(Correction: In the previous text, Xixi's death and Chen Zifeng's severe injury have been changed to Xixi severely crippled and Chen Zifeng dead.)
"Pfft—!"
"Damn it, drinking again ruined things!" Xuan Zi spat out a mouthful of wine mixed with chicken meat. He didn't even care about his dishevelled appearance, as he rushed towards the Death God's Emissary's lair, terrified.
Just hearing the explosion, Xuan Zi knew something had gone wrong.
The sound was too loud, and in his perception, the soul power fluctuations caused by this explosion had clearly reached the Soul Sage level.
Among those present, Lin Yun had run off and wasn't there. The only one capable of unleashing a Soul Sage level attack was Ma Xiaotao, but she would never release a Soul Sage attack in a confined space like a cave.
Because it would injure her teammates!
It was a well-known fact that Ma Xiaotao didn't have much brains, but even she wouldn't disregard the lives of her teammates.
That left only one possibility: the attack came from the enemy!
Xuan Zi was filled with bitter regret. His entire body's soul power surged, and he instantly used the terrifying speed he had employed to catch the Void Kun Chickens, almost immediately arriving inside the cave.
A second before his arrival, Ning Tian and Wu Feng's Invincible Barriers had just faded, and the golden crystals at their waists had shattered into dust, losing all their function.
After all, Invincible Barriers were single-use.
Huo Yuhao had his back to them, his face showing intense heartache and discomfort.
Xuan Zi merely glanced at him, then moved past him, focusing his attention on the injured inner court students. In his opinion, the discomfort on Huo Yuhao's face was likely due to the heavy casualties among the inner court students, because when he himself saw the tragic scene, his eyes turned red.
But Huo Yuhao was actually just feeling heartache for the origin power that the Heavenly Dream Ice Silkworm had consumed.
Only nine seals remained in the Heavenly Dream Ice Silkworm's spiritual sea within him, meaning that to protect Huo Yuhao, the Heavenly Dream Ice Silkworm had just consumed an entire seal.
One seal could elevate a ten-year soul ring to a hundred-thousand-year level! How could Huo Yuhao not feel heartache?
Facing a Soul Sage level attack, the Heavenly Dream Ice Silkworm had no way to conserve power; otherwise, with Huo Yuhao's small frame, he would surely have died.
And at that moment, it wasn't Huo Yuhao's soul spirit, so it couldn't give him the so-called Life Reflection Shield. It could only form a shield in front of Huo Yuhao in the most brutal way, blocking the attack for him.
Did you think the Heavenly Dream Ice Silkworm didn't want to conserve energy?
That would be overestimating its energy control abilities too much!
If it wasn't careful, an unsealed barrier couldn't be resealed, and the unsealed energy alone would be enough to burst ten Huo Yuhaos. The Heavenly Dream Ice Silkworm could only endure the heartache and use the entire seal to protect Huo Yuhao.
Waste was inevitable, but in the face of survival, those things weren't too important.
Huo Yuhao understood this principle, but it didn't stop him from feeling the heartache, which was why he looked as if his sister, Huo Yuner, had died.
Wang Dong remained silent, merely looking at Huo Yuhao with a slight change in his gaze. Coupled with the persistent fondness he felt for Huo Yuhao in his mind, his eyes softened considerably when he looked at him.
Ning Tian and Wu Feng exchanged glances, both seeing relief and the feeling of surviving a disaster in each other's eyes.
Although they were at the cave entrance, the violent explosion still reached them. Huo Yuhao's protective range didn't include them, and if they had been hit by the explosion's shockwave, the consequences would have been hard to predict.
Ning Tian, needless to say, was a Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda soul master, a support with a health bar as fragile as crushed ice.
Although Wu Feng was a beast soul master, how could a mere Great Soul Master withstand the aftershocks of a Soul Sage level explosion?
Feeling their soul power significantly diminished from maintaining the Invincible Barrier, Ning Tian and Wu Feng both heavily sighed with relief, then together helped the knocked-back Jiang Nannan up.
Jiang Nannan was also seriously injured. Without a healing soul master, she wouldn't be able to recover her combat strength for at least a week.
If she hadn't decisively activated her Invincible Golden Body the moment she was knocked back, her injuries wouldn't have been much lighter than Ma Xiaotao's and Ling Luochen's.
"Jiang-xuejie, are you alright?" Ning Tian asked softly.
Jiang Nannan wiped away the blood from the corner of her mouth, feeling the sharp pain emanating from her body, and shook her head with a bitter expression.
Ning Tian's heart sank.
