Martial Souls Aren't Everything! Sun Moon Is Already This Powerful! Just Who Holds First Place?? (1 / 2)

Boom—!

With that grand proclamation, the image at the center of the sky screen abruptly changed!

It was a staggering sight that instantly made every Soul Master on the Douluo Continent's scalp crawl and shattered their understanding of the world!

Above the vast sea of clouds, dozens of enormous Soul Guidance Airships, each hundreds of meters long, swept across the heavens, blotting out the sky!

Brilliant halos flowed across their surfaces, which bristled with densely packed metal gun ports and radiated a cold, deadly metallic menace!

The view zoomed down to the ground—

There stood rank upon rank of perfectly ordered mechanized armies!

The soldiers wore snugly fitted Soul Tool Armor, and what they held were neither sabers nor spears, swords nor halberds!

Instead, they carried Fixed-Installation Soul Cannons and Soul Guidance Ray Guns that radiated energy fluctuations capable of destroying heaven and earth!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

In the image, a Level 9 Soul Engineer casually set up a gigantic black Soul Cannon. With the discharge of a blinding Fixed Soul Cannon Shell—

An immense mountain range towering into the clouds ten thousand meters away instantly turned to ash amid a raging mushroom cloud and flames!

Even the space at the foot of the mountains was torn open, revealing glaring black fissures!

Meanwhile, the powerful experts enshrined in the Sun Moon Empire's Offering Hall had never deliberately acquired a method for cultivating soul cores.

That was because Huo Yuhao had first created the soul core cultivation method during the Peerless Tang Sect era.

Yet they had all naturally condensed their own soul cores while breaking through to higher realms, greatly increasing their efficiency in using soul power!

"Wh... what kind of weapon is that?! What kind of core is that?"

Inside the Worship Hall in Spirit City.

Qian Daoliu's proudly raised head instantly froze!

Watching that terrifying display—a mountain destroyed with a single casual cannon shot—he felt as though lightning had struck him!

"One shot... equals an all-out attack from a rank ninety-five Titled Douluo?!"

Golden Crocodile Douluo cried out involuntarily, cold sweat sliding down his temples:

"They don't even need to go to the trouble of cultivating some top-tier martial soul...

"They only have to put on that strange armor and raise their hands... and they can unleash such terrifying power?!"

Seen in that light, Spirit Hall's vaunted "million-strong army of Soul Masters," when faced with those organized fleets of Soul Guidance Airships and Fixed-Installation Soul Cannon armies—

Was simply a mob of primitive savages dressed in rags and wielding wooden sticks!

"Th... this is 'soul guidance technology'?!"

Ning Fengzhi, who had hurried back to the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's quarters to consult its ancient records, dropped his cane to the ground with a clatter.

His lips trembled as he watched the dazzling array of Soul Guidance Weapons on the sky screen, his eyes filled with boundless terror and despair:

"The storage rings we unearthed on the Douluo Continent... are nothing but the most insignificant toys in their eyes?!"

"How are we supposed to fight them?! If we ever clash... what could we possibly use to block a single volley?!"

Yu Xiaogang's face was even paler than paper. He collapsed to the ground like a puddle of sludge, muttering to himself:

"Impossible... martial souls are the essence of Soul Masters! How could they depend on external objects to this extent... fake! This must be fake!"

Yu Xiaogang slumped in the mud, utterly bereft, as though all his vitality and spirit had been drained away.

"Fake... it's all fake..."

His eyes were hollow as he clawed neurotically at his hair, babbling incoherently:

"I spent my whole life studying the Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul... I told the entire world, 'There are no useless martial souls, only useless Soul Masters'..."

"But the Sun Moon Continent doesn't care about martial souls at all! They can smash us to pieces with steel and cannon fire!"

Watching Yu Xiaogang, who seemed possessed by madness, Ning Fengzhi's eyes held nothing but endless bitterness and helplessness.

He turned toward the one-armed Sword Douluo Chen Xin and asked with a bitter smile, "Uncle Jian... if it were you facing that enormous cannon just now... could you withstand it?"

Chen Xin tightened his grip on the God-Killing Sword and fell silent for a long time.

Only after a long while did this rank ninety-seven Super Douluo, renowned for having the greatest offensive power, force out two words with immense difficulty:

"...I couldn't."

Even if he could cut through one shell, what if there were ten? A hundred? What if an entire organized soul guidance army fired a volley?

How could flesh and blood withstand that cold, terrifying torrent of steel?!

Silence.

Boundless silence engulfed the entire Douluo Planet.

If the earlier assessment of "third place" had merely trampled ruthlessly upon the pride of the Douluo Continent's major factions—

Then the Sun Moon Continent's sky-blotting Soul Guidance Airships and heaven-and-earth-destroying Fixed-Installation Soul Cannons now before them—

Had crushed to pieces the belief in "martial soul supremacy" that they had upheld as an iron law for ten thousand years!

"Martial souls... aren't everything?"

On Sea God Island's beach, Tang San stared blankly at the sky, the fingers hanging at his sides trembling slightly from how hard he clenched them.

