"You finally came."
The voice was soft, yet it clearly spread through the entire expanse of ruins.
It was not Huo Yuhao speaking.
The ruins themselves were resonating. Those broken walls and shattered remains, those places where bones lay buried, those cries and vows concealed by time—all of them were stirred by the seated figure in that instant, transforming into those few words that crashed heavily into everyone's ears.
A thousand meters behind Lu Jun, at the edge of the ruins.
Tang Wutong, who had witnessed this scene, unconsciously clenched the hem of her clothes. Her pink-blue hair trembled slightly over her shoulders as she looked in that direction, at that dark blue figure. In the depths of her eyes surged the rippling light beside Sea God Lake ten thousand years ago, the lone silhouette she had watched from beyond the barrier six thousand years ago, and the unfamiliarity of this moment—so close at hand, yet seemingly separated by an entire river of time.
Di Tian stood half a step beside her. Gu Yue Na, Di Yue, and the other women were also watching from the outskirts of the battlefield, every one of them tense with worry.
Farther away, Federation Speaker Xu Tiandi stood with his hands behind his back. The middle-aged man who held the highest authority on Douluo Star had a face as still as an ancient well. Only the fleeting gravity deep in his eyes revealed his true state of mind.
Yet no one took a single step onto the battlefield.
This was a battle between the strongest Soul Master in history from ten thousand years ago and the strongest Soul Master of the modern era.
It was an agreement, and also an unspoken understanding.
Lu Jun released the hand resting on his sword.
He continued forward.