At those words, Tang San stared at the hammer in his hand. His grip tightened little by little around its handle until his knuckles turned white.
Three hundred years!! Once that number surfaced in his mind, he could no longer suppress it.
He remembered the black Soul Ring on Gu Ling, remembered his Eight Spider Lances being snapped on the Soul Fighting Platform. It felt as though a ball of fire had lodged in his chest.
He had already suffered such a crushing defeat. Was even this last path going to be cut off?
Bang!
The Clear Sky Hammer slammed into the ground, splattering Yu Xiaogang with dirt.
"Xiao San!"
Yu Xiaogang had barely reached out to stop him when Tang San suddenly raised his head, panting like an ox. "Teacher, keep looking."
"Looking for what?"
"A strength-type ten thousand year soul beast. My second Soul Ring has to be a ten thousand year one!"
Flender's expression changed at that. He stood straight up. "Nonsense! Didn't you suffer enough just now?"
Tang San pushed himself upright using the hammer's handle. The pull on his chest wound turned his face pale, yet he kept staring at Yu Xiaogang. "That was the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger ambushing us! Without it, I would've absorbed the ring already!"
"But your body right now-"
"I can recover!" Tang San cut Flender off, his voice growing increasingly frantic as he continued:
"My first ring is already like this. If I choose another thousand year ring for my second, how am I supposed to beat Gu Ling? How much longer should I wait? Until he becomes a Soul King, or until he becomes a Soul Emperor?"
Yu Xiaogang's lips moved. He wanted to say that cultivation should not revolve around a single opponent, but he had