Grave Robber

Three nights later, Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, Graveyard Mountain.

Over a hundred small, dark figures were flinging soil behind them, shovelful by shovelful. Almost every grave had a figure beside it. Some were illusory, while others were solid.

Ling Chen had gained fairly precise control over his Hundred Demon Shadow Clone. He could divide a clone with 100% of his strength into a hundred clones with 1% of his strength each, and at the same time create a thousand illusory figures.

Ling Chen could manage this thanks to the increased age of his Soul Ring.

Using so many clones to dig up graves was, to some extent, utterly unconscionable. Digging up one grave was grave robbing, but what about a hundred?

In fact, "grave robber" didn't quite describe Ling Chen. He didn't take the burial goods, nor did he take the bodies. At most, he opened the earth, felt around, and buried it again. You could say he was just loosening the soil for them.

But everyone knew the saying about lingering in a melon patch or under a plum tree. If you were digging around in someone else's graveyard with a huge iron shovel, even if you weren't digging up their graves, people would still grow suspicious—let alone when Ling Chen was carrying out a hundred-man operation.

The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's Graveyard Mountain wasn't very large. It consisted of just eight mountains, and there were plenty of "old-timer" players buried there. Ling Chen wouldn't touch them for the time being.

The older the deceased, the more burial goods they tended to have. The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan was said to have a history of ten thousand years. Not every disciple returned to their ancestral home after death, but it would still be no easy task to search all eight mountains.

Their burial customs weren't like those from Ling Chen's old world, where corpses were placed in coffins before being buried. Instead, they dug a large pit and buried the body together with its burial goods.

With this method of burial, it was difficult for Ling Chen to obtain the "old-timers'" Martial Soul Origins. Some had even turned to dust and melded into the earth.

Fortunately, the dates of birth and death were marked on the gravestones, which made digging much faster for Ling Chen.

However, Ling Chen's clones could only last about half a day. After accounting for the time spent traveling, there wasn't much time left.

He had opened more than four thousand graves when his Hundred Demon Shadow Clone disappeared. Some graves hadn't yet been covered back up.

This time, Ling Chen had collected about twenty thousand Martial Soul Origins. That wasn't enough to strengthen the Green Steel Sword, but it was enough to manifest it temporarily.

With a great battle about to break out, Ling Chen couldn't exactly wait until he was backed into a corner before using the Green Steel Sword.

The next morning, Ling Chen used his Soul Skill again and sent his clones to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.

Ning Rongrong had returned to Shrek Academy by then, and Tang San had also settled the matter with the Clear Sky Sect, making a ten-year pact.

But when Liu Erlong and Grandmaster heard the news Yu Tianheng had brought from his clan, they were furious!

"Who's so bold as to dig up the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's graves?"

Yu Xiaogang slammed his fist onto the table in anger, and Flender hurried to calm him down. The table had cost him four hundred Gold Soul Coins. It couldn't take much more of Yu Xiaogang's abuse.

"Hey! Look at you, getting all worked up. We have a lead, don't we? There are footprints at the scene, so just keep investigating."

Yu Xiaogang furrowed his brow. The information he had was simply too outrageous.

"Easy for you to say. If finding him were that simple, I'd have settled the score with him already!"

Liu Erlong clenched her fists as well, the anger on her face threatening to demolish Flender's office.

"Look at you, getting worked up again! Come on, have some tea first..."

Flender was at his wits' end. Nobody from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan was easy to deal with, and he'd spent a lot of money renovating his office.

Yu Xiaogang tossed a letter onto the desk. It had two life-sized drawings of footprints on it.

"These footprints... They belong to a child?"

Flender took one look at the drawings and knew that something was indeed amiss.

"What else would you think?"

Yu Xiaogang snapped.

"What naughty little brat would think of robbing graves? And not just any graves—nearly four thousand of ours!"

"What! Four thousand?"

Flender dug at his ears, almost certain he'd misheard.

"What kind of child could rob four thousand graves? A prodigy? Even a Titled Douluo couldn't pull that off!"

Flender fired off a string of questions. Yu Xiaogang and Liu Erlong fell silent, unable to answer him.

The whole thing was just too bizarre.

Just as everyone was at a loss, Tang San walked in with Rongrong and the others. Seeing their troubled expressions, he looked baffled.

"Dean Flender, I heard you've been living the good life. Why do you look like you've swallowed a dead fly?"

Dai Mubai was the first to walk over, draping an arm over Flender's shoulder.

"What happened? Teacher, Dean, it looks like something serious has happened."

Yu Xiaogang recounted the whole story, and the others were instantly stunned.

"People still rob graves these days? And it was a child?"

Tang San couldn't imagine what it must have looked like: one night, one child, one miracle!

"Teacher, how much of the burial goods did you lose?"

Tang San continued.

"We didn't lose any burial goods. The graves were opened and then buried again. The important thing is that the footprints all stay in one place. There's no sign that they moved."

Yu Xiaogang's words left the others gaping in astonishment.

"Could it be a ghost?"

That was Tang San's first thought. After all, he came from the world of the Tang Sect and had Hidden Weapons like Yama's Invitation, so he knew a thing or two about tales of spirits and ghosts.

Yu Xiaogang turned to Rongrong. She might be their way in. He'd been thinking about the child who possessed a Domain for days, and naturally, he suspected that boy.

"Rongrong, did Sword Douluo take on a child with a Domain as his disciple?"

Ning Rongrong nodded. Hearing Yu Xiaogang say that, Tang San suddenly thought of someone.

"Was the child named Li Tianyi? He should be about seven now, right?"

Ning Rongrong nodded, and Yu Xiaogang looked at Tang San.

"Xiao San, you know this child?"

"Yeah. He came out of Slaughter City with me, so he has the Divine Slaughter's Domain too. My father took him to the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect."

Tang San didn't hide anything. Yu Xiaogang now knew that Huo Wu and the others hadn't been lying.

"Can you tell us more about him?"

Yu Xiaogang wanted to learn more about this monster of a child. Only eight people had ever left Slaughter City as Slaughter Gods, and it was a little frightening that a child like Li Tianyi could be one of them.

"Of course. His ideas are a little crazy, but otherwise, he seems fairly normal."

After hearing Tang San's account, Ning Rongrong couldn't remain calm.

"Third Brother, I haven't seen him leave the sect at all during my time there. You don't suspect he did it, do you?"