Xue Ye Is Dead, Heaven Dou Has Fallen

In the Firmament timeline, at New Capital Square in the Spirit Republic.

The rising sun tore through thick clouds, spilling ten thousand golden rays across a capital that had just survived a thunderous coup and been reborn from the flames.

The once-lofty statue of the Six-Winged Angel was gone. In the center of the square stood the hundred-foot-tall Republican Emblem: a giant steel gear crossed with a twin-barreled cannon.

"March! March! March!"

The earthshaking tramp of military boots swept across the white-jade square in perfect unison.

On the horizon, the Republic's First New Army formed a dark mass of perfectly straight ranks.

They had cast aside the showy Fine Steel plate armor of traditional Soul Master armies. Every soldier wore the same standard-issue green uniform.

A Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifle hung across each soldier's shoulder.

Behind the infantry formation—

"Woooooo—!!!"

A long whistle shattered the clouds. The Multi-Tower Heavy Armored Train, which had crushed twenty Soul Saints in the Ten Thousand Mountains, rolled into view along tracks laid into the square overnight, belching thick black smoke.

On its turrets, breech-loading rifled howitzers flashed with a chilling gleam beneath the sun!

And at the highest point of the reviewing stand, at its very heart—

Lin Fan stood quietly.

Golden system notifications flickered before his eyes:

[Volume One complete! Congratulations, host, on clearing the Wasteland Self-Rescue Phase!]

[System reward: Phase One exclusive, limited-edition skin—a Republic's Founding Chief Mentor uniform! (Equipped automatically)]

Seriously? After all that, the reward for clearing it is a cosmetic skin with no stat bonuses? Are the developers of this trash game really that stingy?

Lin Fan rolled his eyes inwardly, utterly speechless.

Yet the outfit the system had forced onto him raised his already commanding presence to a sacred pinnacle before which mortals would prostrate themselves and gods would hang their heads in shame!

He wore a fitted, pure-black mentor's wool coat, its collar and cuffs trimmed with dark-gold gear patterns. Knee-high black leather military boots covered his legs, and a command saber hung at his waist, symbolizing absolute authority.

A long gust lifted the hem of his black coat.

Lin Fan rested one hand on the saber's hilt and raised his chin slightly.

He said nothing.

Before ultimate truth and cannons, any words would have been pale and powerless.

"Long live the Sage!!! Long live the Republic!!!"

Across the square, hundreds of thousands of civilians with Trash Martial Souls and low-ranking Soul Masters stared at the imposing black figure on the high platform, swept up in collective fervor.

Their cheers rose like a tsunami, threatening to overturn the heavens!

Above the Two Great Empires in the present timeline, the Firmament projected the image of Lin Fan, dressed in black military uniform, reviewing his troops with one hand!

At that moment—

The wasteland near present-day Tack Town, Fasinuo Province.

The torrential rain had stopped.

On the muddy battlefield, tens of thousands of the Heaven Dou Empire's elite Royal Dragon Soul Guard watched the terrifyingly disciplined modern army in the Firmament.

Then they looked down at the Fine Steel greatswords and spears in their hands, and at the heavy armor on their bodies.

An overwhelming helplessness rising from the depths of their souls froze every nerve in the army.

Clang.

A battle-hardened veteran of the Dragon Soul Guard trembled violently. As he stared at the rows of black cannon muzzles in the Firmament, tears burst from his eyes.

His hands fell open. The greatsword that had been stained with countless lives dropped helplessly into the muddy water.

That sharp sound seemed to carry a terrible contagion.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The sound of weapons hitting the ground spread through the army of tens of thousands like falling dominoes!

Countless Dragon Soul Guardsmen broke down, threw away their weapons, and knelt on either side of the cold iron tracks spreading out from beneath the ground of their own world.

They were not surrendering to Spirit Hall. They were offering their utter submission, their backs completely broken, to that steel torrent from another age—and to the man in the black military uniform!

At the moment Lin Fan reviewed his troops, the army's morale collapsed from end to end!

Heaven Dou City.

Xue Ye's hair had gone completely gray.

On the screen, Lin Fan's cold figure in black military uniform pressed down on his heart like a mountain he could never cross.

Xue Ye looked back on his life.

To preserve Heaven Dou's imperial power and cement the rule of the Soul Master class, he had forged alliances, played rivals against one another, and exhausted every scheme he knew.

Only days ago, he had still hoped to find a way out by searching souls in the present and investigating Tack Town.

But now, every struggle had become a complete joke.

The chariot of a new age had rumbled into motion, and his empire was nothing more than a mantis standing before its steel treads.

"Heaven... Heaven means to destroy my... Heaven Dou..."

His blood surged backward, and the vessels of his heart ruptured!

"Blaaargh—!!!"

A great mouthful of blood sprayed from the dying emperor's lips!

His clouded eyes remained fixed on the Firmament above, on Lin Fan. All life had left them.

Consumed by unwillingness, humiliation, and despair—

An emperor, Xue Ye, supreme ruler of the Heaven Dou Empire, had been angered to death in his bed by the mere sight of Lin Fan reviewing his troops with one hand!

"Dong! Dong! Dong!"

The funeral bells of Heaven Dou Imperial Palace tolled heavily.

As the closely guarded news of Xue Ye's death spread, the civilian rebels who had still been waiting and watching in the real world followed the Firmament's lead and became a vast ocean that swallowed everything.

The rule of the old nobility faced destruction on every front!

In the Eastern Palace study.

Qian Renxue stood at the window, listening to the wails coming from within the palace.

She raised a hand and slowly peeled away the crown prince's mask she had worn for more than ten years.

"Xue Ye is dead... and this rotten country has been buried with him."

Qian Renxue lifted her head. Looking at the figure in black military uniform who commanded every eye in the Firmament, she let out a long sigh.

"Yu Xiaogang... you won."

"You were only one man, yet with those crude iron tubes and black powder, you smashed the extraordinary edifice we spent ten thousand years building into dust—not even ruins remained."

She knew that from this moment on, the Heaven Dou Empire had no place in the history of Douluo Continent.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the real world—

Spirit City, the Papal Palace.

Here, the scene could not have been more different from the Heaven Dou Empire's funeral bells!

Pope Bibi Dong stood high upon the steps in white-and-gold papal robes embroidered with dark-gold thorn patterns. Obsession glimmered in her breathtaking eyes.

She gazed at the man in the Firmament, dressed in black military uniform and so handsome he stole her breath. Her heart raced wildly.

Since he had donned the robes of the republic's founding Sage in that timeline and ascended the supreme throne that belonged to him—

She would never allow another weed from the old era to offend his eyes in the real world!

She would pave the red carpet for his arrival with blood shed in this world!

"Your Holiness! A secret report has arrived from the Heaven Dou Empire. Xue Ye has... passed away!" A cardinal knelt below her, trembling as he delivered the news.

"Good riddance!"

Bibi Dong's red lips curved in a cold smile. She struck the floor with the Scepter in her hand and stepped forward on long, straight legs. The pressure of a level ninety-nine Peerless Douluo swept through the hall!

"Xue Ye is dead. Heaven Dou has fallen!"

"Deliver my divine decree—"

Bibi Dong's voice rang through the hall, carrying the majesty of an ending world:

"Everyone in Spirit Hall! The entire Ironclad Knights are to break camp!"

"Advance on Heaven Dou Imperial City! Crush every old noble who still resists!"

"From the ruins of this rotten empire, welcome the full arrival of the new age that belongs to our Sage!!!"