Mad! Shattering the Soul to Force Godhood

Deep within the Sea God Hall, golden light surged and churned.

Tang San knelt in the center of the altar, his entire body tightly swathed in the power of the Sea God.

Golden light seeped out from his seven orifices, and even the corners of his eyes were shedding golden tears.

The final stage of the eighth trial—the Sea God Will impact.

The pure power of a godhead poured into his soul, crushing forward unreasonably, churning his consciousness into a chaotic paste.

Tang San's mind went completely blank with a buzzing sound.

The suppression from the Fate-Suppressing Cauldron remained. That invisible, heavy force clamped down on him, pinning his destiny, which should have flowed smoothly, firmly in place.

His cultivation speed had dropped by more than forty percent, and the difficulty of every trial had been nearly doubled.

Anyone else would have given up long ago.

Tang San did not.

He gritted his teeth until they clicked, blood seeping from the corners of his mouth.

His ten fingers were embedded into the stone crevices of the altar; three of his nails had split, and blood bubbled out, mixing with the golden light.

Only one image played over and over in his mind—three days ago, the night at Martial Soul City, when the Severing Thought Sword slipped from the hand of Hu Liena and severed his father's right arm with a single strike.

The image of that arm detaching from the shoulder.

The stump was unnaturally clean.

Blood gushed forth.

His father knelt on the steps, both sleeves hanging empty.

"Ah----!"

Tang San let out a roar that did not sound human.

The golden Sea God power exploded within his body, colliding head-on with the suppression of the Fate-Suppressing Cauldron.

A dense series of popping sounds erupted from his meridians; one, two, five—seventeen meridians ruptured simultaneously, only to be forcibly repaired by the infusion of the Sea God power.

Rupture, repair. Rupture again, repair again.

Under this repeated crushing, the resilience of his meridians was stretched open bit by bit.

The Fate-Suppressing Cauldron could suppress his destiny, but it could not suppress his life.

"Boom--!"

The golden light on the altar surged to its peak, then contracted in an instant.

All the radiance poured into Tang San's body, not a single wisp escaping.

Silence reigned for three breaths.

Then—golden light seeped out from the surface of Tang San's skin, strand by strand, piece by piece, slowly coalescing upon him.

The headpiece formed first.

The golden crown band spread from his forehead to the back of his head, the edges carved with wave patterns.

Shoulder guards, breastplate, gauntlets, belt, greaves.

A complete set of shimmering divine armor assembled, adhered, and embedded itself onto Tang San.

Every scale of the armor glowed with a soft golden light, with Sea God patterns slowly swimming along the seams.

Sea God Divine Armor.

Tang San pulled his hands from the stone crevices and slowly braced himself against the edge of the altar to stand up.

The divine armor clung to his body, bringing an unprecedented sense of fullness.

Soul power surged through his meridians, moving more than three times faster than before.

Every inch of muscle and every bone was permeated by the golden power, and his entire aura climbed sharply—

He was more than a level stronger than he had been three days ago.

The eighth trial, successfully completed.

But Tang San's face was white.

White to the point of having no color at all.

His eye sockets were sunken, his cheekbones prominent, and the trail of blood at the corner of his mouth extended from his lower lip to his jaw, already dried and cracked into dark red flakes.

The price of forcibly accelerating the trial.

His soul was damaged.

Not a common injury—but a crack at the foundational level.

Every time he channeled the Sea God power, it felt like a needle was stabbing into his brain, piercing from his temple to the back of his head, then stabbing back again.

Tang San walked down from the altar, his steps unsteady; he miscalculated his first step by half an inch, and his entire body swayed.

The golden light of the Sea God Divine Armor was exceptionally striking in the night.

He raised his right hand. As his fingers splayed, golden plates of armor clung to his knuckles, with streams of light dancing between the gaps.

Power.

Solid, tangible power.

With this set of divine armor, his combat strength had at least doubled.

Under the resonance of the divine armor, the cracks on the Sea God Trident began to repair themselves; though slow, they were indeed healing.

Was it enough?

It was not.

The sharpness of that Severing Thought Sword was still carved into his memory.

A mere ripple of its power had crushed his full-force strike, and a single swing had severed his father's remaining arm.

And that was only the third of eighteen betrothal gifts.

There were still fifteen to go.

Tang San clenched his right hand into a fist, the knuckles of the divine armor emitting a faint metallic friction.

"San'er!"

Footsteps echoed from outside the hall, hurried and chaotic.

