Spirit Hall Is on the Case! Everyone, Get Lost!

In Firmament space-time, in the Vast Barren Mountains outside Tack Town.

The air twisted wildly in the terrifying heat. Acrid sulfur mingled with the scorched smell of burning coal, creating a suffocating haze of heavy industrial pollution.

Lin Fan stood bare-chested before a colossal earthen Blast Furnace thirty meters high.

Coal ash and sweat had caked his entire body in a thick shell of black grime. His bloodshot eyes stayed fixed on the white-hot flames churning inside the furnace, a feverish madness burning in them after seven days and nights without rest.

"The temperature's still a little low... The bellows! Remove every gate from the Hydraulic Wheel Hub! Push the airflow to the limit!" Lin Fan roared, his voice hoarse.

Dozens of bare-chested refugees stamped desperately on the huge auxiliary bellows.

Rumble—!

As oxygen poured in, the furnace temperature finally crossed the threshold. The fire within shifted from white-hot to a chilling blue.

"Now! Open the gate!!!"

At Lin Fan's scream, several burly men heaved on a thick Fine Steel winch and hauled open the tap at the base of the furnace.

Whoosh—!!!

A terrifying wave of heat swept out, hot enough to singe eyebrows from dozens of meters away.

After repeated decarburization with Coking Coal and the addition of several rare companion ores Lin Fan had spent days clawing from the mountains, perfectly dark-red molten iron poured out. Like an ancient fire dragon set free, it roared down the channel of fireclay!

"Hahahahaha—!"

Lin Fan wiped black soot from his face and threw back his head in a slightly unhinged laugh.

"Made it just in time!"

Lin Fan turned and kicked over an ammunition crate. Pointing at the special steel that had yet to cool completely, he bellowed at his troops, "Brothers! Wake the hell up! The final piece is in place!"

"With this batch of high-toughness, high-pressure special steel, we can scrap those inaccurate smoothbores! Get to work tonight! Rifle the gun barrels! Cut down every one of my smoothbore cannons and turn them into High-Pressure Rifled Mortars!"

Eyes bloodshot and lips curled with bloodlust, Lin Fan stared toward the horizon. "A Soul Saint, huh? A level-seventy boss? A Martial Soul Avatar with thick armor and a mountain of health?"

"Let's see what's harder today: your turtle shell or the high-explosive armor-piercing shells I made with my own hands! All troops, listen up! Assemble our trump card tonight and get ready for a celebration!!!"

Boom—!!!

Above the Firmament, Lin Fan's wild laughter became deafening thunder that crashed into every corner of the real world.

At that very moment, in the real Tack Town of Fasinuo Province.

The place had become a thunderstorm-shrouded wasteland so dark that no one could see a hand before their face.

Wind howled. Rain poured down.

Yet in that brutal weather, three thousand heavily armored soldiers of the Heaven Dou Empire's Royal Dragon Soul Guard, under the personal command of several Control-System Soul Douluo, had dug the impoverished town and its surrounding mountains into a monstrous pit dozens of li across and ten zhang deep!

Mud and stone were carted out without pause.

The town itself was long gone. Only a scarred wasteland remained.

"Move! Keep digging! His Majesty has ordered us to turn over every inch of earth until we find the Space-Time Anchor!" A Dragon Soul Guard commander wiped rain from his face and brandished his greatsword as he urged them on.

Suddenly, terrified screams rose from the excavation site at the bottom of the pit.

"Commander! We found it! There's something underground!!!"

Several Soul Kings assigned to the survey scrambled up from the muddy depths, stumbling over themselves, their eyes wide with the fear of men who had seen a ghost.

"What did you find? High-purity Hematite? Gunpowder?" The commander seized one by the collar and shouted.

"N-no ore! It's... it's a tower! A gigantic steel tower, and it's glowing!"

The commander sucked in a sharp breath, shoved his subordinate aside, and leaped into the pit with several deputies.

The moment he saw what lay at the bottom, the battle-hardened commander's legs buckled. He fell to his knees in the muddy water.

Deep within the earth, ten zhang below the surface, stood an immense and towering outline.

It was unmistakably the thirty-meter Modern Steel Blast Furnace Lin Fan had just built in the Firmament!

More chilling still, the furnace was not solid. Its entire form was translucent and illusory, golden patterns cast down from the Firmament flowing across its surface while its inner structure flickered in and out of view.

