The news of the Celestial Master Grand Wedding had been brewing in Spirit City for seven whole days.
From the plaza in front of Pope Palace to the markets in the south of the city, from the Soul Masters in the barracks to the old man who repaired shoes on the street corner.
Everyone kept repeating the same few words: the Purple Gold Marriage Contract, the Ancient Celestial Master, the Primordial Spirit Bead, a fifteen-level breakthrough.
The teahouses were the liveliest.
"Have you heard? Her Highness the Holy Maiden's Martial Soul evolved directly into the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox! Nine tails, as white as snow!"
"That's not all. A guard told me her Soul Power jumped from level sixty-nine straight to level eighty-four. One bead did what others couldn't accomplish in a lifetime."
A middle-aged man in a short jacket tapped his pipe and shook his head.
"You're only looking at the benefits? We don't even know where Shen Yichen came from. He gave away such a huge boon for nothing—doesn't he want something in return?"
"Want what? He made it perfectly clear. He wants to marry the Holy Maiden and take her as his Dao Companion."
"That's not the same thing."
The middle-aged man lowered his voice.
"What if he's targeting Spirit Hall? Win over the Holy Maiden, and he'll have a spy planted right beside His Holiness the Pope. Think about it. With the Battle of Jialing Pass looming, an unknown expert suddenly appears, setting his sights on Spirit Hall's most promising young generation. You can't call that a coincidence."
The teahouse fell silent for two seconds.
A young Soul Master at the next table scoffed.
"I don't know if it's a coincidence or not. I only know one thing: when the pressure from the Primordial Spirit Bead descended, His Holiness the Pope was blasted more than ten zhang away. If even His Holiness couldn't withstand a single betrothal gift, why would someone like that need to scheme and beat around the bush?"
No one replied.
Those words crushed every conspiracy theory.
Someone who could command the power of the Heavenly Dao—would he need to play dirty?
Pope Palace, secret chamber.
Bibi Dong sat behind the long table, her right hand wrapped in thick bandages and resting on the tabletop.
Seven days had passed, but the aftereffects of the Dao Qi burns still hadn't fully faded. A sharp twinge still shot through her meridians from time to time, reminding her of the humiliation she'd suffered that day.
More than a dozen intelligence reports lay spread across the table, each bearing the vermilion seal of Spirit Hall's highest security clearance.
Every one of them concerned the investigation into Shen Yichen.
She went through them one by one.
Tiandang Mountain: the scouts had spent five days searching the entire range. They had indeed found the ruins of an ancient temple, but it was empty. Only half-collapsed stone walls and a few broken pillars remained.
No Daoists, no disciples, and no sign that anyone had been there recently.
Star Dou Great Forest: not one hunter on the forest's outskirts or resident of nearby villages had ever heard of "Taixu Temple."
The great empires: Heaven Dou, Star Luo Empire, Balaque... every covert agent reported the same result. No record of this person or this temple.
Bibi Dong closed the last report and tapped the tabletop three times with her fingertips.
Nothing.
Someone who could command the power of the Heavenly Dao and casually produce a heaven-defying treasure like the Primordial Spirit Bead had left no trace anywhere on Douluo Continent.
He wasn't simply good at hiding.
He simply didn't belong to this world's system of rules.
The realization sent a chill down Bibi Dong's spine.
She could deal with enemies she could see and outmaneuver opponents she could understand. But an unknown being wholly beyond her comprehension—
She had no idea how to respond.
Sea God Island, Sea God Hall.
Tang San sat cross-legged in the center of the hall, golden divine light enveloping his body. The Sea God Trident rested across his knees. His brows were tightly furrowed.
The Eighth Trial had been underway for half a month.
By his original estimate, given his current strength and comprehension, he needed no more than ten days to complete the Eighth Trial.
But reality was far worse than he'd expected. His cultivation speed had nearly halved, and his Soul Power had become sluggish. Every cycle of circulation now took thirty percent longer than before.
More annoying still were the inexplicable mishaps.
Three days ago, just as he was absorbing the Sea God's Power at a critical moment, a piece of rubble suddenly fell from the ceiling and struck the Trident. The impact disrupted his meditation and nearly made him go into cultivation deviation.
Yesterday, as he summoned the Blue Silver Emperor Martial Soul to undertake the core trial of the Eighth Trial, his fortune suddenly blanked out for an instant. In that brief moment, his Blue Silver Emperor Domain collapsed completely, and it took him two whole hours to reconstitute it.
This wasn't a coincidence. Something was suppressing him.
Tang San opened his eyes. The golden light on the Trident had dimmed by a third.
The feeling of his fortune being held back was growing clearer by the day.
It wasn't being taken from him. It was as if an invisible hand had pressed down on his head, narrowing every path he could take to rise.
Shen Yichen.
