In a sense, this was Sea God Tang San personally taking action in the truest sense of the word. It was no longer the simple, passive defense of a Divine Sense seal as before! The two were worlds apart in significance!
"What?"
At that moment, even the Sea God's Divine Sense felt a flicker of shock. The blue-gold Divine Sense wavered.
"The power of the Emperor Auspicious Beast from the Star Dou Great Forest? Hmph, nothing special. Let's see how many times you can withstand it."
"Again! Guanyin Tear!"
Tang San's Divine Sense projection trembled violently. He was actually willing to burn the source of this Divine Sense. A colorless, transparent droplet appeared—the pinnacle strike, powerful enough to pierce divine armor and ignore defenses.
"This strike is aimed not only at you, but at the very root of your soul! Huo Yuhao, this is the choice you made. I hope that once your soul is destroyed, your body can still serve as a vessel for a little of that destiny..."
Guanyin Tear shot forth with a howl. Wherever it passed, pitch-black cracks split through the Sea of Consciousness.
Huo Yuhao remained calm. The power of destiny bestowed by the Auspicious Beast flowed through his eyes. Guanyin Tear was indeed formidable, but before the Body Martial Soul after its "third awakening," and under the overwhelming suppression of absolute spatial rank, it still couldn't lock onto his true form.
"Tang San, is that all you've got? Your Hidden Weapons are nothing but a petty trick before the true Secret of the Body! Today, watch me break you."
Huo Yuhao swept his hand back. His silver longsword scattered countless rays of moonlight, freezing Guanyin Tear in midair before shattering it completely.
After two consecutive moves were thwarted, Tang San fell completely into madness.
He sensed that a mysterious force was interfering with the Divine Realm's surveillance of this plane. Was it the will of the universe, protecting the Child of Destiny?
If this Divine Sense were destroyed, he might completely lose control over Huo Yuhao, the "Child of Destiny," for a long time!
"Huo Yuhao, you forced me into this!"
Tang San's phantom wore a savage, icy smile.
"My poor Xiao Qi... You've forced me to sacrifice my daughter. Huo Yuhao, I'll make you pay for my daughter with your life!"
As he spoke, tears formed from condensed soul power fell from his blue-gold figure, one after another.
For a moment, everyone outside the Sky Screen felt sick to their stomachs. Tang Ya watched the blue-gold figure on the Sky Screen with a complicated expression. Everything she had built up over the course of her life seemed to be crumbling before her eyes.
"Twilight of the Sea God!"
At that moment, all the living beings on the continent outside the Sky Screen felt a bone-deep chill.
In the scene, Tang San actually detonated all the divine power contained in that Divine Sense, forcibly linking it to the soul core of the pink-haired girl—the one he called "Xiao Qi"!
"Father, don't!"
From somewhere deep in the Sea of Consciousness came the faint, anguished cry of a girl. But it was all in vain.
By then, everyone outside the Sky Screen understood.
He wasn't going to attack. He was going to self-destruct!
He was using the God King's daughter's soul as an explosive, detonating the entire Sea of Consciousness to take Huo Yuhao down with him!
"Ancestor Tang San, have you gone mad?! That's your own daughter!"
Outside the Sky Screen, Tang Ya's voice trembled, her face pale. Tears streamed uncontrollably down her cheeks.
Bei Bei clenched his fists, his eyes full of shock and tinged with fear. "To kill a genius, a Child of Destiny who might slip beyond his control, he'd actually destroy his own daughter's soul with his own hands? Th-this is the god we worship?"
Boom—!
A gigantic golden mushroom cloud erupted in the girl's mind. In that instant, the scene turned completely white.
The light faded.
The Sea of Consciousness had become a wasteland, barren and ruined.
At its center, Huo Yuhao still stood.
His left arm had vanished completely, and a gaping hole had been torn through his chest. Yet the silver light in his eyes blazed brighter than ever.
"Void Cold Silence... Freeze!"
At his low command, the shockwaves of the raging divine power suddenly fell still.
In Huo Yuhao's palm, a faint, broken consciousness wreathed in blue-gold light was trapped fast inside a crystal of ice.
It was the surviving core of Tang San's Divine Sense after its self-destruction. Against all odds, Huo Yuhao had managed to preserve a sliver of Tang San's source amid the explosion, turning him into a captive!
But the price had been steep.
The scene shifted to the outside world.
The pink-haired girl, once a dashing figure hailed as the Clear Sky Sect's little princess, now sat slumped on the ground.
Her eyes were still open, but the sparkle and cleverness they once held were gone. Only blank confusion remained, while drool slid from the corner of her mouth.
Tang San's "Twilight of the Sea God" had completely shattered the core of her soul.
She hadn't died, but her fate was worse than death—she had become a complete idiot, a shell with no thoughts, ruled only by bodily instinct.
"Tang San, this is only the beginning. I hope this fight hurt."
Huo Yuhao stared coldly at the ice crystal in his hand, then glanced at the girl on the ground.
There was no pity in his eyes, only cold indifference, as if it had nothing to do with him.
"Since you think that even just a body is still useful, I'll keep your bloodline safe for you—for now."
Huo Yuhao swept his hand, sending a vast chill over her. The power of Ultimate Ice instantly froze the girl. A crystal-clear ice coffin enclosed her, then vanished into Huo Yuhao's storage space.
Outside the Sky Screen, there was deathly silence.
"Too ruthless... They're both too ruthless."
"Tang San was ruthless enough to blow up his daughter, and Huo Yuhao was ruthless enough to store the girl, now an idiot, away like spoils of war."
"The God King's true colors have been laid bare."
The scene shifted rapidly.
After the battle in the Sea of Consciousness, Huo Yuhao's very presence had changed beyond recognition.
He was no longer low-key or restrained.
With the Body Sect's resources poured into him, it took only half a year for his cultivation to reach the peak of Level 98, a Super Douluo.
But that still wasn't enough for him.
He went to the Evil Demon Forest.
Above the forest, the clouds in the Sky Screen had turned an eerie purplish black.
"Evil Eye Tyrant Sovereign, come out and face me!"
Huo Yuhao's voice rang out for a thousand miles.
A gigantic eye, over three hundred meters in diameter, rose from the depths of the forest. It was the second-ranked Ferocious Beast, the Evil Emperor.
The humans of the Sun Moon Continent—even Level 9 Soul Engineers—trembled at the sight of this figure.
"Human, you're asking for death!"
The battle left Soul Masters across the continent despairing at the overwhelming gulf between them.
With his Body Martial Soul awakened for the third time and his spiritual power transformed into "Divine Sense," Huo Yuhao faced the spiritual-type ancestor, the Evil Emperor, with the crushing superiority of a higher rank.