Dead! All Dead! Heh Heh Heh

BOOOOM—!!!!!!

A thunderous blast, ten times louder than all the earlier gunshots combined, shook half the command post's raised platform to rubble.

The furious metal projectile tore through the air, leaving only a blurred black streak and a shriek sharp enough to pierce eardrums!!

The Soul King was in midair, about to unleash a skill, when a flash of gold crossed his vision.

He had no time even to feel despair. The enormous armor-piercing steel round drove into the mouth he had opened to roar, moving at a terrifying speed he could not begin to comprehend.

Bang!

It was like smashing a watermelon with an iron hammer.

The Soul King's perfectly good head, along with the powerful Soul Power he had released, exploded into a spray of red-and-white watermelon juice!

His headless body fell before the trench, twitched twice, and went still.

From Lin Fan's order to open fire to the shot that blew the Soul King's head off, the entire battle lasted less than ten minutes.

The Spirit Hall Border Enforcement Team had been wiped out!

In the trenches, only ten soldiers in the mortal army had suffered minor injuries.

The boy named Stone had failed to brace the stock against his shoulder on his first shot, and the recoil had slammed into him hard enough to give him a nosebleed. He hadn't even noticed. Instead, he grinned foolishly and gestured to Lin Fan: "I hit one!"

Lin Fan saw him from the raised platform and couldn't help laughing.

The battle hadn't gone perfectly, but it had gone well enough.

Standing on the half-collapsed platform, Lin Fan waved the gun smoke away from his face.

He looked down at the heavy cannon barrel, which had already developed a few cracks, and clicked his tongue in displeasure.

"Tch, lousy materials! One shot, and the barrel's already lost more than half its durability! If the metallurgical industry doesn't improve, there's no way we'll be able to make machine guns. And this rotten gunpowder's still too weak, even though the recoil's strong enough to leave the web of my hand numb."

Lin Fan's groundless grumbling inside the Firmament struck the faces of the continent's powerful and privileged like the loudest slap imaginable!

On the Firmament, that textbook slaughter—without a single flashy trick, accomplished with nothing but steel and gunpowder—was shown in uncensored high definition to everyone, from Peerless Douluo down to peddlers and laborers!

Spirit City, the Elder Hall.

More than a dozen Spirit Hall elders in white robes embroidered with gold sat along either side of a long table. No one spoke. Only the light of the Firmament illuminated their ashen faces.

"One incense stick's time. In just one incense stick's time, an entire border enforcement squad was gone..."

A white-haired elder at the head of the table spoke slowly, his voice carrying a weariness even he found unfamiliar. "I knew the Soul King who led them. He held that post for twelve years, and not once did anything happen on his watch."

"First Elder, what do we do now?" A middle-aged elder farther down the table could not hold back. "That man in the Firmament has already given these weapons to commoners! According to reports we received last night, we found more than a dozen iron pipes and piles of black powder in just three villages around Spirit City. If this goes on, even the lowliest servants of Spirit Hall will..."

He did not finish, but everyone understood.

At the far end of the table, an old man who had kept his eyes closed suddenly opened them.

He was the pillar that held the Elder Hall steady: the level-ninety-five Ghost Leopard Douluo, and the only person present who had personally taken part in Qian Xunji's coup twenty years ago.

"Why panic?"

"No matter how powerful that thing is, it can't pierce my Martial Soul Avatar! Instead of sitting here trembling, you should be thinking about something else."

He paused, sweeping his gaze over them. "That Yu Xiaogang in the Firmament left Spirit Hall years ago. Now he's returned with these methods. Do you think he's coming for the Two Great Empires? I'm telling you, we're the first ones he'll settle accounts with."

Dead silence fell around the long table.

"Then... should we ask His Holiness the Pope what to do?" someone ventured.

Ghost Leopard Douluo gave a cold laugh. "You think that woman can see that face in the Firmament and still spare a thought for Spirit Hall's future? The fact that she hasn't torn down the Elder Hall with her own hands is already a courtesy to the Great Enshrined."

The night wind swept in from outside the hall, rustling several bloodstained intelligence reports on the table.

Everyone instinctively looked up at the young man in the Firmament, standing on a ruined platform and complaining about the poor quality of his cannon barrel.

No one spoke again.

But they all knew that Spirit Hall's good days, like that man's life twenty years ago, were never coming back.

Star Luo Empire, the imperial palace.

"A monster... He's a monster who's utterly destroyed the Heavenly Dao!!!"

Emperor Dai Yutian rampaged through the great hall, smashing everything in sight. Not a shred of imperial dignity remained.

He had seen the change in the eyes of those mortal boys after they fired their guns. It was a terrifying look, stripped of reverence, as though the shackles of class had been broken.

Meanwhile, deep in the death-row prison of the Heaven Dou Empire, an utterly absurd scene was unfolding.

"Did you see that?! Are you blind?!"

Emperor Xue Ye seized the hair of the real Yu Xiaogang, who was bound to a torture rack, and shook him wildly while pointing at Lin Fan on the Firmament projected across the wall. Lin Fan was complaining that "the gunpowder isn't powerful enough."

"That Yu Xiaogang in the Firmament used tactics that don't require Soul Power to kill an entire squad of Spirit Hall elites! And he still thinks they're too weak!"

He slowly crouched until he was eye to eye with the suspended Yu Xiaogang.

"Do you know..."

"I actually envy you a little now."

"At least that face of yours is still alive in the Firmament. My empire is about to be destroyed by it."

Emperor Xue Ye was almost begging. "I'm begging you! Tell me how to counter this! If you don't give me a way to beat it, the Heaven Dou Empire will fall any moment now!!!"

But the real Yu Xiaogang hung from the rack with his mouth wide open.

He stared at the young man who looked exactly like him, yet commanded with the unshakable certainty of a god of war descended to earth and had blown a Soul King's head apart with one cannon shot. Then he felt Emperor Xue Ye's desperate, devouring gaze.

Yu Xiaogang's mind rang. The last thread of his reason snapped!

"Not me... That's not me... I only know how to write theories... I can't build cannons, heh heh heh... Bang! Dead! All dead! Heh heh heh... If only I could do that too!"

Yu Xiaogang's eyes rolled back. Drool ran from the corner of his mouth, and he began to giggle like a madman.

Under the crushing pressure of this displaced timeline, the so-called "Grandmaster" who had deceived the world and stolen his fame was finally frightened out of his mind by his counterpart in the Firmament.