The sky here was a bizarre dark red, without a cloud in sight. Only layer upon layer of thick blood mist churned overhead.
The ground was not earth, but an endless, viscous Sea of Blood.
The air reeked of rust and blood, so strongly it made one want to retch.
Tang Xiao stood on a raised, dark-red reef.
He gripped the Clear Sky Hammer tightly in both hands, the veins on the backs of his hands bulging.
The gravity here was absurdly strong.
Tang Xiao felt as if his body were filled with mercury. Every step took a tremendous amount of Soul Power.
What frightened him even more was that the Clear Sky Hammer in his hands, hailed as the greatest weapon-type Martial Soul under heaven, was trembling faintly.
This was not a resonance between weapon-type Martial Souls.
It was submission—a fear that came from deep within the Martial Soul Origin.
"What the hell is this place?!"
Tang Xiao clenched his teeth. Under the immense pressure, his bones creaked.
He looked around. The Sea of Blood was so still that not a ripple stirred across it.
Yet a sense of danger, like a thorn in his back, made every hair on his body stand on end.
Clear Sky Sect.
Seeing their Sect Master in peril, the elders who had remained behind all crowded anxiously around the Sky Screen.
The Second Elder leaned on his cane, his hand trembling.
"What terrifying baleful aura."
The Second Elder swallowed.
"Even through the Sky Screen, I can feel that some peerless fiend is lurking in that Sea of Blood."
"Please be careful, Sect Master."
As soon as he finished speaking, the Sea of Blood on screen suddenly stirred.
The center of the previously calm surface began spinning rapidly.
A massive whirlpool appeared out of nowhere.
The blood churned and roared, its deafening rumble as if some ancient beast were awakening.
Tang Xiao immediately held the Clear Sky Hammer across his chest. The nine Soul Rings beneath his feet revolved rapidly, ready to unleash his strongest strike at any moment.
"Gurgle, gurgle..."
At the center of the blood whirlpool,
a massive dark-red pillar slowly rose from the seabed.
No, it was not a pillar.
When it had fully emerged from the sea, everyone finally saw what it was.
A finger.
A hundred-zhang-long finger, covered in blood-red scales and ancient runes!
Then, a gigantic hand, as vast as a mountain, gripped the edge of the whirlpool.
BOOM!
The blood burst in every direction with a thunderous crash.
A figure so enormous it defied description rose from the Sea of Blood.
A figure so enormous it defied description rose from the Sea of Blood.
It was the phantom of an ancient, exotic beast, its body covered in spikes. It blotted out the sky, radiating a monstrous fury that filled all who saw it with despair.
And at the center of the beast phantom's brow sat a shriveled, gaunt elder in a blood-red robe.
The elder's aura was as unfathomable as an abyssal sea.
His pressure far surpassed that of any cultivator the people of Douluo Continent had ever seen.
It surpassed Infant Transformation, surpassed Ascending Peak, reaching a terrifying level that made even the laws of heaven and earth tremble!
The elder lowered his head slightly and glanced coldly at Tang Xiao, who stood on the reef, braced for battle.
His contemptuous gaze was like that of someone looking at a speck of dust that was slightly larger than the rest.
"Which mortal ant dares trespass in the Forbidden Land of Ancient Gods?" The elder's voice was hoarse, steeped in unquestionable authority.
Tang Xiao gritted his teeth, burning through his Soul Power as he swung the Clear Sky Hammer, ready to make one last desperate stand.
But the elder merely raised a hand.
The beast's enormous blood-red hand came crashing down, blotting out the sky. Even the space around it was crushed in its grasp.
Tang Xiao's nine Soul Rings had not even had time to flash. He and the weapon he was so proud of—the greatest weapon-type Martial Soul under heaven—were seized in the palm of that immense hand.
The force twisted every bone in his body. Blood seeped from his organs, and he could not even cry out.
"Take him to the master. Perhaps we can draw some essence blood from him," the elder murmured. Then, riding the beast phantom, he seized Tang Xiao and plunged straight into the depths of the Sea of Blood.
Trapped in the elder's palm, Tang Xiao heard nothing but the roar of churning blood around him.
He had no idea how far they had descended.
Suddenly, the view ahead opened up.
At the bottom of the Sea of Blood, a translucent blood-red barrier forcibly sealed off the waters. Not a single drop could enter below, where a vast underground plaza stretched out without end.
The elder passed through the barrier, dismissed the enormous beast phantom, and returned to his normal size.
With a casual flick of his hand, he tossed Tang Xiao onto the hard black-stone floor like a piece of trash.
Tang Xiao gasped for breath, forcing himself to endure the agony that felt as if his whole body had been smashed apart. With difficulty, he lifted his head and surveyed his surroundings.
The sight before him made the iron-willed Sect Master of the Clear Sky Sect feel his scalp go numb.
At the very center of the plaza stood a massive throne, fashioned from the skull of some unknown colossal beast from the stars.
