The Tang Sect's secret techniques had been thwarted, and he'd been taken down in a single move by someone his own age.
He'd been forced to kneel and kowtow in the street, then loudly confess that he was a despicable villain.
He'd carved every drop of blood debt deep into his bones.
Xue Tianyu, just you wait!
As long as Tang San still drew breath,
one day, he would make Xue Tianyu endure the most agonizing tortures in the world, until he wished he were dead!
Supported on either side by Yu Xiaogang and Dai Mubai, Tang San couldn't even bring himself to utter a tough-sounding threat to save face.
The group helped one another along, pushing through the crowd as if fleeing a plague.
They fled the Great Soul Arena in utter disgrace.
Ning Rongrong and Xiao Wu remained where they were, watching them run away.
Neither of them had any thought of going over to stop them or ask if they were all right.
They felt nothing but intense revulsion.
With Shrek and the others gone,
the atmosphere outside the Great Soul Arena finally relaxed.
Dugu Yan stood not far away, her beautiful eyes shining brightly.
She completely ignored the strange looks from the people around her.
In her high-heeled boots, she strode toward Xue Tianyu with an exceptionally alluring sway.
A gust of wind, carrying a faint, fishy fragrance, rushed toward him.
Dugu Yan moved right up close.
Her bewitching face was flushed with excitement and exhilaration.
"Nicely done!"
"I've never liked those hypocritical, pretentious fools."
"Those moves of yours just now were so cool, you had no equal!"
Dugu Yan praised him again and again, her admiration utterly unreserved.
As she spoke, she even boldly reached out a pale, delicate finger,
wanting to poke at the ice crystals still clinging to Xue Tianyu's shoulder.
Her eyes shone with unconcealed admiration and curiosity.
As an expert in poison herself,
she understood better than anyone present just how insidious and potent the poison on Tang San's Hidden Weapons was.
Yet this excessively handsome young man hadn't even so much as blinked.
He'd casually neutralized everything with nothing but a shield.
His composure, his unfathomable strength—
they had won over the Poison Snake Queen of Heaven Dou Royal Academy.
Xue Tianyu looked at Dugu Yan as she leaned close, his expression calm.
He didn't retreat, simply standing where he was.
Just as Dugu Yan's finger was about to touch his clothes,
a slender, pale hand shot out from the side.
It slapped Dugu Yan's hand away without the slightest courtesy.
"Smack!"
The sharp sound rang out between them.
Ice Empress had somehow already stepped forward, standing firmly at Xue Tianyu's side.
Her emerald eyes were filled with displeasure.
A dangerous chill hung over her exquisite features.
"Stay away from him."
"That awful, fishy snake stench of yours is bothering him."
Ice Empress reprimanded her in an icy voice, without the slightest politeness.
Daring to flirt with her man right in front of her?
Did Dugu Yan really think the overlord of the Far North was just for show?
Dugu Yan rubbed the back of her reddened hand, her eyebrows instantly drawing together.
She was the treasured granddaughter of Poison Douluo, after all.
Where in Heaven Dou City wasn't she pampered and indulged?
"Who do you think you are?"
"I'm talking to Tianyu. What's it to you?"
Dugu Yan folded her arms across her chest and glared back without yielding.
Her proud chest rose and fell slightly, displaying her striking figure.
"He's so outstanding. What's wrong with him having a few more admirers?"
"Everyone can make their own case."
"Look at you, guarding him like he's yours. You're being way too controlling."
Dugu Yan's words brimmed with provocation.
Ice Empress was so furious she laughed.
In an instant, the temperature around her plunged below freezing.
"You want to die?"
Emerald ice crystals began to dance wildly at her fingertips.
She fixed Dugu Yan with undisguised killing intent.
Dugu Yan was just as quick-tempered, ready to flare up at the slightest provocation.
With a turn of her palm, purple-green Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison appeared in her hand.
The two women faced off, neither giving an inch.
The air instantly filled with the smell of gunpowder.
The onlookers nearby promptly backed away again, afraid of getting caught in the crossfire.
Just as the tension reached its breaking point,
an incredibly terrifying pressure descended without warning.
The clear sky was completely shrouded in a layer of sickly green poisonous fog within seconds.
The air grew foul and pungent.
Several onlookers with lower cultivation didn't even have time to cry out.
They collapsed in droves, foaming at the mouth and twitching all over.
"Who dares lay a hand on my granddaughter!"
A furious roar, like a peal of thunder, suddenly exploded in midair.
It made everyone's eardrums ring.
Then,
a tall, thin figure in green appeared in front of Dugu Yan like a ghost.
