The Value of a Top-Tier Betrothal Gift, One Sword Defeats Tang Hao

Hu Liena's fingers tightened.

The hilt pressed against her palm, icy cold yet unnervingly perfect—

This fit was not merely physical; the Dao aura within the blade was actively wrapping around her soul power, embedding itself layer by layer, seamless and absolute.

A cool sensation spread from her fingertips to her wrist, then up her forearm to her shoulder.

The gaping, flesh-torn wound on her left shoulder stopped hurting.

The gash carved into her cheek by the halberd blade stopped hurting, too.

It was not healing. The Severing Thought Sword was stripping the very concept of "pain" directly from her soul.

The fear was gone as well.

The suffocating sensation of her soul power being crushed while facing Tang San, the despair of being driven into a dead end by the trident—it had all vanished.

Hu Liena lowered her head to look at the blade.

The clear surface of the sword reflected her own face.

It was covered in dust and bloodstains, her hair was mostly disheveled, and her fox ears were coated in pulverized stone.

She was in a state of utter wretchedness.

Yet, the eyes reflected in the blade were terrifyingly bright.

Hum—

The Severing Thought Sword vibrated gently in her palm.

The message conveyed by that vibration was simple—no words, no images, only a sense of waiting so pure it was absolute—waiting for her command.

Where to go.

Whom to sever.

Hu Liena raised her head.

The scene of the battlefield became exceptionally clear in this moment. The plaza was half-shattered, stone tiles upturned, filled with cracks and craters everywhere.

The spirit masters of Martial Soul Hall were scattered in disarray around the perimeter; some clutched their wounds, while others lay collapsed on the ground, unable to rise.

High in the air, two figures were locked in combat.

Bibi Dong's Rakshasa Demon Scythe, wreathed in dark purple corrosive power, slashed horizontally, only to be caught head-on by a rough, single-armed figure.

Tang Hao.

Having detonated five spirit rings, Tang Hao was drenched in blood. The empty sleeve of his severed arm whipped in the night wind, and his only remaining arm swung the Clear Sky Hammer, each strike producing a roar like muffled thunder.

Bibi Dong was retreating.

Though she retreated little—only half a step, a single step at a time—she was undeniably falling back.

Hu Liena's gaze did not linger on Bibi Dong.

Her attention was pinned firmly to a single sight.

On the right side of the plaza, at the base of a wall.

Xie Yue lay sprawled in a pile of rubble. The armor on his left shoulder was shattered to dust, his wound exposing jagged white bone, and blood had stained the surrounding stone tiles a dark crimson.

His mouth was agape, his breathing shallow and rapid, the rise and fall of his chest already agonizingly weak.

It was Tang Hao who had done this.

One palm.

With just one strike, he had shattered several of her brother's ribs, sending him flying dozens of feet while vomiting blood, embedding him into a stone pillar from which he could not pull himself free.

Hu Liena had witnessed that scene with her own eyes, every detail etched into her mind—

Xie Yue's back as he cut in from the flank, the backhand strike Tang Hao delivered without even turning his head, the arc of Xie Yue's chest collapsing under the force of the palm wind, and the spray of blood from his mouth as he slid down the stone pillar.

Something scalding surged up from her chest.

It was not soul power; it was rage.

A pure, violent fury, unadulterated by any shred of reason.

Hum, hum, hum—

The Severing Thought Sword began to vibrate violently in her hand.

The sword's hum shifted from a low drone to a piercing shriek, cutting across half the plaza; even the distant Martial Soul Hall spirit masters could not help but cover their ears.

That sound was not a warning.

It was a response.

The Severing Thought Sword sensed the surging killing intent in its master's chest. Every inch of the blade rapidly heated up, the Dao aura spreading from the guard to the tip, and the two characters for "Severing Thought" erupted in blinding white light.

Hu Liena did not hesitate.

She did not even think.

With a single shift of her will.

Her hand loosened.

The Severing Thought Sword slipped from her grasp.

There was no throwing motion, no wind-up for a strike.

The moment it left her hand, the blade vanished—not because it moved too fast for the naked eye to track, but because it disappeared from space entirely. In less than a single breath, it reappeared three feet beside Tang Hao.

