"I am perplexed."
Just then, Xu Tianran, who had been watching with cold detachment, suddenly spoke. His tone carried an air of condescending amusement and scrutiny, as if observing a desperate beast backed into a corner.
"We should be complete strangers. Why are you so determined to kill me, even at the cost of a mutual annihilation?"
He had countless enemies; people who wanted him dead could line up from the Mingdou Palace all the way out of the city.
But this was the first time he had encountered someone whose eyes burned with such pure flames of vengeance—a hatred willing to consume himself just to drag Xu Tianran to hell with him.
"Hahaha... you don't know me?"
He Caitou sounded as if he had heard the most preposterous joke in the world. He abruptly threw his head back and burst into a roar of sorrowful, angry laughter that echoed over the ruins, filled with endless sarcasm and pain.
"Then—how about this?!"
He swiftly raised a hand and ripped off the turban that always covered his head. Simultaneously, his other hand quickly pressed against his cheeks. With a fluctuation of Soul Power, he removed the high-grade soul tool that had hidden his true appearance for years.
The disguise instantly peeled away.
Exposed to everyone was a dark, sharp-featured face with clear characteristics of the Sun Moon Empire's imperial family.
Especially his eyes, which were now fiercely burning with ten years of accumulated hatred, practically blazing forth.
At the same time, a virtual image of a blazing, glorious golden sun, radiating infinite light and heat, slowly rose behind him.
A scorching, pure aura instantly spread out—it was the top-tier Sun Martial Soul, which only the direct lineage of the Sun Moon Empire's imperial family could inherit.
"The Sun Martial Soul?!"
Xu Tianran's pupils abruptly contracted. For the first time, his face showed undisguised shock and astonishment, his composure shattered.
In the entire Douluo Continent, the only people who possessed the Sun Martial Soul were the royal bloodline of their Sun Moon Empire.
His gaze was fiercely locked on He Caitou's face, a face both familiar and yet made strange by the passage of time and hatred, observing the characteristic imperial skin tone and contours.
After a brief moment of surprise, Xu Tianran's lips slowly, slowly curled into a cold, knowing smile. The mockery and cruelty in his tone intensified.
"So it's you... our 'great' late emperor's true blood, the esteemed... former Crown Prince."
He deliberately elongated his words, each syllable like a salt-laced knife ruthlessly scraping He Caitou's heart.
"It seems that during the coup d'état back then, you, the one that slipped through the net, were lucky enough to escape."
All confusion vanished completely at this moment.
He finally understood why the other party possessed such a frantic, costly, mutually destructive obsession with revenge.
If it were he who was violently kicked down from the supreme position of Crown Prince, forced to witness the murder of his closest family, the theft of everything he owned, and his fall from the clouds into the filthy mud... he would probably also be transformed into a monstrous demon consumed only by vengeance.
He Caitou's fists were clenched tight, veins bulging on his dark hands like gnarled tree roots.
His fingernails had long since pierced his palms. Warm blood silently dripped between his fingers, leaving dark marks on the scorching, cracked earth before being quickly evaporated by the heat.
That bloody night ten years ago, like a wild beast escaping its cage, fiercely tore at his soul.
His mother's anguished cry as she pushed him into the secret passage before her death, his sisters' desperate wails, the cruel laughter of the rebels and the usurper, and the cold terror of his lonely escape in the darkness, carrying the burden of deep-seated vengeance...
All the fragmented memories surged into a torrent at this moment, threatening to completely engulf and incinerate his sanity.
"Xu! Tian! Ran!"
The three words were practically forced out between his teeth, laced with blood and bone-deep hatred.
"Everything you and your people owe me and my family from ten years ago... today, I will make you repay it a hundredfold, a thousandfold!!"
His voice was hoarse and distorted by extreme emotion, like a damaged bellows, yet it contained a chilling madness.
The virtual sun image behind him swelled suddenly with his roar. Its light became incomparably blazing and tyrannical. The terrifying high temperature violently distorted the light, as if his entire being was about to transform into a vengeful sun, burning everything before him to ash.
Karna quietly gazed at the pain overflowing from his Master's eyes and the desperate resolve to burn the world with him. The last shred of doubt in his golden eyes vanished, replaced by an understanding.
He no longer spoke.
He just slowly, solemnly raised the Golden Lance, the weapon that slays gods and demons.
Weng—!
The massive Sun Wheel (Divinity symbol) behind him, symbolizing the authority of the sun, began to accelerate its rotation. Streams of golden brilliance, brighter and purer than the Sun's core, poured out, instantly illuminating the entire dim palace ruin as brightly as day, even painfully stinging everyone's eyes.
"As you wish, my Master."
The calm words fell. The next moment, boundless energy, like a dormant volcano, completely erupted, surging outward from his imposing physique.
