Deep within Sea God Hall, golden light surged.
Tang San knelt in the center of the altar, wrapped tightly in Sea God's Power.
Golden light seeped from his seven orifices, and even golden tears streamed from the corners of his eyes.
The final trial of the Eighth Trial—the Sea God's Will's impact.
Pure Godhead power poured into his Divine Soul, crushing its way through without mercy and churning his consciousness into a muddle.
Tang San's mind went blank with a buzz.
The Fate-Suppressing Cauldron's suppression was still there. That invisible, heavy force constricted him, pressing down hard on his destiny's natural flow.
His cultivation speed had dropped by more than forty percent, and every trial had become nearly twice as difficult.
Anyone else would have given up long ago.
Not Tang San.
His teeth clattered as he gritted them, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
His ten fingers dug into the cracks in the altar stone. Three fingernails had split, and blood welled out, mingling with the golden light.
There was only one image turning over and over in his mind—the night in Spirit City three days ago, when Severing Thought Sword slipped from Hu Liena's hand and severed his father's right arm with a single slash.
The sight of that arm falling from the shoulder.
The cut had been unnaturally clean.
Blood sprayed everywhere.
His father had knelt on the steps, both sleeves hanging empty.
"Arrrgh!"
Tang San let out a roar that sounded nothing like a human voice.
Golden Sea God's Power exploded inside him, colliding head-on with the Fate-Suppressing Cauldron's suppression.
His meridians burst in a rapid succession of cracks, one, two, five—seventeen meridians collapsed at once, then were forcibly restored under the infusion of Sea God's Power.
They collapsed, they mended. Collapsed again, mended again.
Under this repeated crushing, his meridians' resilience was stretched open bit by bit.
The Fate-Suppressing Cauldron could suppress his fortune, but it couldn't suppress his life.
Boom!
The golden light on the altar surged to its peak, then contracted in an instant.
All the light poured into Tang San's body, not a single wisp left behind.
For three breaths, there was silence.
Then golden light seeped from Tang San's skin, wisp by wisp, patch by patch, slowly gathering over his body.
The crown took shape first.
A golden band spread from his brow to the back of his head, its rim carved with wave patterns.
Shoulder guards, breastplate, arm guards, belt, greaves.
A complete set of shimmering divine armor assembled over Tang San's body, fitting itself to him and merging into place.
Every plate glowed with a gentle golden light, and Sea God patterns slowly flowed along the seams.
Sea God Divine Armor.
Tang San pulled his hands from the cracks in the stone and slowly pushed himself upright against the edge of the altar.
The divine armor clung to his body, bringing a sense of fullness unlike anything he had felt before.
Soul Power surged through his meridians at more than three times its previous speed.
Every inch of muscle, every bone, was permeated by golden power. His aura rose sharply—
He was more than a level stronger than he had been three days ago.
The Eighth Trial had been completed to perfection.
But Tang San's face was white.
White as a sheet, without a trace of color.
His eyes were sunken, his cheekbones jutting out. The bloodstain at the corner of his mouth, stretching from his lower lip to his jaw, had dried and cracked into dark red flakes.
That was the price of forcibly accelerating the trial.
His Divine Soul had been damaged.
Not ordinary damage—cracks at the very foundation.
Every time he summoned Sea God's Power, a needle stabbed through his mind, from his temple to the back of his head, then back again.
Tang San came down from the altar, his steps unsteady. His first step landed half an inch off, and he swayed.
The golden light of Sea God Divine Armor was especially conspicuous in the night.
He raised his right hand and spread his fingers. The golden plates fit against his knuckles as light flowed between them.
Power.
Real, tangible power.
With this divine armor, his combat strength had at least doubled.
The cracks in the Sea God Trident began to mend on their own in resonance with the armor. The process was slow, but it was healing.
Was it enough?
No.
The keen edge of Severing Thought Sword was still etched in his memory.
A mere ripple of its power had crushed his full-strength attack, and one stroke had severed the last arm his father had left.
And that had only been the third of the Eighteen Betrothal Gifts.
Fifteen more remained.
Tang San clenched his right hand into a fist. The armor's knuckles made a faint metallic scrape.
"San'er!"
Footsteps came from outside the hall, hurried and disordered.
Yu Xiaogang rushed out from behind a pillar, nearly tripping over the threshold.
He steadied himself with one hand on the pillar and braced the other against his knee as he gasped for breath.