Just by being shaken by the shockwave from the explosion, Jiang Nannan had already sustained such severe injuries. The inner court disciples at the center of the explosion would only be in a more tragic state.
The dust kicked up by the explosion still lingered. Apart from Xuan Zi, everyone else couldn't see the exact situation inside the cave.
Just then, the victorious MVP once again performed his victory animation.
"Hehehehe! You want to kill this emissary? First, ask if this emissary's Corpse Explosion Technique agrees!" The Death God's Emissary laughed loudly, his tone filled with arrogance and haughtiness.
Soul King, Soul Emperor?
So what if they had the best soul ring configuration? Even if this emissary only had two yellow and three purple soul rings, even if this emissary had no ten-thousand-year soul rings, this emissary was still the strongest Soul King, unprecedented and unrepeated on the Douluo Continent!
"How about it? Are you satisfied with this emissary's Corpse Explosion Technique, gentlemen?"
Dai Yueheng: It's truly regrettable that I couldn't make Death God's Emissary use his full power...
While the Death God's Emissary was gloating, Xuan Zi erupted, his eyes bloodshot and breathing heavily, the veins on his forehead throbbing.
"You scoundrel!!!"
The old man roared. Nine soul rings instantly appeared around him, and immense soul power pressure suddenly swept through the entire cave. All the bandits who hadn't died yet had their internal organs shattered and bled from their seven orifices, dying directly from Xuan Zi's soul power.
"Titled Douluo?!" The Death God's Emissary also felt the strong soul power fluctuations, his arrogant expression slightly changing, but it quickly returned to gloom.
He sneered, saying contemptuously, "So what if you're a Titled Douluo? Give this emissary a few more years, and even a Titled Douluo will suffer defeat at my hands!"
"A few years? You still want a few more years?" The enraged Xuan Zi even directly activated his martial soul true body, his crimson bull eyes staring intently at the Death God's Emissary. "To cause such heavy casualties to my Shrek Academy disciples, you have chosen your path to death!"
"Die for this old man!"
Xuan Zi punched out. Violent soul power, carrying intense killing intent, made the Death God's Emissary feel a sense of déjà vu, as if he was about to meet his great-grandmother under this punch.
However, he certainly wouldn't just sit there and wait for death.
The Death God's Emissary shrieked, using his soul power to wrap around Gongyang Mo's severely injured corpse and directly threw it towards Xuan Zi's fist.
Want to kill me?
Then step over the corpse of your junior first!
The Death God's Emissary laughed sinisterly, and casually activated the corpse poison within Gongyang Mo's body. Gongyang Mo, already in a dying state, couldn't resist the rampant corpse poison within him. His fair skin turned into that of a cooked red shrimp, and his body swelled uncontrollably.
Crucially, his current direction of flight was still towards Xuan Zi, with that punch, imbued with a Super Douluo's enraged strike, heading straight for Gongyang Mo's head.
Gongyang Mo: ???
Save me! I'm dying!!! Save me~!
Xuan Zi froze, then immediately turned furious, unable to advance or retreat. But remembering that there were still several students alive and watching below, Xuan Zi, despite potentially getting injured, forcefully retracted his attack.
Although at his level of power, attacks could generally be controlled freely, this did not include full-power attacks.
Although Xuan Zi's attack didn't use a soul skill, it was a truly unreserved strike. Retracting this punch was truly difficult for him, and he almost spat out a mouthful of blood.
He couldn't help but be honest.
Already, due to drinking and causing serious casualties to the competition team, if he were to be blamed again for some "inability to retract his hand leading to Gongyang Mo's death," Mu En would tear him into eight pieces and put him in jars in a matter of minutes.
The inexperienced students below might think he didn't have time to retract his hand, but would Mu En, also a peak powerhouse, believe his nonsense?
If he wasn't honest, he'd be beaten into honesty!
However, fortunately, because Xuan Zi feared Mu En would trouble him, his life was finally back in his own hands. Although he could still be poisoned to death by the corpse poison at any moment, at least for now, he was largely out of danger.
Not only that, after Xuan Zi caught Gongyang Mo's body, he also had to use his soul power to suppress his injuries, ensuring that he wouldn't be blasted into minced meat by the Corpse Explosion Technique.
The Death God's Emissary seized this opportunity...
And ran!
The strongest Soul King lived up to his name! Even when locked on by a ninety-eighth level Super Douluo, he could still transform into a wisp of gray smoke and vanish!
The strongest Soul King truly lived up to his reputation.
