Shrek's Ten-Thousand-Year Plan?! Would Tai Tan Make Good on His Promise to Sink Shrek?

Elsewhere, outside Shrek City.

"Stop fighting! Both of you, stop!"

Song Yunzhi watched Tai Tan lift Xuan Zi like a punching bag and slam him down again. Her expression darkened.

As one of the few sensible people in Shrek, second only to Mu En, she wanted to intervene. But the shockwaves of Soul Power spilling from the clash between two Super Douluo kept her from taking a single step forward.

"Mu En! Please, say something!"

Song Yunzhi spun toward Mu En in his wheelchair, urgency filling her voice.

Mu En gripped the armrests tightly, his face calm to the point of numbness.

At last, he let out a long sigh and looked up at the figure looming like a mountain over an abyss.

"Lord Niu Tian, won't you consider the future?"

Mu En paused, his tone growing more earnest.

"If the Clear Sky Sect and Shrek fight to the death today, once word spreads, Lord Sea God's reputation will be the first thing to suffer!"

"Besides—"

Mu En changed tack. He glanced at Yan Shaozhe, battered beyond recognition in the distance, then at Xuan Zi taking a beating, and said slowly,

"A Super Douluo attacking a child at the Soul Elder level was indeed our fault. But the child's life isn't in danger, is it? Our head of the Martial Soul Department has been beaten to this state. Is that still not enough to quell your anger?"

At that, the corner of Niu Tian's mouth twitched. He could not hold back a scoff.

"Mu En, you should count yourself lucky."

"Lucky that Tang Qi's life isn't in danger. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been the Clear Sky Sect that came today."

Mu En's pupils contracted sharply.

What... did that mean?

Niu Tian was even stronger than he was. If even Niu Tian had no standing to question them, then could it be...

Stormy waves surged through Mu En's heart. He was about to ask for details when Xuan Zi roared from the distance, his voice still full of vigor: "Didn't you eat?!"

Veins bulged on Tai Tan's forehead. He punched Xuan Zi into the ground again, leaving only a hideous human-shaped crater behind, then bellowed like thunder:

"One man's blood isn't enough to repay this debt!"

Every last one of them is a menace!

Mu En felt his temples throb.

The more he thought about it, the more exhausted he became. Xuan Zi was thick-skinned and tough; a few punches would do him no harm. They would not kill him.

When Mu En turned his attention back, the more he mulled it over, the more uneasy he felt.

From Niu Tian's few words, he had caught a deeply troubling implication.

Could the Sea God truly have grown dissatisfied with Shrek as it was today?

But Shrek hadn't done anything, had it?

For a moment, suspicion and alarm churned inside Mu En, though he dared not show a trace of either.

Questions surged through Mu En's mind, but none showed on his face.

He had no idea that ten thousand years ago, the Soul Master World had agreed that Sea God Tang San had made Shrek what it was. But over the intervening millennia, generations of Shrek members had quietly reshaped that belief.

Now, the Soul Master World was more inclined to believe Tang San had become a god because Shrek had trained him.

Things had not reached the point of "knowing only Shrek and not the Sea God," but the roles of benefactor and beneficiary had quietly reversed.

And that was the feat Shrek was proudest of after ten thousand years.

Ten thousand years ago, despite its fame for the "Seven Gods Ascension," Shrek had still been an academy under the Heaven Dou Empire's jurisdiction. It had not truly stood beyond worldly powers.

Four thousand years ago, the Sun Moon Empire had launched a massive invasion, leaving the Douluo Three Kingdoms in mortal peril.

Shrek's headmaster at the time had raised his arm and called out. Powerful figures from across the continent had rallied to him, finally driving back the invaders.

Only after that battle had Shrek truly shed the shell of an "academy" and become a colossal power beyond the control of any empire.

They had their own private army, the Shrek City Defense Army.

For ten thousand years, every crisis on the continent had given Shrek's authority another chance to grow.

