At the sound of the voice, two guards slowly pushed open the heavy nanmu doors of the Imperial Study.
The crown prince, Xue Qinghe, walked in from outside, dressed in a magnificent brocade python robe and wearing a calm expression.
Behind him, two royal guards dragged in a black-robed man covered in blood, one on either side, as if hauling a dead dog.
Thump!
The two guards threw the man onto the Imperial Study's polished floor, smooth as a mirror.
They also tossed down a black giant hammer covered in cracks, looking like scrap metal.
"Your son pays his respects to Father."
Xue Qinghe walked to the center of the hall and bowed slightly to Xue Ye, seated on the dragon throne.
The Imperial Study was utterly silent.
Everyone's eyes were fixed on the bloodied man sprawled on the floor.
Emperor Xue Ye furrowed his brows as well, looking at Xue Qinghe with some displeasure.
"Qinghe, what do you mean by this?"
"You are the crown prince of the empire, yet you drag some half-dead beggar into the Imperial Study in broad daylight. What sort of conduct is that?"
At Emperor Xue Ye's reprimand,
Xue Qinghe merely straightened up at his leisure, a faint smile curling at the corners of his mouth.
"Father, didn't you think the rumors about Listening Rain Pavilion were nonsense?"
"Your son has brought back the proof."
As he spoke, Xue Qinghe pointed to the man on the floor, whose arms were bent in a strangely twisted position.
"He is Tang Hao."
What?!
At those two words,
the entire Imperial Study erupted into an uproar!
The group of imperial ministers who had been kneeling all jumped to their feet in fright and stumbled backward.
Prince Xue Xing's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He stared at the man's face beneath the tangled hair, then at the unmistakable Clear Sky Hammer.
Though the hammer was now battered beyond recognition, there could not possibly be a second one of its kind in the world!
"T-Tang... Is that really Tang Hao?!"
Prince Xue Xing sucked in a sharp breath, his scalp prickling.
Emperor Xue Ye also shot to his feet on the dragon throne, his face full of disbelief.
He hurried down the steps, disregarding the pungent smell of blood, and came straight to Tang Hao.
As the ruler of a nation, Emperor Xue Ye possessed some cultivation of his own.
He needed only a brief examination to suck in a sharp breath.
He was crippled!
The Soul Power within this once world-famous Clear Sky Douluo had been completely suppressed and locked down by an extremely overbearing force of blood and energy.
The bones in both arms had been smashed to pieces, and his meridians were severed!
This was no illusion! His physical body had truly been crippled!
"This... This is actually real..."
Emperor Xue Ye murmured to himself, shock filling his cloudy eyes.
"Qinghe, what in the world happened?"
Emperor Xue Ye turned abruptly toward Xue Qinghe, his voice urgent.
"How did Tang Hao end up in your hands?"
Xue Qinghe remained calm and replied evenly:
"Reporting to Father, your son bought him from Mr. Su at Listening Rain Pavilion for eighty million Gold Soul Coins and three treasures from the imperial treasury."
Eighty million Gold Soul Coins!
Three imperial treasures!
Hearing that astronomical price, Emperor Xue Ye's vision went black. He nearly fainted on the spot.
"Have you gone mad?"
Prince Xue Xing jumped up and down beside them, pointing at Xue Qinghe and berating him:
"Eighty million Gold Soul Coins! Do you know how many legions that could equip?"
"You spent it buying Tang Hao, a man whose cultivation is completely crippled? You're squandering the treasury of the Tiandou Empire!"
Faced with Prince Xue Xing's accusations, Xue Qinghe did not even glance at him.
Instead, he turned to Emperor Xue Ye with utmost seriousness and spoke slowly:
"Father, whether Tang Hao lives or dies, and even the Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone within him, are not important."
"The reason your son paid such a price was not to buy Tang Hao."
Xue Qinghe paused, his tone resolute:
"What I bought was a favorable impression from Mr. Su."
"Because I have made up my mind."
"I want to become Mr. Su's disciple!"
Xue Qinghe's words were even more shocking than Tang Hao's identity had been.
Everyone in the Imperial Study was dumbfounded.
Become his disciple?
The crown prince of the mighty Tiandou Empire, the heir to the throne, wanted to become a storyteller's disciple?
If word got out, what would become of the Heaven Dou Imperial Family's dignity?
"Absurd!"
Emperor Xue Ye flew into a rage and flung back his sleeve.
"You are the empire's heir apparent! Your teacher should be a pillar of the nation, a Sect Master of a great sect!"
"To become the disciple of some storyteller of unknown origins is utterly ridiculous!"
Yet, faced with Emperor Xue Ye's fury, Xue Qinghe did not back down in the slightest.
