"Pavilion Master..."
Looking at the taciturn old man reclining in his lounge chair, Xuan Zi called out cautiously.
Creak...
The old man rose and shut the wooden window that opened outward, blocking the ruins and debris from his world.
"Someone wants to excavate the ruins again. This time, there are quite a few forces joining together, so I wanted to ask what the Pavilion Master thinks..."
Though he said that, Xuan Zi knew that the moment he had come to ask, he had already revealed his own thoughts.
That... truly held the possibility of godhood!
In the past, he could still sense something extraordinary about the old man before him, but now there was not even the slightest trace of an aura. If he did not know that he was Dragon God Douluo Mu En, he would truly have taken him for an ordinary old man.
Although Mu En had not finished the Path to Godhood, merely absorbing a full set of Soul Bone armor into his physical body, along with four Melting Rings capable of tempering his body, had already made him powerful beyond Xuan Zi's comprehension.
"How many Students have left?"
Rather than answering Xuan Zi's question, Mu En asked something entirely unrelated to the ruins. His voice was low and slightly hoarse, completely unlike what a Demigod powerhouse should have sounded like.
"...Over the past month, seventeen people have dropped out of the inner academy. As for the outer academy, there have been one hundred and twenty-one, and Zhou Yi's new student class has almost completely emptied out..."
Xuan Zi silently reported a situation Shrek Academy had never encountered since its founding.
Zhou Yi, who had taught Chen Fu and was the wife of Fan Yu, Chen Fu's Teacher, could be considered the Teacher new students looked forward to most. As a result, many had actively joined her class. In the end, it became famous throughout the academy for its enormous class size and staggering dropout rate.
Many Students who had not been expelled had originally gritted their teeth and endured, because many of them had come to become fellow disciples of Chen Fu.
But in the end, they realized why Senior Chen Fu had been taught all the way into the Soul Tool Academy. With the way you teach, what the hell are you even teaching? You start cursing people at the drop of a hat, and every now and then you shake like you're about to pick a fight. The campus bullying under your hand is fucking outrageous. I came here to study, and you make me run and exercise every day. Do you think we're idiots who don't know how to run on our own?
Now they had discovered that Shrek Academy's Sea God was somewhat different from what the textbooks advertised. There were even rumors that Senior Chen Fu's Level Nine Soul Tool had been destroyed by the Sea God, who had driven him away.
How could they stand for that? What had they endured humiliation for? That old hag tortured them every day with her grating voice—if they had even a shred of backbone, why would they take this abuse? What? They heard Senior Chen Fu was recruiting? To hell with you, old lady Zhou. I'm leaving!
Although the academy had prohibited Students from spreading what Chen Fu had said when he left, a ban could not stop it. The commotion that day had been too great. Many Students knew about it, and after exchanging information with one another, the news spread rapidly.
"Pavilion Master, the... reconstruction plan for Sea God Island has been completed. Please review it..."
Xuan Zi brought up another important item on the agenda. He had previously been solely responsible for such matters, but seeing that Mu En was clearly not in the right state, he felt it was necessary to ask more.
"Ignorance comes from the unknown. Open part of the outermost ring track to them..."
Mu En's slow voice, heavy with the air of twilight, drifted out. He understood that blocking was worse than guiding. Let those self-proclaimed geniuses who looked down on everyone else see what it meant for there to always be someone greater.
"Sea God Island? Why rebuild it?"
Mu En slightly turned his head and glanced at Xuan Zi. Beneath the warm, pale yellow sunlight filtering through the window screen, mysterious black-blue divine patterns occasionally emerged on his face and crawled like insects. In Mu En's abnormal azure eyes, Xuan Zi saw the stench and coldness hidden in the depths of the vast sea.
"Pavi—"
"Xuan Zi, from now on, you are the Pavilion Master."
After saying that, he ignored the utterly frozen Xuan Zi, lay back down, and closed his eyes amid the faint radiance.
This degree of radiance felt like that sunlit afternoon...
When [Ascension] energy had entered his body together with the set of Soul Bones, the total energy level had not seemed to rise too dramatically. Yet the increase in his source Soul Power had been terrifying. Any Self-Created Soul Skill he cast through that source would receive an unimaginable amplification.
Moreover, he had a Dragon Dan that had melted and been absorbed alongside it, and the quality of his Soul Power had soared by leaps and bounds.
Combined with the path he was gradually forging, in terms of direct combat strength alone, he was a Demigod closer to godhood than Di Tian.
So, I became the mortal you believed had the greatest hope of becoming a god on my own as well, didn't I?
As he watched his body mutate step by step during this period, Mu En's mood had become terrifyingly bleak.
This was the so-called... mercy of a god?
Then I am deeply grateful for your mercy... for choosing such a gentle way to erase my possibility of going any further.
A body that had begun its initial divinization, blank as a sheet of paper, simply could not resist the Sea God's divine power. In the end, it would slowly mutate bit by bit into something unknown, like the strange and horrifying indescribable things lurking in the dark deep sea.
After all... I was your most devout Sea God Pavilion Master... It would not look good to simply blast me to death, would it, Ancestor Tang San?
Mu En's mentality was changing subtly, little by little. The devotion belonging to a believer was slowly being replaced by an unknown fervor.
The pursuit of his entire life had seen light in the darkness, only to be thoroughly crushed bit by bit within that light.
Mu En could sense his own changes. Neither the mutation of his body nor the mutation of his mind was something he could resist.
Fortunately, he felt that he should still have enough time.
"Hm? Mu En, what is it?"
Chen Fu, who was directing people and soul beasts in planning out territory while building a physical mainframe for [Youlan], looked toward Mu En, who had crossed over from the void beside him.
"I found the little girl."
As he spoke, Mu En set down Mo Ling, who was wrapped in Soul Power in his hand.
"Wah! Chen Fu, qilin, Lin Pavilion... and sister Xiaotao... sob..." The girl ran toward Chen Fu, wanting to throw herself at him, but hesitated. In the end, she slumped to her knees and sobbed softly.
Mu En quietly lowered his raised hand, then silently withdrew.
Under Mu En's gaze, Chen Fu placed a hand atop the girl's head.
"It's all right. Lin Pavilion is already a thing of the past."
He pinched the girl's bun hairstyle with his fingers and said in a deliberately relaxed tone:
"[Crimson Phoenix] and [Nirvana] contain Xiaotao's soul aura and bloodline data. She will have a chance at nirvana and rebirth."
Though some people had no chance at all.
"Sob... I never should have left..."
Mo Ling finally understood why Chen Fu had insisted on adding a toxin purification function to [Emerald]. It had been a form of protection for her.
"It's fine. If you had stayed, even more people might have died."
That group of Titled Douluo with complicated motives would not have cared about the lives of Shrek City's residents.
"Mm, go rest first. We still have matters to attend to."
Chen Fu suddenly looked toward the distant horizon. Mu En, Di Tian, Long Xiaoyao, and the others instantly appeared at his side as well.
"They're here. They should have gathered enough people."
"In all my life, this is probably the first time I've seen so many Titled Douluo."
"Should we..."
At Chen Fu's look, Di Tian stopped speaking.
P.S.: Let me show you one of my organization names: [Sword Pavilion].
[Sword Pavilion]: A high-tech research and development organization led by Chen Fu.
Technology is a double-edged sword,
and I
am your Sword Wielder.
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