I watched the Silver Moon Wolf's corpse disappear, but no Soul Bone appeared.
Xiao Mu was furious. He felt like blowing up the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters. How was swallowing his reward any different from killing his parents?
They could give him something lousy, but they couldn't give him nothing.
He'd worked his tail off fighting monsters, waiting for loot to drop, and then nothing. Who was he supposed to complain to?
"True Monarch, burn it! Burn down this Primary Spirit Ascension Platform!" At that moment, Xiao Mu was undeniably furious.
He'd gone through countless trials and hardships to clear the platform, only to receive a pitiful amount of experience.
There was definitely something fishy going on! Someone had set him up!
Xiao Mu's force field grew chaotic with his anger. Molecules bounced around wildly, and the temperature around him began to climb rapidly.
The next instant, the Golden Crow spread its wings.
Junwu transformed into a red sun and soared from Xiao Mu's shoulder. Golden flames burned across its wings as it rose above the forest like a real sun.
The temperature shot up. The air warped, and the thin mist evaporated into nothing.
The Soul Beasts that had been about to flee were drawn toward him by a terrifying gravity as soon as they came within a hundred meters.
At that moment, Junwu was like a true sun descending upon the mortal world, bringing disaster and the end of days.
"Xiao Mu, don't do anything reckless—" Tang Wulin shouted, but the heat wave distorted his voice.
"Back off. First, I'll smash the Primary Spirit Ascension Platform, then I'll go smash the Intermediate Spirit Ascension Platform." Xiao Mu's voice was as calm as if he were stating a fact. "The Spirit Pagoda must think making money is too easy."
In the sky, the red sun blazed. Golden fire rained down, and wherever the flames landed on the treetops, the leaves and branches instantly blackened, curled up, and turned to ash.
Where the fire struck the ground, the soil cracked and the rocks melted with a sizzling sound.
The entire Primary Spirit Ascension Platform was burning. Spirit-energy motes twisted as they rose through the sea of flames, drifting toward the nearest Soul Master.
"Teacher Wu, tell your student to calm down. Whether or not Soul Bones drop, that's a decision made by Headquarters."
A Spirit Pagoda staff member couldn't help blurting out in a panic.
"Do you think he'll listen to me?" Wu Zhangkong said helplessly. His words couldn't order Xiao Mu around. Xiao Mu had never been much for listening to him in the first place.
He really feared nothing and no one.
Inside the Spirit Ascension Platform, Gu Yue shouted, "Xiao Mu, if you keep burning everything, you'll make an enemy of the Spirit Pagoda!"
"They were the ones who refused to give me what I was owed." Xiao Mu was still angry. So what if he made an enemy of the Spirit Pagoda?
What difference did it make if he broke with the Spirit Pagoda?
He'd remember this grudge.
Soul Spirits were the foundation, were they? As long as something existed, it could be replicated.
And upgraded.
He raised his hand, and the red sun plunged downward, drawing a straight line of golden fire through the forest.
Everything in its path turned to charcoal, and the ground melted into glassy crystal. A Silver Wolf that hadn't quite died sprang from the ashes, only to be caught by the flames and turn into a mote of light with a wail.
All the spirit energy in the entire Spirit Pagoda rose up and surged toward them.
"I'll collect the interest first. If you can't take it, just log out."
Xiao Mu's voice was slightly cold, golden flames reflected in his eyes.
The red sun Junwu had become hung above the Spirit Ascension Platform like a blazing harbinger of doom, its golden flames reducing everything to ash.
As they watched the spirit energy gather, Xu Xiaoyan was the first to feel her body reaching its limit, followed by Xie Xie, then Wang Jinxi and Wei Xiaofeng.
Xiao Mu looked at Tang Wulin and warned him, "Tang Wulin, don't forget your spiritual power can't handle a Thousand-Year Soul Spirit."
At that, Tang Wulin glanced at the color of his First Soul Ring. It had turned deep yellow. He hurriedly pressed the button and left the Spirit Pagoda.
"That leaves just the three of us!" Xiao Mu looked at the Soul Rings beneath his feet. Their growth had already slowed. The Soul Beasts in the Primary Spirit Ascension Platform had probably been almost entirely wiped out.
"Let's go to the Intermediate Spirit Ascension Platform. If we're going to wreck things, let's do it properly." He put on a wireless earpiece, a portable communication device for Zero's intelligence.
He refused to believe he couldn't bring the Spirit Pagoda's Spirit Ascension Platform business to its knees.
It wasn't as if he hadn't studied the sages. He wasn't a gentleman; he was a petty man who never let a grudge go.
"Wait, you really plan to make an enemy of the Spirit Pagoda?" Gu Yue was exhausted. She'd only just joined the Spirit Pagoda. He couldn't do this.
