The blood-red characters slowly came to a stop.
[Third: Tang Xiao, current sect master of the Clear Sky Sect, Level 97 Peak Douluo!]
Within the borders of the Heaven Dou Empire.
At the summit of a steep mountain, blanketed in snow and ice year-round.
This place was cut off from the world throughout the year. Only a few thick iron-chain bridges connected it to the cliffs leading in from the outside.
Howling cold winds raged through the valleys, sweeping up snow that filled the sky.
This was the location of the Clear Sky Sect, once the greatest sect under heaven, but now withdrawn from the world.
Outside the stone fortress at the mountaintop.
A burly man, built like an iron tower, stood amid the wind and snow.
He wore a heavy gray robe, snow piled thickly across his broad shoulders.
His short gray-brown hair stood on end like steel needles, and his resolute face was etched with the vicissitudes of age.
In his hands, he held an enormous hammer that glimmered with a pitch-black light.
The greatest tool-type Martial Soul under heaven, the Clear Sky Hammer!
This man was none other than the Clear Sky Sect's current sect master, Xiaotian Douluo, Tang Xiao.
Tang Xiao had been silently watching the Sky Screen in the heavens.
Even though the Clear Sky Sect had withdrawn from the world, they could still see this phenomenon spanning the entire continent as clearly as anyone.
He watched the mighty cultivators of the Cultivation World, capable of destroying heaven and earth.
He watched those monsters who could shatter magical treasures with a single finger and wipe out Titled Douluo with a casual wave of their sleeves.
A storm of emotions had been surging in Tang Xiao's heart.
The Clear Sky Hammer techniques he had always been proud of seemed so clumsy and laughable before the spells and insights of those cultivators.
Just moments ago, he had still been secretly congratulating himself. The Clear Sky Sect had withdrawn from the world, far from outside troubles, and perhaps they could remain untouched by this unprecedented calamity.
But then the two blood-red characters, "Tang Xiao," appeared clearly on the third screen.
The iron-boned man's body suddenly lurched.
The Clear Sky Hammer in his hands slammed heavily into the flagstones beneath his feet, cracking them like a spiderweb.
"Sect master!"
The fortress doors burst open.
Several Clear Sky Sect elders, their hair and beards completely white, hurried out in a panic.
The Second Elder stared at the name on the Sky Screen, stomping his feet in agitation as his cane thudded against the ground.
"Damn this Sky Screen! Why did it have to choose the sect master?"
"Our Clear Sky Sect has already sealed off the mountain. Why won't it leave us alone?"
The Seventh Elder was just as anxious, grabbing Tang Xiao by the arm.
"Sect master, what are we supposed to do? That world is a man-eating demon's lair!"
"Even Qian Daoliu of Spirit Hall fell in there. If you go, the Clear Sky Sect will be left without a leader. What will become of us?"
All the elders had lost their composure.
The Clear Sky Sect had already been grievously weakened by what happened back then, and it was all Tang Xiao could do to keep the sect afloat.
If Tang Xiao failed to return, the Clear Sky Sect would truly be on the verge of being wiped out.
Tang Xiao listened to the elders' pleas and worried words.
He slowly raised his head and faced the blizzard, breathing out a long plume of white vapor.
The panic gradually faded from his resolute face, replaced by the steadiness and commanding presence befitting the Clear Sky Sect's sect master.
"Elders, do not panic."
Tang Xiao's voice was deep and powerful. It pierced through the howling wind and snow, reaching every person's ears.
"There are no cowards among the disciples of the Clear Sky Sect."
"Since the Sky Screen has chosen me, whether it brings fortune or disaster, I must face it."
He turned, his gaze sweeping over every elder present.
"After I leave, the Second Elder will take full charge of all sect affairs."
"Also..."
Tang Xiao paused, a complicated emotion flickering in his eyes.
He thought of his younger brother, Tang Hao, still wandering outside.
"If... if Hao has a chance to return, tell him that his big brother did not bring shame upon the Clear Sky Sect."
With that, Tang Xiao swung the Clear Sky Hammer onto his shoulder.
The surging Soul Power of a Level 97 Douluo coursed through him, instantly sweeping away the snow and ice around him.
He raised his head and faced the Sky Screen bearing his name with fearless resolve, as if staring death in the face.
[Ten minutes of preparation time have ended.]
[Beginning transmission!]
The Sky Screen's grand, icy voice rang out once more.
Three dazzling dark-red pillars of light descended from different places in the void.
Two fell inside the Pope Palace in Spirit City, precisely enveloping Golden Crocodile Douluo and Azure Luan Douluo.
The other pierced through the blizzard and fell upon the towering mountain of the Clear Sky Sect, completely enveloping Tang Xiao's burly figure.
The moment the pillars of light surrounded them.
The three peak powerhouses who held sway over Douluo Continent all felt an irresistible force pulling at space.