"Father, can't you see it yet?"
Xue Qinghe pointed at Tang Hao on the floor and insisted:
"A man who can cripple a Peak Douluo using nothing but his physical body, without Soul Power."
"A man who can summon the Grand Pontiff of Sea God Island at will, then send him away just as easily."
"His very existence has already surpassed all the so-called laws of the Douluo Continent!"
After speaking, Xue Qinghe continued to meet Emperor Xue Ye's gaze and said, word by word:
"The stories he tells are not strange tales!"
"They describe a vast world that truly exists, one far beyond our understanding!"
"There is a Unique Cave Heaven that can make one immune to all techniques."
"And there is even the Samsara Precious Technique, which can reverse the flow of time and grant people a new life!"
At the words "Samsara Precious Technique," Emperor Xue Ye's furious expression abruptly froze.
Reverse the flow of time?
Grant people a new life?
For an aging emperor whose body grew weaker by the day, who constantly felt death drawing near,
those words had a force ten thousand times more deadly than any promise of invincibility.
"Y-You... What did you say?"
This time, Emperor Xue Ye stared at Xue Qinghe, his voice trembling.
"Is the legendary Samsara Bone, which can take away a person's lifespan, real?"
"It can do more than take it away. It can also grant it."
Xue Qinghe seized on Emperor Xue Ye's weakness with keen insight and continued:
"According to Mr. Su, that was merely Little One's second Supreme Bone."
"In the world he describes, immortality—and even igniting divine fire—are real."
"Father."
Xue Qinghe stepped forward and continued:
"If your son can become his disciple, if I can beg even a trace of the art of immortality from him..."
"Then the Tiandou Empire can be passed down through your hands for thousands upon thousands of generations!"
Silence.
The Imperial Study fell silent for a long time.
The imperial ministers who had been shouting just moments ago all fell quiet.
They knew full well that no emperor could resist the temptation of immortality.
Emperor Xue Ye stood where he was, his expression shifting.
He looked at Tang Hao, utterly crippled on the floor, then recalled what Xue Qinghe had just said.
The art of immortality.
Those four words seemed to possess some kind of magic. They circled wildly in his mind, taking root and sprouting.
If all of this was true,
if that Su Chen truly possessed ancient inheritances far beyond this continent,
then forget eighty million Gold Soul Coins.
Even if it meant exhausting the entire treasury of the Tiandou Empire, it would still be worth it!
At last, Emperor Xue Ye seemed to make up his mind. He took a deep breath and said:
"Relay My imperial decree!"
"Tomorrow morning, prepare the highest-ranking royal carriage!"
"I will leave the palace in person!"
"I will go to Listening Rain Pavilion and meet this Mr. Su!"
As he spoke, Emperor Xue Ye's gaze swept over everyone present.
"If he truly possesses such heaven-reaching powers, if he truly knows the art of immortality..."
"Then, here in Heavenly Dou Imperial City, before all the people of the realm..."
"I will honor him as the Imperial Tutor of the Tiandou Empire!"
Imperial Tutor!
At those words, Prince Xue Xing's knees nearly gave way, and he almost stumbled.
This was a supreme honor, one that placed its recipient above thousands, and even required the emperor to pay him the respect due a half-teacher!
Since the founding of the Tiandou Empire, no one had ever received such an honor.
Yet now, no one dared to stand up and object.
Everyone knew that once the truth about Listening Rain Pavilion was confirmed,
the very sky above the Douluo Continent was going to change completely.
As night gradually fell,
Heavenly Dou Imperial City did not settle into its usual calm. Instead, an unprecedented undercurrent swept through it.
On the roads outside the city, several groups radiating terrifying auras raced toward the imperial capital under cover of darkness.
The Pope Token of Spirit Hall. The Sect Master's token of the Clear Sky Sect.
And the highest-ranking royal carriage of the Heaven Dou Imperial Family, soon to depart.
Within that single night, these three top-tier powers, each capable of turning the entire continent upside down, converged upon what had once been a peaceful imperial city.
And every spearpoint, every gaze,
was directed at the seemingly ordinary, three-story teahouse in the southern part of the city.
Listening Rain Pavilion.
The next morning.
When the eastern horizon had only just begun to pale with the first hint of dawn,
Heavenly Dou Imperial City, which usually would have already grown noisy, was strangely quiet.
The entire street where Listening Rain Pavilion stood was deserted.
The shops on both sides of the street were tightly shut. Not even a single one of the vendors who usually set up early to sell drinks was anywhere to be seen.
The air was filled with a heavy pressure that made it hard to breathe.
Even hidden inside their homes, people could feel the ground trembling faintly beneath their feet.
