, so Su Che could only wait patiently, as he had to wait until these “soul threads” merged back into a complete soul state before he could read the memory information within. For now, the memory information contained in these thread-like souls was completely chaotic and unstructured. During this time, Xiao Hei still didn’t dare to let go, tightly holding onto the tiger-patterned creature. However, maintaining this position didn’t hinder his mental communication with Su Che. “Xiao Hei, you must have gained a lot over these years in chaos, right?” Su Che asked gently. “Yes, Father,” Xiao Hei replied. “Chaos is my best hunting ground. Over the years, I’ve consumed countless things—endless chaos energy, countless materials, various chaos spirit roots, over a thousand fully formed magical artifacts… In short, I never miss anything that I can eat.” “Glutton!” Lao Hei laughed. “Xiao Hei, you’ve always been like this—unchanged at all.” Xiao Hei’s dark, profound gaze turned toward Lao Hei. This was the first time he had seen Lao Hei’s true form and entered the Immortal Prison. Normally, he shouldn’t have known Lao Hei, because before separating from Su Che, he didn’t possess true thoughts—only the most basic, simplest instinct to eat. Yet now, Xiao Hei said, “I know you’re Lao Hei, Father’s assistant.” “Oh? How do you know?” Lao Hei was curious and asked, “If I’m not mistaken, you’ve never seen me before… Even if you had, you wouldn’t have understood anything at that time.” “I’m not sure either,” Xiao Hei replied quietly, shaking his head. “Many things related to Father will naturally come back to me as my wisdom gradually awakens.” “Inherited memories?” Lao Hei was astonished and murmured, “Impossible. The master is human, not of a divine beast lineage like dragons or phoenixes—how could he possibly grant you such an instinct as inherited memories?”

“There’s nothing strange about it,” Su Che said calmly. “During those years, Xiao Hei was inside my dantian and must have heard many things, all of which were stored in his subconscious. As his consciousness awakened, those subconscious memories gradually became clearer… That’s probably the reason.”
“Wow!” Lao Hei was stunned and nodded in realization. “So, is this what they call prenatal education?”
Su Che didn’t want to waste words on this talkative Lao Hei and asked again, “Xiao Hei, I feel that your strength is now much greater than mine. Do you have a clear understanding of your own strength?”
“I’m not quite sure,” Xiao Hei replied vaguely. “It’s rare to encounter a living being in the chaos. I’ve had very few opponents—anything with chaotic properties, whether alive or dead, I eat once I catch it. Well… over the years, I’ve also encountered a few beings very similar to humans who tried to capture me alive. At first, I ran away everywhere, but later, as I grew stronger, I wore them down and drove them away.”
“Father, I must remind you that the humanoid monsters in the chaos are all extremely strong. Ones like the one in my hands are hard to kill. You must be extra careful.”
Xiao Hei didn’t know that these powerful beings were actually chaos travelers from various universes, which was why they were called humanoid monsters.
“Yes, I know,” Su Che thought to himself. “Every humanoid monster has a very complicated background and origin; they’re definitely not easy to kill.”
It could be said that beings like the tiger-patterned monster must be the most outstanding and powerful representatives from various universes, having traveled through the chaos for countless years and gaining certain advantages. If they could be defeated or killed so easily, that would be strange.
Fortunately, this tiger-patterned monster only had extremely strong physical defenses, not abnormally high attack power. Otherwise, even with Xiao Hei’s help, capturing it alive would have been an impossible task.
There was one more question. Su Che asked, “Xiao Hei, how did you find me?”
“I can’t explain it either,” Xiao Hei replied. “I just suddenly sensed that Father had come to the chaos, very close to me. I followed that feeling and came this way.”
“Alright, I roughly understand now.”

Through this conversation with Xiao Hei, Su Che basically understood that Xiao Hei’s intelligence was roughly on par with that of a ten-year-old child. In terms of logical thinking, it couldn’t compare to that of well-educated adults. This was because his intelligence evolved in chaos by devouring various things—at most, chaotic treasures like the Demon-Slaying Spear—so his spiritual foundation was not strong. No matter how much he consumed, he couldn’t accumulate high intelligence. It didn’t matter; from now on, as long as he traveled around to broaden his horizons or lived as a human on some planet in the Immortal Prison World for a while, his wisdom would quickly mature. Su Xiao Hei, our good child, is back!