"What are you all good for?!"
On a path in the Inner Academy of Shrek Academy, on Lake Heart Island in Sea God Lake, Yan Shaozhe strode along at a furious pace.
His usual image of gentle refinement had vanished without a trace. He berated the Inner Academy steward behind him in a torrent of abuse.
"Xiaotao has been in seclusion for three days! Three whole days without coming out, and you're only reporting something this serious to me now?!"
The steward was drenched in sweat as he hurried along right behind Yan Shaozhe. He didn't even dare breathe too loudly, and replied nervously,
"Dean, before entering seclusion, Sister Xiaotao specifically instructed us not to disturb her, no matter what happened. She said she'd had a realization this time."
"We... we didn't dare go in without permission."
"Bullshit!"
Yan Shaozhe stopped abruptly and turned around to roar at him, heedless of his status.
"She can fool around, so you all follow along? Don't you know what's going on with the Evil Fire Phoenix?"
"Three days! Three whole days!! If anything happens to her, I'll hold every one of you responsible!"
The steward shrank his neck in fright and didn't dare answer.
Yan Shaozhe had no time to berate him further. He turned and continued hurrying toward the depths of Lake Heart Island.
The urgency in his heart was beyond words.
After all, Ma Xiaotao was the most outstanding disciple among the younger generation of the Inner Academy—a Soul Emperor at just twenty years old!
There were hardly any people in the history of Shrek Academy who could compare to her talent.
Although her Evil Fire Phoenix Martial Soul had a major drawback, her virtues outweighed its flaws, and the Academy's higher-ups still had high hopes for her.
But more importantly, the main reason was—
Ma Xiaotao was Yan Shaozhe's personal disciple.
She was his eldest disciple, the one he had raised from childhood and watched grow up day by day.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Ma Xiaotao was like his own daughter!
His own daughter had suddenly run into trouble, and her life might even be in danger. How could Yan Shaozhe not be worried?
Over the years, Yan Shaozhe had searched through countless ancient texts and looked into countless treatments to deal with the Evil Fire in Ma Xiaotao's body.
Unfortunately, they had all treated the symptoms, not the root cause.
Still, even if they couldn't eliminate it completely, with Ma Xiaotao's current cultivation and the resources provided by the Academy, keeping the Evil Fire firmly suppressed shouldn't have been a problem.
How had something gone wrong so suddenly?
The more Yan Shaozhe thought about it, the more he felt something was amiss.
Xiaotao had been perfectly fine just a few days ago. She'd even had the leisure to wander around the Outer Academy.
Why had she suddenly gone into seclusion and ended up like this?
As he pondered, he passed through a dense stretch of woods, and a Stone Chamber deep on Lake Heart Island came into view.
This was a place the Inner Academy had specially prepared for students requiring seclusion under special circumstances. Defensive Soul Guidance Arrays covered the surrounding area.
Two Inner Academy students responsible for monitoring the chamber stood anxiously outside its door.
The moment they saw Yan Shaozhe, they looked as if their savior had arrived and hurried over to him.
"Dean!"
"How bad is it?"
Yan Shaozhe asked with a grim expression.
"Very bad."
One of the students swallowed and pointed to the tightly shut stone door, seeming somewhat afraid.
"Sister Xiaotao has been inside for three days. The first two days were fine, but we don't know what happened. Starting last night, the temperature inside has been rising nonstop."
"This morning, even the arrays outside were nearly unable to hold up!"
At his words, Yan Shaozhe hurried to the chamber and carefully sensed what was happening inside, his brow furrowing tighter and tighter.
Even through the thick stone door, he could feel a frantic heat seeping out through the cracks.
The heat was incredibly domineering, carrying a destructive aura that seemed capable of burning everything to ashes.
Yan Shaozhe's heart sank.
This was bad!
It was a sign that the Evil Fire in Xiaotao's body was about to spiral completely out of control!
"Step back."
Yan Shaozhe couldn't wait any longer. He waved the students aside and raised his right hand, a soft white light glowing in his palm.
The Soul Power of a ninety-fifth-level Super Douluo erupted in an instant, forcibly severing the array's control mechanism in the stone door.
"Rumble—"
The heavy stone door slowly slid open to either side.
The moment the door cracked open, a terrifying wave of heat surged out like an erupting volcano.
Dark-red flames mingled with the heat. An ordinary Soul King standing here would have been roasted half to death in an instant.
Yan Shaozhe snorted coldly. A dazzling, incandescent white light rose around him, forcibly blocking the scorching heat.
He strode into the Stone Chamber.
The moment he saw the scene inside, Yan Shaozhe's heart gave a violent twinge.
The spacious Stone Chamber had been burned beyond recognition.
The hard rock walls had turned a strange, dark red, and even showed signs of melting.
On a stone platform in the very center of the chamber, Ma Xiaotao sat cross-legged.
Her clothes had long since been burned to ashes by the heat. All that remained was a dark-red cocoon of light formed from Soul Power, barely covering her body.
Ma Xiaotao's eyes were tightly shut, and her brows were knitted hard together. Her features were twisted with excruciating pain.
Fine beads of blood kept seeping from the surface of her fair skin, but the moment they appeared, the heat from her body vaporized them into a blood mist.
The frantic Evil Fire rampaged through her body like a wild beast gone out of control, seemingly trying to tear her meridians apart.
"Xiaotao!"
Yan Shaozhe cried out and hurried to the stone platform.
He didn't dare rashly use his Soul Power to suppress the fire. Although the Bright Phoenix's Soul Power was pure, it was still fire-attribute by nature.
Trying to suppress it by force now would only add fuel to the flames.
