"Su Chen!! You stole my opportunity and ruined my life! Today, you'll pay for that blood debt with blood!"
Just then, the piercing rattle of a wooden wheelchair erupted from the corner at the end of the alley. Yu Xiaogang, both legs crippled, sat in a specially made wheelchair, his face withered and a sick, crazed light gleaming in his eyes.
He used his remaining soul power to pound the wheelchair's armrest and shrieked at the top of his lungs, "Luo Sanpao!! Fart like thunder... Earth-Shattering Luo Sanpao!! Tang San, your master will help you slaughter him!!"
Pfft!... Boom!!
Luo Sanpao, fat as a pig-dog, materialized out of thin air and sucked in a deep breath.
With a deafening thunderclap, a foul yellow blast of gas, carrying a savage shock wave, hurtled straight toward Su Chen's back.
Master and disciple attacked from front and rear, unleashing hidden weapons, Tang Sect close-combat arts, and a mutated soul skill all at once.
"Brother Su Chen, watch out!" Xiao Wu's gaze sharpened, her soul power instantly tensing as she instinctively moved to step forward and intercept the attack with her Soft Technique.
"Fools who don't know when they're courting death." Faced with the seemingly deadly pincer attack, Su Chen did not even release his martial soul. He merely snorted, and his fully mastered Ancestral Dragon Hegemony Body Art roared into motion.
Pure yang Dragon Emperor aura erupted like a volcano. He barely seemed to move, yet the terrifying surge naturally radiating from his body alone stirred a golden ripple in midair.
The yellow poisonous shock wave on which Yu Xiaogang had pinned such high hopes barely touched the edge of that golden ripple before the supremely domineering pure yang true flame incinerated it into nothingness!
And that was not all. The rebounding force slammed through the air into Luo Sanpao like a hammer weighing ten thousand tons!
Awooo...!!
Luo Sanpao let out a miserable howl. His entire bloated body shattered in midair, dissolving into wisps of smoke that scattered everywhere.
"Pfft!!"
Yu Xiaogang jolted in his wheelchair as though struck by lightning. His martial soul had once again been brutally smashed apart, sending his vital essence surging violently backward. His eyes rolled back, and he slumped in the wheelchair, convulsing in agony, without even the strength to rise.
At that same moment, Tang San's Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon had already closed to within three inches of Su Chen.
Seeing the white-robed youth within arm's reach, a flash of cruelty and wild delight crossed Tang San's eyes as his Mysterious Jade Hand clawed down with all his strength.
Yet Su Chen simply raised his right hand with utter nonchalance, curled his fingers into a fist, and threw an unremarkable punch straight at Tang San's Mysterious Jade Hand.
That punch had no soul skill's radiance and no flashy variations. It contained only the absolute, unadulterated strength of his fully mastered Dragon Emperor hegemony body-enough to shatter mountains.
Crack...!!
The instant fist met palm, a ring of compressed air burst outward, visible to the naked eye!
Tang San's pride and joy, the Mysterious Jade Hand, supposedly impervious to every poison and solid as rock, was as fragile as a sheet of paper before Su Chen's unrivaled physical might!
Amid piercing cracks of breaking bone, all five fingers of Tang San's left hand twisted backward, and the bones throughout his arm shattered inch by inch!!
The terrifying force of the punch lost none of its momentum as it drove viciously into Tang San's chest!
"Puaaah...!!"
Tang San reeled as though struck by a massive hammer. Like a kite with its string cut, he flew backward more than a hundred feet, smashed through the thick brick walls lining the alley, and was buried beneath the collapsing rubble!
Dust filled the air, and a deathly silence settled over the alley...
Tang San struggled to raise his head from the rubble, his body covered in dust and blood. He looked down at his utterly ruined left arm, hanging limp. Feeling the heart-rending pain in his chest and his depleted, chaotic Mysterious Heaven internal power, his mind went blank.
I lost...