Xuan Zi's nose twisted with anger when he saw this, and his stomach ached from vexation. He instinctively wanted to chase after the Death God's Emissary and kill him, but the most important thing now was not to kill the Death God's Emissary, but to send the heavily wounded Shrek competition team for treatment.
At this moment, he was incredibly conflicted, wishing he could just slit his own throat and die.
Again!
This was already the second time he had led a team with major casualties. The previous time, due to drinking, he got separated from Zhang Lexuan and a group of inner court students on a soul hunting mission, which resulted in Zhang Lexuan and the others being almost entirely wiped out by a hundred-thousand-year soul beast.
Even though Zhang Lexuan and the others fought to the death and killed that hundred-thousand-year soul beast, and Zhang Lexuan also obtained its soul ring and soul bone, this still couldn't hide the fact that the soul hunting team suffered heavy casualties.
This time, again due to drinking, he put the Shrek team participating in the Soul Dueling Grand Tournament in danger, resulting in another near-annihilation.
The PTSD deeply buried in his mind suddenly flared up and fiercely attacked him.
At this moment, Xuan Zi even hesitated to look at the injured or dead inner and outer court students, because their extensive casualties were entirely due to him, their supervising teacher, neglecting his duties due to drinking, entirely due to his dereliction of duty as an old good-for-nothing.
How... how could he face these children?
The Death God's Emissary, as the victorious MVP, swaggered away.
Xuan Zi, as the losing side's actor, was attacked by all his own teammates.
Ma Xiaotao, with blood dripping from the corner of her mouth, leaned against the cave wall, her eyes flickering. Upon seeing her teammates almost reduced to crippled soldiers, her dark red eyes were filled with anger and unwillingness.
Ling Luochen stared blankly at Chen Zifeng's severed arm, still gripping the Soul Chasing Sword, her expression pained and sorrowful.
Dai Yueheng, cut in half at the waist, and Xixi, with a broken left leg and right arm, struggled helplessly on the ground, guttural wails of pain escaping their throats.
Yao Haoxuan, severely injured, knelt in a corner, his eyes filled with the horror and fear of having survived a disaster.
And Gongyang Mo floated in front of Xuan Zi, completely enveloped in earthen-yellow soul power. His chest barely rose and fell, taking shallow breaths, clearly on the verge of death.
On the outer court side, Ning Tian and Wu Feng supported the pale-faced Jiang Nannan, one on each side, while Huo Yuhao and Wang Dong stood on the other side, utterly bewildered.
And everyone at this moment looked at Xuan Zi, their eyes revealing the same question:
Where were you just now?
Those gazes, filled with confusion and doubt, were like sharp swords, fiercely piercing Xuan Zi's heart. Guilt and remorse, like an abyss, sought to completely swallow him, preventing him from ever recovering.
It hurt, it hurt so much!
Xuan Zi's body trembled, and his possessed Gluttony martial soul gradually retreated into his body. The nine soul rings, emitting terrifying auras, also dissipated one by one.
"Children, this old man has let you down!" Xuan Zi's old tears streamed down his face, his expression pained and remorseful. "The responsibility for this mistake rests entirely with me!"
No one spoke. Except for Dai Yueheng and Xixi, who didn't even have the strength to get up, everyone else silently watched Xuan Zi's performance.
"It's come to this; more words are useless. This old man will not shirk the responsibility I must bear, but this competition cannot be given up just like that." Xuan Zi took a deep breath, evaporated the tears from his eyes with soul power, and said in a heavy tone, "Dai Yueheng, Gongyang Mo, and Xixi's injuries cannot be delayed any longer. This old man needs to take them back to the academy for treatment now."
"The rest of the competition is up to you all!"
"Fight with confidence! Glory and good reputation belong to you, while failure and infamy belong to me!" After forcibly pouring a bowl of comforting soup into everyone, Xuan Zi turned around, swept up Dai Yueheng, Gongyang Mo, and Xixi, and then slipped away at lightning speed.
He was afraid that if he stayed any longer, he would truly be killed by the gazes of these children.
And everyone remaining there: ???
You're just going to leave like that?
It seemed as if ten thousand alpacas stampeded through everyone's minds, their expressions shocked and bewildered.
What kind of nonsense is this? Glory and good reputation belong to us, failure and infamy belong to you? Do you even hear what you're saying?!
Ning Tian and Wu Feng exchanged glances, speechless with dismay.
They finally understood why Lin Yun had so seriously and solemnly cautioned them before they set off. And they were even more grateful that they had listened to Lin Yun's words and brought the life-saving Invincible Barriers with them.
Having such an unreliable team leader, no amount of caution was too much!
(End of Chapter)
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