Long Live the Firmament Saint Master

In a ramshackle village on the edge of the Heaven Dou Empire, an old farmer in his sixties had been stuck at level nine Soul Power for forty years. The moment golden light entered his body, he jolted.

The meridians that had been blocked for decades opened at once, and a faint ripple of Soul Power spread from him.

"Ten... Level ten! I broke through to level ten?! I can hunt Soul Beasts and become a real Soul Master!"

The old farmer dropped his hoe and knelt in the field, kowtowing frantically to the Firmament overhead. Tears streamed down his aged face. "The Saint Master has shown his power! Long live the Firmament Saint Master!!"

Inside a smithy in the Star Luo Empire, bare-chested blacksmiths felt strength surge through their bodies and dropped their hammers together.

"Did you feel that? The Heavenly Dao's reward is real!"

"Lord Xiaogang in the Firmament was right. Why should we commoners be trampled under the nobles' feet generation after generation?!"

"Once the Firmament Saint Master releases the Soul Tool blueprints, we'll make them ourselves! We'll topple every last one of those bloodsuckers!"

In just a few minutes, more than ninety percent of Douluo Continent's lower classes had personally received this miraculous gift and become Lin Fan's most devoted followers.

To them, the young man in the Firmament, whose every word was a lesson in how to slay dragons, was now the sole truth—the only savior who could help them turn their lives around!

Heaven Dou Empire, imperial palace.

Hearing the earthshaking cries of "Long live the Saint Master!" outside the imperial city, Xue Ye collapsed onto his dragon throne, his face drained of color.

Of the 10.8 percent who had supported the real Yu Xiaogang, he, the emperor, had cast tens of thousands of votes himself, hoping to drive down the Yu Xiaogang in the Firmament's support. But before this vast ocean of commoners, his imperial authority's attempt to hold the tide back was a joke!

"Your Majesty! More than seventy percent of the rank-and-file soldiers stationed outside the city have received the Heavenly Dao's blessing! The way they're looking at their officers... Something is very wrong! We're about to lose control of the troops!" The Imperial Guard Commander rushed into the hall with terrifying news.

Xue Ye shuddered, and his immense fear turned to frenzy.

He stared at the Firmament, his mind racing toward a conclusion: the political cunning, terrifying blueprints, and power to sway minds that Yu Xiaogang displayed there could not possibly have been made up out of thin air!

If his counterpart's soul was fundamentally the same, that meant the Yu Xiaogang in reality possessed that same world-shattering knowledge!

All his cowardice, uselessness, and habit of scrounging meals from others had been a damn disguise!

He had been hiding his light and biding his time, secretly plotting an earthshaking conspiracy to overthrow the Two Great Empires!

But just as the thought took shape, another voice flickered through Xue Ye's mind.

What if?

What if that Firmament really has nothing to do with the Yu Xiaogang in reality?

What if he really is just a good-for-nothing?

That thought lasted less than half a second before a greater fear crushed it.

Xue Ye had suddenly realized something—whether Yu Xiaogang was pretending or not, he could not afford to gamble.

If Yu Xiaogang truly had the blueprints and they fell into Spirit Hall's or the Star Luo Empire's hands, the Heaven Dou Empire was finished.

And if he truly did not... Xue Ye still could not let anyone else take even that possibility from his grasp.

Better to kill the wrong man than let a threat slip away.

"Quick!!!"

Xue Ye sprang from his dragon throne like a madman and pointed at the Royal Knight Corps outside the hall. "Pass on my supreme command! Mobilize three thousand Royal Griffin Knights, with a Soul Douluo at their head, and surround Nuoding City Junior Soul Master Academy at once!"

"Capture the real Yu Xiaogang alive and bring him to me! His head must be full of blueprints for those assembly-line Soul Tools! I'll have him tortured myself and drag every last detail of those blueprints—and his plans for rebellion—out of him!"

"If Spirit Hall or the Star Luo Empire gets its hands on him, the Heaven Dou Empire is finished! Go!!!"

Meanwhile, in Notting Academy's cafeteria, the real Yu Xiaogang was only just coming to amid the pungent stench of sour, rotting food.

Still dazed, he brushed a sticky, rotten vegetable leaf from his face. His mind had yet to start working again.

The public humiliation he had suffered earlier had already pushed him to the brink of collapse.

