Although she and Qian Daoliu disagreed on matters of principle, when faced with an outside enemy like the Renegade Immortal World, she still hoped Qian Daoliu could hold on and bring back some useful intelligence for Spirit Hall.
On the streets of the Heaven Dou Empire, the civilians cheered as well.
"A Peerless Douluo is a Peerless Douluo!"
"Those young folks couldn't beat the cultivators just now because their cultivation was lacking. Now that the strongest man on our continent has taken the field, he'll definitely keep them in check!"
But the cheers across Douluo Continent had not lasted half an incense stick's time.
The scene on the Sky Screen suddenly changed.
The dazzling golden light of the Angel Domain Qian Daoliu had unfurled was like a giant beacon in the dim basin.
On a mountainside dozens of miles away from him,
a dense cloud of black mist was speeding through the air.
Seated inside the mist was an old man in a loose black robe.
His hair was sparse, his face covered in brown age spots. His eyes were somewhat cloudy, but the occasional glint in them made people wary of meeting his gaze.
He toyed with two beads carved from human skulls. Beneath him sat a Black Wood Coffin that exuded a powerful aura of corpse energy.
This old man was Sun Tai, an elder of the Corpse Yin Sect at the Infant Transformation Stage!
Sun Tai had only been passing through the basin on his way to take care of some personal business.
Suddenly, his cloudy eyes narrowed slightly, and he turned to look toward the depths of the basin.
"Hmm?"
Sun Tai stopped the Black Wood Coffin beneath him, letting out a raspy murmur of surprise.
"What pure light energy."
"When did such a rare curiosity appear on Vermilion Bird Planet?"
Most cultivators in the cultivation world absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. It was rare to find power of such extreme purity, concentrated in a single attribute.
The light attribute in particular was exceedingly rare to the Corpse Yin Sect, a sect that specialized in dealing with corpses and yin energy. It was a truly exceptional mutation material.
Sun Tai's lips curved with interest.
He gently patted the lid of the coffin beneath him.
The Black Wood Coffin turned in midair and transformed into a streak of black light, speeding straight toward the spot where Qian Daoliu's golden radiance shone.
Qian Daoliu floated in midair, warily surveying the surroundings.
Suddenly, his heart lurched, and an unprecedented sense of danger enveloped him.
He looked up at the sky ahead.
At the edge of the area illuminated by the angelic light, the black mist began to churn violently.
Then a massive Black Wood Coffin broke through the fog and drifted leisurely in front of him.
Seated atop the coffin, Sun Tai looked down at Qian Daoliu.
He paid no attention to the nine rings of different colors around Qian Daoliu, nor to the six golden wings on his back.
In the eyes of an old monster at the Infant Transformation Stage, the faint energy fluctuations coming from Qian Daoliu were not even on par with those of a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Sun Tai's gaze swept over Qian Daoliu's body.
"No spiritual energy. He's no cultivator."
"A mortal's body can actually contain such pure light energy without falling apart. It can even mutate the body and grow a birdman's wings."
Sun Tai stroked the sparse whiskers on his chin. He looked like an old farmer who had picked out a fine cabbage at the market, nodding with satisfaction.
"Not bad. Very good."
Sun Tai's voice rang through the air, carrying an unquestionable authority.
"I happen to be researching a new method of corpse refinement."
"The corpses of ordinary cultivators are too saturated with yin energy. Golden Armored Corpses refined from them easily hit a bottleneck."
"If I used your mortal body, brimming with the light attribute, as a base and slowly tempered it with Nether Fire, I might be able to refine an unprecedented light-aligned Corpse Puppet."
At those words,
Qian Daoliu's expression darkened, fury burning in his eyes.
He was the Great Enshrined of Spirit Hall, the Angel God's representative.
And now someone was sizing him up as if he were a corpse that had yet to be refined!
"You arrogant lunatic!"
Qian Daoliu roared, pointing the Angel Holy Sword in his hand at Sun Tai.
"I don't care who you are. If you want to take me and refine me into a corpse, you'll have to prove you're capable of it!"
As soon as he finished speaking, his Hundred Thousand Year Soul Skill's red ring blazed with light.
Without hesitation, he unleashed his strongest offensive Soul Skill.
The massive Angel Phantom appeared behind him. A golden sword aura, so brilliant it seemed to reach its limit, sliced toward Sun Tai atop the coffin with a piercing shriek that tore through the air.
The spectators on Douluo Continent held their breath.