And as Lin Fan's smelting succeeded in the Firmament, as his manic laughter rang across heaven and earth...

The furnace's phantom at the bottom of the pit let out a low, drawn-out metallic hum.

Then the surrounding earth and rock began to break apart. They became tiny motes of energy and were drawn into the phantom by a terrifying pull.

With every bit it absorbed, the golden patterns on the furnace dimmed, and its illusory outline grew more solid.

"Heavens... It's eating this world's earth to fill out its own bones! What in the world is that thing..."

The commander trembled violently. He reached out to touch the furnace's phantom, but the instant his fingertips met it, a violent force of Space Law flung him back and shattered his finger bones one by one!

Kneeling at the edge of the pit, the Dragon Soul Guard commander activated one of the empire's highest-grade Communication Soul Tools with a shaking hand.

Xue Ye's voice came through, hoarse and hurried, as though he had not slept in a long time.

"Speak."

"Your Majesty! We found it! Ten zhang beneath Tack Town, there's a glowing phantom of a giant steel tower! It... it's identical to the Blast Furnace in the Firmament, and it's condensing from illusion into solid form!"

The other end fell silent for a full three seconds before Xue Ye recovered.

"I was right! The geography of the two worlds really is overlapping! It isn't a spatial passage, but a correspondence of laws! Whatever Yu Xiaogang creates in the Firmament will take shape at the same time beneath the real Tack Town!"

"That Blast Furnace, those high-explosive armor-piercing shells that can blast a Soul Saint apart... Once it fully condenses into reality, my army will charge in and seize it. Then I'll command this Forbidden Divine Art that surpasses even the Divine Realm!"

Xue Ye sounded half-mad.

"Pass down my order! Hold that pit at all costs! Kill anyone who dares take a single step toward Tack Town, whoever they are!!! I'm coming in person!"

But Xue Ye's order had not yet been passed on.

The black, rain-lashed night sky over Fasinuo Province was suddenly torn open by a power beyond description!

Rumble—!!!

For an instant, the torrential rain hung motionless in the air.

Countless strange chrysanthemum petals and shrieking black apparitions descended from the rift in the void, stopping directly above Tack Town's great pit!

The pressure of two level-ninety-five Titled Douluo slammed down on the heads of the three thousand Dragon Soul Guards.

Hundreds of lower-ranked knights spat blood on the spot, while their warhorses cried out and sank to their knees in unison.

"Spirit Hall is conducting an investigation!"

The shrill, soft voice carried icy killing intent as it rolled across heaven and earth.

In midair, the Singular Velvet Sky Chrysanthemum hovered above Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan's palm. Beside him, Ghost Douluo Gui Mei had become a shifting mass of black mist.

Behind them stood two hundred Black-Robed Tribunal Executors of Spirit Hall, each cloaked in a murderous aura. Even the weakest was above the rank of Soul King.

Looking down at the pale-faced Dragon Soul Guard commander by the pit, Yue Guan covered his mouth and gave a delicate laugh.

"Go tell that old fool Xue Ye that trash like the Heaven Dou Empire has no right to touch the miracle left by the Firmament Saint Master!"

"His Holiness the Pope has given the order: the Two Great Empires and every meddling sect are to get out of Fasinuo Province at once! Otherwise, Tack Town will be your burial ground today!"

Spirit Hall had made its move!

How could Bibi Dong stand by and watch Lin Fan's "industrial Core Flame" fall into the hands of the Two Great Empires?

The Dragon Soul Guard commander's face went white.

"Send a signal. Request reinforcements from Heaven Dou City."

He spoke quietly to the deputy beside him. The deputy took a blood-red Soul Tool Talisman from his robes and crushed it in his palm.

A streak of red light shot skyward and burst above the thunderclouds into the dragon-head signal of the Heaven Dou Imperial Family.

Almost the moment the red light burst.

"Yue Guan! Gui Mei! Spirit Hall has reached too far."

Hum—!

High above, a world-shaking sword intent split the layers of thunderclouds like a river of stars pouring backward!

The phantom of a Seven Kill Sword a hundred zhang long stretched across the sky.

Sword Douluo Chen Xin stood in white robes upon a flying sword, his hair and beard billowing.

Not far from him, a dragon's roar shook heaven and earth. Yu Yuanzhen, sect master of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect, bathed in raging blue lightning like a thunder god descended!