This power was countless times more advanced than any Soul Skill they had ever encountered.
They did not even have the chance to unleash their Soul Power to resist.
The next instant, the pillars of light abruptly contracted, turning into three streaks of light that shot skyward and plunged straight into the blood-red Sky Screen.
The Pope Palace was left empty, with only Bibi Dong and several elders sighing in silence.
Snow continued to fall atop the Clear Sky Sect's mountain, but the towering figure carrying a hammer had vanished.
Every viewer across the continent held their breath.
They stared unblinkingly at the three screens in the sky.
These three represented the most powerful fighters currently on Douluo Continent.
Where in the Renegade Immortal World would they be sent?
Would they encounter low-level cultivators like Xue Beng, or run straight into an old monster of the Cultivation World the moment they arrived, like Qian Daoliu?
After a slight distortion, the images gradually came into focus.
To everyone's surprise.
The three screens in the Sky Screen underwent a curious change.
The first and second screens slowly merged.
Golden Crocodile Douluo and Azure Luan Douluo had been sent to the same place.
They stood back to back, warily surveying their surroundings.
Tang Xiao, in the third screen, had arrived alone in an unfamiliar region, utterly different from theirs.
First, the merged screen showing the two of them.
Golden Crocodile Douluo and Azure Luan Douluo stood back to back in a vast world of white, surrounded by snow and ice.
The snowfall here was heavy.
Every snowflake that fell carried a terrifying chill, as if it could freeze the soul.
The gale whipped ice crystals into Golden Crocodile Douluo's Martial Soul Avatar, covered in golden scales, producing a series of grating metallic scrapes.
"Second Brother, there's something strange about this place."
Azure Luan Douluo knitted his brows as blue winds circled around him.
He tried to use his wind-attribute Soul Power to ward off the surrounding cold.
But the wind elements he usually controlled so easily had completely slipped beyond his command.
The cold was far too overbearing. It froze the Soul Power he released little by little into ice shards, which pattered down into the snow.
Golden Crocodile Douluo snorted and forcefully smashed his fists together.
"So what if this place is strange? We're mighty Level 98 and Level 97 Peak Douluo. Surely we won't freeze to death in a little snowfall?"
His voice rang out, echoing across the empty snowfield.
It seemed he was trying to dispel the faint, lurking sense of danger in his heart.
Douluo Continent, Pope Palace.
Bibi Dong watched the snowy plain on the screen, her expression growing grave despite herself.
She could clearly see the white vapor from the two offerings' breaths turn into ice dust the instant it left their lips.
"The temperature there must be unbelievably low."
Bibi Dong murmured under her breath.
Ghost Douluo, standing beside her, shivered and instinctively wrapped his black robe tighter around himself.
He had spent years dealing with dark attributes, making him more sensitive to his surroundings.
"Your Holiness the Pope, the snow there seems to contain some kind of power of the laws."
"The two offerings are consuming Soul Power more than ten times faster than usual."
At those words, all the offering elders in the hall changed expressions.
In that desperate place, where they could not even replenish their Soul Power, running out of it would leave them utterly helpless, like lambs waiting to be slaughtered.
On the screen, just as Golden Crocodile and Azure Luan were preparing to look for a way out.
A hazy figure suddenly appeared in the blizzard ahead.
The figure walked very slowly.
Yet with every step, the raging wind and snow around her parted automatically, as though they had encountered their sovereign.
Gradually, the figure drew closer.
It was a woman.
A woman so beautiful she took one's breath away, yet so cold that no one dared look directly at her.
She wore a bright red dress that stood out sharply against the pure white snowfield.
Her features were flawless, and her skin was even more crystalline than the surrounding ice and snow.
She was barefoot, stepping onto the thick snow.
Strangely, not a single footprint appeared beneath her feet.
Phantom ice lotuses bloomed silently in the snow with every step she took, then scattered in the wind.
This woman was Red Butterfly, a renowned prodigy on Vermilion Bird Planet and a core disciple of the Snow Domain!
Red Butterfly's expression was impassive.
Her eyes held no hint of emotion, like two blocks of ice that had never melted in ten thousand years.
She walked straight toward Golden Crocodile Douluo and Azure Luan Douluo, seemingly not taking the two burly men seriously at all.
Golden Crocodile Douluo looked at the red-dressed woman who had suddenly appeared, and his heart lurched.
He could not sense even the slightest trace of energy from her.
There were only two possibilities.
Either she was an ordinary mortal with no cultivation.
Or her cultivation was so high that they could not glimpse it at all.
In this strange world of cultivation, Golden Crocodile Douluo obviously wouldn't believe the former.
"Stop!"
Golden Crocodile Douluo roared, and the nine Soul Rings around him lit up at once.
He pushed his Golden Crocodile King Martial Soul to its limits. His massive frame loomed like a golden wall, blocking Red Butterfly's path.
"Who are you?"
Faced with Golden Crocodile Douluo's deafening demand.
