Dragon Emperor Douluo Long Xiaoyao

Star Luo City.

Early the next morning, before dawn had fully broken, Shrek's team had already packed their belongings.

Yan Jingzhe stood at the hotel entrance, watching the last few suitcases being placed into the Storage Soul Guidance Device. After confirming that everyone was accounted for, he told them to set off and turned to lead the group.

The Star Luo Imperial Family had arranged for people to see them off at the city gates, but Yan Jingzhe paid them no mind. He only wanted to leave this city as soon as possible and shake off the watchful eyes still lurking in the shadows behind them.

Feng Ling walked at the very back of the group. Over her plain-colored long dress, she wore a short cloak suited for movement, while the wind lightly stirred her long black hair.

Her spiritual power remained spread over the entire team at all times. No disturbance could escape her senses. This was the awareness expected of her as the teacher leading the group.

After leaving the city, the team began to accelerate.

The main team members carried the younger reserve members through the air. Yan Jingzhe and Feng Ling maintained a measured distance before and behind the formation, like two satellites orbiting the entire group.

After flying for roughly two hours, a stretch of rolling hills appeared ahead.

Yan Jingzhe suddenly slowed down.

As his spiritual power swept across those low hills, it caught a faint, almost imperceptible anomaly.

That aura was hidden extremely well, as though deliberately restrained. Yet before his Spirit Domain-level spiritual power, even the most carefully concealed presence would leave behind a trace.

He did not look back, but his voice reached Feng Ling's ears. "There's a powerful enemy ahead. Take them around and leave first. I'll catch up shortly."

Feng Ling's expression shifted slightly. She had not expected someone to truly come and intercept them.

She glanced at Yan Jingzhe without asking further questions, merely nodding. The next instant, she drifted to the front of the team. Her voice was cool and left no room for argument. "Change direction. Follow me. All students, accelerate. Do not look back."

Although Shrek's students did not understand what was happening, Feng Ling's tone carried far too much unmistakable authority. On top of that, Feng Ling was a Titled Douluo, and everyone knew her decisive, uncompromising nature. No one dared ask why.

Under her lead, the entire team swiftly turned and cut diagonally toward the dense forest to the left, nearly doubling their previous speed.

The moment the team vanished from sight, Yan Jingzhe sensed that aura move.

The black figure rose from behind the low hills ahead at an unhurried pace, yet every movement carried a remarkably steady rhythm.

He rose, hovered, then calmly flew toward Yan Jingzhe. Every step seemed measured in advance—neither hurried nor slow, carrying the composure of someone certain that no one could stop him.

Yan Jingzhe did not move.

He hovered in midair, his hands hanging naturally at his sides, his silver-white hair gently swaying in the morning breeze.

He watched the black figure approach from afar. Only when the other party stopped some hundred zhang away did he finally see the newcomer clearly.

It was an old man.

His silver-white hair was neatly combed without a single strand out of place. His complexion was rosy and full, his skin as smooth as an infant's, with scarcely any wrinkles of age. Two snow-white brows hung all the way down beside his cheeks, fluttering lightly in the wind. He wore a wide, pure-black robe embroidered with subtle black dragon patterns. Though his hands were usually clasped behind his back and not a shred of soul power leaked from him as he stood in the air, he naturally exuded the heavy, oppressive presence of a mountain.

Dragon Emperor Douluo—Long Xiaoyao.

Yan Jingzhe recognized him. The Holy Spirit Cult's chief worshipper, a level ninety-nine Limit Douluo, whose Martial Soul was the Dark Sacred Dragon.

According to the records of the original work, he was an existence on the Douluo Continent as famous as Yan Jingzhe's teacher, Mu En.

"May I ask what brings Dragon Emperor Douluo here today?" Yan Jingzhe asked calmly.

Long Xiaoyao studied him for a moment before slowly speaking. His voice was aged, yet full of strength. "Yan Jingzhe, this old man knows of you. Mu's disciple, a newly advanced Limit Douluo. Entrusted by another, I have come to test your mettle."