Ever since the disciples of Sea God Island had brought him word of that name, it had been etched into Tang San's mind.
Tang San rose and walked to the window of Sea God Hall.
Beyond it stretched the boundless sea, its waves surging as the wind, sharp with salt, poured inside.
He couldn't delay any longer.
He had to complete the Eighth Trial within five days and accelerate the Ninth Trial with all his strength.
Only by completing the Sea God Inheritance and becoming the true Sea God could he hope to break free of this suppression.
Every day he delayed widened the gap.
Divine Realm, Asura Palace.
The palace lay in darkness. Only the blood-red light flowing along the Asura Sword flickered against the black walls.
Asura God sat cross-legged in the center of the hall, refining a strand of Godhead essence.
Then his divine sense caught an anomaly.
A fluctuation of the Heavenly Dao's power had appeared in the lower realm.
At the time, Asura God had paid it no mind. Strange phenomena sometimes appeared in the lower realm; there was no need to make a fuss over them.
But the fluctuation hadn't vanished. It was growing stronger.
More unsettling still, Tang San's fortune was visibly declining.
Asura God opened his eyes. Blood flashed in his vertical pupils as his divine sense pierced the barrier between the Divine Realm and the mortal world, reaching toward Douluo Continent.
Above Spirit City, a scroll of Purple Gold Marriage Contract hung motionless in the air.
Asura God's divine sense settled upon it—
Buzz.
A force of repulsion rebounded from the scroll. It seemed weightless, yet it forcibly knocked Asura God's divine sense back three chi.
In Asura Palace, Asura God's fingers curled slightly.
He released his divine sense again, this time using thirty percent of his divine power.
The result was the same.
It was repelled.
Asura God sat bolt upright. His vertical pupils locked onto the scroll, blood-red light throbbing violently in his eyes.
A marriage contract had repelled a probe backed by thirty percent of his divine power.
What did that mean?
It meant the owner of that marriage contract was at least—at least a God King or higher.
When had such a being appeared in the lower realm?
Asura God's hand closed around the hilt of the Asura Sword. The blood-red light in the hall suddenly doubled in intensity.
Spirit City.
The seventh day, at dusk.
Hu Liena left the training grounds, her six fox tails tucked behind her as she walked with light steps.
She had spent the past few days adjusting to her surging Soul Power. The power of level eighty-four was entirely different from before, and every wisp of Soul Power was countless times purer.
She crossed the corridor. As she passed the council chamber, she heard Bibi Dong and Chrysanthemum Douluo talking inside. Her steps slowed.
"...All the scouts returned empty-handed."
Chrysanthemum Douluo's voice was tinged with barely contained agitation.
"This Shen Yichen appeared out of thin air. That ancient temple on Tiandang Mountain is deserted—not a ghost in sight. His Holiness the Pope, what do you think—"
"There's no need to investigate further."
Bibi Dong cut him off, her voice calm to the point of being unnatural.
"If we can't find anything, it means the other party doesn't want us to. Forcing our way in will only alert him."
Hu Liena didn't stop. She quickened her pace and walked on.
But her thoughts turned upside down.
There was no trace of his origins to be found.
Someone who could command the Heavenly Dao, yet had left not a trace anywhere on the continent.
She'd thought they might uncover something—his teacher, his origins, his past—even a vague outline would have been something.
But there was nothing.
It was as if Shen Yichen had been born from the very heavens and earth.
Hu Liena stopped in the middle of the courtyard.
The Fox Seal between her brows suddenly flared with searing heat.
She jerked her head up.
The last trace of sunset still lingered in the western sky, but in the east—
A mighty tide of purple qi was surging over the eastern horizon.
Purple qi spread across the sky, stretching from the horizon to the heavens, dyeing the whole expanse a resplendent purple-gold.
Auspicious clouds gathered from every direction, piling in layers over Spirit City. In their depths, faint apparitions of dragons, phoenixes, qilins, and cranes flickered into view one after another.
The spiritual energy of heaven and earth began to churn wildly. Within a few breaths, its concentration had multiplied more than tenfold.
The disturbance far surpassed the arrival of the Primordial Spirit Bead seven days earlier.
The doors of Pope Palace burst open. Bibi Dong, Xie Yue, Chrysanthemum Douluo, and Ghost Douluo rushed out one after another.
Bibi Dong stood at the top of the steps before the palace, raising her bandaged right hand to shield her eyes from the blinding purple-gold light.
"The signs of a supreme treasure descending."
She spoke each word distinctly.
"The second betrothal gift is about to arrive."
Hu Liena's heart leaped into her throat.
Her six fox tails rose straight up, and her ears sprang from her hair, trembling faintly toward the east.
Amid the swirling auspicious clouds, a vast and ancient Heavenly Sanskrit Sound pierced through the clouds. It drew closer, growing clearer and clearer—
As if it had sounded right beside her ear.
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