This was the full-force attack of a level ninety-nine Peerless Douluo!
Yet
Sun Tai barely even lifted his eyelids at the mighty golden sword aura.
He did not use a magic treasure or form a single hand seal.
He simply raised his right hand and gave the oncoming sword aura a casual wave of his wide black sleeve.
"Disperse."
The word slipped lightly from Sun Tai's lips.
There was no earth-shattering explosion.
Qian Daoliu's Hundred Thousand Year Soul Skill, powerful enough to cleave a mountain, struck the breeze stirred by Sun Tai's sleeve—
and shattered like it had hit an invisible iron wall, scattering into countless golden specks. It failed to so much as cut a single strand of Sun Tai's hair.
"This..."
Qian Daoliu's eyes widened. His pride was crushed to pieces in an instant.
Before he could make another move,
Sun Tai had already lowered his arm.
The immense pressure of the Infant Transformation Stage descended upon Qian Daoliu without restraint, like a hundred thousand mountains bearing down on him.
"Bang!"
The Angel Domain around Qian Daoliu collapsed instantly.
The six golden wings on his back cracked with a sharp, bony snap, crushed by that pressure.
His massive body plunged from the sky like a meteor, slamming into the dark-brown earth and gouging out a deep pit.
He tried to get back up, only to find the space around him seemed frozen.
He was pinned into the dirt, unable to move even a finger, and could only stare at Sun Tai above him.
The gap between them was too great.
He did not even have the right to fight back.
Sun Tai patted the Black Wood Coffin beneath him.
"Click."
The coffin lid slowly slid backward, and a dense mass of black corpse energy poured out.
Looking down at Qian Daoliu, trapped in the pit, Sun Tai smiled with satisfaction.
"Get inside."
"When I finish my business and return to the sect, I'll fire up the furnace and refine you."
As Sun Tai spoke,
a powerful suction force burst from the Black Wood Coffin, locking onto Qian Daoliu in the pit.
Qian Daoliu could only watch as he was drawn closer and closer to the pitch-black coffin.
A Peerless Douluo of his generation was being treated like raw material, about to be stuffed into a stinking coffin and carried away.
The scene on the Sky Screen abruptly froze as half of Qian Daoliu's body was sucked into the coffin.
As the lid of the Black Wood Coffin slowly closed, Qian Daoliu's vision sank into total darkness.
The hearts of the spectators across Douluo Continent sank with it.
The dignified Great Enshrined of Spirit Hall, a level ninety-nine peerless powerhouse, had not even been able to fight back before being stuffed into a coffin like a salted fish.
The view on the Sky Screen now split into two parts, inside and out.
One image showed the suffocating, cramped space inside the coffin.
Qian Daoliu lay on a narrow plank, surrounded by dense black corpse energy that seemed to resist even the thought of dispersing.
The corpse energy slithered toward him like cold, venomous snakes, forcing its way into his body through his mouth, nose, and pores.
The Angel Soul Power he had always been proud of was firmly sealed in his dantian by the immense pressure of Sun Tai's Infant Transformation Stage. He could not release even a glimmer of golden light.
Qian Daoliu gasped, his chest heaving violently.
In the darkness, he could smell the stench of decay left behind by corpses steeped into the wooden boards for years. It was so foul it made him nauseous.
He had lived for over a hundred years, always standing high above others and revered by countless people.
When had he ever suffered such humiliation?
But in the face of overwhelming power, dignity was worth less than a fart.
He could only grit his teeth and silently endure the bone-piercing chill in the darkness.
The other half of the Sky Screen followed Sun Tai, who sat atop the coffin.
Sun Tai sat cross-legged on the lid of the Black Wood Coffin, tapping the boards lightly with his withered fingers. He was clearly in a very good mood.
"I set out this time to find a place of extreme yin and nourish my Golden Armored Corpse, which had suffered a minor injury."
A smug glint flashed in Sun Tai's cloudy eyes.
"I never expected to pick up such a fine mortal body, brimming with the aura of light, for free."
"Once I find a place of extreme yin, I can use the yin energy of heaven and earth to balance out this light-filled body. If I refine it into a 'Yin-Yang Corpse Puppet' woven from light and darkness, my standing in the sect should rise another notch, at the very least."
As Sun Tai dreamed of the good things to come, he controlled the coffin as it streaked through the sky like a streak of black light, flying toward the deepest part of the vast basin.
Watching Sun Tai's carefree expression, the spectators on Douluo Continent ground their teeth in hatred, yet could do nothing.