Red Butterfly did not even raise her eyelids.
She kept her measured pace, walking forward step by step.
In her eyes, these so-called Peak Douluo standing in her way were probably not even worth two stumbling stones by the roadside. At most, they were two specks of dust drifting in the wind.
Azure Luan Douluo's gaze turned cold at her brazen disregard.
"Second Brother, enough talk. Let's capture her first!"
The blue wings on Azure Luan Douluo's back snapped open.
He became a streak of blue wind, rushing toward Red Butterfly's flank with a sharp sonic boom.
Wind blades gathered at his fingertips, glinting with dangerous light.
Douluo Continent, Shrek Academy.
Tang San stared at the Sky Screen, his brows drawn tightly together.
"Too reckless."
Tang San spoke in a low voice, his palm slick with cold sweat.
"Her steps contain the subtle workings of some kind of formation of heaven and earth."
"The space around her has been completely sealed off. Azure Luan Douluo is practically running straight into the blade."
Dai Mubai swallowed beside him.
"That was a full-power strike from a Level 97 Peak Douluo. Even Qian Daoliu wouldn't dare take it head-on, would he?"
The truth proved that, in the face of the Renegade Immortal World, everything Douluo Continent knew was always a joke.
In the image, the gale that Azure Luan Douluo had transformed into was less than three zhang from Red Butterfly.
Red Butterfly stopped.
She slowly lifted her head. At last, those indifferent eyes glanced at Azure Luan Douluo.
Just one glance.
Red Butterfly slowly raised her right hand. She pointed a slender, fair finger toward Azure Luan Douluo and gently tapped the air.
A flash of dazzling, multicolored light flickered across her fingertip.
The five elements' spiritual power.
This seemingly casual tap contained the Vermilion Bird Planet's most supreme power of perfect mastery over the five elements.
"Crack!"
There was no violent explosion.
The frenzied azure wind blades around Azure Luan Douluo froze in midair the instant they touched that multicolored light.
Then the wind, condensed from Soul Power, was forcibly transformed into solid ice sculptures.
An irresistible chill traveled along the wind blades and spread straight to Azure Luan Douluo.
The ferocious expression on his face froze instantly.
He felt a bone-piercing cold seep into his heart. In a thousandth of a second, the blood throughout his body stopped flowing.
A thick layer of blue ice rapidly crept up from his feet, completely encasing him in the blink of an eye.
"Third!"
Golden Crocodile Douluo's eyes bulged with rage as he let out a grief-stricken roar.
He swung his enormous crocodile tail, its force enough to split mountains and shatter rocks, and slammed it at Red Butterfly.
Red Butterfly's expression remained unchanged.
Facing the golden giant tail crashing down like a small mountain, she merely flicked her sleeve.
A gentle breeze swept past, carrying snowflakes.
"Bang!"
The Golden Crocodile King Armor that Golden Crocodile Douluo had always prided himself on was as fragile as a sheet of paper before that breeze.
Golden scales shattered in great swathes, turning into a sky full of golden specks of light.
A force like a landslide crashing into the sea struck his chest.
Golden Crocodile Douluo spat out a great mouthful of blood. His massive body flew backward like a kite with its string cut, crashing heavily into the snow.
Before he could even get back up,
that domineering, icy force had already swept over his entire body.
The ice spread.
The two Peak Douluo who had once lorded it over the Douluo Continent were frozen into two lifelike ice sculptures just like that.
Inside the ice, their faces still held the shock and despair of the moment before their defeat.
Red Butterfly didn't even spare the two ice sculptures another glance.
She continued on her way, walking through the swirling snow and wind. Gradually, she receded into the distance, until she vanished into the vast white world.
All that remained was the deep shudder of the Douluo Continent's tens of billions of living beings.
One finger.
One sleeve.
The Spirit Hall's two greatest fighters had turned into nothing more than ornaments on the snowy plain, without the slightest chance to fight back.
The Pope Palace was utterly silent.
Bibi Dong closed her eyes, her fingers digging deep into her palms.
They had lost.
They had lost so decisively, so despairingly.
The woman in red just now hadn't even shown much killing intent.
She had simply brushed aside the two obstacles in her way, as casually as dust from her clothes.
"What exactly do people from that world take us for...?"
Ning Fengzhi stood on the terrace of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, gazing at the sky. His voice was bitter beyond measure.
Sword Douluo Chen Xin clenched his fists.
"Ants."
Chen Xin spat out the word, his eyes full of sorrow.
"In their eyes, we aren't even qualified to be their opponents."
Just as everyone remained immersed in the shock of Red Butterfly's merciless instant kill,
the third screen on the Sky Screen, the one showing Tang Xiao, suddenly shook violently.
Everyone's gaze was forcibly drawn to it.
Tang Xiao had descended into a world completely unlike the others.
The Land of Ancient Gods, deep within the Sea of Blood.