Misjudging a Thousand-Year Ferocious Beast, the Grandmaster Abandons His Disciple to Escape

To salvage what little authority he had left before his disciple, Yu Xiaogang forced his stiff body upright, bracing himself against a tree.

His lips trembled. He coughed to hide his panic. "Su Chen... stop playing tricks! The Soul Hunting Forest is protected imperial territory. Even if you frightened off that startled beast with brute force, that was nothing but a reckless man's courage!"

He turned to Tang San, whose broken arm hung at his side, and raised his voice in an attempt to rally himself. "Little San, don't let this boy unsettle you! I taught you long ago that the study of Martial Souls is vast and profound. The ages and habits of Soul Beasts are all within my calculations!"

"The Mandala Snake is tough and venomous. It's a perfect match for your Blue Silver Grass. Once I claim its ring for you, you'll take your first step toward controlling the entire battlefield!"

Tang San kept his eyes lowered. His left hand went instinctively to the imitation Twenty-Four Bridges Bright Moon Night hidden-weapon pouch at his waist as he endured the stabbing pain from his broken right arm.

The energy of his Mysterious Heaven Skill raced through his body, struggling to suppress the dread in his heart.

At Yu Xiaogang's words, Tang San's gaze hardened.

The humiliation he had suffered in Dorm Seven and the hatred he felt over his ruined right hand churned in his chest.

As long as he obtained his First Soul Ring and broke through the first bottleneck of the Mysterious Heaven Skill, then paired that power with the Tang Sect's poisoned mechanical Hidden Weapons, he was certain he would lose to no one.

"I understand, Master," Tang San replied through gritted teeth.

From the treetop, Su Chen let out a cold laugh. "Yu Xiaogang, that shallow scrap of knowledge you stole from Spirit Hall only fools you!"

Before his words had faded, the muddy water across the entire wetland surged into waves more than three meters high!

Rumble...

Without warning, the earth began to shake violently, as though an ancient monster were thrashing deep beneath it.

The towering old trees all around them creaked and snapped.

A colossal beast over six meters long smashed through the trees and burst from the forest, bringing an overwhelming stench of blood with it!

Heavy, dark-purple dragon scales several inches thick covered its entire body.

Each step of its pillar-like limbs stamped a deep, charred pit into the ground, with smoke rising from it.

From the center of its savage head rose a spiral horn that looked carved from blood-red crystal.

Purple-red arcs flickered at its tip, while streams of dark-red flame whirled around it!

It was the exotic Ferocious Beast that laired at the edge of the Soul Hunting Forest's central canyon: a three-thousand-year-old mutated lesser dragon, the Dark-Armored Bloodhorn Dragon!

"ROAR!"

The Dark-Armored Bloodhorn Dragon threw back its head and roared.

"Wh-what is that thing?" The violent blast forced Tang San back three steps, sending piercing pain through his broken arm.

Even with his Purple Demon Eye pushed to its limit, he could see only afterimages of terrifying energy surging around the beast like an erupting volcano.

The monstrous killing aura left Yu Xiaogang struggling to breathe.

But as he stared at the thick scales covering the beast, a half-baked researcher's blind confidence welled up inside him.

He had seen an illustration of something similar on a fragment of an ancient Spirit Hall text. He immediately leaped to a conclusion. "Don't panic! It's a mutated Thick-Armored Crocodile! Judging by the color of its scales and its size, it's only about five hundred years old. It may have developed a fire attribute, but it has no intelligence. Its defenses are strong, but it moves slowly. Watch me take it down!"

Determined to erase his earlier humiliation, Yu Xiaogang formed a hand seal without hesitation. He drew on what remained of his rank-twenty-nine Soul Power and shouted, "Come out, Luo Sanpao!"

As two Yellow Soul Rings rose, Luo Sanpao, the pig-like Mutated Martial Soul, dropped out of thin air.

Yu Xiaogang thrust his arm forward and roared, "Fart like thunder, Earth-Shattering Luo Sanpao! Blast its face apart!"

Luo Sanpao's round body swelled to three times its original size.

He turned his rear toward the Dark-Armored Bloodhorn Dragon. With a deafening thunderclap, a foul yellow blast shot toward the beast's face like a cannonball!