When the Body Sect hunted a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast and triggered a beast tide, Shrek had invoked the Sea God's name, summoned powerful figures from every quarter, and established the Sea God Pavilion.

When evil deeds lay beyond the empires' reach, when Soul Masters caused chaos and Evil Soul Masters ran rampant, Shrek had divided itself into the Inner Court and Outer Court and founded the Shrek Inspection Corps.

Act first, report later—by the "Sea God's" special dispensation!

As for why the Douluo Continent had yet to be unified?

For one thing, the three kingdoms each held the others in check. None had the strength to swallow the realm whole.

For another, if the Sun Moon Empire succeeded, the foundations of the Sea God faith would be shaken.

After all, if the continent were unified, could Shrek, a "state within a state," still rest easy?

Once Sun Moon had unified the continent, would it tolerate another sleeping soundly beside its bed?

Faith was an intangible thing, after all. It needed something tangible to carry it. At first, that had been the Tang Sect. Now it was Shrek.

Keeping the continent balanced on three legs not only made Shrek safer, but also ensured that the other Douluo kingdoms, needing to resist the Sun Moon Empire, would spare no effort competing to proclaim Shrek's glory.

It was a scheme laid out in broad daylight.

Taken to its end, even the Sea God in the Divine Realm would be constrained by Shrek. The two rose together and fell together.

Destroying Shrek would be easy, but if doing so shook the foundations of the faith, the cost would be too great. And this was not something that could be solved by killing one person or wiping out one lineage.

These arrangements had fallen into place so gradually over ten thousand years that they seemed natural. No one born into Shrek would see a problem with them; they had been beneficiaries from birth.

Of course, all of that depended on the one above being the good-tempered "Tang San."

If he were replaced by "Sugar San," forever lurking at the heart of the Divine Realm to spy on the world below and forever declaring someone "courted death" or was "fated for the Tang Sect," Shrek would behave itself.

"Lord Niu Tian."

Mu En slowly raised his head, his voice hoarse. "Shrek has never betrayed the Sea God. From the very beginning, the Sea God and Shrek have shared hardships and achievements."

"As for your question of 'the Sea God's Shrek' or 'Shrek's Sea God,' to this old man, they are two sides of the same coin."

Niu Tian neither moved nor spoke.

He remained suspended in midair like a silent mountain. Yet the pressure his gaze exerted on Mu En, Song Yunzhi, and Zhuang Yusen behind him grew steadily stronger.

Mu En could faintly sense that something was wrong, but he could not say what.

He gritted his teeth and continued, "Lord Niu Tian, Shrek can place itself under the Clear Sky Sect, or under the Tang Sect. Shrek's loyalty to the Sea God is—"

Before he could finish, an earth-shaking crash erupted from within Shrek City.

Boom—!

For an instant, heaven and earth seemed to fall silent.

Everyone, even Tai Tan and Xuan Zi in the middle of their fight, instinctively stopped and looked up toward the sky above Shrek City.

To the north of the city, two figures clashed fiercely high in the air.

One was a woman in a moon-white robe. A long spear streaming with golden light danced in her hands like a dragon and snake.

Her opponent was a broad-shouldered, powerfully built middle-aged man in fitted black clothes. Every blow from the black hammer in his hands shook heaven and earth.

The woman was Yan Shaozhe's wife, wielder of the Break Evil Dragon Soul Spear, Cai Mei'er.

And the man fighting her was none other than Tang Tian, the Clear Sky Sect's First Elder.

Mu En felt the world spin around him.

What a disaster!

Could none of them give him a moment's peace? He hadn't even finished cleaning up Yan Shaozhe's mess, and now another one had appeared?!

Tai Tan's eyes turned icy, his face ashen.

Tang Tian's task tonight had been to guard Tang Qi in Tai Tan's place. Now that he had been "forced" into the sky, something had most likely happened to Tang Qi.

Rage flared in Tai Tan's heart. He turned, ready to make good on his promise and sink Shrek.