Even restoring his Soul Power to its most primal and gentle state would only ease the situation temporarily.
"Xiaotao, can you hear me?"
Yan Shaozhe softened his voice and called out tentatively.
Ma Xiaotao's body trembled violently on the stone platform.
She struggled to open her eyes.
Her once bright eyes had turned completely dark red, and flames of madness and savagery danced deep within her pupils.
Fortunately, she had retained the last few traces of her reason.
"Tea...cher..."
Ma Xiaotao opened her mouth, her voice so hoarse it sounded as if it had been scraped over sandpaper.
"Don't speak. Steady your mind!"
Seeing his disciple in such a wretched state broke Yan Shaozhe's heart. He hurriedly pressed her for an answer.
"What happened? You were fine just a few days ago. How did you end up like this?"
Ma Xiaotao clenched her teeth and didn't answer.
She couldn't exactly say that she'd heard something a new student from the Outer Academy had said, tried to guide and control the Evil Fire with her own will, and ended up getting in over her head, could she?
Huo Yuhao's words at the grilled-fish stall that day had kept circling through her mind.
"You're the one controlling the flames, not the other way around."
"Look within, not without."
Ma Xiaotao was proud and ambitious. She had been among the best of her peers ever since childhood.
Deep down, she had never wanted to spend her life as a powder keg liable to explode at any moment, and she was even less willing to pin all her hopes on someone else.
So after Huo Yuhao's words gave her an insight, Ma Xiaotao had come straight here, sealed the Stone Chamber, and tried to use her Spiritual Power to tame the frantic Evil Fire.
At first, it really had worked.
She could feel herself growing better at controlling the flames.
She had been thrilled.
Because they had always tried to suppress the Evil Fire with external help, Ma Xiaotao had grown up believing, almost instinctively, that it was impossible to overcome the fire through her own strength.
This attempt had made her realize that she could suppress the Evil Fire herself. How could Ma Xiaotao not be thrilled?
But the Evil Fire Phoenix was, after all, a mutation of a top-tier Martial Soul. The negative emotions and destructive urges it contained were more than her current Spiritual Power could withstand.
By the time Ma Xiaotao realized something was wrong, it was already too late.
The Evil Fire had counterattacked in full, completely cutting off her connection with the outside world.
If Yan Shaozhe hadn't broken in today, she probably wouldn't have made it through the night. She would have self-destructed here.
Seeing Ma Xiaotao suffer in silence left Yan Shaozhe pacing in a panic.
"No, your condition is too dangerous. We have to draw out and release the Evil Fire at once."
Yan Shaozhe's mind raced.
There weren't many ways to help Ma Xiaotao suppress the Evil Fire in the Inner Academy.
The safest option was to find a high-level Soul Master with a water- or ice-attribute Martial Soul and use their power to neutralize it.
"Hold on. I'll go to the Outer Academy and drag that kid Xu Sanshi over right now!"
Yan Shaozhe suddenly thought of something and turned to leave.
Xu Sanshi's Mystic Tortoise Shell Shield was a top-tier water-attribute Martial Soul. Although his cultivation was a little low and his attribute wasn't the best choice, he could at least cushion the effects a bit and help stabilize Ma Xiaotao's heart.
"No..."
Ma Xiaotao suddenly spoke, weak but fiercely resistant.
Yan Shaozhe stopped and looked back at her. For once, he was angry with his disciple.
"Don't be unreasonable! In your current condition, what does it matter if you lose face?"
"I don't want him..."
Ma Xiaotao bit her lower lip so hard that blood ran from the corner of her mouth.
It would have been one thing to turn to Xu Sanshi for help before she knew there was another way to suppress the Evil Fire.
But now that she had confirmed Yu Hao's method could work, why would she still go to that Xu Sanshi?
Was she, Ma Xiaotao, really going to spend her whole life relying on other people's strength to survive?!
She refused to become that kind of person!
Just thinking about it disgusted her!!
At that thought, Ma Xiaotao hardened her resolve.
If she couldn't defeat the Evil Fire, then she might as well die!!
Besides, what she needed most right now wasn't suppression, but control.
She could feel that she was only one step away from taming the Evil Fire.
As long as some external force could help her sort out her out-of-control emotions, she could regain control of her body.
And the person who could do that...
"If you don't want him, then who do you want?"
Yan Shaozhe had no idea what Ma Xiaotao was thinking. Seeing the Evil Fire's backlash getting worse and worse, he was truly panicking now.
"Who else in the Inner Academy has a suitable water-attribute Martial Soul?"
Ma Xiaotao gasped for breath, her chest rising and falling violently.
The Evil Fire in her body launched another assault, and pain wracked her with convulsions.
But amid the extreme agony, the figure of a boy appeared with extraordinary clarity in her mind.
The boy who had sat in front of the grill and, when Xu Sanshi provoked him, hadn't even raised his head. With nothing but an intent to kill so pure it seemed to have been refined to its very essence, he had driven Xu Sanshi into a panicked retreat.
Huo Yuhao.
He could strip emotions away completely.
He could control killing intent absolutely.
He had to have a way!
"Go to the Outer Academy..."
Ma Xiaotao summoned every ounce of strength she had and forced the words through her clenched teeth.
Yan Shaozhe leaned closer, trying to hear her.
"The Outer Academy? Who are we looking for?"
Ma Xiaotao suddenly raised her head. Her dark-red eyes were filled with stubborn resolve.
"Find... Huo Yuhao."
Yan Shaozhe was stunned.
Huo Yuhao?
That new student Tang Sect had recommended, whose First Soul Ring was only ten years old?
Why did she want Huo Yuhao?!!
Before you continue