What had he always taken pride in? His twin martial souls! The Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record! And the Tang Sect's exquisitely ingenious hidden weapons!

Yet the scene of that Level 9 Soul Engineer casually blasting a mountain apart and tearing through space had ripped through his understanding like a massive hammer.

The Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus and Storm Pear Blossom Needles he had painstakingly studied... were nothing more than children's mud toys beside those Fixed-Installation Soul Cannons that could destroy heaven and earth at a whim!

"If ordinary Soul Masters can easily wipe out Titled Douluo without relying on top-tier martial souls, as long as they have sufficiently advanced Soul Tools and soul cores..."

Tang San gritted his teeth, deep confusion and fear flashing in the depths of his Purple Demon Eye:

"Is the cultivation system we're so proud of... truly worth nothing?!"

On the raised platform in the Supreme Pontiff's Hall, Bibi Dong's nails dug deep into her palms. Blood trickled between her fingers, yet she did not notice at all.

On her incomparably beautiful face, beyond anger, there was now an unprecedented terror that defied description!

Just moments ago, she had been imagining using Spirit Hall's million-strong army of Soul Masters to crush the Two Great Empires and establish the Spirit Hall Empire...

But now the sky screen had told her in no uncertain terms: a single Soul Guidance Airship and a single Fixed-Installation Soul Cannon army from the Sun Moon Continent—

Could bomb her million-strong army into drifting ash from ten thousand meters in the sky!

"Damn it..."

Bibi Dong clenched her teeth until they creaked, her beautiful eyes bloodshot:

"How could such twisted, terrifying technology exist?! Is there... truly anyone in this world who can defeat them?!"

Shock!

Shock beyond all measure!

The revelation of the second-place Sun Moon Continent was like an extraordinarily resounding slap, smashing viciously into the face of every conceited Soul Master on the Douluo Continent!

They finally understood why the sky screen had branded the Douluo Continent with the assessment, "Backward and rigid, having never nurtured soul cores"!

Not only could the Sun Moon Continent's top experts naturally condense soul cores, but even its combat equipment was an entire era ahead of theirs!

How was this merely a gap? It was the difference between clouds and mud!

And it was not just the Douluo Continent.

At that moment, even inside the Divine Realm's God of Law Enforcement Temple, the atmosphere was suffocatingly oppressive.

The Asura God withdrew his damaged divine power, his face livid, while the God of Destruction and the Sea God remained silent.

The strength displayed by the Sun Moon Continent had already begun to brush against the ceiling of a mortal plane.

Combined with the empire's fortune and vast resources, it could even provide mortals with a stairway toward glimpsing "god-level" power!

"Even a civilization as supremely powerful as the Sun Moon Continent... can only settle for second place?"

The God of Destruction's voice was low and hoarse, carrying an unprecedented gravity:

"Then the one ranked above it... the 'first place' standing at the very pinnacle of the entire Douluo Plane..."

"Just who could it be?!"

Inside the imperial capital's great hall in the Longcang Empire.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk."

Golden Crocodile King wiped the sweat from his face. Watching the footage of the Sun Moon Continent on the sky screen, he shook his head, somewhat speechless:

"Those brats on the Sun Moon Continent—when they bordered us tens of thousands of years ago, we beat them so badly they didn't even have their underpants left.

"We even absorbed their 'Purple Brilliant Heaven Destroying Dragon' and 'Sun Martial Soul.'"

"Who would've thought this damned sky screen would still rank them second?"

Someone beside him covered their mouth and chuckled. "They only look good because of the competition. The Douluo Continent is so rotten that it makes the Sun Moon Continent look like an actual civilization."

Deep Sea Demonic Whale King folded his arms and sneered, his lone eye sweeping over the sky screen. "But... if the Sun Moon Continent ranks second..."

He did not finish, but the breathing of every civil official and military officer in the hall suddenly grew heavier!

Everyone's gaze turned in unison toward the dragon throne high above!

Second place was the Sun Moon Continent!

Third place was the Douluo Continent!

Fourth and fifth were Desolate Wilderness Islands!

Then... the one ranked above countless living beings, standing at the very summit of the entire Douluo Plane—[First Place]!

Had to be the Longcang Continent, led by their supreme sovereign!

On the dragon throne, Ye Canghai took a sip of Divine Spring Tea, wanting to cry but having no tears.

He truly did not want to expose himself. Even if the sky screen had classified him as a continent, those people in the Divine Realm were not blind!

How could they not know whether this continent was real or fake?

Ye Canghai watched the purple-gold sky screen begin to churn violently, radiating pressure that transcended the plane, and felt ten thousand horses stampeding through his heart:

Here it comes... it's finally here...

You damned sky screen, I'm begging you, give me a little dignity. Don't just reveal outright that my entire Longcang Continent is actually a God King crocodile that has lived for a full million years...

Rumble—!

Ye Canghai was given no chance to keep complaining!

High above the nine heavens, the purple-gold sky screen burst open with a supreme ray of divine light spanning past, present, and future!

At that moment, the skies of the entire Douluo Planet became a golden ocean!

[Comprehensive Strength Rankings of the Douluo Plane's Continents—First Place!]

[To be revealed shortly!]