Faced with that thunderous attack, the Dark-Armored Bloodhorn Dragon's dark-gold eyes blazed with fury at the contemptible insect that dared challenge it.

The Dark-Armored Bloodhorn Dragon did not even use a Soul Skill. It merely tilted its head. Its dragon tail, covered in barbed bone armor, became a purple-gold battle-axe sweeping across the world. It tore through the air with a piercing shriek and slammed into the blast!

Bang!

A muffled impact shattered the swamp's stillness!

The instant Luo Sanpao's foul blast touched the dragon tail, scorching dragonfire burned it away.

Then the dragon's overwhelming, crushing strength struck Luo Sanpao squarely!

He did not even have time to scream. The violent blow tore apart the Mutated Martial Soul that had accompanied Yu Xiaogang for half his life, reducing him to a wisp of pale-yellow smoke that vanished completely!

"Pfft!"

His Martial Soul had been destroyed by force. Yu Xiaogang threw back his head and spat a stream of bright-red blood flecked with pieces of his organs. He reeled as if struck by lightning, and both Yellow Soul Rings behind him dimmed and shattered.

The backlash sent agony through him. His knees buckled, and he fell heavily into the mud.

Only then did Yu Xiaogang, sprawled on the ground, glimpse the ancient dragon markings etched into the beast's spiral blood horn—and recognize the pure, primordial pressure that belonged only to a true dragon's lesser kin!

"Dark... Dark-Armored Bloodhorn Dragon? A blood-crystal horn, scales turned dark purple... It's a lesser dragon with true dragon blood and three thousand years of cultivation! I was wrong... It's absolutely not a five-hundred-year-old Thick-Armored Crocodile!"

Yu Xiaogang's voice rose into a shrill wail, his face contorted almost beyond recognition.

In an instant, his composure and grandmasterly airs vanished, swallowed by boundless despair at the thought of death!

Three thousand years!

That was a top-tier lesser-dragon Soul Beast, equivalent to a human Soul Elder at his peak and capable of fighting an ordinary Soul Ancestor head-on!

Without a Battle Soul Elder to protect him at close range, he—a rank-twenty-nine Soul Grandmaster whose Martial Soul had been destroyed—would be torn apart if he stayed!

"ROAR!"

Amid its furious roar, the Dark-Armored Bloodhorn Dragon opened its massive jaws.

A torrent of dark-red dragonfire more than two meters wide burst forth like a raging dragon surging from the sea. It turned the ground ahead of Yu Xiaogang and Tang San into a crimson sea of molten rock, cutting off their escape!

The scorching wave singed the hair at Tang San's forehead. The shadow of death crashed down on him like Mount Tai!

"Master! Our escape route's cut off! Luo Sanpao's been defeated—use your Crane-Control Technique or something else to stop it! Master!" Tang San screamed for help, his courage crumbling as he clutched his broken arm with his one good hand.

After two lifetimes, Tang San could not believe that Yu Xiaogang—the man who called himself a grandmaster of theory who knew everything, who had taken Tang San as his personal disciple and repeatedly promised to protect him—

At this moment between life and death, he had to have some hidden card or secret means of escape!

The only answer Tang San received was a scream of terror and despair.

Yu Xiaogang did not even glance at Tang San.

Faced with mortal terror, every promise was crushed: that a teacher was a father for life, that he would uphold a grandmaster's dignity and teach his disciple everything he knew!

Yu Xiaogang scrambled out of the mud on all fours, snatched up the pack he had dropped, and turned in a stumbling rush.

He poured the last trace of Soul Power in his body into his legs and fled for his life into the dense forest, away from the beast, without looking back!

"Little San... h-hold it off! I'll find a Spirit Hall patrol and bring them back to save you!"

His hoarse, desperate shout echoed through the trees. Yu Xiaogang crashed through several bushes in his panic, lost his shoes and socks, and swiftly vanished into the depths of the forest.

He left six-year-old Tang San, his right arm gravely injured, alone beneath the furious three-thousand-year-old lesser dragon's massive claws!

Tang San stood frozen. Yu Xiaogang's shameless excuse rang in his ears, and his whole body went cold!

Abandoned!

At the brink of death, the grandmaster of theory who had made him such grand promises at Nuoding Academy and claimed to regard him as his own son had not hesitated to use him as a sacrifice while fleeing for his own life!

"Yu... Xiao... gang!"