Faced with such wildly arrogant words, Gu Qing showed not the slightest emotional reaction.
His long, powerful arm steadily supported Qian Renxue's delicate body as he calmly walked toward an intact stone step nearby.
Amid the ruins strewn with debris, he took those few steps with extraordinary steadiness.
Gu Qing gently set the beauty in his arms down on the stone step.
A ring of Life-Type Blue Silver Grass vines, glowing with a soft green light, sprouted from the earth.
The thick vines quickly wove together into a sturdy semicircular barrier.
It shut out the murderous aura outside, as fierce as a storm of blood and wind.
"Gu Qing, be careful. Ring Detonation is no small matter."
Qian Renxue leaned against a stone pillar, her pale face filled with worry.
Her slender fingers clutched the hem of Gu Qing's clothes tightly.
Gu Qing gently patted the back of her trembling hand.
"Wait here for me. I'll be done in no time."
Turning around, Gu Qing stood with his back to the green barrier.
His gaze fixed on the man before him, bathed from head to toe in crimson light.
"With a decrepit body that's practically on its last legs, you still dare run your mouth in Heaven Dou City?"
At the taunt, Tang Hao's eyes flared with rage.
The veins on his forehead bulged like writhing dragons.
He raised the Clear Sky Hammer in his hands high above him, its bulk like a small mountain.
The heavy hammerhead let out a shrill whistle as it cut through the air.
The seventh Soul Ring beneath his feet blazed with black light.
The pressure of his Martial Soul Avatar surged to its utmost.
The crimson glow of Divine Slaughter's Domain pressed forward like something tangible.
"Arrogant, ignorant brat! When I made my name, you hadn't even been born yet!"
The muscles in Tang Hao's thick arms suddenly bulged.
His enormous Clear Sky Hammer crashed down with the force of Mount Tai bearing down from above.
This strike gathered all the resentment and killing intent he had accumulated over the years.
He was determined to smash the young man who had ruined his plans into a heap of minced meat.
Facing this Thunderous Might of a strike, Gu Qing remained rooted to the spot.
The gentle aura of life surrounding him abruptly changed.
A profoundly deep black light, like an abyss, surged up from beneath his feet.
There was not the slightest trace of life in that black light.
Only endless destruction and an urge to devour all.
Hundreds upon hundreds of thick black vines burst through the broken paving stones.
Their surfaces bristled with sharp barbs.
Every one of them glimmered with a chilling, dusky light.
At last, the Dark-type Blue Silver Grass revealed its true, fearsome nature on this night.
The black vines writhed like a horde of serpents.
They quickly gathered and coiled together in midair.
In the blink of an eye, they formed a gigantic black hand.
The hand, woven from Dark Blue Silver Grass, shot straight toward the descending Clear Sky Hammer.
The two collided violently in midair.
There was no earth-shattering boom.
Nor was there a raging storm of energy.
Only a dull, grating scrape spread through the night sky.
Tang Hao's hands jerked around the hammer's haft.
A look of shock flashed across his weathered face.
The terrifying force that could have leveled a city vanished without a trace the instant it met the black hand, like a stream sinking into the sea.
More alarming still, the frenzied Soul Power clinging to the Clear Sky Hammer was being devoured by the black vines.
That devouring force crept all the way along the hammer's haft.
It seemed intent on draining the Soul Power from his body as well.
"What in the blazes is this thing?"
Tang Hao roared.
He strained to pull backward with both hands.
He tried to wrench the Clear Sky Hammer free of the black hand's grip.
But the black hand had clamped onto the enormous hammerhead.
Its barbs had pierced deep into the solidified Soul Power.
Like a parasite burrowed into the bone, it could not be shaken loose at all.
The intelligence on Gu Qing clearly mentioned only the vigorous Life-Type Blue Silver Grass.
This strange, unfathomable Martial Soul, brimming with an aura of destruction, was entirely beyond Tang Hao's understanding.
"Having a hard time already?"
Gu Qing raised his right hand.
His five fingers curled slightly inward.
The black hand in midair suddenly tightened its grip.
It yanked the Clear Sky Hammer sharply downward.
Caught off guard, Tang Hao was lurched forward by the tremendous pull.
He nearly pitched headfirst into the ruins.
"Back then, the Spirit Hall chased you across the whole continent like a dog. Looking at you now, I'd say you had it coming."
Those words pierced straight into Tang Hao's most secret pain, like a sharp blade.
The tragic scene of Ah Yin's sacrifice appeared before his eyes once more.
"You little bastard, you're asking for death!"
Tang Hao went berserk.
