The Great Battle Began

By now, every major faction had entered the arena. Outside it, Poison Douluo might be the only Titled Douluo left.

After all, he belonged to the Heaven Dou Imperial Family, and the family had been too divided to make the Faction Rankings.

Unless the rankings after next were the Kingdom Rankings, Dugu Bo was ready to run.

[Yu Xiaogang: I don't think status reflects strength. Take me, for example. I'm an honorary Elder of Spirit Hall, but my Soul Power isn't particularly high.]

Once Yu Xiaogang explained it that way, people began to think he had a point.

The main thing was that Ronava looked far too young, like a girl in her early twenties.

No one would have believed she was even a Soul Emperor.

[Yu Xiaogang: And Teyvat Academy is far too arrogant. As you can see, every other group has chosen to band together.]

[Yu Xiaogang: Only they act as though none of this concerns them. If you ask me, they should join Spirit Hall and the three great sects and fight the Soul Beast Clan to the death.]

[Yu Xiaogang: A faction like that should be shunned! So what if they're strong? They don't spare a thought for humanity!]

The more Yu Xiaogang spoke, the more worked up he became.

He was now at Shrek Academy in Suotuo City with Flender and the others.

Flender and the others believed Yu Xiaogang's reasoning wholeheartedly.

That was exactly how they saw it: in the middle of a war between races, Teyvat Academy intended to stand aloof from the world.

How could that be allowed?

Weren't they human too?

Flender looked at the boundless sea of Soul Beasts on the Sky Screen, worry creeping into his eyes.

"If the Soul Beast factions take the top three spots, how are we humans supposed to hunt Soul Beasts in the future?"

The Soul Beasts' overall strength would rise by ten percent. That could mean ten percent more casualties.

This truly affected the low-level Soul Masters across the Douluo Continent. Hundred-Year Soul Beasts were already hard enough to fight. Were they supposed to hunt Ten-Year Soul Beasts from now on?

Plenty of foolish people had begun accusing Teyvat Academy of arrogance, declaring that they would never send their children there to study.

So what if the academy had two World-Class powerhouses? Against that many Soul Beasts, even a master could be beaten to death by a flurry of wild punches, couldn't he?

The comments were shared between both worlds. Reading them, Liyue's adepti nearly burst out laughing.

That handful of Soul Beasts wasn't even half the number that had gathered on the Guili Plains back then.

The Emperor could wipe them all out alone with a rain of stone from the heavens.

And the original Anemo Archon was standing right beside him.

None of the first-generation gods were to be taken lightly.

Those who knew Ronava's identity, meanwhile, were baffled. Why had she gone running off to the neighboring world?

Was she coming back for dinner?

The Ice God Anastasia sat in the palace, silent. Below her stood the remaining Fatui.

A chicken on the left, a duck on the right.

The Knave had cancer, and Pantalone was on his last legs.

And then there was The Jester...

She remembered there being eleven Fatui when she set out on her campaign. No, wait—had it been ten?

The sixth and tenth seats seemed to have been vacant all along.

She shook her head. She couldn't remember, so she let it go.

"The Ruler of Death has already gone over there. Can we begin our plan?"

The Jester shook his head and sighed.

"The Ruler of Death may have gone to another world, but her power still circulates through this one. As long as the curse of death exists, it will obstruct our plan."

Anastasia's face darkened. Did that mean they had to chase Ronava into another world and kill her first?

"Is there any way to contact The Marionette?"

Columbina was out of the question. She had already fled and obtained three months of access privileges. There wasn't a chance in hell she would listen.

The Jester stared at Anastasia as though she were a fool.

You want Sandrone to take on the Ruler of Death?

You'd be better off digging up Dottore to see if he can be resurrected.

If nothing else, approve a million Primogems for me. I'll go bribe the Traveler.

Give the Traveler a million Primogems, and he'd dare to elbow the Heavenly Principles. You believe that?

No, perhaps I'm giving him too much credit. A hundred thousand would do it.

Anastasia knew she had gotten ahead of herself. She shook her head. They would have to take things one step at a time.

What mattered most now was establishing contact with that world directly, rather than through the Sky Screen.

On the Sky Screen, every intelligent Soul Beast followed behind the Beast Kings. Their procession stretched as far as the eye could see, numbering at least several million. (This counted only the intelligent Soul Beasts.)

On the other side stood the humans, led by the Asura God, Tang Chen, and the others.

There was no helping it. The Asura God was a God King, so command could only be handed to him for now.

Bibi Dong hovered in the air, the Rakshasa Scythe in her hand trained firmly on Teyvat Academy between the two sides.

So that's Teyvat Academy? Bibi Dong thought. If I could recruit even one or two of them, they would be a tremendous asset to Spirit Hall.

Gu Yuena hovered at the very front of the Soul Beasts, staring straight at the Asura God.

"It's time to settle our old scores and new grudges together!"

The Asura God snorted. For one thing, it was the first Asura God who had struck Gu Yuena down. And even if he had done it himself, so what?

"Go ahead and try!"

Both sides stood poised for battle.

Their grudges had festered for years.

Now that they had a legitimate chance to fight, how could they pass it up?

If Teyvat Academy hadn't been standing between them, the battle would have started already.

"Do you intend to take on both our races all by yourselves?"

Sweet as honey, Xiong Jun's words cast Su Yun and the others out of the human race in a single sentence.

Su Yun waved a hand. The Ice God's Eye at his waist flashed.

An enormous pillar of ice rose beneath their feet, carrying them straight into the sky.

"Fight your battle. Once you're done and you've recovered, you can challenge us."

To everyone else, those words sounded outrageously arrogant. There were no more than fifty of them, while the Soul Beasts here numbered in the millions. A single spit from each Beast would be enough to drown them.

Only the Asura God and Gu Yuena looked grave.

That wasn't how high-level combat power worked. At their level, forget God Kings—even a First-Level God could slaughter an army of a million as easily as butchering dogs.

So long as an opponent of equal rank didn't tie them down, an army of a million truly wasn't much to fear.

Both called up toward the top of the ice pillar at the same time.

"Then our thanks to the two seniors."

They were God Kings, after all. The only ones they respected were those two World-Class seniors.

As for Su Yun, the rankings put his overall strength at only Divine Official level. Even with those strange, unpredictable methods of his, he might reach Third-Level God at best.

They were God Kings. How could they bow their heads to a junior?

With Teyvat Academy no longer in their way, it was time to settle the feud between their races.

"Asura Domain!"

Crimson blood mist spread across the arena. As a sea of blood churned, the Asura God's aura surged to a new height.

Gu Yuena gritted her teeth.

"Dragon God Domain!"

Without the Golden Dragon King Bloodline, her Dragon God Domain remained incomplete. It could only just withstand the Asura God's domain.