Blinded by Petty Concerns

When Soul Masters cultivated, high-intensity training every day inevitably made their energy requirements skyrocket. So if a Soul Master Academy couldn't provide enough food, the students' bodies would suffer greatly under the strain of their training. Worse still, a prolonged lack of calories could damage the meridians in a Soul Master's body.

Any Soul Master Academy of even modest quality on the Douluo Continent ran at a huge loss every year. High-calorie food, a Mimicry Cultivation Environment, high-quality teachers—none of those expenses could be covered by tuition fees alone.

Su Yuntao swept the food before him clean, then downed two jars of wine. After a short rest, he set off again. His destination was Star Luo City, the capital of the Star Luo Empire.

His goal in Star Luo City was simple: to visit the Breaking Clan and ask Yang Wudi to come out of seclusion and cure Dugu Bo's poison.

In Su Yuntao's eyes, he had swept up all the Immortal Herbs that originally belonged to Dugu Bo, and clearly owed him a huge favor. Curing his poison was the least he could do.

Besides, both Dugu Bo and Yang Wudi were men of fine character. They were straightforward, principled people, and Su Yuntao wanted to get to know them.

For Tang San, the master of picking people clean, Dugu Bo had risked his life to stand against Spirit Hall. Yang Wudi, after joining the Clear Sky Sect, had served it with unwavering loyalty in the face of Spirit Hall's overwhelming power, even risking the entire clan in a fight to the death.

Unfortunately, the Clear Sky Sect's conduct was beyond appalling. Its elders were shortsighted and blinded by petty concerns.

They failed to see that Qian Daoliu, Spirit Hall's true leader, had never intended to attack them. The moment a few people within Spirit Hall made a move after the Pope's death, they were scared out of their wits.

That alone was bad enough. But what was truly unforgivable was how they treated the tens of thousands of Soul Masters from other surnames under their protection. They usually threw their weight around and bossed them about, but at a critical moment, they callously abandoned them without a second thought.

They even cast aside the Four Single-Attribute Clans. Bai He, the chief of the Speed Clan, was the younger brother of the former Sect Master Tang Xiao's wife. He and the Clear Sky Sect were bound by marriage.

Tai Tan's Strength Clan had worked like oxen and horses, laboring tirelessly to generate more than a third of the Clear Sky Sect's income.

The Defense Clan had poured their hearts into the sect. Even Clear Sky Castle had been built brick by brick by those master architects.

The Breaking Clan had been steadfastly loyal, willing to risk the whole clan in a fight to the death for the Clear Sky Sect.

The four clans had worked like oxen and horses, only to be heartlessly abandoned by the Clear Sky Sect! Worse still, when the sect shut its gates, it hadn't even bothered to inform them. It simply threw them out as scapegoats, using their blood to vent Spirit Hall's anger so that the sect's direct line could cling to life!

The mighty War Soul Hammer, the towering Clear Sky Sect! The vast legacy Tang Chen had spent decades building was utterly squandered by his unworthy descendants in a matter of weeks.

Even Spirit Hall's upper ranks probably hadn't expected things to turn out this way. Qian Daoliu had never planned to attack the Clear Sky Sect, and neither Spirit Hall's worshippers nor its elders had taken the field.

The Pope's death had merely left Spirit Hall's rank and file seething. Some people below the level of worshipper and elder had acted, leading to clashes with the Clear Sky Sect.

Yet the Clear Sky Sect's elders were so shortsighted it beggared belief. In a single night, they fled with the sect's direct line to the place where Qian Daoliu and Tang Chen had fought, hiding away like ostriches.

Why hadn't they stopped to think? If Qian Daoliu had truly meant to attack them, could they have hidden away and survived? If he hadn't turned his wrath on the entire Clear Sky Sect, was there any need to abandon their legacy? What the Clear Sky Sect had done was utterly foolish!

Their flight sent the balance of power in the Soul Master world plunging into chaos. There had originally been only around a hundred thousand Soul Masters on the continent, with the Heaven Dou and Star Luo Empires each having roughly ten thousand.