"This forbidden ground could change the balance of the entire Douluo Continent, and Spirit Hall wants it all? Did you ask the sword in my hand?!" Chen Xin's voice was cold as ice, his sword aura pointed straight at the two Titled Douluo.

The smile finally vanished from Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan's face.

"Yu Yuanzhen, is the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect wading into these muddy waters too?" Ghost Douluo's voice seeped from the black mist, cold enough to pierce bone.

Yu Yuanzhen did not answer him. Instead, he turned toward the mud-covered Dragon Soul Guard commander at the edge of the pit. His voice rolled through the storm like muffled thunder.

"Tell Xue Ye he had better not forget what he promised me."

The commander froze for a moment, then understood and cupped his fists. "Rest assured, Sect Master! His Majesty said that if the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect joins forces with the empire today, that... that person will be returned to the sect tomorrow! Not a hair on his head will be harmed!"

Golden light from the Firmament pierced the clouds and fell across Yu Yuanzhen's aged, stern face.

The corner of his mouth twitched. It was as though he had forced down far too many words, until only one sentence remained.

"He had better keep his word."

Far away, inside a temporary command tent erected overnight, Xue Ye's Communication Soul Tool glowed bloodred.

"Your Majesty, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect has arrived! Yu Yuanzhen came in person." The commander's voice came through the Soul Tool.

"Good! Tell him I'll keep my promise. Once I return to the Imperial City, Yu Xiaogang will be delivered back to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect, unharmed."

He paused, then added, "But if Yu Yuanzhen switches sides in battle... I'll send his son's head back to Thunder Hall first."

The other end of the Soul Tool went quiet for a moment.

"Rest assured, Your Majesty. Yu Yuanzhen... won't gamble with his own son's life."

"Hmph. He'd better not." Xue Ye chuckled.

"Hasn't he always said that good-for-nothing was an impostor? Yet in the end, he's still coming to serve as my shield for that impostor."

"Whether the man is an impostor or not, he knows better than anyone."

Above the pit.

Yue Guan's and Gui Mei's expressions darkened completely.

Yu Yuanzhen's arrival meant the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect had formally tied its fate to the Heaven Dou Empire's.

With two Titled Douluo facing two Titled Douluo, they had no advantage.

"Now that you're here, you can all stay."

Lightning surged around Yu Yuanzhen. He slowly raised his right palm, and within it, the phantom of a Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon formed from pure lightning threw back its head and roared.

"Spirit Hall scum, today I'll settle an old score from twenty years ago on behalf of the Yu family."

Madness!

They had all gone mad!

At that moment, no one cared about sect prestige or imperial law anymore.

Once everyone understood the underlying logic of "Firmament creations manifesting in reality," the real Tack Town had become the most tempting—and deadliest—forbidden ground in the world!

Whoever controlled the earth here would control the special-steel Blast Furnace now taking shape!

They would hold the gun that could drag gods down from their altars!

Beneath the night sky.

Three thousand Dragon Soul Guards of the Heaven Dou Empire drew their blades. Five hundred Tribunal Executors of Spirit Hall filled the air with killing intent. Peerless fighters of the Upper Three Sects watched like tigers stalking prey, while countless red-eyed civilian rebels gathered frantically on the outskirts.

The fighting strength of every faction on the Douluo Continent had converged over this one small pit, swords drawn and bows strung. The friction of their raging Soul Power began to crack the surrounding space.

A battle that could shatter the entire Douluo Continent was about to erupt!

Yet just as the powers of the real world were about to beat one another bloody over his "inheritance."

Within the Firmament.

At the far edge of the horizon, yellow sand billowed into the sky.

A gigantic Two-Headed Stone Ape Martial Soul Avatar, ten zhang tall and covered in thick stone armor, appeared in Lin Fan's sight like a walking mountain. More than a dozen high-ranking Soul Emperors followed it, their Soul Power fully unleashed.

"Finally."

Lin Fan stood before the steel-reinforced position and spat out the blade of grass between his teeth.

He reached out and gently patted the High-Pressure Rifled Mortar beside him, its barrel now cut with precise rifling. Then he personally lifted an oversized armor-piercing shell weighing dozens of jin, packed with a Special High-Explosive Primer and high-explosive fragments. Under the horrified gaze of countless Titled Douluo beyond the Firmament...

Click.

With a crisp metallic sound, Lin Fan slid the shell into the barrel.