He spoke bluntly, without beating around the bush or making excuses.

"Entrusted by whom?" Yan Jingzhe narrowed his eyes slightly. This old man's temperament really was much like the intelligence had described—he did not play dirty, and he said exactly what he meant. He was not like those furtive schemers from the Holy Spirit Cult.

"I cannot say." Long Xiaoyao's gaze deepened. "But rest assured, this old man will not harm those children. I came today only for you."

"That's a pity." Yan Jingzhe rolled his shoulders. "Those children have already left, so you won't be seeing them."

Long Xiaoyao fell silent for a moment. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, and it was impossible to tell whether it was a smile or something else.

"Then all the better."

The instant those words fell, Long Xiaoyao struck. Yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black, red, red—nine Soul Rings shone around him. The aura unique to a Limit Douluo erupted abruptly as black soul power flooded toward Yan Jingzhe like a tidal wave.

Yan Jingzhe did not yield either. Yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black, red, red, red—an even superior Soul Ring configuration appeared around him as blazing fire burst forth from his body and surged toward his opponent.

In an instant, the vast pressures of black and blazing light crashed together. The heavens and earth violently alternated between brightness and darkness, while even the sun and moon's radiance was obscured by those two forces.

At the point where darkness collided with the ultimate power of light, tiny spatial cracks tore open. Black dragon energy and blazing Phoenix flames devoured and annihilated one another madly, while dull booms of shattering space rang out without end. A massive wall of energy stretched across the sky, its surface rolling with violent currents of intertwined black and white. With every collision of power, circular shockwaves spread outward. Within a hundred li, mountain rock crumbled layer by layer, and rivers were severed.

The mere collision of two Limit Douluos' auras already rivaled an all-out attack from an ordinary Titled Douluo.

Standing a hundred zhang away, Long Xiaoyao raised a hand toward the sky. His gray-white robe billowed in the gale as a black, light-devouring dragon-shaped phantom rose behind him and shot into the heavens. The phantom was thick and long, coiling as it expanded, soon covering several hundred meters of sky overhead. Dark energy seeped from the dragon shadow, blanketing the surrounding sky and earth like thick ink.

Yan Jingzhe could sense that Long Xiaoyao was getting serious. The dark energy brought not only pressure, but also something more subtle, like an invisible net that stained the air and light around him with a sticky texture.

However, he did not fear it. The phantom of the Light Phoenix silently emerged behind him. Golden flames seeped from it and condensed around him into a burning halo, confronting the descending darkness with sharp intensity. Gold and black collided, wrestled, and wore each other down at their boundary, throwing off tiny sparks and soft explosions.

Yan Jingzhe raised his hand. The level-nine Soul Guidance Device, the Radiant Sword, flew from his storage ring and landed in his palm. The moment its blade emerged, it lit up with dazzling golden radiance—bright, yet not harsh, like a tamed beam of sunlight.

He lowered the tip of his sword, and with that single movement, his entire aura sank. He shifted from a posture of waiting to one of preparing to strike.

Across from him, Long Xiaoyao also had a weapon in his hand—the Dark Sacred Dragon Scythe, a gigantic scythe condensed from dark soul power.

Then both men moved at the same time.

The instant the phantoms of the Dark Sacred Dragon and Light Phoenix collided in the sky, sound vanished. It was not suppressed—it had truly disappeared. At the core of the collision, even the air had been compressed so tightly that it could no longer transmit sound waves. Golden and black light tangled and tore violently at that point like two giant serpents locked in battle, neither willing to let go.

That brief silence lasted around three breaths before sound abruptly returned, released in an explosive burst.

With a thunderous boom, the shockwave spread wildly outward from the center, uprooting trees from the ground and shaving away the tops of low hills. Shattered stone and broken wood were hurled hundreds of zhang into the air before falling down in a rattling rain.

Yan Jingzhe and Long Xiaoyao were both blasted backward from the chaos, retreating nearly a hundred meters before gradually stabilizing themselves.