The scar-faced man at the front swung down from his horse. His eyes roamed over Cuihua without restraint, filled with the most primitive lust.
"L-lords... I'm a law-abiding citizen of the Heaven Dou Empire. I have money. I'll give you money."
Cuihua had been terrified pale at the sight of this. Trembling, she fumbled several Gold Soul Coins out of her clothes.
But the scar-faced man didn't even glance at the coins on the ground. He simply took a deep sniff of Cuihua's scent, then grinned savagely.
"The Heaven Dou Empire? Never heard of that little place."
"But you don't have even a trace of Dou Qi about you, and you dared come to Black Wind Ridge alone? Heh. Since you've delivered yourself right to us, don't blame the brothers for being rough!"
"Out here in the middle of nowhere, the brothers could use a little fun!"
At his words, Cuihua tried to flee in terror. Though she had only 5 levels of Soul Power, she was still a Soul Scholar.
But the moment she took a step, the scar-faced man reached out casually.
"Thud!"
A tremendous force clamped down on her shoulder. The next second, Cuihua felt her bones being crushed as easily as tofu.
"Ah!"
"Run? This little wench thinks she can run?"
The bandits around them immediately burst into laughter.
"Boss, don't kill her. Should we take her back to the stronghold? Or just do it here...?"
"Of course we do it right here. Heh heh heh heh."
What followed was utter chaos.
Cuihua's screams mingled with the sound of fabric tearing, especially grating in the live broadcast.
Though she was a Soul Scholar, before these bandits—men who had spent years living by the sword and possessed Dou Qi, or even the strength of a Dou Zhe—she was as helpless as a newborn baby.
After several dozen minutes, the sounds from the broadcast gradually faded, leaving only the bandits' satisfied, foul-mouthed muttering.
And on the ground lay a blood-soaked corpse so mangled it was barely recognizable as human.
Then the scar-faced man at the front casually ended Cuihua's suffering with a single slash, and spat on her corpse.
"Pah. You couldn't even take a little fun. Dead already."
[Third explorer, Cuihua, confirmed dead!]
Meanwhile, on Douluo Continent.
In Heaven Dou City, countless commoner women watching the live broadcast covered their eyes in fright, trembling all over.
The Soul Masters with strength to their names were furious, wishing they could rush over and kill the bandits themselves.
Shrek Academy.
The faces of Zhu Zhuqing and Xiao Wu were as pale as paper. They even struggled not to retch.
"Beasts! The lot of them!!"
Liu Erlong's short temper got the better of her. She kicked the table in front of her to pieces, her eyes bloodshot, flames seeming ready to erupt from her body.
"Do the people in that world have no humanity at all? In broad daylight, they actually..."
Beside her, Dai Mubai and Tang San were also livid, their fists clenched so tightly they crackled.
"The most frightening thing isn't their cruelty."
Tang San took a deep breath, forcing down his anger before getting straight to the point. "It's their strength."
"That scar-faced man looked like nothing more than an ordinary bandit leader."
"But when he grabbed her just now, he didn't use a single Soul Skill. With nothing but physical strength and a simple coating of energy, he crushed Cuihua's shoulder blade."
"Cuihua only had 5 levels, but her physical strength was still a little greater than an ordinary person's."
"The force behind that bandit leader's grab was probably no less than that of a Power Attack System Soul Grandmaster, perhaps even greater!"
"And he was just one of the lowest-level bandits in the Battle Through the Heavens World..."
Tang San's words filled the Shrek students around him with despair.
Opportunities everywhere?
Maybe.
But in this world without laws, where the strong preyed on the weak to the utmost, the weak weren't even allowed to count as people!
"That world is too chaotic, too dangerous..."
Ning Rongrong was especially frightened. As a support-type Soul Master, if she were separated from the others and ran into bandits like those, she feared she wouldn't fare any better than Cuihua.
Meanwhile, after the others had died in quick succession, soon only Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang and the others remained on the Sky Screen.
Yu Xiaogang had no idea that, in just a few short minutes, two of his teammates had already been sacrificed in utterly horrific ways.
As for him, he had descended into a sparsely wooded area.
To his surprise, the spiritual energy here was astonishingly abundant. The dense energy left him feeling refreshed all over, and even his Soul Power, stuck at level 29 for years, showed signs of loosening.
"Wonderful! Simply wonderful!"
Yu Xiaogang stood with his hands behind his back, his smug face full of rapture.
"In this sort of cultivation environment, even a pig could cultivate into a Titled Douluo!"
Without another word, he summoned Luo Sanpao to keep watch around them.
"Roar!" After arriving in this new world, Luo Sanpao was also unusually excited, rooting around on the ground.
Suddenly, a rustling came from the bushes ahead. Yu Xiaogang's eyes narrowed, and he quickly assumed a fighting stance.
But when he saw the creature that emerged, he smiled.
It was only a wolf, its entire body crimson, no more than two meters long, and looking rather frail.
What's more, the wolf had no trace of a Soul Ring's aura. Its presence was somewhat scorching, but not so fierce that it was unbearable.
"According to my Ten Core Theories of Martial Souls..."
Yu Xiaogang turned to the camera and launched into his customary lecture. His voice was full of confidence and composure, as if he were giving the audience across the continent a lively lesson in practical combat.
"This wolf-like creature is small. Its teeth are sharp, but they don't gleam, and its movements are sluggish."
"On Douluo Continent, it would likely be a mutated subspecies of the Red Fire Wolf."
"To determine a Soul Beast's age, you mainly look at its body length and Soul Power fluctuations. This one is under two meters long, clearly still young. At most, it's on the level of a Ten-Year Soul Beast."
"Perfect. I'll use you as the first stepping-stone on my arrival in this world!"
As he spoke, Yu Xiaogang's lips curled up slightly, his eyes full of disdain.
Meanwhile, inside Shrek Academy.
After hearing Grandmaster's professional analysis, the others, who had been weighed down by Cuihua's gruesome death, relaxed a little.
"Phew. At least Grandmaster ran into a weakling."
Ma Hongjun wiped the cold sweat from his brow and let out a breath. "So there aren't freaks everywhere, after all."
"Grandmaster really is Grandmaster!"
Tang San's eyes were filled with even greater admiration. Watching his teacher speak confidently on the screen, he couldn't help praising him.
"Even after going to a higher-dimensional world, Teacher can keep such a cool head. He can judge an opponent's strength at a glance from its appearance and habits. That's the mindset of the strong!"
"I looked at that wolf too. Its steps were unsteady, its eyes unfocused. It's probably a sick wolf abandoned by its pack."
"Teacher may only be level 29, but he's still one of the best among Soul Grandmasters. Add Luo Sanpao's mutated attributes, and dealing with a Ten-Year Soul Beast should be a piece of cake!"
Before you continue