Sun Tai reached over and slapped the black leather pouch at his waist.
"Demon Child, come out!"
A plume of black smoke drifted out of the pouch. It twisted several times in midair, then turned into a naked three-year-old boy.
Black scales covered the boy's entire body. His eyes were completely black, without even a trace of white.
The moment he appeared, he let out a burst of shrill laughter.
It sounded like fingernails scraping across an iron pot, making everyone who heard it feel deeply uncomfortable.
The Demon Child radiated energy fluctuations just as alarming as Sun Tai's, and was not the slightest bit weaker than him!
"Go smash that ice bed!" Sun Tai ordered, pointing at the Cold Jade Bed behind Zhou Yi.
The Demon Child let out a strange laugh, transformed into a streak of black, and charged straight at it.
As he flew, he waved his little hands in midair, drawing down the purple lightning in the sky and forming a web of lightning that descended over their heads.
A flash of fury crossed Zhou Yi's eyes.
He raised his hand, intending to smash the Demon Child to pieces.
But Sun Tai wasn't about to sit idle. He controlled the lightning filling the sky, sealing off every avenue of retreat.
Boom!
A thick bolt of purple lightning grazed Zhou Yi's shoulder and struck the ice, blasting a huge crater into it.
A large patch of Zhou Yi's sleeve was scorched, and blood ran down his arm.
He glanced at Ting'er, lying quietly behind him.
The lightning in the valley grew denser by the moment, and the ice mountains on both sides had begun to collapse over wide areas.
Huge chunks of ice came crashing down. The entire valley looked ready to be buried.
If they kept fighting here, Ting'er's body would surely be caught in the destruction. Those violent bolts of lightning might even destroy it.
As far as Zhou Yi was concerned, he could afford to lose his own life.
But Ting'er could not suffer even the slightest harm.
"I'll let you off for now."
Zhou Yi's voice was hoarse.
With a wave of his sleeve, he enveloped the entire Cold Jade Bed in a gentle energy, taking it—and the female corpse upon it—into his storage space.
Then Zhou Yi transformed into a streak of light and fled toward the valley's exit, pushing through the lightning filling the sky.
"Trying to run? Leave that Pure Yin Flesh Embryo behind!"
Seeing Zhou Yi flee, Sun Tai's greed once again got the better of him.
He laughed loudly, reined in some of the lightning, and chased after Zhou Yi with the Demon Child, riding the damaged Black Wood Coffin.
This sudden reversal left the viewers of Douluo Continent dumbfounded.
They had just thought that the white-haired man was invincible, able to slice magical treasures apart with a single finger.
But then that old monster unleashed his power, summoned lightning and a demon, and sent the white-haired man fleeing with injuries.
Heaven Dou Empire, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's estate.
The Thunder Hall had fallen utterly silent.
The current clan leader, Yu Yuanzhen, stood in the doorway, his head tilted back as he stared intently at the purple lightning on the Sky Screen.
The thunderstruck wood cane in his hand had cracked under his grip.
"So this is the power of thunder?"
Yu Yuanzhen swallowed, his voice trembling despite his efforts to hide it.
The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan had always claimed to control the strongest lightning in the world.
But compared to the old monster named Sun Tai on the screen, the sparks they released were no more impressive than firecrackers played with by children.
That was lightning born of the laws of nature—powerful enough to vaporize the snow filling the sky and split an entire mountain apart!
"So, in the face of the true power of heaven and earth, the lightning we've always been so proud of is this utterly pathetic."
Yu Yuanzhen sighed. He seemed to age ten years in an instant.
Spirit City, Pope Palace.
The atmosphere in the hall was even more oppressive.
Golden Crocodile Douluo's face went pale, then flushed. The small hope that had just risen within him had been crushed beneath the weight of reality.
"That white-haired man fled..."
Golden Crocodile Douluo clenched his teeth, his face full of unwillingness.
"The Great Enshrined is still inside that old monster's coffin."
"Now that the old monster has the upper hand, once he catches up with that man, will the Great Enshrined have any chance of survival?"
Bibi Dong sat on her throne, her brow furrowed as well.
She watched the Demon Child dart through the lightning net on the screen, inwardly astonished.
Even a little monster casually summoned at will had such terrifying fighting strength.
The Renegade Immortal World's foundations truly seemed bottomless.
Just two people at the same cultivation level fighting could stir up such world-destroying commotion.
On the screen.
The two men's chase carved a long trail across the sky.
Zhou Yi flew in front. Although he was fast, his injuries—and the need to protect the ice bed in his storage space—made his movements look somewhat ragged.
Sun Tai pursued relentlessly, the grin on his face growing more and more unrestrained.
"Fellow Daoist, you can't escape!"
As he shouted, Sun Tai controlled the Demon Child, sending him ahead to intercept Zhou Yi.
Purple lightning exploded again and again across the sky.
Meanwhile, Qian Daoliu, lying inside the damaged coffin, was truly suffering.
The coffin boards had gaps in them, and residual lightning from outside kept slipping through the cracks.
