A Ten-Year Junk Ring Drew Laughter from All, and a Titled Douluo's Wrath

At the main gate of Nuoding Junior Soul Master Academy...

Though it was lunch break, quite a few older students and instructors had gathered on the bluestone square inside the gate.

Just then, two bedraggled figures staggered down the road outside the academy, drawing countless curious looks.

Yu Xiaogang walked in front, his robe torn and his body caked in mud. His usually stiff, stern face was gray as ash. His clouded eyes darted about as he lowered his head and tried to hurry across the forecourt.

Beside him, Tang San had one broken arm in a sling. His face was white as paper, his lips cracked, and he leaned weakly on a wooden stick. A vicious gloom filled his eyes.

"Well, if it isn't Yu Xiaogang, the Grandmaster whose theories can't be beaten!" A middle-aged instructor from the academic office happened to pass through the corridor. Seeing Yu Xiaogang looking like a beggar, he stopped and sneered.

"What happened in the Soul Hunting Forest? You look like you just crawled out of a mass grave. Has that new disciple of yours, the genius with Innate Full Soul Power, acquired some earth-shattering Soul Ring?"

The students nearby broke into muffled laughter.

Yu Xiaogang stopped.

A decade of resentment over the mockery he had endured at the academy erupted all at once.

He raised his head, his face turning the color of pig liver, and shrieked, "Instructor Chen! Enough with the snide remarks! My disciple suffered a setback, but he successfully absorbed his First Soul Ring! His Martial Soul has undergone Origin-Matched Mimicry and Withered Stillness Mutation. Give him time, and he'll open the eyes of you mediocre fools!"

"Oh? Then since he's a Soul Master now, why not show us his Martial Soul? Let us see the Grandmaster's profound theories at work!"

Surrounded by instructors and students, Yu Xiaogang turned to Tang San, pleading with his eyes.

"Little San, show them! Let them see what true skill beneath a clumsy exterior looks like!"

Tang San kept his head down. Humiliation burned so fiercely inside him that it nearly consumed his reason.

With everyone watching, there was nowhere to hide. He could only grit his teeth and slowly raise his uninjured left hand.

Hum...

A weak pulse of Soul Power spread outward.

A dim, murky, deathly white ring rose sluggishly from beneath Tang San's feet, giving off a pungent scent of decay. In his palm appeared a few withered, yellow stalks of mutated Blue Silver Grass, their surfaces covered in cracked, dead skin.

A breeze swept past. The dry grass gave a brittle snap, broke into two pieces, and fell as scraps onto the bluestones!!

Ten years! A worthless white ring! A malignant, decaying mutation—shriveled, useless grass that shattered at a touch!

The entire square fell silent.

Then deafening laughter erupted.

"Hahahahaha! A ten-year white ring! This is what the Grandmaster made of a genius with Innate Full Soul Power? Rotten grass that breaks in the wind, paired with a ten-year trash Soul Ring you could find by the roadside! Yu Xiaogang, you're a fraud through and through! A worthless fool who ruins his students!"

The dozens of students watching burst into laughter too. Their contemptuous, jeering gazes pierced master and disciple like steel needles.

Yu Xiaogang stood rigid. His face went from red to blue, and his shriveled lips opened and closed, but he could not force out a single word of rebuttal.

Tang San kept his head lowered, digging his nails deep into his palms. Blood dripped between his fingers into the mud.

Amid the clamor of mockery, a figure in snow-white robes strolled in through the academy gate.

Su Chen did not spare the crowd a glance. He walked past its edge with an indifferent expression, and the restrained authority about him made people step aside without thinking.

Through his disheveled hair, Tang San glared at Su Chen's retreating back, his eyes brimming with malice and hatred.

A worthless ten-year ring... Damaged meridians...

All because you stole my opportunity, Su Chen!

Yu Xiaogang led me astray, but you, Su Chen, destroyed the foundation of my entire life!

The guiding principle of the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record: All who stand in the way of my path deserve to die!!

As long as I, Tang San, still live, I'll forge Tang Sect Hidden Weapons day and night if I must. I'll use the Godly Zhuge Crossbow and Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus to tear you both to pieces!!

Deep within Nuoding Academy, in Dorm Seven.

Afternoon sunlight spilled through the old wooden window onto the large bed at the center of the dormitory.

Xiao Wu, her hair in a Scorpion Braid, swung her long, slender legs as she rested her chin in her hands. Anxiety showed plainly on her rosy little face.

Creak...

The wooden door opened gently, and Su Chen stepped inside in his white robe.

"Brother Su Chen!" Xiao Wu's large eyes curved into crescents. She leaped off the bed and threw herself at him.

As the petite figure rushed toward him, a faint light stirred in Su Chen's Purple-Gold Double Pupils.

Beneath the soft halo of Soul Power surrounding Xiao Wu, he could see every detail of the original essence of a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soft-Boned Jade Rabbit, brimming with life and pure Moonlight Essence.

"What, did you miss me that much after only half a day?" Su Chen raised a hand and ruffled her soft hair as naturally as could be, smiling warmly.

Xiao Wu stiffened slightly. The moment his palm touched her, the Soul Beast instinct hidden within her surged with a sense of peace and attachment unlike anything she had ever felt.

It was as though a young beast that had long endured bitter cold had found the warmest, strongest shelter. She could not help narrowing her eyes in comfort.

"Who... who missed you? Sister Xiao Wu was only worried a Soul Beast might beat you and carry you off!" Xiao Wu puffed out her cheeks with a huff, but she did not pull away. Instead, she rubbed her head against Su Chen's palm.

Just as that quiet, tender moment settled over them...

Su Chen's heart jolted! The Chaos Ancestral Dragon bloodline within him let out a shrill roar of instinctive warning!

Extreme danger! A killing intent powerful enough to crush mountains!

Boom! The entire expanse of sky above Dorm Seven was crushed under an overwhelming force!!

A concentrated, savage killing intent, like Asura's sea of blood, erupted without warning from the dense woods deep in the hills behind Nuoding Academy!!

That killing intent descended like an inverted, blood-red sky. With the force of a landslide sweeping away dead leaves, it sealed off Dorm Seven completely!

Divine Slaughter's Domain!

The ultimate Slaughter Domain, forged from endless blood and mountains of corpses and bones!

The tables, chairs, and benches in Dorm Seven groaned under the terrifying pressure, vicious cracks splitting their surfaces.

Xiao Wu's rosy little face turned white as paper.

Her Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast instincts recoiled from the killing intent of a top-tier Titled Douluo. She could barely breathe and nearly collapsed on the spot!!

Hidden in the shadows all this time, that godlike, demonic figure had seen his only son, Tang San, lose an arm, absorb a worthless ten-year ring, and become the laughingstock of the academy. At last, his pent-up savagery and fierce protectiveness shattered his restraint!

At the center of the blood-red Divine Slaughter's Domain, Su Chen pulled Xiao Wu behind him with one arm. The Dark-Gold Dragon Aura within him surged skyward, while his Divine Pupils pierced layer upon layer of crimson space and fixed on the towering black-robed figure in the woods behind the academy—a figure like a demon god descended to earth!