"Wh-what happened to me? Why was everyone looking at me as if they wanted to eat me alive?"

Yu Xiaogang shakily pulled himself up by a table leg, only to find the cafeteria empty.

All the students and teachers had run to the training ground to bathe in the Heavenly Dao's golden light falling from the sky.

Yu Xiaogang was about to sneak back to his hovel and lie low for a while when—

The ground beneath all of Notting Academy shook violently!

Overhead, the Royal Griffin Knights massed like a black cloud, blotting out the sun.

A terrifying burst of Soul Power blasted apart the academy gates. Thousands of fully armed imperial guards surged in like a tide and surrounded the cafeteria!

At their head was an imperial Soul Douluo radiating fearsome pressure!

"Are you Yu Xiaogang?!" The Soul Douluo's lightning-sharp gaze locked onto the sour-smelling man as though he were a dangerous terrorist.

Yu Xiaogang's legs buckled. He dropped to his knees and stammered, "Y-yes, it's me... Sir, I haven't broken any laws! I'm just a level-twenty-nine Soul Grandmaster..."

"Level twenty-nine? You're still playing dumb with me?!"

The Soul Douluo sneered, strode forward, and seized Yu Xiaogang by the collar, hoisting him into the air like a chick.

"His Majesty has decreed it! Yu Xiaogang is suspected of rebellion and of concealing blueprints for a mechanized army capable of overthrowing the empire! Arrest him immediately, strip away every disguise, and take him to death row for a severe interrogation!"

"Talk! Where did you hide the blueprints for the High-Pressure Soul Tool Rifle and the production line?! How far along is your Commoner Reinvestment Plan?!" the Soul Douluo roared, spraying spittle across Yu Xiaogang's face.

Yu Xiaogang went blank.

Utterly, completely blank.

What High-Pressure Soul Tool Rifle? What production line? What Declaration of Equality?

Aside from the patchwork Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul, all he had in his head were schemes for tricking a genius with Innate Full Soul Power into becoming his disciple!

"I don't have them! I don't know anything!" Yu Xiaogang looked at the terrifying force around him and felt the Soul Douluo's murderous intent. In the end, he could not withstand the inhuman pressure.

Right in front of the entire army, he wet his pants and broke down sobbing. "Sir! Please, I'm begging you, believe me! The man in the Firmament really isn't me! I'm just a good-for-nothing who plagiarizes to get by! I don't even understand how Soul Tools work! You've got the wrong man, waah..."

Looking at the middle-aged man who had wet himself and was crying with snot and tears streaming down his face, a flicker of wariness crossed the Soul Douluo's eyes.

His scheming runs that deep? Even at death's door, he can make himself look this pathetic, this convincing! He can even act out the humiliation of wetting himself. This man's depths are unfathomable!

The Soul Douluo waved a hand and barked:

"Don't fall for his disguise! A mastermind for the ages like him will never talk easily! Put him in Bone-Piercing Shackles and take him to the Imperial City Black Prison. Give him the harshest torture we have! Let's see if he keeps silent after we break every bone in his body!"

"Yes, sir!!!"

Two knights pounced like wolves and tigers, driving thick Refined Steel Clavicle Chains through Yu Xiaogang's collarbones. Amid his screams, they dragged the man whom the whole continent had imagined to be an all-knowing Saint Master onto the prison carriage bound for hell, like a dead dog.

On the roof of a low building opposite Notting Academy, Ghost Douluo and Chrysanthemum Douluo stood side by side in the shadows. They had watched the Royal Knight Corps storm the academy and drag Yu Xiaogang away from start to finish.

"Old Ghost, did they... beat us to him?" Chrysanthemum Douluo's mouth twitched. His powdered face wore a complicated expression.

Ghost Douluo was silent for a moment before taking a Soul Communication Token from his robes.

It held the latest order Bibi Dong had just sent. Only two words:

[Stand down.]

"His Holiness the Pope has changed her mind."

Ghost Douluo put the token away, his tone icy. "She said it's fine if Xue Ye takes him. If he dies at the empire's hands instead of ours, the result will be the same—only slower, and more painful."

Chrysanthemum Douluo shivered and said no more.

After one last look at the Wind Prison Carriage heading toward the imperial city, the two turned and vanished into the night.

At that moment, the order of the real world collapsed into chaos—all because of a few blueprints Lin Fan had casually drawn in the Firmament!