The purple arcs struck him. They couldn't kill him, but they left his whole body numb, pain seeping even into his bones.
Qian Daoliu lay on the wooden boards, staring at the crack of light above him, his heart filled with sorrow.
He was the Angel God's Envoy, yet he had fallen into a state where he could be slaughtered at another's whim.
Immortals were fighting outside, while he, a mortal, didn't even have the right to watch. All he could do was lie inside a coffin and be shaken until he coughed up blood.
The images on the Sky Screen slowly shifted, rippling like water.
The snowy valley, with its blizzard and immortals locked in battle, gradually faded from everyone's view.
In its place came an oppressive stench so foul that people could almost smell it through the screen.
The scene had returned to the Spirit Beast Pen of the Troll Race.
Half a month had quietly passed in the Renegade Immortal World.
For the past half month, the viewers of Douluo Continent had watched the Sky Screen every day, their emotions rising and falling like a roller coaster.
But for Yu Xiaogang, trapped in the Troll Race's pigpen, every day of those two weeks had been sheer torture.
The sky remained its usual murky gray.
The light inside the enormous livestock shed was dim.
Holding a wooden shovel, Yu Xiaogang bent over and slowly pushed the Black Wind Pig's droppings outside.
He looked even more wretched than he had half a month earlier.
His clothes had long since become a heap of rags, barely hanging from his body.
The iron chain around his neck had worn through his skin again and again from constant friction.
The old wounds hadn't even scabbed over before fresh blood began to seep out. Mixed with the black mud of the pigpen, it turned a nauseating dark red.
"Clank... clank..."
The chain dragged across the muddy ground with a dull rattle.
Yu Xiaogang finished pushing out a cart of manure, then stopped to take several ragged breaths.
His once-stiff face had grown gaunt, his cheekbones jutting out and his eye sockets sunken.
But he gritted his teeth and didn't utter a single complaint.
He knew the Troll Race man keeping watch outside had a violent temper. If he slowed down even a little, he'd be beaten.
Douluo Continent.
On the training grounds of Shrek Academy in Fasinuo Province.
Sunlight warmed the earthen ground.
But the teachers and students standing there couldn't feel the slightest warmth.
Tang San clenched both fists, his fingernails digging deep into his palms. A thin line of blood trickled from between his fingers.
He watched the Sky Screen in silence, his eyes red-rimmed.
Beside him, Xiao Wu tugged at his sleeve, looking pained.
"Brother, don't do that. Your hands are bleeding." Xiao Wu's voice was thick with tears.
Tang San shook his head, never taking his eyes off the Sky Screen.
"I'm fine."
Tang San's voice was low and heavy, weighed down by an indescribable sorrow.
"Teacher... he's suffering."
Standing behind him, Flender took off his crystal spectacles and wiped the dust from the lenses with his sleeve. Then he let out a long sigh.
"Xiao San, try to look on the bright side."
Flender patted Tang San on the shoulder, offering comfort.
"At least Xiaogang is still alive."
"And he still has that Jade Slip with the Cultivation Method."
"As long as he can hold on and get the hang of cultivating that method, he'll have a chance to turn things around one day."
Zhao Wuji nodded beside them and said in his booming voice, "Exactly! Grandmaster's a clever man. I'm sure he'll master that so-called Breathing Technique!"
Everyone silently cheered Yu Xiaogang on, pinning all their hopes on that battered Jade Slip.
Spirit City, Pope Palace.
Bibi Dong sat upon the Pope's throne, her stunning face revealing little emotion.
But the fingers gripping her scepter had turned slightly white.
She watched the mud-covered man on the screen, her expression complicated.
"Half a month."
Bibi Dong murmured softly.
"The conditions in that world are so harsh, yet he's actually managed to endure them—a Soul Grandmaster at rank twenty-nine."
Golden Crocodile Douluo, standing below, snorted, sounding somewhat disdainful.
"What do you call that enduring?"
"Acting like a servile wretch every day, playing servant to a pig—if it were me, I'd have smashed my head against a pillar long ago rather than live without an ounce of dignity."
Bibi Dong ignored Golden Crocodile Douluo's complaints.
She knew Yu Xiaogang's temperament all too well.
He valued theory and his dignity above all else. If he could endure such humiliation now, it was because he still had a fire burning inside him.
A fire driving him to prove himself through Cultivation Methods.
Time passed quickly on the Sky Screen.
Night fell.
The Troll Race's camp grew quiet.
The livestock shed was dim, lit only by a weak torch burning in the corner.
The enormous Black Wind Pig had eaten its fill and flopped down on a pile of hay, snoring.
Yu Xiaogang waited a long time, making sure he couldn't hear any footsteps outside.
Then he slowly shifted his body and sat down against a wooden post.
He formed a hand seal, and a faint yellow light flashed.
Luo Sanpao appeared.
The little creature had grown thinner from hunger over the past half month. It lay by Yu Xiaogang's legs, letting out a few listless cries.
Yu Xiaogang stroked Luo Sanpao's head.
"Sanpao, keep watch for me."
He gave the order in a low voice.