His eyes were so bloodshot they seemed ready to drip blood.
The two yellow Hundred-Year Soul Rings beneath his feet shattered with a crash.
The broken Soul Rings turned into two surges of pure energy that flooded his limbs and torso.
He unleashed the secret technique of Ring Detonation again.
His once-dried meridians swelled anew under the impact of that violent energy.
He forced down the tearing pain in his hands' muscles.
His stumbling forward momentum came to a sudden halt.
Black light flared from the Clear Sky Hammer, forcibly snapping the black hand's grip.
With a deafening sonic boom, he swung the hammer around behind him.
"Great Sumeru Hammer!"
The enormous hammer traced a perfect arc through the air.
Using the momentum of the rotation, it swept toward Gu Qing with even more terrifying force than before.
The air compressed violently in its path.
A string of muffled sonic booms burst out.
Watching the enormous hammer sweep toward him, wrapped in the might of destruction,
a smile touched the corner of Gu Qing's mouth.
The profound black light surrounding him suddenly drew back.
In its place blazed a brilliant, dazzling green light.
The transition from destruction to new life was complete in the span of a breath.
Life Blue Silver Grass appeared once more.
Hundreds of lustrous green vines, smooth as jade, formed before him in an instant.
Unlike the Dark-type vines, these were not filled with the power to devour.
Instead, they possessed an ultimate resilience that could never be broken.
Like a storm of whipping shadows, they lashed fiercely at the sweeping Clear Sky Hammer.
The dense cracking sounds rang through the courtyard like rain beating on banana leaves.
Every lash struck precisely at the weakest points in the Clear Sky Hammer's force.
The tremendous power that could split mountains and shatter stone was stripped away layer by layer and unraveled inch by inch by the relentless flurry of strikes, both supple and unyielding.
Tang Hao felt a sudden heat in the web between his thumb and forefinger.
The skin on his palm split open.
The Clear Sky Hammer's violent force had not only failed to accomplish anything.
Instead, an incredibly resilient counterforce traveled up the haft and struck him head-on.
The frustration of punching cotton only to be pierced all over by steel needles hidden inside made Tang Hao's blood and energy churn in his chest.
His throat turned sweet.
A huge mouthful of black blood surged out.
The severe internal injuries he had accumulated years ago erupted under the successive assault of those two extreme attributes.
After knocking back the Clear Sky Hammer, the unyielding green vines did not lose momentum.
They moved like nimble dragons.
They rapidly climbed up the hammer's shaft.
They raced toward Tang Hao's arm.
The vigorous life force radiating from the vines now seemed more terrifying to Tang Hao than a death warrant.
"Get away!"
Tang Hao roared furiously.
Faced with the immense threat to his life, the last vestiges of his reason once again took control.
He stamped down hard with one foot.
He forced his retreating body to steady itself.
He swung the Clear Sky Hammer with all his strength.
He tried to chop through the troublesome green vines.
But Life Blue Silver Grass was far more resilient than he had imagined.
The heavy hammerhead slammed into the vines.
It could only bend and deform them.
As soon as the hammerhead moved away, the vines immediately sprang back into place.
They even lashed out more fiercely than before.
Several green vines had already wrapped around Tang Hao's left arm.
They yanked sharply outward.
The tremendous force of the pull made Tang Hao's shoulder pop out of its socket with a crisp crack.
After suffering one setback after another, Tang Hao was rocked by a storm of shock.
He had thought Gu Qing was merely a junior who relied on a Martial Soul Mutation to gain an advantage.
Only after fighting him did he realize
that the man's strength was as unfathomable as a bottomless abyss.
Whether it was that bizarre devouring black light or the indestructible vitality of the green vines,
both could counter every attack he made.
If this continued,
forget killing Qian Renxue for revenge—he would lose his own life here.
As long as the green hills remained, there would be no shortage of firewood.
He had to get out of here alive.
As soon as the urge to retreat rose in his heart,
his hands slowed by half a beat before he could stop himself.
Gu Qing immediately caught the subtle change.
"What happened to that invincible aura of yours, the aura of the God of Slaughter?"
Gu Qing strode forward.
The air before him erupted in a rapid series of sharp cracks.
Green light blazed beneath his feet.
More Life Blue Silver Grass spread outward like a tide.
It sealed every route of escape from the ruins.
A Heavenly Net woven from green vines descended straight toward Tang Hao.
Watching the young man steadily close in,
Tang Hao's back was already drenched in cold sweat.
The tough vines had sealed off the space around him.
There was not the slightest gap through which he could escape.
Death's shadow seemed to clamp around his throat.
He could hesitate no longer.