Tang Hao's reaction was fast enough.

In his overloaded state, having detonated five soul rings, his perception had reached an unprecedented peak.

The instant the Severing Thought Sword appeared, he sensed it—to his right, an aura of extreme danger, ten times more terrifying than Bibi Dong's Rakshasa Demon Scythe.

He swung the Clear Sky Hammer horizontally.

It was too late.

The crystalline blade carved a white line through the night, so thin it was nearly invisible.

There was no sound.

No burst of light.

Not even the whistle of air being torn asunder.

It was eerily silent.

The white line passed through Tang Hao's right shoulder.

And then—

An arm detached from his shoulder.

Along with the Clear Sky Hammer.

The severed surface was impossibly clean; the cross-sections of bone, meridians, and muscle were smooth to the extreme. For the first breath after the severance, not a single drop of blood flowed out.

Because the sword qi had sealed every blood vessel on the surface simultaneously.

One breath.

Two breaths.

The seal collapsed.

Blood gushed from the wound, scalding and dark red, drawing a shocking arc through the night sky before splashing onto the ground three zhang away.

"Ah----!"

Tang Hao let out a scream that sounded inhuman.

That arm was his final reliance. His left arm had been gone long ago; from this moment on, both his arms were severed—a Title Douluo, a peerless powerhouse of the Clear Sky Sect, had been reduced to a cripple without arms.

Deprived of its master's soul power, the Clear Sky Hammer tumbled twice in the air before falling into a pile of rubble along with the severed arm.

A dull thud echoed across the plaza.

The hammer lay still. The arm lay still.

Tang Hao's body plummeted from mid-air, crashing onto the steps in front of the Pope Palace, sending gravel flying.

He knelt on the ground, his empty sleeves swaying in the night wind.

Blood continued to surge from the wound, bubbling out in rhythmic pulses, flowing down the cracks in the steps to form a dark red stream.

The entire battlefield froze.

Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan stood with his mouth agape, unable to close it for a long time.

Ghost Douluo slumped in the pile of rubble, his entire body trembling like a sieve.

The soul masters on the periphery of Martial Soul Hall stood petrified where they were.

--Clear Sky Douluo Tang Hao.

The Sect Master of the Clear Sky Sect, once the number one person in the world, the most domineering existence among Title Douluos.

He had been severed of his right arm by a single sword strike.

A woman who, a month and a half ago, was merely a level sixty-nine Saintess of Martial Soul Hall, had done it with a sword she had held for less than ten breaths.

Bibi Dong hovered in mid-air, her Rakshasa Demon Scythe hanging by her side.

She stared at Tang Hao's empty right sleeve for three breaths.

Then she turned her head, her gaze falling upon the woman in the plaza who stood empty-handed, her Six Fox Tails standing straight.

The Severing Thought Sword had already flown back to Hu Liena's side, hovering quietly above her right shoulder, not a single drop of blood staining its blade.

Clean.

Decisive.

Bibi Dong's throat moved.

Hu Liena stood amidst the rubble and bloodstains, her chest heaving rapidly.

The surge of violent rage had been completely vented the moment she struck; now, what flooded back in was a slight, lingering numbness—not from fear, but from the hollow sensation of no longer having a hilt in her hand.

She watched the back of Tang Hao as he knelt upon the steps.

Both his arms were severed, blood pooling across the ground.

Half a month ago, she had been merely level sixty-nine, forced to breathe with caution in the presence of such a powerhouse.

Now, a single thought from her was enough to command the Severing Thought Sword to hack off his arms.

This was what he had given her.

The Primordial Spirit Bead, the Fate-Suppressing Cauldron, the Severing Thought Sword—three betrothal gifts, three layers of transformation.

They had forcibly elevated a level sixty-nine Soul Saint to a position capable of inflicting fatal wounds upon a Titled Douluo.

Hu Liena's fox ears twitched.

There was no time to dwell on it.

Because Tang San had lost his mind.

"Father—!"

A throat-tearing roar erupted from the other side of the plaza.

Tang San slammed the Sea God Trident into the ground, the golden shaft sinking into the rubble, and charged madly toward Tang Hao.