Luo Sanpao seemed to understand what its master meant. It turned around and pointed its rear toward the entrance of the livestock shed, ready to fart and make a racket, covering the sounds of Yu Xiaogang's cultivation.
Yu Xiaogang closed his eyes.
He took a deep breath and began recalling the "Basic Qi Condensation and Breathing" from the battered Jade Slip.
He had been secretly practicing every night for the past half month.
Though the spiritual energy had initially coursed through his meridians and tormented him with unbearable pain, he had gritted his teeth and persevered.
Hard work had not betrayed him.
After countless failures,
that night, a strange change finally stirred within him.
In the foul, murky air around him, a faint, cool breath followed his inhalation and slowly seeped into his meridians.
The cool breath flowed through his meridians, eventually gathering in his dantian.
Slowly.
A wisp of transparent spiritual energy, no thicker than a strand of hair, took shape in his dantian!
Though it was only a wisp of spiritual energy, so insignificant that it didn't even count as the first layer of Qi Condensation,
for Yu Xiaogang, this was nothing short of a world-shattering breakthrough!
He snapped his eyes open, a feverish light blazing in them.
"Success!"
Yu Xiaogang screamed inwardly.
He could feel that although the wisp of spiritual energy was slender, the energy it contained was several levels higher than the Soul Power he'd once possessed at level twenty-nine.
That wonderful feeling, brimming with life and seeming to connect him to heaven and earth, left him floating on air.
"Ha ha ha ha!"
Yu Xiaogang laughed wildly in his heart, the corners of his mouth lifting despite himself.
"I really am a genius!"
"In this world, where Soul Power isn't a limitation, I, Yu Xiaogang, can finally shed my reputation as a good-for-nothing!"
He lowered his head and looked at the pig-iron chain around his neck.
The chain that had once felt unbearably heavy now seemed, in his eyes, as fragile as a noodle.
Arrogance surged within him, growing wildly like weeds.
"As long as I concentrate this wisp of spiritual energy on my neck..."
Yu Xiaogang plotted silently.
"With the sharp edge of the Cultivation Method, I can surely shake this lock open."
"Once I'm free, I'll hide in some remote, uninhabited mountain forest and cultivate for eight or ten years."
"When the time comes, I'll make that Troll Race brute who took me for a slave kneel and beg me!"
The more Yu Xiaogang thought about it, the more excited he became. He was already imagining the glorious day he'd become a high-level cultivator and united the Douluo Continent.
Outside the Sky Screen.
When the audience on the Douluo Continent saw that wisp of spiritual energy appear in Yu Xiaogang's dantian, they grew excited too.
A burst of cheers erupted across the Shrek Academy training grounds.
"Grandmaster did it!"
Ma Hongjun clapped excitedly.
"See that? Grandmaster's not only unmatched in theory—he's a martial arts prodigy in the cultivation world too!"
Oscar nodded repeatedly, his face full of anticipation.
"If Grandmaster can break free of those chains and escape, our Douluo Continent will have established a foothold in that world."
Tang San's eyes grew slightly moist as he looked at his teacher on the screen, his heart filled with pride.
"Teacher, I knew you could do it," Tang San said softly.
Spirit City.
Watching the screen, Bibi Dong couldn't help letting the faintest smile curl her lips.
"That fellow actually managed to make something of it."
Though Bibi Dong was surprised, she also felt a trace of apprehension toward the wonders of the Cultivation Method.
A Martial Soul that had been crippled for half its owner's life had somehow been brought back to life with a fragmentary Jade Slip.
If this Cultivation Method spread to the Douluo Continent, it would undoubtedly unleash a storm of bloodshed.
On the screen.
Yu Xiaogang took a deep breath, preparing to make his move.
He closed his eyes and carefully guided the wisp of spiritual energy, no thicker than a strand of hair, from his dantian. It crept slowly upward along his meridians.
Its target was the pig-iron lock around his neck.
Just as the wisp of spiritual energy was about to reach his neck,
suddenly,
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
"Thud!"
A series of heavy, rapid footsteps came from outside the livestock shed.
These footsteps were completely different from those of the man who usually guarded him.
They were steadier, and every step struck the ground with enough force to cause a faint tremor, shaking dust from the roof in a steady shower.
Yu Xiaogang's heart lurched. He quickly stopped guiding the spiritual energy.
He opened his eyes and nervously looked toward the entrance.
The Troll Race brute who usually beat and cursed him was now walking ahead with a deep bow, like a slave showing someone the way.
"Young Clan Leader, take your time. This way."
The man's voice brimmed with deference and flattery.
Then, a towering figure that seemed to suffocate everyone around him walked into the dim livestock shed.
He was an adult male of the Troll Race.
He stood over four zhang tall, his head nearly brushing the shed's straw-covered roof.
His upper body was bare, and his muscles bulged like blocks of solid rock.
Most chilling of all were the densely packed, blood-red totems covering his skin.
The totems seemed alive, slowly writhing across his skin as they gave off waves of heat.
Just standing there, the vast blood and qi radiating from him made the air around him ripple and distort.
The Troll Race's young clan leader, Chi Hu!