The Tang Sect Secret Arts he had trained in bitterly for six years and the poisoned hidden weapons he had painstakingly honed day and night had proved as flimsy as a paper-made joke beneath a single punch from an opponent who had not even released his martial soul!!
"These are the trump cards you spent six years patiently sharpening?"
Su Chen walked up to Tang San, who lay sprawled on the ground, his expression indifferent. "Before absolute strength and a higher order of existence, your sewer-rat tricks only make you more of a laughingstock."
Su Chen did not even bother striking again to take his life.
For someone as supremely conceited as Tang San, crushing all his pride and trump cards before his very eyes, then leaving him to live in endless helplessness and despair, was the cruelest torture of all.
"Let's go, Xiao Wu." Su Chen turned and took Xiao Wu's warm, soft hand.
"Mm!! Brother Su Chen is the best!!" Xiao Wu smiled sweetly, never sparing Tang San on the ground so much as a glance. She skipped along beside Su Chen, and the two strolled shoulder to shoulder out of the dark alley, heading leisurely toward the city gates in the sunset's lingering glow.
In the rubble, Tang San clenched his blood-seeping teeth, his fingernails digging into the dirt. His eyes bulged as though their sockets might split, and beastlike whimpers of despair and defiance escaped his mouth...
Not far away, Yu Xiaogang, his mouth full of blood, laboriously maneuvered his wheelchair over to Tang San. Trembling, he grasped Tang San's torn sleeve, his voice hoarse and feeble. "Tang San... don't give up... we still have a chance..."
Tang San's eyes were filled with desolation and deathly stillness as he stared numbly at Yu Xiaogang.
"Suotuo City... go to Suotuo City in the Balak Kingdom!!" Yu Xiaogang coughed up blood, his eyes gleaming as he grasped at his last lifeline. "There's a Shrek Academy there... its dean is my sworn brother, Flender, a rank seventy-eight Power Attack System Battle Soul Saint!! Once we get there... with a Soul Saint's protection and instruction, you'll surely be able to rebuild your bones and sinews and reclaim everything you've lost!!"
Shrek Academy... a Battle Soul Saint...
At those words, a sick, twisted flame of venomous hatred flared once more in the depths of Tang San's dim eyes.
He pressed hard against his caved-in chest and swore a vicious oath in his heart... as long as he, Tang San, still drew breath, once he reached Suotuo City, he would use every resource available to rebuild his mechanical hidden weapons and leverage Shrek's power to utterly destroy Su Chen!!
Three days later. Suotuo City, Balak Kingdom.
As the wealthiest major city in the Balak Kingdom, Suotuo City boasted broad streets bustling with endless streams of carriages and people. Its prosperity was far beyond anything Nuoding City could match.
Beside a bustling main thoroughfare in the southern part of the city, a strangely shaped three-story building stood out.
The entire hotel was a delicate shade of pink. Its structure faintly resembled a giant rose on the verge of blooming. This was the renowned Rose Hotel of Suotuo City.
On the bluestone steps before the hotel, a figure dressed in snowy white stood beside a girl in a pink dress.
Su Chen looked up at the lavish sign carved with twin roses, a playful curve forming at the corner of his mouth.
Suotuo City. The Rose Hotel.
The starting point where the fates of the Shrek Seven Devils converged in the original story. Dai Mubai, Zhu Zhuqing, Ning Rongrong... and later, the opportunities involving the immortal herbs at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well and the external soul bone. All of it lay right ahead.
"Brother Su Chen, this building is so pretty! It sounds lively inside!" Xiao Wu clung to Su Chen's arm, her rosy little face brimming with curiosity.
Su Chen narrowed his eyes slightly. "Let's go. It's time Suotuo City learned who its true ruler is."
With those words, Su Chen led Xiao Wu up the steps and calmly pushed open the Rose Hotel's doors. At that moment, the curtain officially rose on his earth-shaking scheme to seize Shrek's opportunities!!
Before you continue