A Dou Emperor's Strike vs. a Titled Douluo

Tang Hao froze when his identity was exposed.

He had never imagined that Chu Chen, a six-year-old boy from a poor mountain village, could so precisely identify the Titled Douluo status he had deliberately concealed—and his title of Clear Sky Douluo.

That moment of hesitation lasted only an instant, but for Chu Chen, who was already poised to act, it was enough.

Now!

Chu Chen shouted inwardly. He drove all his Dou Qi into his legs and kicked backward with all his strength.

He shot away like an arrow loosed from a bow.

At the same time, the muscles in Chu Chen's right arm bulged. Taking aim at Tang Hao, who was still standing there stunned, he hurled the crimson Fire Thunder Seed with all his might!

The instant it left his hand, Chu Chen kept moving.

His left hand swept across the Flame Ji Ring on the middle finger of his right hand.

With a thought, an immense, heavy shield appeared out of thin air before him.

It was the Wooden Shield Chu Chen had made himself from a giant tree. A full meter thick, it was exceptionally sturdy.

As the Wooden Shield rose, Chu Chen's Soul Force, far beyond that of an ordinary person, precisely disrupted the balance of the Fire Thunder Seed's seal.

"Hm?"

Across from him, Tang Hao had just recovered from the shock of being identified when he saw a small red object flying toward him.

It was neither fast nor imposing.

His first reaction was disdain.

A Titled Douluo's pride made Tang Hao instinctively believe that a child's toy like this was not even worth summoning his Martial Soul for.

But when the Fire Thunder Seed came within ten meters of him, the danger sense Tang Hao had honed through countless life-and-death battles suddenly screamed a warning!

A fierce sense of peril rose from the depths of his soul. Tang Hao's scalp prickled, and his heart clenched.

His instincts roared in his mind: Dodge! You have to dodge! That little thing can kill you!

"What the hell is that?!"

Tang Hao's pupils contracted, and his expression changed drastically.

He no longer dared to underestimate it. His survival instinct and combat experience drove him to the most extreme response.

"Hah!"

With a thunderous roar, Tang Hao unleashed his aura. The terrifying Soul Power of a Titled Douluo erupted like a volcano.

Heeding the warning of his danger sense, Tang Hao activated the forbidden secret technique of the Clear Sky Sect without hesitation—Ring Detonation!

The yellow light of his first Soul Ring flared, then exploded like ignited gunpowder!

The wildly surging energy poured into the Clear Sky Hammer in his hand. Its already massive head swelled again, twisted blood-red patterns appearing across its black surface as it radiated a terrifying aura.

Then came his second Soul Ring, his third, his fourth...

In an instant, Tang Hao had shattered his first six Soul Rings, pouring all the power gained from Ring Detonation, along with his own Soul Power, into this one strike without holding anything back.

Eyes bloodshot, he swung the giant hammer as though he meant to shatter a mountain. With unstoppable force that seemed almost to tear space apart, he brought it crashing down on the crimson Fire Thunder Seed now before his eyes!

"Great Sumeru Hammer!"

Time seemed to stand still.

The enormous black Clear Sky Hammer, wreathed in blood-red energy.

The crimson Fire Thunder Seed, its energy completely destabilized and running wild.

On the Back Mountain of Notting City Junior Soul Master Academy, in the darkness before dawn, the two collided!

There was no sound.

Or rather, in that first instant, the sound was swallowed by something far more terrifying.

At the center of the collision, a blinding point of white light appeared from nowhere, too bright to look at.

It was as though a miniature sun had ignited.

Then the light swelled and spread faster than thought!

"BOOOOM!"

A cataclysmic explosion beyond words finally erupted!

With a roar like the splitting of heaven and earth, the blinding white light swallowed the black and blood-red of the Clear Sky Hammer. It then burst outward in visible rings of destruction—crimson fire mingled with pale shock waves—spreading wildly in every direction!

Tang Hao took the full force of it.

It felt as though he had struck not a small sphere, but an erupting volcano, a blazing sun!

Unimaginable force, heat, and impact surged back through the Clear Sky Hammer.

His hammer, strengthened by Ring Detonation and powerful enough to split mountains and crack stone, began to warp and melt the instant it touched the sphere!

"Pfft!"

Tang Hao spat a mouthful of blood. The Soul Power protecting his body was torn apart the moment the shock wave hit.

He flew backward like a torn sack, as though countless Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts had struck him at once.

He snapped tree after tree along the way before embedding himself deep in a rock face dozens of meters behind him.

Unfortunately, he had not flown fast enough—or far enough!

As he flew backward, the raging flames from the Fire Thunder Seed's explosion swallowed Tang Hao whole.

Heat capable of burning all things enveloped him. In scarcely an instant, his flesh was charred to coal.

Chu Chen had no idea what Tang Hao felt. He had no time to think about it.

Even though Chu Chen had retreated to the hilltop well in advance and raised a meter-thick Wooden Shield before him, the Fire Thunder Seed's explosive power still far exceeded his estimate.

After all, it was equivalent to a full-force strike from a mid-level Dou Emperor.

When Xiao Yan had ventured into the Black-Corner Region in the original story, he had witnessed Fan Lao, leader of the Blood Sect, attack with all his strength.

At the time, Xiao Yan had remarked that the strike could probably level a small hill.

And Fan Lao, leader of the Blood Sect, had been a four-star Dou Emperor!

In other words, a full-force strike from Fan Lao was roughly as powerful as the Fire Thunder Seed in Chu Chen's hand.

Honestly, on the Douluo Continent, where even a god's strike could only punch a hole in a city wall, this kind of power was far beyond the norm.

It had also gone far beyond anything Chu Chen expected.

After the Fire Thunder Seed exploded, the devastating shock wave caught up with Chu Chen almost instantly and slammed into the Wooden Shield.

"Crack! Crack, crack!"

The sturdy, meter-thick Wooden Shield held for less than half a second before spiderweb cracks spread across its surface. The fiercer wave of heat that followed charred it, then vaporized it!

Chu Chen had only enough time to cross his arms before his chest and gather the last of his Dou Qi around his body before the scorching blast swallowed him.

His body flew backward like a leaf in a gale. The shock wave carried him clear over the hill to the Artificial Lake at the foot of the academy's Back Mountain, where he plunged into the water.

But the explosion's aftermath was still raging.

Within a hundred meters of the collision, trees and rocks were reduced to dust.

A layer of ground had been ripped away, leaving a terrifying blackened crater with thin wisps of smoke rising from it.

The forest farther away lay in ruins, countless trees snapped in half or torn up by the roots.

Even across much of Notting City Junior Soul Master Academy, the violent shock wave had torn away most of the roofs.

The explosion had driven back the darkness before dawn.

Faint cries and commotion came from the direction of Notting City. The earth-shaking blast had clearly roused the entire city.

Only after the explosion subsided did Chu Chen's head break the lake's surface. He stared at the scene before him, horror written across his face.

"Damn. I think I went way too far this time..."