Pursuit?! Death!

Tang Chen carefully examined the four soul skills.

Life-Binding combined control and recovery abilities.

Life-Death Barrier was a purely defensive soul skill.

Both of these soul skills leaned toward support.

Thousand-Leaf Cross Slash possessed wide-area attack capabilities, making it suitable for dealing with large numbers of enemies.

However, his current Soul Power was limited, and wide-range attacks would consume too much energy.

In comparison, Destruction Judgment was better suited to him at present.

It concentrated all power at a single point.

It did not pursue attack range.

It pursued only the purest destructive force.

Combined with the Destruction Scepter and Destruction Spear, the power of this strike would increase even further.

Tang Chen did not hesitate any longer.

"I choose Destruction Judgment."

[Selection complete.]

[Congratulations, host. You have obtained your first soul skill: Destruction Judgment.]

A massive amount of information flooded into his mind.

Methods for circulating Soul Power.

Methods for condensing the power of destruction.

As well as every detail that needed to be controlled when releasing the soul skill.

Tang Chen quickly mastered all of this information completely.

The purple Soul Ring beneath his feet lit up.

Purple-black light surged from the Destruction Scepter and gathered toward Tang Chen's right hand.

The power of destruction continuously compressed.

In just a few breaths, a fist-sized sphere of purple-black light condensed into shape.

The air around it twisted without end.

The destructive power contained within far surpassed that of an ordinary Millennium Soul Ring skill.

Tang Chen looked toward a boulder dozens of meters away.

As long as he unleashed Destruction Judgment, that boulder would surely be completely reduced to ruin.

However, he did not truly release it.

This place was still not too far from the Clear Sky Sect.

There was no need to attract additional trouble just to test a soul skill.

Tang Chen dispersed the destructive power in his palm.

The purple Soul Ring withdrew into his body along with it.

Footsteps came from the nearby undergrowth.

Tang Yuan emerged from the forest.

The old man had been patrolling nearby, worried that the Soul Ring absorption process might be disturbed.

Only when he saw that his grandson was safe and sound did he finally relax.

"Chen'er, did you absorb it successfully?"

Tang Chen rose to his feet.

"It was successful."

Purple light rose from beneath his feet once more.

The Millennium Soul Ring circled Tang Chen's body, rhythmically rising and falling.

Tang Yuan stopped in his tracks.

Although he had long known that his grandson's physique far surpassed that of ordinary people, witnessing this scene firsthand still shook him deeply.

"Your first Soul Ring is a millennium-level one?"

"The Soul Ring absorption standards that Soul Masters across the continent have followed for years... you broke them just like that."

Tang Yuan carefully sensed the aura of the Soul Ring.

This was not a Soul Ring that had merely reached a thousand years.

The aura contained within it had reached at least thirteen hundred years.

A Soul Master who had just obtained his first Soul Ring could actually withstand such enormous energy.

Such a thing had never appeared in the past.

Tang Chen withdrew his Soul Ring.

"My two Martial Souls can form a cycle between life and destruction."

"A Millennium Soul Ring is still not my limit."

Tang Yuan looked at the grandson before him, his face filled with gratification.

"Good."

"With a millennium-level first Soul Ring, your future Soul Rings will only grow stronger."

"Once you truly mature, those geniuses the Clear Sky Sect takes pride in will not even be qualified to compare themselves with you."

Tang Chen was just about to speak.

"We finally found you."

A voice came from the forest.

The smile on Tang Yuan's face vanished at once.

He turned to look behind him.

A figure leaped down from the treetops and landed in front of the grandfather and grandson.

The newcomer wore fitted black clothing and had a short blade hanging at his waist.

His gaze first fell upon the corpse of the Ironclad Demon Wolf before shifting to Tang Chen.

Tang Yuan stepped forward half a pace, shielding his grandson behind him.

"Who are you?"

The man in black reached out and gripped the hilt of his short blade.

"You offended the Seventh Elder."

"I came to take your lives."

The man in black clenched the hilt, his gaze fixed on Tang Chen.

"The Seventh Elder has given his orders."

"Today, the two of you must die here."

Tang Yuan's face darkened.

He stepped forward, blocking Tang Chen behind him.

"Tang Lie sent you?"

The man in black did not answer.

He raised a hand and waved it.

A streak of black light burst from his body and condensed into a long, narrow short blade.

The blade was entirely black, with a faint layer of Soul Power coiling around it.

Immediately afterward, three Soul Rings rose beneath the man's feet.

Yellow, yellow, purple.

The aura of a Soul Elder spread outward, pressing the surrounding trees until their branches and leaves drooped.

Tang Chen looked at the three Soul Rings without any change in expression.

"My grandfather fought for the Clear Sky Sect for many years."

"My parents also died for the Clear Sky Sect."

"Three generations of my family have given so much to the sect. Was it still not enough?"

"Not only does the Seventh Elder want to drive us out of the sect, but now he wants to wipe us out completely?"

The man in black tightened his grip on the short blade.

"The sect will not remember the contributions of useless people."

"A cripple and a dying old man—being alive is an insult to the Clear Sky Sect."

The first Soul Ring beneath his feet suddenly lit up.

A layer of black light emerged over the surface of the short blade.

"Since you have already left the sect, you are no longer people of the Clear Sky Sect."

"If you die outside, no one will pursue the matter."

As his words fell, the man's figure flickered.

The ground beneath his feet abruptly cracked open, and his entire body turned into a black shadow that shot straight toward Tang Chen.

The short blade cut through the air with a piercing whistle.

Tang Chen remained where he was and did not immediately summon his Martial Soul.

Just as the blade came within three meters of him, a cold snort rang out from beside him.

"Insolence!"

Tang Yuan raised his right hand.

Boom!

Soul Power that had lain dormant for years suddenly erupted like a volcano.

A vast pressure swept through the surroundings.

The man in black stopped dead in his tracks.

The short blade was only half a foot from Tang Chen's chest, yet it could no longer move forward.

The man's expression changed drastically.

That Soul Power far exceeded the level of a Soul Elder.

His body was suppressed by an invisible force, and he could not even move a finger.

The next moment, eight Soul Rings rose from Tang Yuan's body in succession.

Yellow, yellow, purple, purple, black, black, black, black.

Eight Soul Rings slowly revolved around the old man.

Mighty Soul Power surged into the sky, sweeping every fallen leaf in the forest high into the air.

Tang Yuan took one step forward.

The pressure on the man in black immediately intensified.

His legs bent, and he nearly fell to his knees.

"Soul Douluo!"

The man stared at the eight Soul Rings beside Tang Yuan, his face filled with terror.

"Weren't you gravely injured and on the verge of death, with all your cultivation lost?"

Tang Yuan raised his eyes.

"Who told you that?"

The man in black opened his mouth but could not speak for a long while.

Everyone in the Clear Sky Sect knew that Tang Yuan had suffered devastating injuries while protecting the sect years ago.

His meridians had been severed, and his dantian shattered.

For all these years, Tang Yuan had only been able to rely on medicine to prolong his life.

Before the Seventh Elder sent him down the mountain, he had explicitly told him that Tang Yuan was merely a cripple incapable of moving.

Yet the eight Soul Rings before his eyes were not something a person who had lost all cultivation could possess.

Tang Yuan's aura continued to rise.

Eighty-third-rank Soul Power pressed down upon the entire mountain forest.

Cold sweat seeped across the man in black's forehead.

He slowly withdrew his short blade and said with difficulty:

"Senior Tang, this was all on the Seventh Elder's orders."

"I was only following commands."

"Now that you have recovered your cultivation, this junior is willing to leave immediately and will never disturb either of you again."