"Brat, I'll remember this grudge!"
Tang Hao ground his teeth.
A desperate madness flashed in his eyes.
The sixth black Soul Ring on his body, representing twenty thousand years of cultivation, and the fifth black Soul Ring, representing ten thousand years of cultivation,
detonated at the same time.
The terrifying energy unleashed by two high-year Soul Rings exploding together surged through his body like a volcano on the verge of eruption.
This power, beyond all limits, instantly exceeded what his meridians could withstand.
Blood spurted from all seven orifices.
Yet his aura climbed to a horrifying peak.
"Break!"
"!!!"
The Clear Sky Hammer in his hand swelled to dozens of meters under the infusion of this destructive energy.
With the resolve to charge forward and never look back,
he slammed it into the green wall of vines blocking his path.
A deafening crash rang out.
The foundations of the entire courtyard were torn up.
The incomparably tough Life-Type Blue Silver Grass was finally ripped open by that reckless, frenzied assault, leaving a gap several meters wide.
Tang Hao didn't dare linger for even a moment.
He endured the agony of his meridians being torn apart,
his body turning into a streak of blood-red light.
Riding the force of the rebound, he fled through the gap for his life.
At that moment,
the renowned Clear Sky Douluo, famed across the continent, cut a wretched figure, like a stray dog driven from its home.
Watching Tang Hao's battered figure flee,
Gu Qing stopped.
His expression was so calm it sent a chill down the spine.
"You come and go as you please. What do you take Heaven Dou City for?"
He slowly raised his right hand.
His fingertip pointed straight at the streak of blood-red light racing farther and farther away.
The emerald glow of the Life-Type Blue Silver Grass withdrew into his body in an instant.
That deep, annihilating dark light burst forth once more,
enveloping Gu Qing's entire right arm.
The air around him groaned under the pressure of this dark power.
Countless tiny black vines frantically gathered and compressed in his palm.
Their extreme condensation turned the once-soft vines into an indestructible solid.
In the space of half a breath,
a black longsword formed entirely from Dark-type Blue Silver Grass appeared in Gu Qing's hand.
A sheen that seemed to devour all things flowed across the blade.
Its edge radiated a bone-chilling cold, as if it could cleave through space.
Gu Qing's eyes narrowed.
He stamped his right foot hard against the ground.
His entire body became a black bolt of lightning, instantly tearing through the barriers of space.
He raised the Dark Blue Silver Sword high overhead.
Then he slashed through the air toward the direction Tang Hao had fled.
A black sword aura, more than a dozen zhang long, silently cut through the night sky over Heaven Dou City.
There was no flashy light or spectacle to this sword aura.
Only Destruction Power, pure to the extreme.
The sword aura caught up from behind.
It crossed hundreds of meters in an instant,
and caught the blood-red streak fleeing for its life.
Tang Hao, still running for all he was worth,
suddenly felt a deathly chill creep up his back.
He tried in haste to swing the Clear Sky Hammer and block the attack.
But the violent stiffness caused by the backlash from Ring Detonation made his movements a fraction too slow.
The black sword aura sliced through him like a knife through tofu.
It pierced the protective red glow of the Divine Slaughter's Domain without the slightest resistance.
Then it swept past Tang Hao's right shoulder.
There was no gruesome spray of blood.
The moment the dark sword aura severed muscle and bone, it devoured every drop of blood that welled out.
A thick arm, still wrapped in a tattered sleeve, flew into the air.
"Argh—!"
A scream of utter agony suddenly echoed through the night sky.
Tang Hao's body spun violently through the air as he lost his balance.
But he didn't dare look back at his severed arm.
He could only muster the last of his strength
and, carried by the momentum of his tumble, plunge headfirst into the dense Dark Forest beyond Heaven Dou City.
He vanished without a trace.
In midair,
the severed arm plummeted rapidly.
Gu Qing casually beckoned.
A black Blue Silver Grass vine lashed out like a whip.
It wrapped precisely around the severed limb in midair.
The vine jerked hard.
The severed arm landed securely in Gu Qing's palm.
Dark power surged along the vine and into the severed arm.
With a muffled sound of flesh separating,
the flesh was swiftly stripped away and devoured.
Beneath it lay a bone that glimmered with a gentle blue-gold light.
Strange patterns covered its surface.
A rich aura of life emanated from it,
in stark contrast to the dark power around it.
It was the Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone left in Tang Hao's possession after Ah Yin's sacrifice.
Gu Qing flicked his fingers.
The remains of the severed arm crumbled into dust.
He held the warm, jade-like Soul Bone in one hand and tucked it safely away.
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