Old Jack's eyes flew wide, and his cane nearly slipped from his hand.
Though his eyesight had grown dim with age, he'd recognize that unkempt appearance even if it had been burned to ashes!
Tang Hao, the disheveled drunk who did nothing but drink himself into a stupor every day, was actually a Titled Douluo?!
Old Jack felt as though his entire worldview had crumbled.
But Tang Hao didn't look at Old Jack.
His gaze swept slowly across every terrified face in the square, young and old, men and women, one after another.
Then he spoke.
His voice wasn't loud, yet it carried a chill that seemed to freeze the blood in their veins.
"I, Tang Hao, have humbled myself to live in your remote village for twelve years. I can let your usual mockery and scorn pass without holding it against you."
His voice rose slightly, and the bloodlust in his eyes deepened.
"But there's one thing you absolutely should never have done—you leaked information about Ah Yin's Soul Bone."
Old Jack's expression faltered. He had no idea what Tang Hao was talking about.
Who was Ah Yin? What Soul Bone?
He looked around at the villagers, bewildered, and saw that everyone shared his confusion and fear.
But Tang Hao gave them no chance to explain.
His hand clenched around the Clear Sky Hammer's handle, his knuckles cracking sharply. The blood-red patterns on its face seemed to scent the slaughter to come and began to throb with excitement.
"My Soul Bone was lost. I no longer care to ask who was right or wrong."
His voice rose from a low growl into a tearing roar. The crimson in his eyes deepened to its limit, nearly spilling from their sockets.
Blood-red Soul Power surged around him, shrouding the entire square in a shadow of blood.
He suddenly raised the Clear Sky Hammer high overhead. The blood-red patterns on its body blazed, and its light turned every face deathly pale.
"Today, every last one of you will be buried with my Ah Yin!"
Tang Hao raised the Clear Sky Hammer in his hand, and the seventh Soul Ring beneath his feet abruptly lit up.
As the ring expanded, a suffocating pressure swept in every direction like a rising tide.
Then the black ring suddenly burst apart, transforming into a dense black light that descended like nightfall, shrouding all of Holy Soul Village.
"Seventh Soul Skill—Martial Soul Avatar!"
Tang Hao's roar rang across Holy Soul Village, carrying a murderous intent that blotted out the sky.
The blood-red Clear Sky Hammer in his hand suddenly flared in the darkness, its blood patterns throbbing wildly.
With a swelling sound that set one's teeth on edge, the Clear Sky Hammer rapidly grew before their eyes.
In the space of a breath, it was as big as a hill.
It blotted out the sky, casting a shadow of death over the village below.
"Tang Hao!"
Old Jack forced his head up, his cloudy eyes fixed on the blood-soaked figure in the air.
His legs trembled, his cane had long since fallen from his hand, and the immense pressure nearly ground him into the mud. Still, he gritted his teeth and summoned every ounce of strength to shout that name.
He didn't know who the Ah Yin Tang Hao spoke of was, nor why the blacksmith who had spent twelve years at the forge had become the god of slaughter before him.
But he knew that if he didn't speak up, Holy Soul Village would be lost.
"Die!"
Tang Hao remained unmoved.
Not a trace of hesitation showed in his blood-red eyes, only surging murderous intent.
With a roar, he brought the hundred-meter Clear Sky Hammer crashing down.
The hammer screeched as it tore through the air. The atmosphere split, and even space warped ever so slightly beneath the blow.
Terror, despair, weeping...
All those expressions froze in the instant firelight and bloodlight intertwined, reflected in Tang Hao's blood-red eyes.
"Boom—"
The Clear Sky Hammer slammed into the ground.
The earth shuddered twice, and broken stones and roof tiles flew like a rainstorm.
Dust billowed everywhere, swallowing all of Holy Soul Village and the surrounding slopes.
When the dust finally settled, everything fell quiet.
Holy Soul Village, once home to more than two hundred households, had been reduced to a flat plain.
Every trace had been wiped clean. All that remained was cracked earth radiating in every direction, with a few scattered broken tiles and splintered beams.
"This is what happens to those who betray me, Tang Hao."
Tang Hao gave one last look at Holy Soul Village, now reduced to ruins beneath his feet. His voice was hoarse, stripped of all emotion.
He withdrew the Clear Sky Hammer. Bloodlight flashed around him, and he vanished over the horizon like a shooting star, leaving only a faint trace of blood in the air to drift away on the wind.
A little over ten minutes passed.
On a hillside at the edge of the ruins, a patch of empty ground suddenly rippled like water.
Transparent waves shivered through the air. Then, with a thud, a drenched figure tumbled out of thin air and hit the ground in a wretched heap.
Shi Nian paid no heed to his disheveled state. He lay flat on his back, gasping for breath.
His chest heaved. His face was pale as paper, his whole body drenched in sweat, his robes clinging to him. He looked as though he'd just been fished out of the water.
"The Clear Sky Hammer... Tang Hao..."
His lips trembled as he murmured those two names, terror lingering in his pupils.
"It's the Clear Sky Douluo!"
He abruptly rolled over and sat up, cursing at the top of his lungs, his voice shrill and hoarse with the hysteria of someone who'd narrowly escaped death.
"Damn it! How could I run into something like this? So what if I didn't find the Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone? I actually ran into the Clear Sky Douluo! I was this close—just this close!"
His fingers still trembled.
When Tang Hao brought that hammer down, the illusion Shi Nian had painstakingly constructed had nearly collapsed.
The pressure of the Clear Sky Hammer was terrifying—so terrifying that, for an instant, his Soul Power had nearly been crushed and scattered.
If the illusion had cracked even a little, he would have been exposed by the shockwave of Tang Hao's attack!
And then he would have been smashed to dust alongside the villagers of Holy Soul Village.
Luckily, he'd held on.
He was alive.
After recovering a little strength, Shi Nian got up from the ground.
He scrambled to figure out which way to go, then fled in the opposite direction without looking back.
The Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone? He didn't want it anymore!
Another hour and a half or so passed.
Dawn broke, and a pale fish-belly white glow appeared along the eastern horizon.
Scattered Soul Masters began to appear near Holy Soul Village.
They were the Soul Masters who had been in Nuoding City earlier, and had only just arrived at Holy Soul Village outside the city.
Now they stood on the hillside, gazing down at the horrifying ruins below, their faces as heavy as water.
"The Soul Power lingering here is so strong. Could the one responsible have been a Soul Saint?"
A Soul Master with a Crow Martial Soul and a pair of wings on his back beat them as he descended from the sky, his words touched with apprehension.
His senses were considered sharp even among Soul Masters, but the lingering waves of Soul Power below made him tremble from the depths of his soul.
"A Soul Saint?"
His companion swept his gaze across the ruins, which had been leveled to the ground. His eyes settled on the cracks radiating across the earth, and his expression grew more and more solemn.