Top 7 of the Top Ten Strongest in The Unrivaled Tang Sect: Du Busi, the Body Douluo (Level 99)

[The Unrivaled Tang Sect · Top Ten Strongest Ranking, Top 7 was about to be revealed.]

"There's more?!"

"Eighth place was the eighty-nine-hundred-thousand-year Beast God. Seventh place... was stronger than that dragon?"

On Shrek Academy's field, Flender had already given up looking for his shattered glasses. Half-crouching on the ground, he craned his neck up at the Sky Screen like an old man watching a show.

"I'm numb already," he said hoarsely. "Come on, whatever demons and monsters they are, I'm seeing it all today."

Zhao Wuji crouched beside him with a miserable expression. "Dean, could you stop jinxing it..."

The scene on the Sky Screen changed.

It was neither a dark void nor a primeval forest, but a city.

An enormous, magnificent human city radiating golden light.

At its center stood a towering altar that reached into the clouds. Banners snapped in the wind atop it, while tens of thousands gathered in the square below, seemingly holding some grand celebration.

The scene shifted.

Above the altar, ten thousand meters in the air, clouds churned violently.

An old man floated there.

He was far too old. His white hair resembled withered grass, the wrinkles on his face were deep enough to crush flies, and his entire body was shriveled like a strip of dried tree bark.

Yet he stood ten thousand meters in the air without showing any sign of releasing his Martial Soul. Not even a soul ring had appeared.

He simply stood there, like a nail driven into the sky.

"Wh-who is that? An old man?"

"How did he get that high? Even a Titled Douluo couldn't do that, could they?"

Golden words appeared on the Sky Screen.

[The Unrivaled Tang Sect · Top Ten Strongest Ranking, Top 7: Du Busi]

[Identity: Body Sect Master]

[Cultivation: Level 99 · Peak Titled Douluo]

The entire continent fell silent for a second.

Then it erupted.

"Level ninety-nine?!"

"The peak of Titled Douluo... doesn't that mean he has one foot in the domain of gods?"

"Wait, he ranked higher than that eighty-nine-hundred-thousand-year dragon? A human?"

Shrek Academy.

Tang San's fingers dug fiercely into his palm.

Level ninety-nine.

His father, Tang Hao, was a level ninety-seven Titled Douluo, already the pinnacle of humanity as Tang San knew it.

What did level ninety-nine even mean?

His father had spent twenty years going from level ninety-five to ninety-seven. Then from ninety-seven to ninety-nine... just how long had this old man cultivated?

"Body Sect?" Flender frowned. "What kind of sect is that? Why have I never heard of it?"

Yu Xiaogang stood behind the crowd, his Adam's apple bobbing as he forced out a few words. "Body Martial Souls... a school that uses one's own body as a Martial Soul. It exists in theory, but... in practice, reaching the higher ranks is almost impossible."

His voice grew quieter and quieter.

It was theoretically impossible, yet the Sky Screen told him that this old man had reached level ninety-nine.

Once again, reality had slapped him in the face.

The image on the Sky Screen moved.

The view zoomed in on the old man.

His body began to change—dark purple patterns surfaced across his skin. Those patterns seemed alive, writhing and spreading beneath his shriveled flesh.

A visible purple-black mist seeped from his pores.

Wherever the mist passed, the clouds high in the sky rapidly withered and dispersed, as though their vitality had been drained away.

"Poison?"

"This old man's Martial Soul... is poison?"

The Sky Screen gave the answer.

[Martial Soul: Body—Myriad Poisons Body]

[His body itself is the strongest Martial Soul. Every drop of blood and every inch of bone contains poison potent enough to destroy an entire city.]

"Using his body as a Martial Soul..." Zhao Wuji drew in a sharp breath. "His physical body is his weapon? He doesn't need to manifest a Martial Soul?"

Tang San's gaze locked onto the purple-black mist, his pupils contracting sharply.

He had inherited the Tang Sect's hidden weapons and poison arts, and had always considered his understanding of poison to have reached its peak. Yet the toxicity radiating from this old man... even through the Sky Screen, across an unknown span of tens of thousands of years, made him feel instinctively uneasy.

The scene on the Sky Screen continued.

The old man named Du Busi stood ten thousand meters in the air, looking down at the city below.

More than a dozen people stood behind him.

