It's Holy Soul Village! The problem lies with Holy Soul Village!

He saw a blood-colored meteor in the sky, hurtling toward their direction at an incredible speed.

The meteor grew larger and brighter, its trailing tail of flame spanning nearly half the horizon.

"That is—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Tang Hao descended from the sky.

The Clear Sky Hammer smashed down heavily.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

The roaring sounds came continuously from the depths of the mountain range, one wave following another like muffled thunder rolling back and forth across the ground.

Holy Soul Village, built against the mountains, trembled in the face of this persistent vibration.

In the village square, all the villagers, led by Old Jack, gathered together.

Everyone looked toward the source of the roaring in anxiety; the mountains they had known their entire lives now seemed to have transformed into a roaring beast.

"Village Chief, this rumbling has been going on for over two hours now."

A sturdy man in a coarse shirt with dark, weathered skin walked up to Old Jack, his voice low.

His face, etched with the hardships of life, was filled with trepidation, and his knuckles were white as he gripped his hoe.

"Could it be... could it be that a massive earthquake is coming?"

"If only it were an earthquake."

Old Jack sighed, his cloudy eyes fixed on the distant mountains as he stopped himself from saying more.

Once upon a time, he never would have imagined that his remote little mountain village, so small it couldn't even be found on a map, would suddenly see such a massive number of Soul Masters.

It was no exaggeration to say that he had seen more Soul Masters in these past two days than in his entire life combined.

He had also vaguely overheard snippets of conversation.

Those hurried Soul Masters kept repeating the same term—Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone.

As the village chief of Holy Soul Village, which had once produced a Soul Saint, Old Jack knew what a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone meant.

It was a legendary treasure, the kind of thing that would make even Title Douluo fight to the death.

But how could such a thing appear in their godforsaken backwater? Wouldn't this cost everyone in the village their lives?

He didn't know which cursed soul had hidden such a precious soul bone in a place like this; it was a death trap!

The more Old Jack thought about it, the angrier he became, his cane thumping rhythmically against the ground.

But anger aside, his heart was filled with fear.

When gods fight, mortals suffer; how long could a tiny village that didn't even have a Soul Grandmaster hope to remain safe?

May that departed Soul Saint bless us, and please, do not let the disaster reach Holy Soul Village.

Old Jack prayed silently in his heart, his withered lips moving without a sound.

--

"Drip—"

Scarlet blood slid off the face of the Clear Sky Hammer, drawing a thin line in the air before splashing onto the ground and blooming into a tiny flower of blood.

The strange, blood-colored patterns on the hammer were now so red they had turned black, swelling as if they were about to burst from the surface.

Tang Hao stood before several corpses that had been smashed into pulp, gripping the Clear Sky Hammer without a word.

From the valley to this spot, he had lost count of how many people he had killed.

Dozens? Hundreds? Perhaps more.

With every hammer strike, he turned and lunged toward the next target, without pause, without hesitation, not even bothering to look at the faces of those who fell.

His robes were soaked through with blood, then dried by his Soul Power, forming a layer of dark brown, hardened crust that shed flakes of dried blood whenever he moved.

Yet, after killing so many Soul Masters, the killing intent in Tang Hao's heart had not been released; instead, it had surged to its peak.

That ball of rage seemed to have been fueled by the blood, burning hotter and hotter until his very organs ached with the heat.

But beneath this searing pain, his mind became clear.

He began to think, to consider exactly where the problem had arisen.

He had stayed in Holy Soul Village for the past twelve years, never leaving a single step.

For twelve years, it had been peaceful, and nothing had ever gone wrong.

Yet, only a few days after he left, news of Ah Yin's soul bone had spread across the entire continent, and even the seed had been taken.

Where the problem lay was already obvious.

Tang Hao's body shuddered violently.

Those crimson eyes widened abruptly, and a flash of extremely dangerous cold light flickered within his blood-colored pupils.

It must be those villagers from Holy Soul Village! They must have leaked the information!

Tang Hao turned abruptly.

The dense blood mist surrounding him, thick enough to almost liquefy, shuddered violently and wrapped around his entire body, transforming him into a blinding streak of crimson light that shot straight toward Holy Soul Village at the foot of the mountain.

In the square of Holy Soul Village, half an hour had passed, and the rumbling in the distance had finally begun to subside.

"Village Chief, the tremors have stopped for half an hour now. Is it safe?"

A woman holding a young child leaned in close to Old Jack, deliberately lowering her voice for fear of waking the child who had finally managed to fall asleep in her arms.

Old Jack looked toward the mountains, which had finally returned to silence, and the wrinkles on his face smoothed out slightly.

"Based on the current situation, it should be safe."

Old Jack said slowly, tapping his cane lightly against the dirt ground.

"However, to be on the safe side, let's wait another half an hour. If there are no further incidents, then—"

"Waaa—"

Before Old Jack could finish his sentence, the young child sleeping in the woman's arms suddenly began to wail without warning.

The cry was sharp and piercing, instantly shattering the hard-won tranquility of the square.

The woman hurriedly tried to soothe the child, but the baby cried heart-wrenchingly, refusing to be comforted no matter what she did.

The shrill crying echoed across the empty square like a dull blade cutting into everyone's heart.

The expressions of all the villagers changed, and several of the elders instinctively shivered.

Someone whispered "bad omen," and a lingering gloom cast itself over the hearts of everyone present.

Just then, a streak of blood-red light tore through the night sky.

It shot over from the direction of the mountains, trailing a blood-colored tail of flame that spanned the horizon. Accompanied by a deafening, thunderous roar, it approached from afar, growing brighter and faster with every passing second.

In the blink of an eye, the crimson streak came to a halt, hovering above the square of Holy Soul Village.

An irresistible, overwhelming pressure descended from the sky, slamming into everyone's hearts like an invisible mountain.

The pressure was so heavy it made it difficult to breathe; several of the frailer elders collapsed to the ground, while the women clutched their children tightly to their chests, not even daring to let out a whimper.

The crooked jujube trees around the square were forced to bow under the force of the shockwave, their leaves trembling violently.

The blood-red light slowly receded.

A burly figure was revealed before everyone's eyes.

The man hovered in mid-air, his entire body enveloped in a thick layer of blood-red Soul Power. His robes were stained beyond recognition, crusted over with dried scabs of blood.

In his right hand, he held a massive black hammer. The dense, blood-red patterns on the hammer's surface were so dark they appeared black, and they were slowly writhing, emitting a nauseating stench of blood.

His face was mostly obscured by disheveled long hair, revealing only a pair of blood-red eyes. There was not a shred of reason in those eyes, only a surging, overwhelming intent to kill.

"T-Tang Hao?"