Amid a steady clatter of armor, uniform as rolling thunder,
a troop of Royal Knights in silver heavy armor, carrying long spears, slowly advanced down the street with a grim and solemn air.
Surrounded by the knights, a gilded royal carriage drawn by six pure-white unicorns rolled slowly down the street, then stopped outside Listening Rain Pavilion.
The carriage curtain was lifted.
Wearing a dragon robe embroidered with golden patterns, Emperor Xue Ye slowly stepped down from the carriage with Crown Prince Xue Qinghe supporting him.
Emperor Xue Ye lifted his head and took a long, penetrating look at the seemingly unremarkable, three-story teahouse before him.
It was only an ordinary wooden building, without ornate carvings or any Spirit Gathering Array.
Yet in just two days, this place had punched a gaping hole in the sky above the Douluo Continent.
"Father, this is the place." Xue Qinghe lowered his voice and stood respectfully to one side.
Emperor Xue Ye nodded slightly, just about to speak.
Rumble!
The sky had been clear, but suddenly, without warning, a thunderclap rang out!
A moment later, six towering figures, as imposing as demons, came crashing down from the air at the end of the long street like meteorites!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A series of dull, thunderous impacts followed.
The hard bluestone road in front of Listening Rain Pavilion was instantly stamped with six deep craters.
Cracks spread wildly from beneath their feet like a spiderweb, reaching all the way to the imperial carriage of Xue Ye.
The Royal Knights' warhorses were startled and let out a chorus of whinnies, nearly throwing their formation into disarray.
Xue Ye's expression darkened as he looked over.
The old man at the head of the group had a head of gray hair and a build as sturdy as an iron tower. His tiger-like eyes were crossed with bloodshot veins, and his entire body radiated undisguised, savage killing intent.
He was none other than the Clear Sky Sect's Sect Master, Howling Sky Douluo, Tang Xiao!
Behind him, five Clear Sky Sect elders stood in a line.
A full six Titled Douluo!
And every one of them was a top-tier fighter wielding the strongest Tool Spirit in the world!
The terrifying pressure they unleashed together sent the roof tiles flying from the buildings on both sides of the street.
"Heaven Dou Emperor?"
Tang Xiao glanced at Xue Ye, his tone blunt. He couldn't even be bothered with the most basic greeting.
"The Clear Sky Sect is here on business today. Anyone who has no business here had better get lost, unless you want to be splattered with blood."
Faced with Tang Xiao's brazen dismissal, a flicker of anger crossed Xue Ye's eyes.
But before he could react, an exceptionally soft female voice suddenly rang out from the other end of the long street.
"Tang Xiao."
"For all these years, you've hidden in the snowy mountains like a rat, afraid to show your face."
"But today, you've finally decided to come out and bite people?"
The moment the voice sounded, Tang Xiao and the five elders' expressions changed. They whipped around to look.
At the far end of the street, a layer of eerie purplish-black poisonous mist had appeared from nowhere.
Within the poisonous mist, Bibi Dong, dressed in a bright red papal robe and wearing a purple-gold crown, walked slowly toward them with a scepter in hand, as if she were strolling through a garden.
Her stunning face bore a trace of cold mockery as she looked down at Tang Xiao and the others from on high.
Behind Bibi Dong, Golden Crocodile Douluo wore dark gold heavy armor, as immovable as a mountain.
Azure Luan Douluo wore a blue-green robe, storms swirling around him.
Farther behind them stood Yue Guan, Gui Mei, and six other Titled Douluo elders of Spirit Hall!
Ten Titled Douluo!
Among them were the unfathomable Pope Bibi Dong and Golden Crocodile, a peak enshrined at Level 98!
The moment this group appeared,
the air along the entire street seemed to be sucked away. Even the sunlight appeared obscured by this terrifying lineup.
The spies and informants of the various factions hiding in the shadows collapsed to the ground in fright, unable even to breathe.
Madness! This was sheer madness!
Sixteen Titled Douluo had gathered outside Listening Rain Pavilion today!
If this level of power erupted in full, it would take only half an incense stick's time to wipe the vast Heavenly Dou Imperial City off the map!
"Bibi Dong!"
Tang Xiao stared at Bibi Dong as she approached, his eyes instantly bloodshot.
New and old grudges surged into his heart.
The nine Soul Rings beneath his feet rose beyond his control, and the black Clear Sky Hammer in his hand instantly took shape, emitting a deafening hum.
"What, you want to fight?"
Bibi Dong sneered, not even glancing at the hammer in Tang Xiao's hand.
"Do you think a few good-for-nothings hiding in the mountains can stop me?"
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