The instant he saw the golden divine armor on Tang San, he froze for two breaths.
Then his gaze shifted to Tang San's face.
It was frighteningly pale.
The blood at the corner of his mouth, sunken eyes, and unsteady gait—this was no one who had just passed a trial. He looked like he had crawled back from the gates of hell.
Yu Xiaogang crossed the distance in three quick strides.
"Your complexion—"
"I'm fine."
Tang San waved a hand. The movement was a little slow, half a beat too late.
"What do you mean, you're fine?"
Yu Xiaogang reached out to check Tang San's pulse. The moment his fingers touched Tang San's wrist, his expression changed.
The pulse was in complete disarray.
Strong, then weak, with two missed beats in between.
This wasn't fatigue. It was a chain reaction from severe damage to his Divine Soul—Soul Power was running wild through his meridians, utterly without order.
"Your Divine Soul..."
Yu Xiaogang's throat tightened.
Tang San pulled his wrist away.
"Master, I know my own condition."
"Then you should rest!"
Yu Xiaogang raised his voice.
"At least recover for three months, until the cracks in your Divine Soul heal on their own, and then—"
"Three months?"
Tang San cut him off.
The two words came through clenched teeth, edged with cold.
"Master, do you know what will happen three months from now?"
Yu Xiaogang's words caught in his throat.
Tang San stared at the night sky outside the hall.
The stars over Sea God Island were far clearer than those over the mainland, countless and bright, each one outshining the last.
But everything looked dark to him now.
"Three days ago, she was only at level eighty-four, and with one stroke she cut off my father's arm."
"What about three months from now?"
"That Celestial Master behind her is pushing her higher with every betrothal gift. The Primordial Spirit Bead governs bloodlines, the Fate-Suppressing Cauldron governs fortune, and Severing Thought Sword governs the Divine Soul—three dimensions, not a drop left uncovered."
Tang San clenched his back teeth until they clattered.
"I don't have time to rest."
Yu Xiaogang opened his mouth but said nothing.
He wanted to say, If you keep forcing yourself like this, something terrible will happen.
He wanted to say, Even if you become the Sea God, you might not be able to defeat that Celestial Master.
He wanted to say, As long as the green hills remain, there'll be no shortage of firewood.
But when he looked at Tang San's bloodshot eyes, every word of comfort choked in his throat.
There was no hesitation in those eyes.
Only the resolve of someone driven to a dead end, who had burned every path of retreat with his own hands.
"Hu Liena has that Celestial Master's help. Her strength is advancing by leaps and bounds."
Tang San turned toward the deepest part of Sea God Hall.
"If this continues, the gap between us will only grow."
He took a step.
Golden light trailed behind the divine armor, leaving a long streak in the darkness.
"I have to become the true Sea God before she ascends."
A second step.
"Only then—"
A third step.
"Will I have a chance to avenge my father."
Yu Xiaogang stood where he was, watching Tang San's back as he walked deeper into the hall, one step at a time.
The golden divine armor receded into the darkness, growing farther and smaller.
He wanted to follow.
His feet wouldn't move.
It wasn't that he didn't want to stop him. He couldn't.
From the Capital of Slaughter to Sea God Island, from age ten to now—once this child made up his mind, not even the sky falling could change it.
Yu Xiaogang let his hand fall to his side and slowly clenched it, then released it.
The deepest part of Sea God Hall.
The entrance to the Ninth Trial.
A hundred-zhang-tall stone gate stood at the far end. The Sea God patterns carved into it were dim, as though they had slept for ten thousand years.
A line of ancient writing was carved into the ground before the gate. Time had worn it blurry, but it could still just barely be made out—
"Accept the Sea God's will and inherit the Sea God's position."
Tang San stood before the stone gate.
He raised his right hand and pressed it against the cold stone.
The Sea God Trident floated into the air behind him, the crack along its shaft slowly mending in resonance with the divine armor.
Golden light seeped from his palm into the stone gate, one wisp, then another—
The patterns on the gate lit up.
They brightened one by one from the bottom, spreading toward the top.
All of Sea God Hall trembled, and dust sifted down from the vaulted ceiling.
The taste of rust rose in Tang San's nostrils.
The needle in his mind began stabbing again.
He ignored it.
Golden light burst through the cracks in the stone gate, swallowing his figure in an instant.
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