Tang San! You Self-Righteous Hypocrite!

The Firmament's spacetime, Notting Academy.

The blackboard was crammed with diagrams showing how the Mysterious Heaven Skill circulated through the meridians. They swept away the gloom of class hierarchy hanging over the decaying academy.

Lin Fan tossed the remaining half-stick of chalk onto the lectern without so much as a glance at the deathly pale Yu Xiaogang.

He dusted the chalk from his hands and, under everyone's gaze, slipped them into the pockets of his coarse-cloth trousers. Then he turned and strode out of the great hall.

He left without looking back.

That's the end of this lousy starter-village plot.

Walking through the streets of Nuoding City, Lin Fan breathed in the fresh air and plotted how to rack up points next. Since the system wants a flawless saint persona, human society alone won't be enough. This game revolves around killing monsters to level up and absorb Soul Rings. Treating animals as disposable resources doesn't fit the boundless-love, saintly-white-lotus standard at all.

How could a peerless saint with no faults to pick commit something as bloody as killing the hen to get the eggs?

Lin Fan's eyes shifted as he recalled online games and beast-taming novels from his past life. Fighting monsters is exhausting, and it gets blood everywhere. Why not exploit a system bug and make a Peace Contract to keep one as a pet? I'll score saint points and get combat power for free. Perfect!

His mind made up, Lin Fan set off on his little six-year-old legs toward the Soul Hunting Forest outside Nuoding City.

Half a day later, on the outskirts of the Soul Hunting Forest.

The dark, damp woods reeked of blood.

Several lavishly dressed noble Soul Masters directed their servants to pin a four-meter-long Mandala Snake, roughly four hundred years old, in the mud.

The Mandala Snake was covered in blood, its scales peeled back as it gave a despairing hiss.

Its eyes were full of hatred for humans.

"Young master, this beast is nearly done for! Hurry and deliver the final blow so you can absorb its Soul Ring!" A servant fawningly offered him a Fine Steel dagger.

The noble boy, barely past ten, raised the dagger with a vicious grin, ready to end that living creature's life.

"Stop."

A calm, childish voice rang out from the woods.

The nobles turned in astonishment.

A six-year-old boy in patched coarse clothing pushed through the bushes and slowly emerged.

It was Lin Fan.

At the sight of the dying Mandala Snake, his face immediately took on an award-winning expression of grief and compassion for all living things.

"All things have spirits; all beneath heaven cultivate together."

Lin Fan sighed, his voice carrying an ancient world-weariness. "For your own selfish desires, you would take another being's life and imprison its soul in a Soul Ring... How tragic, how barbaric, is a path of cultivation built upon endless slaughter and hatred?"

"Where did this little beggar come from? How dare you meddle in my business? Break his legs!" the young noble roared.

Before the servants could move, Lin Fan merely lifted his eyes.

Power from the Mysterious Heaven Skill—or rather, the Novice Protection Aura granted by the system—burst forth!

The pressure held no killing intent, yet it was as heavy as a mountain. It hurled the nobles and their servants dozens of meters away. They struck tree trunks and fell unconscious.

Lin Fan did not kill them. He had a saintly image to maintain at all times.

He walked up to the Mandala Snake and crouched.

Meeting its wary slit-pupiled gaze, Lin Fan reached out with his small hand. Unbothered by the foul-smelling blood, he gently rested it on the snake's head.

"Don't be afraid. I won't kill you."

His voice was like a spring breeze melting into rain. He closed his eyes and murmured, "There's been enough killing in this world. If reaching the summit means climbing over bones, I would rather give up this power."

"Your lifespan is nearing its end, and I need a Soul Ring to advance. But I don't want to kill you. If you're willing, open your soul and sign an Equal Contract with me! I'll nurture your soul within my own body. Become my Soul Spirit, and we'll share the path to immortality!"

"From this day on, we won't be master and servant. We'll be partners... bound in life and death!"

