The excitement and cheers in Spirit Hall's Awakening Hall lingered on. Surrounded by a host of Titled Douluo, the four children were the most dazzling young prodigies on the entire continent.
Meanwhile, over on Bajie's side... bah, over on Tang Hao and Tang San's side, things were decidedly miserable.
In Holy Soul Village, south of Nuoding City in Fasinuo Province of the Heaven Dou Empire, only the year-round stench of liquor and rust lingered in the dilapidated blacksmith shop at the village's western end, wrapped in an inescapable chill and destitution.
The blacksmith shop had two rooms. In the outer room stood a rust-covered forge, with scattered chunks of iron and farm tools awaiting repair piled in a corner, while years of hammering had left the floor densely pitted. The inner room contained only a hard plank bed, a wooden table with a stone propping up its missing leg, and two chipped earthenware bowls. The pungent smell of cheap liquor filled the air, and dozens of empty wine jars lay tossed every which way along the walls.
A bald man with a burly frame but a perpetually hunched back slumped in a chair beside the forge, clutching a wine jar and tipping his head back to pour liquor down his throat. His face looked as though strong acid and raging fire had corroded it over and over, leaving it pitted with hideous scars. The resolute, handsome features he once possessed had been utterly destroyed. Only a pair of cloudy eyes remained, occasionally flashing with a viciousness and sharpness wholly at odds with his wretched appearance whenever the drunken haze briefly receded.
No one knew that this destitute blacksmith, whom the villagers of Holy Soul Village called "Tang Hao," was Clear Sky Douluo Tang Hao, whose name had shaken the continent six years ago—the foremost traitor to humanity, now wanted across the entire continent, his likeness circulated everywhere, with a bounty of one million Gold Soul Coins and two Ten Thousand Year Soul Bones on his head.
To survive, to evade the relentless pursuit that reached into every crack, he had not only disfigured himself and adopted a common name no one would associate with the Clear Sky Sect, but also carved a prosthetic arm from hard iron birch wood and fitted it snugly to his severed right shoulder.
He usually wore a loose, greasy blacksmith's outfit that concealed the prosthetic arm completely. When forging, he used cloth straps to secure the prosthetic arm to the iron and swung his hammer with his left hand alone. He looked no different from the one-armed blacksmiths found everywhere on the continent, perfectly concealing the most distinctive mark that battle had left on him—his right arm, severed by the Angel Holy Sword.
His choice of Holy Soul Village as a hiding place was itself a gamble with his life.
The Barren Ridge War amid the scattered rocks six years ago, which had ruined his reputation, had taken place only three mountains away from Holy Soul Village. A hard ride on a fast horse would get one there in half a day.
Everyone on the continent believed he would flee with his child to some remote wilderness, such as the Far North Ice Plains or the Star Dou Forest. No one would have imagined that he was hiding right under their noses, beside the very place where it had happened.
As the saying went, the most dangerous place was the safest place.
He had brought his child to this remote little village when Tang San had just turned one and was still in swaddling clothes. He had remained hidden there for five years.
The esteemed young master of the Clear Sky Sect, the youngest Titled Douluo on the entire continent, now had to mingle with people he considered mud-legged peasants, bow to the moods of commoners, and forge hoes and sickles in exchange for cheap liquor.
A tiger stranded on the plains, bullied by dogs—nothing could have illustrated it better.
But he had no other choice. He had to endure.
In that battle six years ago, he had not only lost an arm; the damage Ring Detonation had inflicted on his very essence had yet to heal. Only alcohol could barely numb the pain that sank deep into his marrow.
More importantly, he was wanted across the entire continent. The slightest hint that he was Clear Sky Douluo would bring a siege that would not end until he was dead.
To survive, to take revenge, he could only endure.
Endure!
After gulping down most of a jar of cheap liquor, Tang Hao abruptly smashed it against the floor. Shards of pottery and the remaining liquor splashed everywhere.
He panted heavily, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the window. A low growl like that of a wounded beast rumbled in his throat, while countless grievances and bitter resentments churned in his chest, threatening to tear him apart.
He could not understand it. He truly could not.
In that battle six years ago, he had only wanted to protect his beloved Ah Yin, to shield his wife and child from Spirit Hall and those jackals coveting her Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring.
He considered himself a man who stood tall between heaven and earth, willing to oppose the entire world for the woman he loved. He should have been a devoted hero praised by all. How had he become, overnight, an eternal sinner who had betrayed humanity, colluded with Soul Beasts, and fallen into demonic path?
Damn them! Damn them all!
Those hypocrites in Spirit Hall had coveted Ah Yin's Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring and Soul Bone. They had laid the murderous trap and surrounded them first, yet in the end they had turned around and accused him, dumping every bit of filth on his head!
And those sects that had followed the crowd, along with the two great empires—every one of them wore a sanctimonious face, but they had merely coveted Ah Yin's Soul Bone and Soul Ring and joined in to loot a burning house!
And the Clear Sky Sect! His sect! The place that had given him life and raised him!
They had actually expelled him before the entire continent and severed all ties with him! Those old bastards were always prattling about the sect's glory and brotherly love, yet when disaster struck, they had not even dared utter a word in his defense. All they knew was how to save their own skins!
Tang Hao slammed his fist into the forge. The heavy iron furnace caved in at once, sending sparks flying.
His gaze fell on the tiny figure standing on tiptoe beside the bed in the inner room, tidying the bedding. An utterly twisted emotion surged into his eyes—viciousness, resentment, and a trace of fear he himself refused to acknowledge.
If it hadn't been for this child, if Ah Yin and I hadn't had him, how could she have been driven to sacrifice herself? How could I have ended up like this?
But the moment that thought surfaced, an even deeper dread pressed it down.
In truth, he had never held much hope for this child's martial soul awakening.
Ah Yin was a hundred-thousand-year Blue Silver Emperor. Even after taking human form and acquiring a human body and soul, the Soul Beast essence in her bones had never vanished.
On the Douluo Continent, unions between humans and Soul Beasts had always been a grave taboo, and they were not without precedent.
Weren't those Wolf Bandits terrorizing the countryside monsters with wolf heads and human bodies, bred from humans and gale demon wolves?
They might have looked somewhat human, but deep down they were bloodthirsty Soul Beasts, without a shred of humanity, knowing only slaughter and destruction. Everyone on the continent had the right to put them to death.
More than once, he had stared at the sleeping Tang San in the dead of night. The child looked no different from any human child, yet the stone weighing on his heart had never lifted.
Six years. The child had grown safely to the age of six, but who knew what would happen when his martial soul awakened?
What if he really awakened a half-human, half-beast martial soul? What if he truly was a born abomination, a monster, just as those people cursed him to be?
When that happened, not only would the charge that he had "mated with a beast" be proven beyond doubt, but this child would also be slaughtered on the spot.
Not to mention that the boy had begun secretly practicing a cultivation method Tang Hao had never seen before when he was only three or four.
He had even wondered what he should do if it truly came to that.
Should I end this child's life with my own hands, or take him with me and fight our way out of the encirclement, continuing to flee to the ends of the earth?
Before you continue