The Sun Moon Empire reacted with astonishing speed.
Hundreds of high-ranking Soul Engineers shot into the sky, swiftly forming a massive formation.
"Linked Soul Tool—Soul energy gathering complete. Fire!"
This was one of the Sun Moon Empire's trump cards. By concentrating the power of hundreds of Soul Engineers at a single point, it could unleash an attack powerful enough to erase a small mountain.
A dark-red beam of light, over ten meters in diameter, shot toward Huo Yuhao, carrying a devastating aura.
Yet Huo Yuhao didn't even raise an eyelid.
Behind him, three divine artifacts appeared at once.
The God-Slaying Halberd glimmered with an eerie, blood-red light, exuding an endless aura of slaughter, as though it would carve the sky over Ming Capital apart.
The Life God-Slaying Sword gave off a faint emerald glow—the ultimate life, and the ultimate judgment.
The Eye of Destiny gazed down upon all living things, stripping away every trace of fortune.
"This backward piling up of energy deserves to be called an attack?"
Huo Yuhao let out a cold snort. With a light sweep of the God-Slaying Halberd, a pitch-black rift appeared.
As the Heaven-Destroying Earth-Shattering beam came within a hundred meters of him, it bizarrely disintegrated, turning into fragments of pure Soul Power that scattered into the air.
"So this is a divine artifact... A gap of this magnitude can't be bridged by numbers."
Beyond the Sky Screen, everyone in Sea God Pavilion at Shrek Academy, including Yan Shaozhe, had gone numb.
Huo Yuhao flashed forward and landed in the center of the great hall.
Two Titled Douluo had tried to stop him. They were among Xu Tianran's most prized Shadow Guards, but they hadn't even seen him move before the Life God-Slaying Sword slit their throats, draining their Soul Power and life force in an instant.
"You... You're Huo Yuhao? How dare you..."
Xu Tianran crawled across the floor in terror. He could never have imagined that the young man he'd once considered no threat at all would become a grim reaper come to claim his life.
Huo Yuhao looked down at him, not a trace of pity in his eyes.
"Normally, a piece of trash like you wouldn't be worthy of dying by my hand. But I need to make room for my son, so you have to die."
"Pfft!"
The Life God-Slaying Sword fell, and Xu Tianran's head soared into the air.
To his dying breath, this ambitious schemer of the Sun Moon Empire never understood why the power of Soul Guidance Technology was so helpless before a true powerhouse.
Then Huo Yuhao turned to look at Ju Zi, who was huddled in a corner, her face deathly pale.
A wicked, icy smile crossed his face.
"Your Majesty the Empress, come with me. Someone else will have to take the place inside you. Oh, I nearly forgot—your 'husband' is a eunuch. He was never capable of taking that place in the first place."
With all eyes upon them, Huo Yuhao sealed Ju Zi's Soul Power and carried her off like a trophy.
"Stop him! Stop him at all costs!"
At last, the Sun Moon Empire launched its counterattack.
Kong Deming led the Soul Engineer forces gathered from Sun Rise City and Moon City, along with the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Legion, Ming Capital's most elite force. They intercepted the retreating army of the Body Sect at West Mountain.
Seeing Kong Deming in a humanoid Soul Tool unlike anything he'd ever seen, and the legendary Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Legion, every one of its members floating in the sky—a force said to be capable of hunting even Beast God Di Tian—a grave expression flashed across Du Busi's face.
"Huo Yuhao, put down the Empress! Otherwise, you and the entire Body Sect will be annihilated here!"
Kong Deming controlled the Silver Moon Divine Light Shield, his aged voice laced with menace. Behind him, the Soul Engineer Legion activated its most powerful Linked Soul Tool attack formation, and Soul Tool light turned the whole sky as bright as day.
"Kong Deming, your understanding of technology is far too shallow."
Huo Yuhao hovered in midair, still holding the unconscious Ju Zi.
He looked down at the Soul Engineer Legion with cold indifference.
"Today, I'll teach you what 'true violence' means."
Huo Yuhao raised his right hand, and the silver light in the Eye of Destiny erupted into a frenzy.
[Body Martial Soul: Third Awakening Secret Art—Soul Nuclear Blast!]
In an instant, tens of thousands of Soul Engineers felt their minds ring.
The tightly interlocked formation fell into fatal disarray as Mental Interference disrupted it.
"Not good! The energy's flowing backward!" Kong Deming cried.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Above West Mountain, the Sun Moon Empire's most elite regiment burst into a dazzling display of fireworks. It was the result of their own power running wild inside their bodies.
Huo Yuhao strolled through the devastating explosions as though walking in a garden. Every palm strike felled a Level 9 Soul Engineer who tried to stop him, or turned swathes of the Soul Tool army into ice sculptures.
Even many of the Soul Tool installations exploded outright beneath the fluctuations of his spiritual power.
It was a massacre.
At last, Kong Deming crawled out from the rubble, covered in blood.
His Silver Moon Divine Light Shield could no longer open. Huo Yuhao's blow had nearly destroyed it completely. Though Kong Deming was still alive, his pride as a Level 10 Soul Engineer had been trampled into the mud.
Huo Yuhao landed in front of him, the three divine artifacts revolving around his body.
He didn't kill Kong Deming. Instead, he regarded this guardian deity of the empire with something close to pity.
"I won't kill you. Go back and tell the old men of the Sun Moon Empire that I'm giving them a chance to reconsider who should rule this continent."
"In this battle, I'm taking only Ju Zi and Xu Tianran's head. I'll return to settle the score in a year."
Beyond the Sky Screen, the entire continent fell into deathly silence.
On this day, the Sun Moon Empire's pride and the Soul Engineers' pride were utterly shattered!
"H-How could he be so strong...?"
Beyond the Sky Screen, "Starry Sky Douluo" Ye Yulin stared at the scattered Soul Tool fragments on the screen and murmured.
"No, no, this can't be right. It shouldn't have happened like this. In the future, Elder Kong had already become a Level 10 Soul Engineer. That was the true form of a Level 10 Soul Tool in our projections—a Life-Bound Soul Tool. And yet Elder Kong still lost to him? Is the Body Martial Soul really that powerful?"
Jing Hongchen's eyes widened, disbelief written all over his face.
Time sped by on the Sky Screen.
One year later.
When the scene lit up again, the Body Sect's headquarters had become a solemn and stately place.
Huo Yuhao sat upon the Sect Master's throne. Beside him sat Ju Zi, her face expressionless, almost numb.
A crying baby lay in Ju Zi's arms.
"Whose child is that?"
Outside the Sky Screen, the people of the Sun Moon Empire began to whisper among themselves.
But anyone with half a brain could work it out. Ju Zi hadn't been pregnant when she was taken away. So who else could the child she was holding a year later belong to?
"Huo Yuhao! You beast!"
Outside the Sky Screen, members of the Sun Moon Empire's royal family were so furious they spat blood. Xu Tianran himself nearly fainted on the spot, and smashed his palm down so hard that he cracked his own wheelchair.
This was like taking a dump on the Sun Moon Empire's head and then making them hand over the toilet paper!