BZZZ—!!!

As Lin Fan delivered his grand speech of universal love, a golden contract formation actually lit up in his palm, secretly aided by the system's mechanisms!

The Mandala Snake sensed the call of a soul offering nothing but kindness and equality. Its slit pupils trembled.

It felt the astonishing breadth of this six-year-old human's heart!

"Hiss..."

The Mandala Snake gave a soft, docile hiss and willingly dropped every defense.

The next moment, its body dissolved into specks of golden light. Its soul gently coalesced into a glittering golden Hundred-Year Soul Ring that settled over Lin Fan's Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul!

A translucent, miniature phantom of the Mandala Snake also appeared on Lin Fan's shoulder, nestling against him.

The first Soul Spirit Contract in Douluo Continent's ten thousand years of history was born in the hands of six-year-old Lin Fan, in the most perfect way imaginable!

[The host has refused to kill and pioneered the Peace Contract!]

[You have broken the ten-thousand-year chain of irreconcilable slaughter between humans and Soul Beasts! Your mercy shines upon all things!]

[Congratulations, host! You have achieved the ultimate positive persona: sovereign of all living things! Saint roleplay rating soaring!!!]

Hahahahaha!

Lin Fan slapped his thigh wildly in his mind, nearly laughing himself sick.

That was way too easy! I just didn't want to get covered in snake blood, so I cobbled together a pet-taming system. And this lousy system decided I broke a ten-thousand-year cycle of slaughter and became sovereign of all living things?!

At this rate, I'll clear the game tonight!

Within the Firmament, Lin Fan congratulated himself on the progress of his completion bar.

RUMBLE—!!!!

Outside the Firmament, in the real spacetime of the Peerless Tang Sect era ten thousand years later.

Deep within the Lake of Life in the Star Dou Great Forest.

This was forbidden territory to every Soul Beast on the continent, the slumbering place of the Ferocious Beasts.

But now, the waters of the Lake of Life boiled furiously!

"ROAR—!!!"

A terrifying dragon's cry shattered the black clouds overhead as it erupted from the lakebed!

The Beast God, the Golden-Eyed Black Dragon King—Di Tian—with eight hundred thousand years of cultivation!

He burst from the lake with Bi Ji, the Myriad Demon King, Xiong Jun, and the other supreme Ferocious Beasts, all of them shaken out of their composure!

"Soul Spirit... Equal Contract... fusion without hatred..."

Di Tian stared at the docile phantom of the Mandala Snake on the shoulder of the six-year-old Tang San within the Firmament.

He heard that sacred vow: "All things have spirits; all beneath heaven cultivate together."

And the Beast God who looked down upon the mortal world shed two trails of bloody tears!

"So... humans and Soul Beasts never needed to slaughter one another for ten thousand years!!!"

Di Tian let out a heart-rending howl. Within it lay the resentment of countless Soul Beasts massacred in the Star Dou Great Forest over the past ten thousand years!

"Ten thousand years ago! That Sea God Tang San had already mastered the Soul Spirit Method that could let humans and Soul Beasts coexist peacefully when he was six!"

"He knew Soul Beasts could aid Soul Masters without dying!"

"But what did he do?! He hid it all!"

Di Tian threw back his head, his dragon's muzzle pointing straight at the Divine Realm beyond the heavens, and unleashed a despairing roar that seemed ready to shatter the sky:

"Tang San!!! You utterly hypocritical demon!!!"

"You deliberately hid this peaceful method! You stood by and watched humans slaughter the Soul Beast Clan for ten thousand years! You let human Soul Masters kill one another over Soul Rings!"

"You did it so that this hatred could never be resolved, forcing humanity to rely on the might of your Shrek Academy and cementing the Tang Sect's supreme rule in the mortal world!!!"

"You're no god! You're a hypocrite who's spent ten thousand years feasting alone on the blood of Soul Beasts and ordinary humans!!!"

BOOM—!

