No Comparison, No Pain

"Damn... this crappy game... the stats are completely insane... you're trying to kill me on purpose, aren't you?"

In the quiet chamber, Lin Fan wiped blood from his face and panted for breath.

He looked at the Golden Sacred Dragon before him, its excess flesh freshly shed and pure, sacred dragon might radiating from its body. Though he kept cursing the system, his eyes shone with the pleasure of clearing a brutal challenge.

"Still, now this feels like a proper AAA game! Turns out you absolutely can use physics to exploit bugs in your lousy fantasy system!"

Lin Fan had no idea that the Void Firmament overhead was broadcasting his blood-soaked, defiant figure as he forcibly rewrote his Martial Soul's genes to every corner of Douluo Continent, from every possible angle.

While the entire continent was still reeling from the Golden Dragon's appearance, a deafening roar erupted from the Firmament!

"Hummm—!"

A glaring golden line split the enormous image straight down the middle, activating comparison mode!

On the left stood Lin Fan, as wild and unrestrained as ever. Behind him, the Golden Dragon threw back its head and roared hard enough to shatter the clouds. His willingness to be broken to pieces to defy fate made anyone watching want to bow down in worship.

But when everyone turned to the image on the right, silence fell over all of Douluo Continent.

The scene cut straight to the dining hall of Nuoding City Junior Soul Master Academy in the Heaven Dou Empire.

The image was so sharp that even the legs of flies buzzing through the air were perfectly visible.

At its center stood a gaunt, sallow-faced middle-aged man with hunched shoulders.

He huddled in the least noticeable corner of the dining hall, holding a bowl of thin porridge and smacking his lips as he swallowed it.

With that defeated air, he looked exactly like a stray dog whose backbone had been ripped out.

To make matters worse, the Firmament displayed several labels above the right-hand image in the brightest gold lettering:

[Real-world counterpart: Yu Xiaogang.]

[Current status: Level 29 Soul Grandmaster (Soul Power extremely unstable; no hope of reaching level 30 in this lifetime).]

[Principal achievement: plagiarized Spirit Hall's top-secret foundational theories on Martial Souls, cobbled them into a book, and proclaimed himself "Grandmaster."]

[Personality: cowardly, selfish, insecure, and exceedingly vain. Runs away whenever trouble arises.]

Clatter.

In the real Nuoding City Junior Soul Master Academy dining hall, the coarse porcelain bowl slipped from Yu Xiaogang's hands and smashed against the floor. Thin porridge and pickled vegetable leaves splashed all over his trouser legs.

It was mealtime. Hundreds of students and teachers throughout the dining hall froze with their lunch boxes in their hands.

They looked at the golden words in the sky, then turned to study the middle-aged man in the corner whose face had gone deathly pale.

Nothing made the difference hurt quite like a comparison.

The man on the left had a spirit vast enough to swallow mountains and rivers. He had stood against heaven with his own body and forged a Golden Dragon with his own hands!

And the one on the right? A worthless freeloader who stole other people's theories and waited to die!

These two were supposed to be counterparts?!

"He... he's that Grandmaster who walks around the academy every day with his hands behind his back, putting on airs?"

An older student pointed at Yu Xiaogang, contempt thick in his voice. "He stole Spirit Hall's theories, then spent every day pretending to be some profound expert in front of us?"

"Pah! I heard him bragging before that there are no useless Martial Souls, only useless Soul Masters... turns out he's not just a useless Soul Master—he stole his theories, too!"

"And I actually bowed to him! That cowardly, selfish fraud is a disgrace to the Soul Master World. Get out of the academy!"

Countless gazes that had once held a trace of "respect" turned in that instant and stabbed deep into Yu Xiaogang's painfully fragile pride.

All color drained from Yu Xiaogang's face. He gripped the corner of the table.

"No... it isn't true... let me explain... my theories are unbeatable..." He could barely get the words out. His pale fingers clawed feebly at the air.

But with such ironclad evidence laid bare before everyone, any explanation sounded ridiculous.

Yu Xiaogang's eyes rolled back. Overwhelmed by shame and fury, he lost consciousness and collapsed into the mess of pickles and thin porridge on the floor.

At that same moment, in Spirit City's Papal Palace—

"BOOM!"

A terrifying burst of Soul Power exploded outward, nearly tearing the entire Papal Palace apart!

Bibi Dong stared at the two images on the Firmament. Her once breathtakingly beautiful face had twisted beyond recognition, and her body shook with rage.

The young man on the left had fought heaven itself to break free of his fate, even with his meridians shattered. He had proudly declared that he would take her with him to overthrow the old nobility. How magnificent he had been!

But the one on the right... that wretch clutching a battered bowl and smacking his lips, who had fainted into slop because a few lines of text frightened him—he was the man who claimed to love her in the real world, yet had abandoned her and fled when it mattered most?!

The contrast turned Bibi Dong's stomach upside down. A sickening revulsion rose inside her.

She had once believed Yu Xiaogang simply lacked talent, that heaven had treated him unfairly. Deep in her heart, she had even kept the tiniest place for him as an untouchable first love.

But the Firmament had mercilessly torn away that fig leaf and hurled the bloody truth straight into her face!

He had not been wronged by heaven. He was a spineless coward to the bone!

A true genius could take a pig of a Martial Soul and force it to transform into a true dragon!

"BANG!"

Bibi Dong slammed the Pope's Scepter, symbol of supreme authority, into the floor. The hard Obsidian tiles crumbled to powder, and a bottomless crack spread away from the throne.

"Gui Mei! Yue Guan!" The languid authority had vanished from Bibi Dong's voice, replaced by utter disgust.

"Y-your subordinate is here!" Below the throne, Ghost Douluo and Chrysanthemum Douluo were scared nearly out of their wits. Neither dared raise his head.

Bibi Dong's killing intent seemed ready to freeze the air throughout Spirit City.

She clenched the throne's armrest and spoke in an icy voice:

"Go to Nuoding City and dispose of that thing called Yu Xiaogang."

She paused, disgust nearly spilling from every word. "Don't let him die too easily! I want him to know that living in this world with that face is his greatest crime."

"A-as you command!" The two Titled Douluo fled the Papal Palace like shadows, grateful to have been dismissed.

After flying out of the Papal Palace, Ghost Douluo and Chrysanthemum Douluo exchanged a look. Both wore bitter expressions.

"Old Ghost, are we... really going through with this?" Chrysanthemum Douluo lowered his voice, his face grim. "After all, he and His Holiness the Pope... had a past."

"What else would you do? Defy her orders?" Ghost Douluo's voice was cold and eerie. "If there's anyone to blame, he can blame his own rotten luck."

Neither spoke again. They only flew faster, soon vanishing beyond the horizon.