The Strongest Tool Martial Soul? What a Letdown!

Boom...!!!

The enormous impact snapped several towering ancient trees in half.

For a moment,

wood chips and soil shot into the sky!

From a distance, a crater several meters deep had been smashed into the ground, with dust rising from it like a mushroom cloud!

At its center, Tang Hao lay buried in soil and broken timber, motionless.

He was drenched in blood, with barely a patch of unbroken skin left.

Blood streamed down both arms, and his chest had caved in. His ribs were clearly broken.

His face was deathly pale, and his breathing was so faint it was almost imperceptible. Only the occasional rasp, flecked with bloody foam, showed that he had not quite died.

The Clear Sky Douluo who had once looked down on the world now resembled a doll smashed beyond repair.

The lingering peal of the Chaos Bell, with its power to suppress all ages, still echoed through the deathly silent night, tolling as though for the end of the Clear Sky Hammer's legend.

An eerie silence fell over the battlefield.

Only the low hum of Cao Kun's Chaos Bell Martial Soul Avatar remained as it hovered in the air, slowly rippling with dark-gold light.

At the edge of the battlefield,

Zhao Wuji stared at the scene before him, his rugged face twisted with shock beyond words.

His eyes fixed on the distant crater where Tang Hao had fallen, still shrouded in dust.

Then he whipped his gaze up to the enormous dark-gold bell in the sky, radiating a chaotic aura like something forged by a god.

Finally, his gaze fell on the young man standing beneath it with his hands behind his back, and a trace of awe entered his eyes.

That was Cao Kun. His disciple!

But was this really the disciple who spent every day slacking off?

It made no sense!

The more Zhao Wuji thought about it, the emptier his mind became.

Everything he had seen and heard today—everything he knew, everything he understood about power—had been crushed to dust in that earth-shattering clash!

The Clear Sky Hammer had shattered?

The Clear Sky Douluo, Tang Hao, had lost?

And his usually easygoing disciple Cao Kun had grievously wounded him in... three moves?

No, perhaps only two?!

Zhao Wuji's lips trembled. He wanted to roar, to scream, to demand whether the world had gone mad!

But in the end,

all those feelings emerged as a murmur filled with horror and a hint of fear. "Three... three moves... to overpower... the Clear Sky Douluo..."

"Is... is this some damn illusion?"

Elsewhere,

Flender staggered out of a wrecked thicket.

He did not bother wiping the blood running down his cheek. He only stared at the slowly turning Chaos Bell in the sky and Cao Kun, terrifyingly calm beneath it.

"Super Douluo... no... more than that..."

Flender spoke to himself.

"To shatter the Clear Sky Douluo Tang Hao's Martial Soul Avatar and Slaughter Domain so easily..."

"Cao Kun's power... is definitely beyond... that of a level 95 Super Douluo!"

"At the very least, he's a Peak Douluo above level 96!"

"Maybe even a Limit Douluo!"

A Limit Douluo!

Such beings existed only in legend, at the very peak of the continent's Soul Masters!

Supreme powerhouses who could stand alongside Qian Daoliu, the Great Enshrined of Spirit Hall, and the Sea God Douluo Bo Saixi! And Cao Kun was... so young?!

And he was... at Flender's Shrek Academy?!

Flender felt the world spin. He was thrilled and terrified all at once.

In the air,

the Chaos Bell's light gradually faded, its dark-gold glow softening.

Yet its terrifying pressure, capable of suppressing all things, still hung over the area like a tangible weight.

Cao Kun slowly lowered his raised right hand. At his will, the enormous Chaos Bell above his head became a streak of light and silently disappeared into his brow.

He stood where he was, his expression calm.

As though the duel that could shake the entire continent had been no more remarkable than eating a meal or taking a drink.

A moment later,

Cao Kun's gaze settled on the huge crater in the forest, where the dust had yet to clear,

and on Tang Hao, who lay at its bottom like a dying dog.

Then,

Cao Kun started toward the crater at an unhurried pace.

His footsteps were light, yet they carried a suffocating pressure.

At the crater's edge, the dust slowly settled, revealing Tang Hao below.

He lay sunk in the mud, his battered body almost completely covered in blood and dirt. Only the faint rise and fall of his chest showed he was still breathing.

His broken arms lay limp at his sides. Blood covered him from head to toe, a horrifying sight.

Cao Kun stood at the edge and looked down at Tang Hao.

His eyes were perfectly still.

There was no victor's pride in them, no pity for the defeated.

Only pure disdain.

"The Clear Sky Hammer?"

Cao Kun's voice broke the silence.

It was quiet, yet it reached Tang Hao's hazy consciousness clearly, as well as Zhao Wuji and Flender in the distance.

"Is that all?"

Simple words, but at that moment, they cut deeper than the cruelest curse!

Like the sharpest knife, they carved into the last pieces of Tang Hao's shattered pride.

What little dignity he had left as the Clear Sky Douluo and a member of the Clear Sky Sect was ground into the dirt!

"And they call it the strongest Tool Martial Soul?"

The corner of Cao Kun's mouth tilted upward, his voice thick with undisguised contempt. "What a letdown."

"Pfft...!!!"

At the bottom of the crater, Tang Hao's body convulsed violently!

A great mouthful of dark-red blood, mixed with fragments of his organs, gushed from his mouth!

It splattered across the soil, filling the air with a strong metallic stench.

His injuries were not the only cause.

That humiliation had stoked his pent-up fury and shame until he could contain them no longer!

"You...!"

Tang Hao's eyes flew open!

Those bloodshot eyes had once burned with the will to fight the entire world. Now they were webbed with red veins and filled with utter rage!

He glared at Cao Kun above him and forced a hoarse roar from his throat:

"You... arrogant bastard!!!"

Every word Tang Hao spat was steeped in hatred.

The roar seemed to drain the last of his strength.

His body trembled violently, as though it might give out at any moment.

And yet,

at the very brink of death,

an even wilder, more desperate aura burst from deep within his battered body, like a final flare of life!

"Arrrgh...!!!"

Tang Hao let out a furious roar!

As he roared, his aura surged ever higher.

It even surpassed the power he had unleashed with the Slaughter Domain moments before.

Boom...!!!

An immense wave of pressure, threaded with dazzling blood-red light, erupted once more from his broken body!

It shot straight toward the heavens!

This time,

it was not the light of his Soul Rings!

He was burning every last shred of his power in a desperate burst that defied the heavens!

Then,

Tang Hao staggered to his feet, his eyes blazing with madness and a desire to destroy!

He stared at Cao Kun and said, each word distinct:

"No one... may insult the Clear Sky Hammer!"

"Not even a god!"