A man sat on it.
His build was no different from that of an ordinary human. There was no exaggerated manifestation towering like a mountain.
His eerily red hair hung loose, and his skin was pallid, as if it had never seen the sun.
His features were exquisitely carved, like a sculpture cut with knife and chisel, radiating a wicked, almost unspeakable beauty.
He lounged against the broad back of the throne, one hand propping up his head. His eyes were half closed, and a defiant, cold smile tugged at his lips, as if no rule in the world could command his respect.
He was Tuosen, the true terror of this Land of Ancient Gods!
And yet this arrogant, wickedly beautiful red-haired youth was imprisoned.
Eight ancient, dark-gold chains, each as thick as a barrel, pierced his limbs, collarbones, and neck.
The chains were covered in intricate, profound runes that glimmered with an aura capable of suppressing all things. Their other ends were firmly embedded in the eight towering stone pillars surrounding the plaza.
All around the plaza, beneath the pillars,
hundreds of cultivators sat cross-legged, packed tightly together.
They were young and old, dressed in all kinds of clothing. Clearly, over countless ages, they had entered the Land of Ancient Gods one after another.
Without exception, every one of them radiated an aura no weaker than that of the Blood-Robed Elder who had brought Tang Xiao down!
Peerless powerhouses beyond Ascending Peak!
In the outside world, any one of them would have been an ancestor who shook entire star domains, revered by billions of living beings.
But now, all these mighty figures were like ferocious dogs with their teeth pulled—or the most lowly laborers. Their faces numb and frenzied, they poured the power they had cultivated throughout their lives, endlessly, into the dark-gold chains.
Tuosen had enslaved their minds through sheer force, turning them into living tools to grind away at the seal and weaken the chains.
Douluo Continent, Clear Sky Sect.
The Second Elder's legs gave way, and he slumped onto the icy snow. He did not even bother to pick up his cane as it rolled away beside him.
"Those people... those immortal elders sitting on the ground..." the Second Elder stammered, his lips trembling. He looked as if he had lost his mind.
"Every one of them has an aura stronger than that white-haired swordsman who killed the Infant Transformation Stage old monster with a single sword strike!"
The entire Douluo Continent plunged into utter frenzy and terror.
Any existence beyond Ascending Peak could be enough to overturn Douluo Continent and the Divine Realm along with it.
And here, there were hundreds of them!
More chilling still, these hundreds of supreme powerhouses were fit only to work as laborers here?
The handsome youth imprisoned in chains on the throne had enslaved them and ordered them around like dogs!
Spirit City, Pope Palace.
Bibi Dong stared at the wickedly beautiful man propping up his head with one hand, her breathing arrested.
"What kind of monster is he...?"
A trace of despair colored Bibi Dong's voice.
"Even bound here, he can easily suppress hundreds of powerhouses beyond Ascending Peak and make them willingly serve him."
"His very level of existence is far beyond anything we can comprehend."
On the underground plaza,
the Blood-Robed Elder who had brought Tang Xiao down immediately suppressed his entire aura as soon as he landed.
He knelt respectfully on the ground, not daring to raise his head. His voice was utterly servile.
"Master, this old servant was patrolling the Sea of Blood above and caught an ant that had wandered in. I brought him here to present to you."
On the throne,
Tuosen slowly opened his eyes.
His gaze was like two unfathomably deep springs of blood, filled with an indifference that regarded all things as straw dogs.
He could not even be bothered to sit up. Still propping his head on one hand, he lazily glanced at Tang Xiao on the ground.
Just one glance.
Tang Xiao felt as if ten thousand thunderbolts had exploded in his mind at once.
His peak, ninety-seventh-rank Soul Power collapsed in an instant beneath that gaze.
His Martial Soul was forcibly suppressed back into his body. It was as if every scrap of marrow had been drained from him; he slumped to the ground like mud, even his right to breathe taken away.
Tuosen yawned, a cold, bored smile curling his dark-red lips.
"A useless wretch with no cultivation. You're not even worthy of getting stuck between this king's teeth."
Tuosen's voice echoed across the empty plaza, brimming with an arrogance that brooked no defiance.
"Drag him away and throw him straight into the Blood Dissolving Array. Drain the mortal blood from him. It should at least add a trace of filth to the seal."
The Blood-Robed Elder hurriedly kowtowed and accepted the order.
He turned around, picked Tang Xiao up like a chick, and prepared to carry out Tuosen's command.
The Sect Master of the Clear Sky Sect, a generation's leader, had not even had time to say a word before he was about to become a drop of filthy blood used to dissolve an array.
The Blood-Robed Elder gripped Tang Xiao by the collar and dragged him like a dead dog toward the Blood Dissolving Array at the edge of the plaza.
Tang Xiao's body scraped along the black-stone floor, leaving a shocking trail of blood.
