The cold wind swept through the valley, whipping the hem of Yan Shaozhe's ornate white robe trimmed with gold. It could not, however, scatter the thunder crashing through his mind.
Barely fifteen minutes earlier, he had delivered the generous gifts Shrek Academy had prepared to the External Affairs Department of Dao Yan City on the orders of Sea God Pavilion Master Zhang Lexuan. He had been about to return quietly to the academy with his attendants.
Then space had suddenly split open along the way, and an invisible hand had dragged him into the passage.
When he emerged at the other end and saw his teacher Mu En—the man who should have become nourishment for the Golden Tree in the Sea God Pavilion—Yan Shaozhe had been overwhelmed with joy.
Before he could even ask how his teacher was still alive, a gesture from Xiao Yan in midair silenced him. Then he heard Ye Xishui's earth-shattering deathbed confession from the ruins below.
The leader of the Holy Spirit Cult? Death God Douluo Ye Xishui? Dragon Emperor Douluo Long Xiaoyao?
Those two monsters stood at the pinnacle of the Evil Soul Masters, their hands stained with innocent blood. Shrek Academy regarded them as lifelong enemies. And they were his own grandparents?!
All joy had vanished from Yan Shaozhe's face, leaving only boundless confusion and dread.
He turned his stiff neck to look first at Mu En beside him, whose expression was complicated, then toward the wreckage ten meters away.
There, Long Xiaoyao knelt amid the rubble, drenched in blood, holding a wrinkled old woman who was at death's door.
Their equally vacant eyes stared straight at him. A faint, strange stirring deep in his blood now told Yan Shaozhe with perfect clarity—every word that madwoman had said was true.
"No... That's impossible..."