The figure of Yu Xiaogang rushed out from behind a pillar, nearly tripping over the threshold.

He steadied himself with one hand against the pillar, the other pressed against his knee as he gasped for air.

The moment he saw the golden divine armor on Tang San, he froze for two heartbeats.

Then, his gaze shifted to Tang San's face.

It was terrifyingly pale.

The bloodstain at the corner of his mouth, the sunken eye sockets, the slight sway in his gait—this was no look of someone who had just passed a trial; it was the look of someone who had crawled back from the gates of hell.

Yu Xiaogang covered the distance to Tang San in a few quick strides.

"Your complexion—"

"I'm fine."

Tang San waved his hand. The movement was a bit slow, lagging by half a beat.

"What do you mean you're fine!"

Yu Xiaogang reached out to check Tang San's pulse. The moment his fingers touched the wrist, his expression shifted entirely.

The pulse was chaotic to the extreme.

It beat strongly, then weakly, with two skipped beats in between.

This was not mere fatigue; it was the chain reaction of a severely damaged soul—the soul power in his meridians was rampaging without any order.

"Your soul..."

Yu Xiaogang's throat tightened.

Tang San pulled his wrist away.

"Master, I know my own condition."

"Then you should be resting even more!"

Yu Xiaogang's voice rose:

"At the very least, you need three months of recovery, wait for the soul fissures to heal on their own, and then—"

"Three months?"

Tang San cut him off.

The two words were squeezed through his teeth, carrying a chill.

"Master, do you know what will happen after three months?"

Yu Xiaogang's words stuck in his throat.

Tang San stared at the night sky outside the hall.

The starry sky over Sea God Island was much clearer than that of the mainland, filled with stars, each brighter than the last.

Yet, everything he looked at now seemed dark.

"Three days ago, she was only level eighty-four, and she severed my father's arm with one sword strike."

"What about three months from now?"

"The Celestial Master behind her is pushing her higher with every single betrothal gift. The Primordial Spirit Bead governs bloodline, the Fate-Suppressing Cauldron governs destiny, and the Severing Thought Sword governs the soul—three dimensions, airtight and flawless."

Tang San's molars ground together with a clicking sound.

"I have no time to rest."

Yu Xiaogang opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

He wanted to say, "If you keep pushing yourself like this, something will go terribly wrong."

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 is no need to worry about firewood."

But looking at Tang San's bloodshot eyes, all his words of comfort became lodged in his throat.

There was no hesitation in those eyes.

There was only the resolve of someone pushed to the brink, someone who had personally burned away every path of retreat.

"With that Celestial Master's assistance, Hu Liena's strength is growing by leaps and bounds."

Tang San turned around, facing the deepest part of the Sea God Hall:

"If this continues, the gap will only grow wider."

He took a step forward.

The golden light on his divine armor dragged a long trail through the darkness.

"I must become the true Sea God before she ascends to godhood."

The second step.

"Only then—"

The third step.

"Will I have a chance at revenge."

Yu Xiaogang stood where he was, watching Tang San's back as he walked step by step into the depths of the hall.

The golden divine armor grew smaller and more distant in the darkness.

He wanted to chase after him.

His feet did not move.

It wasn't that he didn't want to stop him; it was that he couldn't.

From the Capital of Slaughter to Sea God Island, from the age of ten until now—once this child made a decision, not even the sky collapsing could change it.

Yu Xiaogang's hands hung at his sides, slowly clenching into fists before relaxing again.

The deepest part of the Sea God Hall.

The entrance to the Ninth Trial.

A hundred-foot-tall stone gate stood at the end, the Sea God patterns on it dim and lusterless, as if they had been sleeping for ten thousand years.

On the ground before the stone gate was carved a line of ancient text, worn blurry by time, yet still barely legible—

"Inherit the will of the Sea God, succeed to the throne of the Sea God."

Tang San stood before the stone gate.

He raised his right hand and pressed it against the icy surface.

The Sea God Trident hovered behind him, the crack on its shaft slowly knitting together under the resonance of the divine armor.

Golden light seeped from his palm into the stone gate, one wisp, then two—

The patterns on the stone gate lit up.

Starting from the base, they ignited one by one, spreading toward the top.

The entire Sea God Hall began to tremble, dust raining down from the vaulted ceiling.

A metallic taste of blood surged into Tang San's nostrils.

The needle in his brain began to prick again.

He ignored it.

Golden light erupted from the cracks in the stone gate, instantly swallowing his figure.