"Please. At worst, they'll blacklist me! If they do, I'll cut off the Spirit Pagoda's internet and alternating current." Xiao Mu was undaunted. He refused to believe that after enjoying all the conveniences of modern life, the Spirit Pagoda could go back to the old days.
Besides, Xiao Mu had a pretty broad blacklisting reach. He could easily drag the Tang Sect and Shrek Academy into it, too.
He couldn't take on the Spirit Pagoda by himself. He'd need a few teammates.
At that moment, Qiangu Dongfeng had no idea he'd offended a petty little man who would actually take action when he wanted to hit someone.
When people were doing bad things, their intelligence rivaled Einstein's. They never seemed to get tired.
The three figures crossed the boundary and entered the Intermediate Spirit Ascension Platform.
The trees stood taller, the mist grew thicker, and a heavy pulse of spirit energy weighed on the air, as if the whole forest were breathing.
Xiao Mu walked at the front. Zero's voice came through his earpiece as it cracked the Spirit Ascension Platform's systems. He refused to believe he couldn't smash the Spirit Pagoda's rice bowl.
They had taken fewer than ten steps when a pillar of fire suddenly erupted from the ground. Crimson magma wrapped around a white-hot core of flame and shot three meters into the air, forcing them to stop.
The ground split open.
A giant scorpion crawled out of the fissure. Its entire body was covered in snow-white armor, and murderous intent radiated from the joints of its torso. Its foreclaws were thick and massive, their powerful pincers snapping open and shut.
Its tail consisted of nine linked bone segments that could extend and retract freely, ending in a fiery-red stinger more than thirty centimeters across.
A Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast, the Earth King.
Xiao Mu glanced at it without a word.
He was still angry.
His force field surged out from within him. This time, he didn't use the fine control he'd shown before. He simply cleared a path by the most brutal means possible.
The air was pushed away. Starved of oxygen, the flames abruptly shrank.
The Earth King opened its mouth, but the fire it tried to spew out went out before it could even take shape, leaving only a puff of black smoke.
A vacuum.
Xiao Mu had sucked all the air away from its surroundings.
The Earth King struggled, but its death was inevitable now. The gases inside its armor expanded wildly, and its bodily fluids began to boil in the zero-pressure environment. Bubbles rose across its shell, like a lobster being roasted over a fire.
With one final, muffled boom, the Earth King's shell burst from within. Fragments and bodily fluids sprayed in every direction, only to be stopped in midair.
Gu Yue stood behind them, utterly silent.
Was this Xiao Mu's true strength? A three-ring Soul Master could kill a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beast in an instant?
Xiao Mu was also badly drained. Creating a vacuum wasn't something he could just do casually.
It was practically like wrestling with the world itself.
He lowered his hand, and the force field dissipated. The suspended fragments clattered to the ground.
"True Monarch, set the Intermediate Spirit Ascension Platform ablaze! Let the forest burn!"
"Sure thing! I've been waiting for you to say that."
Junwu transformed into a red sun once again, streaking through the sky like a beam of light. With each beat of its dark wings, the forest burst into flames.
"Can you two still hold on?" Xiao Mu looked at the three Soul Rings beneath his feet, now completely black, then glanced at the two beside him.
Neither of them had absorbed any more spirit energy the whole time. They had left nearly all of it to Xiao Mu.
"Let's go..."
Xiao Mu glanced at the Soul Rings beneath his feet. After absorbing another large amount of spirit energy, he pressed the button and left the Spirit Ascension Platform.
At the same time, Qiangu Dongfeng was attending a remote meeting with the Federation at the Spirit Pagoda when his internet connection was cut off, knocking him offline on the spot.
He was about to call and ask what had happened when he discovered that his Soul Guidance Communicator wasn't working either.
The same thing was happening to everyone in the Spirit Pagoda.
This was one of the "virtues" that had been practiced in the Xia Kingdom for five thousand years: collective punishment.
Of course, at first, all that happened to the Tang Sect and Shrek Academy was that their signals were a little spotty.
Xiao Mu wasn't worried that those people would stop using his technology. They could do without it, but they still needed alternating current, didn't they? Sorry, that was his, too.
Of course, they could always go back to the old-fashioned direct current.
After a series of twists and turns, Qiangu Dongfeng finally contacted the Federation's representative and learned that he'd offended the inventor of the communications technology.
The other party had remotely locked the Spirit Pagoda out of the technology.
As long as they were within the Spirit Pagoda's territory, they couldn't use any of it.
"Wait, how did I offend him?! He's a researcher. Is he really not afraid of me, a Limit Douluo?!"
Unfortunately for Qiangu Dongfeng, Xiao Mu had several Limit Douluos backing him up. And he was still just a kid.