The Master's Madness

Outside Suotuo City, beside a mass grave, stood a ramshackle grass hut.

Yu Xiaogang jolted awake from his coma, his forehead slamming into a rotten wooden stake. The pain made him suck in a sharp breath. He touched his chest, where two ribs had been broken. Even the slightest breath felt like steel needles churning inside his lungs.

"Flender?" he called hoarsely.

In the corner, Flender was squatting on the ground, stuffing mud-covered grass roots into his mouth. His eyes were hollow as he mumbled indistinctly, "Five million... Gold Soul Coins... my academy... it's gone..."

"Mad... everyone's gone mad." Yu Xiaogang forced himself upright, an intense desolation rising within him. But he quickly made himself calm down. He was the Master, the invincible authority on theory. As long as Tang San was still alive, as long as that genius with Twin Martial Souls remained, he still had a chance to turn things around.

"Where's Xiao San? Where did Xiao San go?" Yu Xiaogang searched the hut like a madman, only to find a pool of dried black blood on the ground.

He staggered toward Suotuo City. Although Wanted Posters were plastered at the city gate, he believed that in his current state—with his face smeared in grime and his beard unkempt, so unrecognizable even his own mother would not know him—the City Guards certainly would not recognize him either.

At Suotuo City's southern gate, a crowd had gathered, the clamor nearly lifting the city wall.

"Look, Spirit Hall just issued a notice! Tang San from Shrek Academy is dead!"

"What a miserable death. I heard a meteorite struck his shoulder, then a ten-year Wind Baboon smothered him to death."

"Haha, that's the genius? The little monster who claimed he would challenge opponents above his rank? That death could go down in Shrek's school history, couldn't it?"

Yu Xiaogang squeezed into the crowd, his gaze locking tightly onto the enormous notice.

At the center of the notice was Tang San's specially enlarged face, his eyes unclosed in death. It had become the laughingstock of the entire city. Beside it, conspicuous words read: [Cause of death: Karma Retribution, Luck Backlash. Suffocated to death after a low-level Soul Beast, a Wind Baboon, covered his mouth and nose with its buttocks.]

"Pfft—!"

Yu Xiaogang felt a fishy sweetness surge up his throat. He sprayed three mouthfuls of old blood in a mist, staining the notice before him red.

His mind buzzed, and his worldview shattered completely at that moment. His hope, his test subject, the disciple he had been so proud of, had actually died in such an... absurd way?

"Conspiracy! This must be Spirit Hall's conspiracy!" Yu Xiaogang braced himself against the city wall, his fingernails digging into the cracks between the stones, his eyes filled with madness. "Qian Mo! You killed my disciple and ruined my reputation. This hatred cannot be borne beneath the same sky!"

He felt around inside his robes. There were several hidden weapon parts Tang San had left behind before departing. He had originally intended to keep them for research, but now they had become his only travel expenses.

He turned and looked toward Heaven Dou City. There lay his last shelter—Liu Erlong.

"Erlong... only you will help me." Yu Xiaogang gritted his teeth, sold the hidden weapon parts cheaply to a roadside blacksmith shop, traded them for a few dry, moldy flatbreads, and set out on the escape route.

Cloud Top Heavenly Palace.

Qian Mo lay comfortably on Zhu Zhuqing's ample thighs. The maiden's slender fingers gently pressed his temples, while a faint fragrance lingered around his nose.

"My lord, Yu Xiaogang has already set out." At his side, Xiao Wu, dressed in a gold thread long skirt, reported softly, a flicker of satisfaction passing through her eyes.

"Mm." Qian Mo closed his eyes and lightly tapped the air with a finger.

[System, activate the Holographic Projection Broadcast. Target: Heaven Dou City, all Soul Master Academies.]

[Command received. Scandal Video The Hypocritical Mask Behind the Master has entered the Broadcast Sequence.]

A teasing curve formed at the corner of Qian Mo's mouth. Killing did not necessarily require a blade. For someone like Yu Xiaogang, who regarded his reputation as life itself, making him live amid everyone's scorn was the greatest punishment.

"Zhuqing, want to watch the show?" Qian Mo pulled Zhu Zhuqing's hand over and kissed it lightly against his lips.

Zhu Zhuqing's face reddened slightly, but her gaze remained firm. "As long as it is something you want to see, Zhuqing will accompany you."

Heaven Dou City, Blue Tyrant Academy.

