He braced both hands against a thick ancient tree, panting heavily.
Cold sweat mixed with dirt and blood, streaming down his cheeks.
He lowered his head and glanced at his hands.
His once-proud White Tiger Claws were now charred black.
His arms were covered in blisters, and even the slightest touch sent pain stabbing through him.
"Damn it, what kind of hellhole is this..."
Dai Mubai gritted his teeth, his eyes filled with humiliation and resentment.
He was a prince of the Star Luo Empire and the big boss of Shrek Academy. When had he ever suffered such a humiliating defeat?
For a brief moment just now, he had even felt death's shadow looming over him.
If he hadn't run fast enough, he would already have been reduced to ashes, just like that guy called Yan.
After steadying his breathing a little, Dai Mubai began surveying his surroundings.
He was deep in a remote mountain valley.
All around him stood sheer cliffs that towered into the clouds.
A thin layer of white mist hung in the air.
Just then, the clear sound of running water drifted over from nearby.
At the sound, Dai Mubai's parched throat bobbed involuntarily.
He was incredibly thirsty.
The heat from that fireball had nearly evaporated all the moisture in his body.
Dragging his heavy legs, Dai Mubai slowly headed toward the sound of the water.
He parted a patch of weeds that came up to his waist.
A crystal-clear pool appeared before him.
Above it was a small waterfall, its clear spring water cascading down the rock face with a pleasant sound.
Unknown wildflowers bloomed all around the pool, filling the air with a faint fragrance.
Dai Mubai's eyes lit up, and he was just about to rush over and drink his fill.
But then his gaze swept across a large, blue-green rock at the edge of the pool.
He stopped in his tracks.
He stood there, frozen as if someone had cast a spell on him.
Seated on the flat rock was a young woman who looked like an immortal maiden in a painting.
She wore a moon-white dress, its hem embroidered with several delicate cloud patterns.
Her long black hair fell behind her like a waterfall, reaching all the way to her waist.
With her back to Dai Mubai, she had dipped her fair, jade-like bare feet into the clear pool and was gently swinging them.
Ripples spread across the water, and the sunlight made her feet look even more translucent.
The woman turned her head slightly, revealing half of her stunning profile.
Her skin was as white as snow, and her features were so exquisite that not a single flaw could be found.
A gentle, waterlike grace shone between her brows. One look at her was enough to make a person want to draw her into their arms and cherish her.
Dai Mubai swallowed.
The fear and exhaustion in his distinctive pair of evil eyes vanished in an instant.
In their place was undisguised heat.
There was even a hint of greed in it.
Back in the Douluo Continent, he had been with countless women.
He had played with Zhu Zhuqing, with her youthful face and ample bosom.
He had also played with twin sisters.
But he swore he had never seen anyone with such an otherworldly bearing and breathtaking beauty.
Compared with this woman in white, all the others he had found before were nothing but vulgar beauties.
Even Xiao Wu and Ning Rongrong from Shrek Academy were inferior to her in bearing.
Hidden behind the weeds, Dai Mubai's breathing grew ragged.
He quietly released a wisp of spiritual power and probed the woman in white.
A few seconds later,
the corner of Dai Mubai's mouth curled into a wicked smile.
"No Soul Power fluctuations."
"And no trace of that strange energy circulating inside her body."
"Is she an ordinary person?"
Dai Mubai silently weighed it over.
He thought his deduction made perfect sense.
The men in this Renegade Immortal World might all be monsters who could set things on fire at the drop of a hat.
But surely the women couldn't all be freaks too?
The woman before him looked delicate and weak, and she had no weapons with her.
Besides, she had come alone to this remote wilderness to wash her feet.
She had to be a lost commoner from a nearby village.
At that thought, Dai Mubai could no longer suppress the fire in his loins.
That gray-robed young man had just chased him off like a dog, and the humiliation had nearly driven him mad.
He needed to vent.
He needed to reclaim the dignity and confidence he'd lost by taking them from someone weaker.
And this stunning, helpless woman was undoubtedly the perfect prey.
"Since Heaven brought you here for me to find, I won't hold back."
"Call it collecting a little interest from this world."
Dai Mubai licked his cracked lips.
He straightened his scorched clothes, doing his best to look less wretched.
Then he silently parted the weeds, lightened his steps, and crept closer to the woman in white seated on the rock.
When he was less than five meters away from her,
he thought victory was already in his hands, and his lecherous grin spread wide across his face.
He lunged forward, reaching out with both hands to throw the delicate figure down onto the rock.
But the instant his body lifted into the air,
the woman in white, who had been sitting with her back to him, stopped gently swinging her feet and turned her head slightly to look over.
