Sea God's Wrath

Yan Shaozhe was the first to break the silence.

He cleared his throat and pushed the stack of documents in front of him forward. His tone was businesslike, with no hint of favoritism. "The Academic Affairs Office has already issued a preliminary ruling on Zhou Yi. As a homeroom teacher, she repeatedly punished students in violation of regulations, insulted trainees without cause, abused her authority to expel students without authorization, and witnesses have testified that, during her suspension, she attempted to use a soul communication device on the training grounds to transmit improper information. According to academy regulations, the minimum punishment is suspension pending review, while the harshest is expulsion and dismissal."

He paused, his gaze flicking briefly toward Xian Lin'er before returning. "After discussing it with several elders, our preliminary decision is expulsion and dismissal, with a lifelong ban on teaching at Shrek Academy."

After hearing this, Tang Wulin did not reply immediately. He lowered his head to look at the fingers spread across his knees. His fingertips twitched slightly before he raised his head. "Elders, my opinion differs somewhat from this preliminary ruling."

His gaze swept around the room before finally settling on Mu En. His voice steadied as he spoke each word clearly. "I hope the academy's final punishment for Zhou Yi will be the destruction of her martial soul, expulsion from Shrek Academy, and permanent disqualification from employment."

The instant those words fell, the air in the entire wooden house seemed to freeze.

After roughly two breaths of silence, Xian Lin'er was the first to move.

She abruptly sat upright. One of the arms she had folded across her chest came loose, and her palm pressed against the edge of the table with neither too much nor too little force, producing a dull, soft thud. She stared at Tang Wulin, her brows twisted so tightly they nearly knotted together. "Destroy her martial soul? Tang Wulin, do you know what that punishment means? Zhou Yi is a Soul Emperor. Her cultivation is the result of decades of painstaking training. She did do wrong, but her mistakes do not warrant this! Expulsion and dismissal are already severe punishments. The moment you open your mouth, you want to cripple her martial soul. How is that any different from killing her?"

"Then weren't the lives of those students from ordinary families—soul masters who paid tuition and exhausted their family fortunes for nothing more than a letter of recommendation—also ruined when she expelled them?"

Qian Duoduo snorted from the side and set the metal component in his hand on the table, producing a crisp clink.

Though he was not as agitated as Xian Lin'er, the chill in his voice was no less pronounced. "Little Tang, we understand that you're young and hot-blooded. Who hasn't been full of youthful vigor? But there must be room for compromise in one's actions. Zhou Yi's husband, Fan Yu, is a backbone of the Soul Guidance Department, an eighth-rank soul engineer. No one can deny the contributions he has made to the academy over the years. If you destroy Zhou Yi's martial soul, what will Fan Yu think? What will the Soul Guidance Department think? No matter how gifted you are, you're only a genius who hasn't yet grown up. Compared to someone who has already rendered meritorious service to the academy..."

He paused there, as though weighing his words, but he could not hide the contempt on his face. It seeped from the corners of his eyes and the arch of his brows.

He tilted his head, his tone carrying the condescension of someone saying, "You're just a child. You truly don't understand," as he continued:

"What are you supposed to be? You neither possess an ultimate martial soul nor any special constitution. You merely happen to have the same martial soul combination as that ancestor from ten thousand years ago. For all anyone knows, you might be some country bumpkin from a remote place, and your parents are..."

He did not finish.

A vast divine might, so overwhelming it made one choke, suddenly erupted from Tang Wulin's brow, like a colossal beast sleeping in the depths of the sea being stabbed in the spine with a red-hot iron spear, jolting awake and turning over.

Golden light lit up from Tang Wulin's forehead, forming a clear and imposing trident mark.

At first, that light was only a thread. In the blink of an eye, it filled the entire wooden house, enveloping everyone within.

In that instant, the air became thick and heavy, as though the entire world had been seized in an invisible hand.

The martial souls of every elder present manifested uncontrollably, yet none of them could wield them.

The glow of their soul rings flickered beneath their feet, trembling violently as if something had seized their throats, yet they could not summon even a trace of soul power.

Mu En abruptly rose to his feet. His knees knocked the chair backward, and it crashed onto the floor with a dull bang.

Unbelievable ecstasy and shock surged in his clouded old eyes. His entire body was pulled taut, like a bow forcibly drawn to its limit.

Xian Lin'er slammed heavily into the back of her chair, all color draining from her face in an instant.

Qian Duoduo's hand remained on the table, but his five fingers had already begun to spasm uncontrollably.

Those hands that dealt with metal all year round, steady as iron pincers, now trembled like dead leaves in the wind.

A phantom emerged from Tang Wulin's brow.

The phantom stood over three meters tall, erect and straight, suffused with a faint golden halo. His features were sharply defined, and between his brows rested a detached indifference, as though he looked down upon all living beings yet could not be bothered to care.

His figure gradually solidified in midair. Everyone below could clearly see the robe flowing with dark golden patterns upon him, as well as the trident mark on his brow, identical to Tang Wulin's.

Old Tang lowered his gaze onto Qian Duoduo's face, which had instantly gone bloodless. There was no anger or emotion in that gaze. It was as calm as if he were watching a speck of dust fall into a teacup.

Then he raised his hand.

The movement was light, as though brushing away a dead leaf that had fallen onto his shoulder.

A streak of golden light shot from his fingertip and sank precisely into Qian Duoduo's brow.

Qian Duoduo did not even have time to cry out. His body jolted violently, his pupils abruptly dilated, then scattered.

The fluctuations of soul power around him seemed to have their source completely severed from within at that instant. They dissipated, collapsed, and crumbled at a speed visible to the naked eye.

His martial soul emerged from his body—a shield carved with dragon patterns—but its surface was now shattering inch by inch, eventually turning into countless motes of light that drifted through the air.

The moment his martial soul shattered, Qian Duoduo went limp and slid down, slumping in his chair. His cultivation.

The cultivation he had accumulated over most of his life, the cultivation that had allowed him to stand tall in Shrek Academy's Soul Guidance Department, had completely vanished.

The wooden house was so quiet that they could hear the pulse deep within the trunk of the Golden Ancient Tree.

No one spoke.

The elders still held the postures they had been frozen in when the divine might suppressed them, rigid and motionless. A faint sound escaped Yan Shaozhe's throat, as if something had clogged it, before he swallowed it back down.

Mu En stood beside the fallen chair, his hands hanging at his sides and trembling slightly. His lips moved a few times before he finally forced out two nearly inaudible words: "...Sea God!"

The golden phantom lingered in the air for a moment. He looked around at everyone in the room, his gaze passing over their faces one by one before finally settling on Tang Wulin.