As one of the top five Soul Master Academies in Heaven Dou City, Blue Tyrant Academy had always been known for practical combat. Its dean, Liu Erlong, nicknamed the Horn of Slaughter, stood before the academy sports field's enormous Soul Guiding Screen. Her entire body resembled a volcano on the verge of eruption.

On the screen, a video that Qian Mo had magically modified was playing on repeat.

In the footage, a younger Yu Xiaogang bragged in front of Bibi Dong's retreating figure. "Erlong? She's nothing but a tool to me. Without her, how could I complete the Golden Iron Triangle's Martial Soul Fusion Skill? Once I've made use of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's resources, she'll be useless."

Then came Yu Xiaogang's scornful assessments of Liu Erlong's personality in various settings. "That crazy woman is good for nothing but violence."

"Boom—!"

A fiery red Fire Dragon Phantom around Liu Erlong instantly went berserk. Terrifying Spirit Power Fluctuations shattered the surrounding stone pillars.

Her eye sockets were red, not from sorrow, but from extreme fury. Twenty years of longing and twenty years of waiting had become a colossal joke at this moment.

"Yu! Xiao! Gang!" Liu Erlong gritted her teeth, every word seeming to be squeezed out with blood from between them.

Just then, a student ran over in a panic.

"R-report, Dean! There's a man at the gate dressed like a beggar. He claims to be your old friend, Yu Xiaogang. He's shouting at the entrance and insisting on seeing you."

Liu Erlong took a deep breath. The anger in her eyes strangely subsided, replaced by a bone-chilling coldness.

She turned and walked toward the weapon rack.

There rested an enormous jet-black spiked club covered in barbs and sharp spikes. It was a heavy weapon she had used during her early years of training, sealed away for many years.

"Old friend?" Liu Erlong lifted the five-hundred-jin spiked club in one hand and dragged it across the ground, carving out a trail of dazzling sparks.

"Come. Let's welcome our... Master."

Outside Blue Tyrant Academy.

Though Yu Xiaogang wore ragged clothes, he still tried his best to straighten his back and assume the posture of a Melancholy Sage.

The surrounding students pointed and gestured at him, their eyes full of contempt and mockery.

"Look, isn't that the scumbag in the video who acts like a freeloader?"

"Tsk, tsk. He doesn't look like a good person. A level twenty-nine Soul Grandmaster actually dares call himself Master?"

Yu Xiaogang frowned as he listened to the comments around him. He thought these children were simply jealous of his talent.

"Erlong! I know you're in there!" Yu Xiaogang channeled Soul Power and cried out passionately toward the academy gate. "I'm back! I've suffered too much these past years. Only this place, only you, are the home of my soul!"

He had already planned it out. Once Liu Erlong came out, he would first embrace her passionately, then tell her of the hardships he had endured over the years. Finally, he would naturally take control of Blue Tyrant Academy and use its resources to train another batch of loyal killers to seek revenge against Qian Mo.

"Creak—"

The heavy academy gates slowly opened.

A smile Yu Xiaogang believed to be charming appeared on his face. He opened his arms and stepped forward. "Erlong, I knew you wouldn't—"

Before he could finish.

A scorching gust of wind rushed straight at him.

Yu Xiaogang saw only a fiery red figure flash out like a meteor. Then an enormous spiked club covered in vicious spikes rapidly filled his vision.

"Thud!"

It was the sound of a heavy object striking a rotten sack.

Yu Xiaogang did not even have time to scream before his entire body was sent flying like a golf ball, the spiked club smashing brutally into his waist.

"Crack!"

The sound of breaking bones was unmistakable.

Yu Xiaogang traced a perfect arc through the air, accompanied by a string of bloodied teeth, and flew more than a hundred meters before crashing heavily into the stinking drainage ditch across the street.

Liu Erlong planted the spiked club on the ground with one hand, her fiery red long skirt snapping in the wind. She looked down at the struggling man in the ditch without the slightest trace of pity in her eyes.

"E-Erlong... you..." Yu Xiaogang raised his head from the foul muddy water, his face filled with horror.

Liu Erlong looked down at him coldly and spat out one word.

"Get lost!"

"If I see you again, I'll cripple you and feed you to the dogs!"

Yu Xiaogang was utterly dumbfounded. Looking at the mocking faces around him and Liu Erlong's merciless expression, the last shred of vanity in his heart finally collapsed.

At the other end of Heaven Dou City, Xue Qinghe (Qian Renxue) held a proposal concerning the Auspicious Divine Kingdom and fell into deep thought.