At the very instant Dai Mubai launched himself through the air, certain that victory was his,
the woman in white, who had been sitting with her back to him, stopped gently swinging her feet.
Dai Mubai met her gaze in midair, and his heart gave a strange leap.
Those were not the eyes of an ordinary, helpless woman confronted by a thug.
They were indifferent.
The lofty, cold gaze of someone watching an ant that didn't know its place, hopping about right in front of her.
Before Dai Mubai could figure out what that look meant, the woman in white moved.
She didn't even turn around. She simply raised her jade-white right hand, joined her slender index and middle fingers, and casually pointed at Dai Mubai in midair.
Whoosh!
The still, clear pool seemed to come alive.
The water boiled instantly, and several streams as thick as a man's thigh burst out like giant pythons.
They wove together in midair at astonishing speed, transforming in the blink of an eye into five crystal-clear chains of water that radiated a frigid chill.
They were too fast.
Dai Mubai's speed, which he had always been so proud of, seemed utterly motionless before those watery chains.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Several crisp cracks echoed through the valley.
The five chains of water wrapped precisely around Dai Mubai's limbs and neck.
The moment they coiled around him, the pool's soft water became harder than tempered steel.
Dai Mubai's forward momentum came to an abrupt halt, and his massive body was forcibly suspended in midair.
"What is this thing?!"
Dai Mubai was horrified. His muscles tensed as he tried to use the strength of a thirty-seventh-rank Battle Soul Elder to break free of the watery chains.
A low tiger's roar rumbled in his throat, and the three Soul Rings around him flashed wildly.
"Break!"
He strained with all his might, forcing both arms outward.
But no matter how hard he struggled, his face turning purple-red with the effort, the seemingly fragile chains didn't budge.
Worse, the more he struggled, the tighter they drew.
The icy water carried an indescribably heavy pressure, slowly digging into his flesh.
Crack.
The grating sound of bone grinding rang out.
Dai Mubai let out a pained groan. He felt as if the tremendous force would snap both his arms clean off.
Only then did the woman in white unhurriedly lift her feet from the pool.
Droplets slid down her smooth calves without leaving a trace of moisture on her skin.
She reached for a pair of embroidered shoes beside the rock and put them on. Only then did she slowly rise and turn to look at Dai Mubai, suspended in midair.
The woman's willow brows furrowed slightly, and a trace of disgust flashed in her eyes.
"Where did this coarse beast come from? How dare you run wild on Luohe Sect's territory?"
Her voice was lovely, like an orchid blooming in a secluded valley, but the chill in her tone made one shudder.
Dai Mubai hung suspended in midair, his limbs pulled wide apart in the most humiliating of poses.
Looking at the stunning woman before him, the fire in his loins had long since been doused with a basin of ice water. All that remained was deep fear.
At last, he realized what a foolish mistake he had made.
On the Douluo Continent, anyone without Soul Power fluctuations was an ordinary person.
But in this damned Renegade Immortal World, the lack of Soul Power fluctuations might simply mean that their cultivation system was one he couldn't understand!
Douluo Continent, Shrek Academy.
The atmosphere on the practice field had turned icy.
Everyone stared wide-eyed at the sudden reversal playing out on the Sky Screen.
A moment ago, Dai Mubai had lunged at his prey like a hungry wolf.
The next moment, he was hanging in midair, trussed up like a pig for slaughter by a few chains of water, without even room to struggle.
In the crowd, Zhu Zhuqing's body trembled slightly.
Her cool, beautiful face was now a tangle of anger, humiliation, and disappointment.
As Dai Mubai's fiancée, she had seen her man running around like a dog to save his own skin. It had been embarrassing, but she could understand that he was trying to survive.
But when she saw him escape with his life, come across a woman who looked delicate and weak, and immediately wear that disgusting, lecherous expression—then try to take advantage of her and force himself on her—
Zhu Zhuqing's heart had gone completely cold.
"So this is a prince of the Star Luo Empire..."
Zhu Zhuqing bit down hard on her lip, and a trace of blood seeped out.
"A bully who picks on the weak, with nothing but filthy, lewd thoughts in his head."
"Even if he doesn't die in this Renegade Immortal World today, I will never entrust the rest of my life to a man like him."
Ning Rongrong, standing nearby, also curled her lip in disgust.
"Disgusting. Dai Mubai always acts like some big boss at the academy. I never knew he was so vile at heart."
"Serves him right for getting what's coming to him!"
Ma Hongjun opened his mouth, wanting to say a few words in Boss Dai's defense. But when he saw Dai Mubai's humiliating predicament on the screen, he swallowed them back.