The newcomer's hair and beard were green, and his face was gaunt and withered.
His eyes, a ghostly green like a venomous snake's, glinted with terrifying ferocity.
A Titled Douluo!
Poison Douluo, Dugu Bo!
Qian Renxue stood in the distance, watching him arrive. Her folding fan snapped shut in her grip.
Her exquisite face grew tense.
Dugu Bo was famous across the continent for being both overprotective and unreasonable.
With him here, the nature of the situation had changed completely.
The moment Dugu Bo landed, his cold gaze fixed on Xue Tianyu.
He'd seen everything clearly while flying over.
His precious granddaughter, who normally thought herself above everyone else,
had actually approached a pretty boy and fawned over him for the first time in her life.
And on top of that, the woman beside him had slapped her hand in front of everyone!
Unacceptable!
The finest cabbage he'd raised with such care, treating her as the apple of his eye—
how could some unknown brat be allowed to trample all over her?
Especially when she'd been humiliated in front of so many people!
"Kid, you're the one showing off and trying to seduce my granddaughter?"
Dugu Bo raised a bony finger and pointed it straight at Xue Tianyu's nose.
The immense pressure of a Titled Douluo
crashed down on Xue Tianyu like a collapsing mountain.
"You must be tired of living!"
Faced with that terrifying, overwhelming pressure,
Xue Tianyu didn't even furrow his brow.
The force that could make an ordinary Soul King fall to his knees in surrender felt like a gentle breeze against him.
He even leisurely raised a hand and brushed dust that wasn't there from his sleeve.
"Old freak, watch your mouth."
Xue Tianyu's tone was utterly calm.
"I have no interest in seducing a snake covered in poison."
The moment those words left his mouth,
everyone present felt their hearts skip a beat.
That was a Titled Douluo!
This kid actually dared to call him an old freak to his face!
"You're asking to die!"
Dugu Bo flew into a rage.
He'd been famous for decades, and no one had ever dared show him such disrespect to his face.
A mass of intensely concentrated, sickly green poison instantly formed in his palm.
Its terrifying corrosive aura made wisps of white smoke rise from the surrounding air.
Just as he raised his hand, ready to slap the ignorant brat to death,
Dugu Yan hurriedly spread her arms and stood in front of Xue Tianyu.
"Grandpa! Stop!"
Dugu Yan stamped her foot in alarm and shouted at him to hold back.
"It's not what you think!"
"He just casually neutralized even the deadly poisons on those Tang Sect weapons!"
"Tianyu's ice attribute is extremely unusual."
"Maybe... maybe he can cure the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison in our bodies!"
Dugu Yan spoke extremely fast.
She was afraid her impulsive grandfather would actually slap their one and only hope to death.
At her words,
Dugu Bo's raised hand abruptly stopped.
But a look of utter contempt soon flashed in his slanted eyes.
"Him?"
"A little brat who hasn't even grown his hair yet?"
Dugu Bo laughed scornfully, as if he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world.
The Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison was the hereditary poison of the Dugu Family's Martial Soul.
Even he, the old ancestor of poison, was powerless against it.
Every day, he suffered the inhuman torment of the poison turning against him.
How many healing-type Soul Masters across the land, all claiming to be miracle doctors, had examined him?
Not one of them had been able to help.
And now he was supposed to believe a boy in his teens could cure it?
That was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard!
"Yan Yan, that pretty face of his has completely fooled you."
Dugu Bo snorted, refusing to take her seriously.
"Today, I'll teach him a lesson and show him just how vast the heavens and earth are!"
Dugu Bo was so full of himself that he simply refused to believe Xue Tianyu was capable of it.
He swept his right hand forward.
Ignoring Dugu Yan's attempt to stop him, he sent a thick plume of Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor poison billowing from his sleeve.
It quickly took the shape of a giant green serpent, more than ten meters long.
The serpent opened its foul-smelling, cavernous jaws.
Then it lunged at Xue Tianyu and bit down hard.
How fast it was—like a green bolt of lightning.
Even the air along its path was corroded, letting out an extremely shrill hissing sound.
"Old fool, don't push your luck!"
The Ice Empress, standing off to the side, was furious.
Right in front of her, he had provoked Xue Tianyu again and again.
Did he really think a Titled Douluo's title let him do whatever he pleased?
Without hesitation, the Ice Empress took a step forward.
She planted herself firmly in front of Xue Tianyu.
A terrifying aura, far beyond anything anyone present could have imagined,
erupted with a thunderous roar from her petite, captivating body.
