"Boom!"
Tang Hao's dark red Clear Sky Hammer smashed down, cleaving a crater into the ground. Cracks spread in all directions like spiderwebs, each one over a meter wide, rushing toward Snake Lance Douluo in deadly waves.
"Drink!" Snake Lance Douluo roared. His eighth spirit ring flared to life, flooding his body with surging power. His snake spear, glowing blue-violet, thrust upward against the crashing hammer.
"Rumble—!"
The collision ripped the air apart, echoing like the sky itself shattering. Snake Lance Douluo's body was hurled violently through the air, tumbling back dozens of meters. His palms trembled uncontrollably as he landed, his chest heaving in painful gasps.
Too strong…! This Tang Hao is too damn strong!
Sweat poured down his spine. Whether in combat skill or sheer raw strength, Tang Hao crushed him like an ant beneath a boulder.
And where was that stinky brat Lu Yuan? The one they were supposed to be waiting for?
By now, he'd expected a signal, some hidden blade striking at Tang Hao's back. But nothing came.
Snake Lance's heart sank like lead. Could Lu Yuan have drunk himself unconscious and collapsed somewhere? If that's really the case, we're going to be beaten into mud!
"Boom!"
Another deep crash sent Porcupine Douluo flying into a rock face, his enormous balloon-like hedgehog body cracking stone apart. Blood sprayed from his lips as he slumped heavily.
"Old Snake…" His voice shook in pain. "I can't hold it." His five organs felt like they'd been scrambled from the inside. Tang Hao's hammer was merciless, overwhelming their defenses completely.
Tang Hao sneered, his beastlike hair bristling. His foot slammed the ground.
"Ring Explosion!"
A crisp crack split the air as his first spirit ring shattered violently. Spirit energy soared like wildfire, his aura multiplying at terrifying speed.
Snake Lance Douluo and Porcupine Douluo's throats bobbed nervously. Their faces drained of color. His power had leapt again—if they could barely endure before, now they were only waiting for death.
Tang Hao raised the massive crimson hammer high. "Go to hell!"
It descended with unstoppable force, aimed straight for their skulls.
The Saving Sword
"Chichichi—!"
Just as despair filled their chests, a white blade of icy energy streaked down from above. A long, dark sword erupted with frost, its golden-etched core blazing.
The Clear Sky Hammer struck its edge, not their heads.
A single man stood between them.
Lu Yuan.
"Boom!"
The hammer clashed with the sword. For a moment the world froze, then an impact wave blasted outward, toppling trees and shattering nearby rocks in a tide of rubble.
Lu Yuan's boots slid furrows backward in the dirt, then his body was violently flung away. Even so, that brief moment had been enough. Snake Lance Douluo and Porcupine Douluo dropped back in disbelief, lives snatched back from the edge of death.
Tang Hao's eyes narrowed. "You."
In his muddy gaze, rare surprise flickered.
The boy before him—no. The Soul King before him—had just blocked his ring-exploded hammer. That sword… it wasn't ordinary. Its aura had pressed against his own strike, weakened his force. Even his arm felt a cold, biting numbness.
When had such a person appeared in Douluo Continent?
Lu Yuan dusted the dirt from his coat and swayed lightly, still holding his jar in one hand. "Hm. Not bad. I feel like I'm pretty good."
Snake Lance Douluo and Porcupine Douluo almost vomited blood.
This brat—he'd just blocked Tang Hao's killing blow, and yet called it "pretty good" like it was nothing? Was he cursing them indirectly, for being weaker than a "pretty good" Soul King?!
They wanted to roar, you're insane!
Tang Hao frowned deeper. Drunk? Shameless? Or simply fearless?
Still—this boy's pressure… almost at the level of a Contra. Unthinkable.
Sword and Hammer
"Try this then!" Lu Yuan planted his feet into the ground, raising the black sword again. His fifth spirit ring blazed to life.
In the blink of an eye—his body dissolved.
The next instant he had become Sword Qi, a storm of black streaks slashing toward Tang Hao like a hurricane.
"Chichichi—!"
Sparks cascaded as his blade cut across the massive Clear Sky Hammer, shrieking with each slice. Tang Hao sensed danger at his rear, twisting his waist with honed instinct and swinging the hammer horizontally.
"Ding—dong!"
Sword met hammer once more. The collision burst with a thunderclap, shockwaves whipping across the field. Rocks shattered into powder from the sheer pressure.
This time Lu Yuan was flung fifty meters high, the air shattering in his wake. Shadowed mist rose around him, faint black energy dancing along his body.
But even Tang Hao himself slid back two steps.
Shifting his gaze to his right arm, his eyes startled. A sheen of crystal-white frost coated his wrist where sword and hammer clashed. Even the hammer's surface glittered with an ice crystal layer.
"…An extreme cold attribute?" Tang Hao's eyes widened.
A Soul King with this sword, this strength, and an ice elementicality potent enough to slow Title Douluo speed?
Ridiculous! Absolutely absurd.
With a shake and surge of soul power, he shattered the ice.
But before he could catch his breath—
"Chichichichichi!"
Lu Yuan rained Sword Qi from above, blades streaking like arrows from a stormcloud. Among them hid several blades darker and sharper, infused with his very essence.
Tang Hao instantly lifted the hammer skyward, spirit rings glowing. A dome of energy unfolded, enveloping him in a shield of crimson power.
"Ding ding ding ding—!"
Each sword rang against the dome, sparks flying, streaks colliding. Not one pierced through.
The Douluo Strike
"Now!" Snake Lance Douluo and Porcupine Douluo roared. Both unleashed their ninth soul abilities in unison.
Snake Lance's tall body melted into his spear, fusing into a deadly extension of serpentine will. The weapon erupted, slashing crescent blades of blue light, one after another, flooding like a storm tide onto Tang Hao.
Porcupine's monstrous body swelled further, nearly ten meters across. Purple poison mists sprayed wildly from his maw, rolling outward. Rocks hissed and melted instantly where the toxins touched.
Scouts stationed in the outer ring of the battle froze, utterly dumbfounded.
This was no human fight anymore—it was gods clashing. Waves of poison, blades of spirit light, a hammer that could shake mountains, and one insane Soul King with a cursed black sword. Who could have imagined such madness?
They trembled, their own fighting spirit shrinking to nothing.
Compared to Lu Yuan, what are we? Soul Emperors? We can't even step into the ring of such titans…
The Hammer of Heaven
Tang Hao's eyes sharpened. "Ring Explosion — Big Sumeru Hammer!"
Two more rings exploded, his aura skyrocketing further. The crimson hammer in his hand surged monstrously, swelling to more than ten meters long. Its shaft thickened wider than a man's thigh, the head of the hammer casting an eclipsing shadow.
The power that erupted locked all three of them instantly. Lu Yuan, Snake Lance, and Porcupine felt pinned in every direction, their bodies shackled by spirit pressure.
The hammer raised high, glowing runes spiraling across it. Tang Hao's roar thundered:
"Die!!!"
The moment he swung, the entire battlefield howled. Wind howled, trees ripped from the earth, rivers cracked apart.
Lu Yuan's pupils shrank.
Within his mind, his will triggered again. Feng Chen Absolute Slash… start!
His fifth ring flashed again. His body dissolved to streaking light, weaving out of the hammer's path at the last possible instant.
Snake Lance and Porcupine weren't so lucky—barely escaping with their ninth rings' powers flaring.
The hammer crushed the earth in a cataclysm of dust and thunder.
From above, Lu Yuan reformed from black sword-light, grinning with reckless, drunken fire.
"Not bad, old man. But I feel like… I'm still pretty good."
--
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