None of them were young. Even the youngest was in his forties or fifties. Powerful Soul Power fluctuations emanated from each of them—at the very least, they were all Soul Saints or above.

Yet there was no excitement on their faces at the thought of battle.

There was only the resolve to die.

A middle-aged man walked to Du Busi's side and spoke softly. "Sect Master, the time has come."

Du Busi did not turn around.

He looked at the resplendent city below, at the countless figures packed around the altar, and his dry, gaunt lips moved.

"The Sun Moon Empire wants to swallow the entire continent."

His voice was like sandpaper scraping against an iron plate—dry and rough, yet every word was incomparably clear.

"I can't stop them. The Body Sect can't stop them either. No one can."

"But I can make them feel pain."

The middle-aged man's eyes reddened, and his lips pressed into a thin line.

Du Busi raised a hand and patted his shoulder. That hand was as withered as a chicken claw, its veins bulging, its nails tinted dark purple.

"Don't cry. It's embarrassing."

The middle-aged man ruthlessly wiped his face and stepped back.

Du Busi turned to face the dozen or so Body Sect disciples behind him.

He did not give an impassioned speech.

He said only one sentence.

"Go."

The next second, Du Busi's body began to expand.

The purple-black mist no longer seeped out slowly. It surged wildly from his body like floodwaters bursting through a broken dam. His skin began to crack, and what flowed from the fissures was not blood, but thick purple-black liquid.

All the vitality, cultivation, and blood essence of a level ninety-nine Titled Douluo transformed into the purest destruction at that moment.

"Self-destruction..." Her voice was very low. "A level ninety-nine Titled Douluo, leading his entire sect in a suicidal assault against an imperial capital."

Qian Daoliu stood behind her. After a long silence, he finally spoke. "This man... ranked higher than the Beast God Di Tian."

Bibi Dong did not answer.

She was thinking of something else—what kind of hatred, what kind of despair, could make a level ninety-nine powerhouse choose such a path?

Shrek Academy.

The field was so quiet that the wind could be heard.

Ma Hongjun's mouth hung open, unable to close for a long time.

Oscar's face was impossible to describe as either pale or green.

Dai Mubai's fists clenched tightly enough that his knuckles gave faint cracks.

"Wasn't he... afraid of death?" Ning Rongrong's voice was as thin as a mosquito's buzz.

"He was afraid," Tang San said calmly.

Everyone looked at him.

Tang San stared at the gradually fading purple-black afterimage on the Sky Screen, his expression complicated.

"At level ninety-nine, one more step and he would have become a god. He was closer to immortality than anyone else. Yet he gave it up."

"It wasn't that he wasn't afraid of death. There were things more important than death."

Flender stood up and dusted the dirt from his backside without saying a word.

He had taught for his entire life. He had seen geniuses, failures, clever people who took shortcuts, and fools who buried their heads in training.

But he had never seen someone like this.

He had trained himself into poison, then set himself ablaze and detonated himself in the enemy's heart.

That was what a soul master was supposed to be.

Golden text appeared on the Sky Screen one final time.

[Evaluation: He was the ultimate embodiment of human will. When every road had been blocked, he chose to turn himself into the final road.]

[Reward issued: One Body Tempering Secret Method Fragment.]

[Effect: The cultivator can strengthen their own body to the level of a Martial Soul, but every tempering will inflict intense pain and carry irreversible side effects.]

[Deployment location: Random throughout the Douluo Continent.]

Star Dou Great Forest, Lake of Life.

Di Tian fell silent.

After a long while, that calm voice sounded from the bottom of the lake once again.

"Interesting."

"A dying old man used a single life to rank above me."

The lake water no longer churned. There was no anger or disdain in Di Tian's tone.

"Humans... occasionally do things that surprise me."

Da Ming and Er Ming exchanged glances, each seeing shock in the other's eyes.

Their master... was praising a human?

The image on the Sky Screen finally went completely dark.

But everyone knew this was not the end.

There were still six places ahead.

Seventh place had been an old man who traded his life for a city.

Then what about sixth place... fifth place... first place?

In some corner of Heaven Dou City, an unnoticed old man gripped the cane in his hand until his knuckles turned white.

He looked up at the final trace of fading light on the Sky Screen, something churning within his cloudy old eyes.

"Body Sect..."