After all, Boss Dai really had gone too far this time.
Tang San was clearly focused on something else entirely.
A purple glow shone in his eyes as he stared at the chains of water wrapped around Dai Mubai.
"No Soul Rings, and no process of Martial Soul Possession."
Tang San's voice sounded a little strained. He turned to look at Flender and Zhao Wuji.
"Dean, Teacher Zhao."
"That woman merely raised a finger, and the water in the pool turned into a weapon harder than steel."
"Even a control-type Soul Douluo from our Douluo Continent probably couldn't wield such absolute control over natural elements so effortlessly, could they?"
Flender took off his crystal glasses, wiped away the cold sweat with his sleeve, and gave a bitter smile as he shook his head.
"Xiao San, you think too highly of Soul Douluos."
"Forget Soul Douluos. Even those Titled Douluos have to rely on the properties of their Martial Souls and their Soul Skills to control water."
"Their methods have already gone beyond the bounds of martial arts as we understand them. They're more like the spells of legend."
Zhao Wuji sighed beside them and said in a low voice, "It's over. That kid Mubai has really kicked an iron plate this time."
"That woman looks delicate and weak, but she's no gentler than that gray-robed young man from before."
Hearing the teachers' conversation, Yu Xiaogang stood silently in the corner.
He truly didn't dare casually offer his analysis anymore.
Everywhere in this Renegade Immortal World was strange. His theories were a joke here; the more he said, the more mistakes he made.
The Star Luo Empire, the main hall of the imperial palace.
The lavishly gilded hall was so stifling that it was hard to breathe.
The Star Luo Emperor sat upon the dragon throne, his face livid.
Fury blazed in his stern eyes.
Below him stood a crowd of ministers and imperial relatives from the Star Luo Empire. They were all silent as cicadas in winter, not even daring to breathe too loudly.
"An utter disgrace!"
The Star Luo Emperor slammed his palm onto the armrest of the dragon throne. The tremendous force bent the solid-gold dragon head out of shape.
"So this is my good son!"
"A prince of the Star Luo Empire should be exercising restraint and exploring this new world, searching for opportunities to grow stronger."
"Instead, after narrowly escaping death, he let lust cloud his mind and attacked a strange woman!"
"Attacking her would have been bad enough, but he even got strung up like a chicken!"
The Star Luo Emperor's voice echoed through the vast hall. Every word brimmed with disappointment and anger toward Dai Mubai.
Below, the eldest prince, Dai Weisi, stepped forward, the faintest trace of a cold smile playing on his lips.
He cupped his hands and said, "Please calm your anger, Father."
"Little Brother Mubai has been a womanizer since childhood. It's no secret in Star Luo City."
"But even I never expected him to bring such disreputable habits into the Renegade Immortal World."
"Now, the whole continent is watching this live broadcast. Little Brother Mubai's actions have truly brought shame upon the Star Luo Imperial Family."
On the surface, Dai Weisi's words were meant to soothe his father. In truth, they only added fuel to the fire.
Sure enough, the Star Luo Emperor's face darkened further.
"Carry out my decree."
The Star Luo Emperor took a deep breath and announced his decision in a cold voice.
"Effective immediately, Dai Mubai is stripped of his status as a prince of the Star Luo Empire!"
"If he somehow survives in the Renegade Immortal World, he will never be allowed to set foot in the Star Luo Empire again!"
At those words, the ministers in the hall all drew in sharp breaths.
They knew the Star Luo Emperor had decided to abandon his third son completely.
When it came to the dignity of the imperial family, a son with decent talent but poor character was worth nothing.
The Renegade Immortal World, beside a pool.
Dai Mubai had no idea he had already lost his status as a prince in front of the entire continent.
His mind was now consumed with thoughts of how to save his own life.
"Miss... Immortal maiden, spare me!"
Enduring the agony in his arm, Dai Mubai forced a few words through clenched teeth.
He looked at the white-robed woman's cold face, trying to move her with the words he knew best.
"I-I didn't mean to offend you..."
"I just got lost in these mountains. I was tired and thirsty, and when I saw someone by the pool, I hurried over to ask for a drink. I accidentally offended you, Immortal maiden."
Dai Mubai spun a clumsy lie, hoping she would show mercy because he seemed sincere.
The white-robed woman stood quietly in place, listening to his excuses. A trace of mockery flickered in her eyes.
"Ask for a drink?"
The woman chuckled softly. Though the smile was beautiful, it sent a chill through anyone who saw it.
"Do you take me for one of those uncivilized commoners?"