The Clear Sky Sect had more than ten thousand Soul Masters of other surnames under its protection. The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect had five thousand: during the Soul Hunting Operation, two thousand were away from the sect, while three thousand remained within it. During the operation, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan lost more than eighteen hundred members in battle at its home territory, and had around three thousand Soul Masters in total, including those stationed elsewhere.

The five great powers—the Clear Sky Sect, Heaven Dou, Star Luo, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, and the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan—had no fewer than forty thousand Soul Masters between them. Add the other sects, and Spirit Hall probably controlled fewer than fifty thousand at the time.

The Clear Sky Sect's strategic blunder instantly shattered the balance between the great powers. Most of the ten thousand Soul Masters of other surnames were absorbed into Spirit Hall. After Bibi Dong took power, she governed with vigor, bringing the Lower Four Sects and a large number of smaller Soul Master factions under her control. Spirit Hall seemed poised to unite the Soul Master world, and by now seven or eight out of every ten Soul Masters on the continent obeyed its commands.

On top of that, under Bibi Dong's rule, Soul Douluo like Pufferfish and Snake Lance advanced to become Spirit Hall elders. Spirit Hall's dominance over the Soul Master world had become impossible to stop.

Bibi Dong had also tightened her control over the kingdoms and duchies under her sway, consolidating resources and building up her forces. If she hadn't later made a string of foolish strategic blunders, the Douluo Continent would already have belonged to Spirit Hall.

Once the Clear Sky Sect went into seclusion, everyone on the Douluo Continent knew that Tang Chen was truly gone. Though Qian Daoliu had never intended to attack the sect, Spirit Hall's morale soared. Bibi Dong's rise to power and the fervor within Spirit Hall made war inevitable.

If Tang Chen returned and saw the state of things, his disciples and descendants would probably infuriate him to death. Tang Xiao was indecisive, bending over backward to appease the sect's elders. The five great elders were shortsighted and petty. Tang Hao was dispirited, badly injured, and had no future left.

When Su Yuntao first finished reading the original story, he felt that some dwarfs had been made giants, while some giants had been hidden from view. In his eyes, the Clear Sky Sect's bunch of cowards didn't deserve to stand alongside Spirit Hall's worshippers.

Qian Daoliu, who led the Worship Hall, wasn't like Tang San. The Man Faced Demon Spider had blocked Tang San's way, leading to Xiao Wu's sacrifice, so Tang San had wanted to exterminate its entire species. Tang Hao had gravely wounded Qian Daoliu's son, Qian Xunji, who was later killed by Bibi Dong. By all rights, wiping out the Clear Sky Sect would have been in keeping with the will of Heaven and the wishes of the people. What was more, the outside world believed Qian Xunji had died at the hands of Tang Hao, a member of the Clear Sky Sect's direct line. Qian Daoliu had all the more reason to attack.

Yet Qian Daoliu hadn't taken his anger out on the Clear Sky Sect. He hadn't even pursued Tang Hao in earnest. There was a rumor that Qian Daoliu had failed to hunt Tang Hao down, but think about it: he was a Limit Douluo at level ninety-nine, and his Martial Soul was the highly mobile Six-Winged Archangel. Even Tang Chen, invincible on land, couldn't beat him in the air.

If he had gone after a level-ninety-two hammer, a hammer that was already badly injured and, most importantly, had a deadweight clinging to him, how could that hammer possibly have escaped?

Qian Daoliu's magnanimity had brought Spirit Hall's downfall and the decline of the Angel Clan. The Angel Clan, which had protected the continent for ten thousand years, could no longer shine as brightly as it once had.

Not only that, Tang San had even shattered the Angel God Position. Tang San, acting for his own selfish ends, never cared how important the Angel Clan was to the Douluo Continent. From the moment he ascended, the rampant spread of Evil Soul Masters in later generations had already been set in stone!