It was the absolute pressure of a four-hundred-thousand-year-old ruler of the Far North!
A frigid storm burst from her at its center, instantly transforming into a visible white ring that swept across the entire street.
The frost on the ground, already frozen by Xue Tianyu,
now spread outward at an utterly frenzied speed.
In the sky, enormous snowflakes the size of palms began drifting down.
Every flake contained Ultimate Ice powerful enough to crack steel.
The extreme cold brought the blood of everyone present to a standstill.
"What?!"
Dugu Bo's face changed dramatically.
The Titled Douluo aura he prided himself on crumbled instantly before this Extreme Cold Storm.
He felt, with absolute clarity, a deadly threat that could freeze even his soul.
The enormous, vicious serpent formed from the Jade Phosphorous Serpent Emperor's poison
touched the cold wind released by the Ice Empress—
and failed to put up even a second of resistance.
Its massive body stopped dead in midair.
From head to tail, it was frozen into a lifelike, sickly green ice sculpture.
Then, with a deafening crack,
the enormous serpent sculpture exploded in midair, scattering into a storm of green ice shards, now completely devoid of poison.
"How is this possible?!"
Dugu Bo cried out in shock, his face pale with terror.
The deadly poison he took pride in couldn't even break through the cold air his opponent had released so casually!
Before he could recover from his shock and react,
the Ice Empress had already become a streak of emerald-green frost.
She crossed more than ten meters in an instant and appeared right before him.
The Ice Empress used no flashy Soul Skill.
She simply pointed a finger.
Her pale fingertip landed squarely on Dugu Bo's chest.
Ultimate cold surged madly into Dugu Bo through his chest.
"Ugh..."
Dugu Bo's eyes widened. A series of agonized, choking sounds rattled in his throat.
A thick layer of ice spread rapidly upward from his feet.
The frigid temperature instantly locked down all the Soul Power circulating within him.
Along with it, the terrifying Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison that had built up in his meridians over decades
was frozen solid in an instant.
In just a few breaths,
the mighty level ninety-two Titled Douluo,
the Poison Douluo Dugu Bo, whose name struck fear across the entire Heaven Dou Empire,
was frozen in the middle of the street, unable to move.
His entire body was sealed beneath a thick layer of ice.
Only his dark green eyes still moved frantically in their sockets, wild with terror.
They were filled with panic and horror.
The entire scene fell silent.
The air outside the Great Soul Arena seemed to have been sucked away.
Not a single person dared make the slightest sound.
Everyone was so stunned by the horrifying sight that they stood rooted to the spot.
Standing behind them, Qian Renxue suddenly sucked in a sharp breath.
Her breathtaking face was filled with disbelief.
"She actually took out a Titled Douluo in one move..."
"Just what kind of strength does this peerlessly beautiful woman following Xue Tianyu possess?"
She had always thought the Ice Empress was merely Xue Tianyu's confidante or a high-ranking maid.
She had never imagined that the woman had concealed such world-shattering power.
Xiao Wu, Ning Rongrong, and Zhu Zhuqing stood with their mouths agape.
They had been more shocked today than in all the previous decade combined.
That was a Titled Douluo—an exalted figure worshipped like a god!
Yet before this stunning woman,
he had been like a toddler who couldn't even walk, utterly incapable of fighting back!
Where on earth had Xue Tianyu found such a terrifying ally?
"Grandpa!"
Dugu Yan let out a piercing scream.
She stumbled over to Dugu Bo, who had been frozen into an ice sculpture.
Desperately channeling her Soul Power, she tried to melt the ice encasing him.
But the moment her hand touched the sculpture,
the extreme cold tore her skin open, leaving it raw and bloody.
Tears spilled from Dugu Yan's eyes as panic seized her.
She spun around, cast aside all her pride, and dropped to her knees before Xue Tianyu.
"Tian Yu! Please!"
"Please make her stop!"
"My grandpa really didn't mean it. He's just always been too worried about me!"
"If you kill him, I won't go on living either!"
Dugu Yan wept so hard her face was streaked with tears, clutching the hem of Xue Tianyu's clothes.
There was none of the haughty, queen-bee attitude she had shown before.
At that moment, she was simply a helpless girl desperate to save her grandfather's life.
Xue Tianyu looked down at Dugu Yan, kneeling at his feet and begging desperately.
His expression remained as calm as an ancient well.
He had never intended to kill Dugu Bo here and now.
A living Poison Douluo was far more valuable than a cold corpse.
Besides, Dugu Bo still held an opportunity that Xue Tianyu desperately needed.
Before you continue