Most of his bones were broken, and blood seeped from his internal organs.
Yet as the current Sect Master of the Clear Sky Sect, the pride in his bones—the pride that refused to bend—made it impossible to accept becoming a drop of filthy blood in someone else's array through such a humiliating death.
"I, Tang Xiao..."
Tang Xiao suddenly bit through the tip of his tongue. A strong, coppery taste of blood surged through his mind.
Riding that piercing pain, he forcibly squeezed out the last trace of potential left in his body.
"Even if I die, I will never offer my neck for the slaughter!"
With a hoarse, suppressed roar, a blinding black light burst from Tang Xiao.
The Clear Sky Hammer, its surface already cracked, was forcibly summoned once more.
Yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black, black, black.
Nine Soul Rings appeared around him at once.
Without the slightest hesitation, Tang Xiao used the Clear Sky Sect's most brutal and domineering trump card—a desperate move that left no way back.
Great Sumeru Hammer, Ring Detonation!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
All nine Soul Rings shattered at the same time, transforming into an overwhelming torrent of pure energy that surged furiously into the Clear Sky Hammer.
Tang Xiao's eyes were bloodshot. The muscles in both his arms burst one after another, unable to withstand that power.
He gripped the ten-thousand-jin hammer in both hands, summoned every last bit of strength in his body, and slammed it down on the Blood-Robed Elder's back.
This strike carried all the dignity of the Clear Sky Sect's Sect Master, all the resolve of a peak powerhouse from Douluo Continent.
The hammer wind howled, even setting off a sharp sonic boom in the air.
Yet in the face of this desperate strike—powerful enough to flatten a mountain in Douluo Continent—
the Blood-Robed Elder did not even turn his head.
He stopped and let out an impatient sigh.
"Annoying insect."
The elder casually raised his right hand and lightly pointed his withered index finger at the enormous black hammer crashing down behind him.
He used no world-shattering divine ability, nor did he summon the baleful aura of the Ancient God around him.
He relied on nothing but the sheer foundation of his cultivation, which surpassed Ascending Peak.
His fingertip met the hammer's head in midair without warning.
There was no earth-shaking crash.
Nor was there any shock wave from the collision of two forces.
Beneath the Blood-Robed Elder's fingertip, the Clear Sky Hammer, hailed as the greatest weapon-type Martial Soul under heaven, was like the last snow beneath the blazing sun.
It began at the hammerhead and silently crumbled into powder.
Black iron dust drifted through the air.
Next came the hammer's handle.
That destructive force surged along the handle and into Tang Xiao's arms in an instant.
Tang Xiao's eyes flew wide. The last traces of struggle and madness in his gaze froze completely.
He didn't even have time to feel pain.
His arms, torso, legs, and even his head disintegrated inch by inch in the space of half a breath.
Not a drop of blood or a fragment of bone remained.
The Clear Sky Sect's former master, a Level 97 Peak Douluo.
Just like that, at a casual point of the Blood-Robed Elder's finger, he was utterly reduced to ashes. Even his soul was crushed into nothingness.
The elder withdrew his finger and brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve. As if he had done something utterly insignificant, he returned to the edge of the square and sat down cross-legged.
On the throne, Tuosen hadn't even opened his eyes once.
Outside the Sky Screen, the Douluo Continent was utterly silent.
On the mountaintop of the Clear Sky Sect, the snowstorm still raged.
Outside the gate.
Watching Tang Xiao turn to ash on the light screen, the Second Elder let out a meaningless series of choking sounds.
The cane in his hand fell heavily into the snow.
The hot-tempered old man's knees gave way, and he dropped straight to the ground, tears streaming from his eyes.
"Master..."
His anguished sobs echoed through the cold mountain valley.
At the same time, on the vast snowfield shown on the other two screens in the Sky Screen, a fierce gust of wind howled through the blizzard.
The Golden Crocodile Douluo and Azure Luan Douluo, frozen into ice statues by Red Butterfly, began to crack all over as the wind and snow wore away at them.
With a crash, the two lifelike ice statues—and the Peak Douluos trapped inside—shattered into ice fragments that blended with the surrounding snow.
Inside the Pope Palace of Spirit Hall, the worship elders were ashen-faced. For a moment, they even forgot to breathe.
Three powerhouses who stood at the very summit of the Douluo Continent's pyramid.
From the moment they arrived through the teleportation, to their complete demise.
The whole thing hadn't even taken the time it takes half an incense stick to burn.
The gap was so vast that this could no longer be called a battle. It was a one-sided slaughter.
As the three of them were reduced to ashes, the three screens in the Sky Screen turned gray all at once.
Then the three screens slowly merged, returning to a single enormous light screen that blotted out the sky.
Dark red light churned across the horizon, like the gaping maw of an abyss that could never be sated.
That grand voice once again rang out on time in the minds of every living being across the continent.
[The sixth batch of explorers has been completely wiped out.]