In his fury, the Beast God's roar became a terrifying shock wave that swept across the entire Star Dou Great Forest!

That night, hundreds of millions of Soul Beasts rose in revolt. They gazed up at the Firmament and bowed in worship to the truly compassionate "Lin Fan version of Tang San," then hurled the most venomous Myriad Demon Curse toward the Divine Realm!

Meanwhile, in the human world.

Shrek Academy, the first-year dormitory.

Deep within Huo Yuhao's Sea of Consciousness.

The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, a million-year-old being who had only recently fused with Huo Yuhao.

He lay in Huo Yuhao's Sea of Consciousness, watching the scene in the Firmament and sobbing so hard that his plump body shook.

"Yuhao... Yuhao, did you see that? Waaa..." The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm wept and pounded the ground. "So there really are great, selfless saints among humans! If I'd met the Tang San in the Firmament ten thousand years ago, I wouldn't have had to hide in the Far North, scared for my life. I could've openly become his Soul Spirit long ago!"

"That Tang San in the Divine Realm... he knew how to do this! What right did he have to keep it from all humanity?! What did he think we Soul Beasts were? What did he think commoners like you, who need Soul Rings, were?!"

Listening to the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's cries, eleven-year-old Huo Yuhao bit his lip until it broke and blood flowed into his mouth.

The taste of blood woke him from ten thousand years of indoctrinated belief!

"He sees us as an endless crop to harvest and sacrifice beneath his God King Throne."

Huo Yuhao's voice was cold. In his Spirit Eyes, not a trace of reverence for the Sea God remained.

"Shrek Academy teaches us that Soul Beasts are enemies, resources for cultivation."

"But the Tang San in the Firmament told us Soul Beasts are partners."

Huo Yuhao looked out the window at Shrek Academy, the emblem of elite education.

In his eyes, that hallowed institution of ten thousand years had become a slaughterhouse built from lies and monopoly!

Nothing laid the harm bare like comparison.

True selflessness was like a demon-revealing mirror. It stripped away the selfishness and schemes God King Tang San had hidden for ten thousand years, leaving him without even his underwear!

The Divine Realm, the Sea God Temple.

"BLEGH—!!!"

Sea God Tang San himself had only just spat up divine blood and finally managed to suppress his injuries.

Then he saw Lin Fan create the Soul Spirit Contract in the Firmament and heard Di Tian's heart-rending accusation from the lower realm!

His eyes bulged, and another great mouthful of golden divine blood sprayed out!

"Bastard... Bastard!!! How dare he?! How does he know something even I never thought of?!" Tang San's hair hung loose and wild. Not a shred of his God King dignity remained.

Like a gambler who had lost every chip, he screamed in the empty temple.

If humans and Soul Beasts came to believe that Tang San had deliberately concealed the Peace Contract and caused ten thousand years of slaughter, his reputation as the "all-merciful Sea God" would collapse completely!

Just as Tang San frantically tried to suppress the backlash.

BANG—!

Someone kicked open the doors of the Sea God Temple!

Clad in purple-black Divine Armor, the God of Destruction strode into the temple, his face livid and his eyes full of contempt.

Behind him came the Goddess of Life, the God of Evil, the God of Kindness, and the other supreme gods at the heart of the God Realm Committee!

The God of Destruction pointed straight at Tang San's nose:

"Tang San! You self-righteous hypocrite!"

"Every day in the Divine Realm, you proclaim your devotion to all living beings. Yet to preserve your legacy in the mortal world and Shrek Academy's rule by force, you deliberately hid a contract method that could have brought peace between the two races?! You let rivers of blood flow for ten thousand years?!"

"If the Firmament hadn't exposed your true face in a parallel spacetime today, how long would you have kept us gods fooled with that sickening saintly mask?!"

"With conduct so vile and selfish, treating all living beings as your playthings, what right do you have to remain on the God King Throne?! What right do you have to enforce the Divine Realm's laws?!"