The golden divine flames were no longer mere adornment; they completely transformed into a flame storm sweeping across the world.
Karna no longer held back or suppressed his power. The supreme divinity of the Son of the Sun God was thoroughly activated and unleashed at this moment.
The sun mark on his forehead lit up with a blinding light that was impossible to look at directly, as if the power of that great distant star had been temporarily pulled down and manifested upon this mortal earth.
The terrifying solar fire frantically licked the void. The air itself was directly ignited, emitting continuous crackling explosions.
Centered around him, the temperature in the space for hundreds of meters around soared at an unimaginable speed.
The incomparably hard granite ground beneath his feet began to soften, turn red, and finally transform into dark red magma flowing profusely.
Scattered metal soul tool wreckage and components melted like wax, pooling into streams of scorching iron liquid.
Even space itself couldn't withstand this world-ending heat, rippling violently as if it could be torn apart at any moment.
Karna was now shrouded in endless light and heat, his face serene but carrying a god-like indifference.
Only one goal remained in his eyes—to fulfill the wish his Master had made at the cost of his life and everything he possessed: to take Xu Tianran's head.
He no longer spared a thought for He Caitou's safety. The fully unleashed Divine Radiance added an absolute, unquestionable ruthlessness to his movements, like a supreme deity acting as Heaven's Punisher and judging sin.
"Yes! Just like that! Karna! Kill them! Kill all of them—!!"
He Caitou screamed maniacally. He violently tossed the last few cherished, high-grade defensive soul tools he had been hoarding for his life into the air like garbage.
These treasures, which would ordinarily cause Soul Masters to fight over them, now served as meager tools for him to buy a final moment of time—he wasn't trying to survive, but was obsessively, madly determined to witness his enemy fall into hell before he himself did.
The soul tools quickly unfolded in the air, weaving a weak energy shield that struggled to resist the overwhelming, destructive heat wave surging toward them like a tsunami, emitting sounds of breaking under the strain.
"Xishui, be careful. Full defense."
On the other side, Long Xiaoyao's face was extremely grave. The overwhelming golden divine fire that threatened to swallow the world was reflected in his clouded eyes.
He could clearly sense that the current Karna was completely different from before; his power level had leaped to a terrifying degree that could truly threaten them and even incinerate everything.
Without hesitation, he stomped forward.
Roar—!!!
A Dragon's roar shook the heavens and earth. Soul Power, thick as ink and imbued with darkness, erupted explosively from within him.
Long Xiaoyao's body rapidly swelled and deformed in the air. Pitch-black scales instantly covered his entire body, shimmering with a dark yet seemingly indestructible luster.
In just the blink of an eye, a gigantic Dark Holy Dragon over a thousand meters long, blotting out the sky, appeared hovering above the ruins.
The massive Dragon body was as towering as a mountain, and its huge wings spread, casting a black shadow.
He unhesitatingly shielded Xu Tianran, Ye Xishui, and a few core personnel securely beneath his mountain-like Dragon body, forming the last, and seemingly most impregnable, absolute barrier.
The immense black Dragon head lowered, letting out a threatening roar, directly confronting the surging Solar Divine Punishment.
"Hoo—!!!"
The Dark Holy Dragon emitted a roar that pierced the clouds. Vast, boundless dark-attributed Soul Power surged out, transforming into thick black mist that was almost solidified. It rolled and roared, attempting to construct an absolute barrier to cut off the light and resist Karna's pervasive, world-incinerating Solar Divine Fire.
The instant the blazing golden divine fire collided violently with the black mist, it didn't cause an earth-shattering explosion. Instead, it produced a grating, gnashing sound of "sizzling" annihilation.
Massive amounts of black steam furiously permeated the air, carrying the acrid, burnt smell of a scorched soul, as if two diametrically opposed laws were fiercely canceling and destroying each other.
"Burning Heaven, Curse My Body!"
Karna's voice was devoid of any emotion, like the declaration of a deity administering punishment from the high heavens, filled with absolute majesty and indifference.
Infinite light and heat converged from the void, then were forcibly compressed and refined by his unparalleled will, all poured into the tip of the God-Slaying Lance.
Weng—!
The golden lance body hummed. It was completely transformed into a spear made purely of extreme brilliance.
The lance flowed with a blinding light, like a liquid star, as if the savage energy of an entire sun was forcibly compressed and confined within it. Every inch of the spear radiated destructive power capable of instantly vaporizing mountains and boiling away oceans.
At this moment, it was no longer just a spear; what Karna held was no longer merely a weapon, but a super-compressed sun.
The terrifying power fluctuation sent a chill through every heart.
-----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
I handpick only the finest and most captivating novels for you. Don't forget to check out my other novels!
p@treon HongMengZi