Spirit City, Pope Palace.
Bibi Dong watched the screen with knitted brows, saying nothing.
Second Worship Golden Crocodile Douluo paced back and forth across the hall in a frenzy, his fists clenched so tightly they crackled.
"Is the Great Enshrined really finished?"
Golden Crocodile Douluo's eyes were red, his voice filled with helplessness.
"That old monster is heading to some place of extreme yin. Once he gets there, won't the Great Enshrined be refined alive into one of those inhuman dried corpses?"
Everyone knew that ending up in a cultivator's corpse-refining furnace would be ten thousand times more wretched than being killed outright.
But no one could save him.
They could only watch helplessly as the Black Wood Coffin flew farther and farther away along the horizon.
Sun Tai rode the coffin for a full half-hour.
The terrain ahead began to change.
The dark-brown earth disappeared, replaced by a world of endless snow and ice.
The temperature was absurdly low, and vast swathes of blue ice crystals drifted through the air.
These crystals were not ordinary frozen water vapor. They were yin spiritual energy, so dense that the extreme cold had solidified it.
One crystalline iceberg after another rose from the ground, like blue swords thrust straight into the clouds.
Feeling the pure yin chill all around him, Sun Tai's wrinkles smoothed out.
"What a fine place!"
He drew in a deep breath and let out a sigh of satisfaction.
"The extreme cold yin energy in this valley is even denser than I imagined. It's perfect for refining that body of light."
Sun Tai urged his magic power, guiding the coffin down toward a deep valley between two enormous icebergs.
As the coffin descended, the Sky Screen's view followed it deeper into the blue, ice-covered valley.
The valley was quiet; even the wind could not be heard.
Ten-thousand-year-old Mysterious Ice covered the ground.
But when Sun Tai rode the coffin to the very bottom of the valley,
his cloudy eyes, which had been filled with smugness, suddenly flew wide open.
It was not only him. Every spectator watching the Sky Screen across Douluo Continent held their breath without realizing it.
At the very center of the valley
stood a massive ice bed carved from a single piece of ten-thousand-year-old Cold Jade.
The ice bed radiated a gentle blue glow, drawing in the surrounding yin chill without end.
On that Cold Jade ice bed lay a woman.
A woman so beautiful that no one could look away once they saw her.
She wore a simple white dress, and her dark hair cascaded across the ice bed like a waterfall.
Her skin was fair as snow. Though devoid of color, it possessed a fragile beauty that made the heart ache.
Her eyes were closed, long lashes casting faint shadows across her lids. Her hands were folded over her chest, and the corners of her lips seemed to hold the faintest, most peaceful smile.
She looked like an unparalleled immortal maiden, fast asleep.
But that was only an illusion.
As an elder of the Corpse Yin Sect, Sun Tai saw through the truth at a glance.
She was dead.
A perfect corpse whose body had not decayed in the slightest, despite having been dead for who knew how many years!
Within the corpse lay an immense force of yin chill, powerful enough to make even Sun Tai, an old monster at the Infant Transformation Stage, tremble with alarm.
"This... this is..."
Sun Tai rose from the Black Wood Coffin, his hands trembling uncontrollably.
He swallowed, his voice turning shrill and hoarse with excitement.
"The supreme pure-yin body nurtured by Ten Thousand Year Cold Ice Marrow!"
"Flesh that never decays, with yin energy condensed within into a pill..."
Sun Tai's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. A blaze of greed instantly consumed every shred of his reason.
"Heaven has opened its eyes! Heaven has opened its eyes!"
"If I can take this female corpse back to the sect and refine her into my own Heavenly Corpse, then even if I can't reach Ascending Peak, I'll still be able to run rampant across the entire Vermilion Bird Planet!"
His overwhelming greed blinded Sun Tai to all caution.
He didn't even stop to wonder why a Cold Jade Bed had appeared out of nowhere in such a secluded, freezing mountain valley, or why such a precious female corpse was lying on it.
At that moment, all he could see was the material that could lift him to the heavens in a single bound.
Sun Tai slapped the Black Wood Coffin beneath him and turned into a plume of black smoke, rushing impatiently toward the icy bed of Cold Jade.
When he was less than ten zhang from the ice bed,
the Sky Screen suddenly zoomed in for a close-up.
Only then did the viewers on Douluo Continent notice that, on the other side of the icy bed of Cold Jade,
beside the woman's corpse,
someone else was sitting on the cold, snowy ground.