"Old ape?!"
Niu Gao, Yang Wudi, and Bai He felt as though lightning had struck them. Every hair on their bodies stood on end, and their pupils contracted violently.
In that fleeting instant, they had not even detected a single substantial fluctuation of soul power.
A peak Soul Douluo who had activated his Martial Soul Avatar, renowned for his physical defenses and sheer strength, had his entire right arm severed at the shoulder out of nowhere, as easily as slicing tofu!
Such a feat had long since surpassed their understanding of ordinary battles between Soul Masters.
An Jing had not even changed his stance. Looking down on the deathly pale Tai Tan, who clutched his shoulder and howled in agony, he coldly uttered:
"Little ability, but quite a temper."
"Since you're so eager to stand up for that master of yours who hides in his shell, you can go on ahead and clear his path to the underworld."
As his words faded, An Jing's gaze turned abruptly icy.
Hum-!
The space within the hall seemed to cave inward for an instant. Invisible gravity and spatial turbulence instantly formed four indestructible, transparent barriers.
The raging wind abruptly ceased. Tai Tan's massive body jerked to a halt, then rose uncontrollably into the air, imprisoned within a tiny patch of space half a foot above the ground.
"You little bastard! Release me! What are you trying to do?!"
Tai Tan was consumed by shock and fury. The excruciating pain of his severed arm, mingled with the terror of his life hanging by a thread, drove him utterly mad.
Soul power surged violently through his remaining left arm as he hammered the transparent barrier before him, unleashing a succession of dull, thunderous sonic booms!
Yet no matter how he roared and clawed at it, the invisible barrier did not produce so much as a ripple. Instead, the crushing pressure rebounding from it shook him until blood spilled from his mouth and nose.
"You'll understand soon enough."
An Jing withdrew his gaze, sparing no further glance for this so-called clan chief who resembled a stray dog. Instead, he turned his cold eyes toward the still-stunned Niu Gao and Yang Wudi.
With a flick of his fingers, two neatly folded sheets of plain white letter paper darted through the air like swallows, landing lightly in their palms.
"Elders, I know how to handle the matter of the Clear Sky Sect.
"Sorry for the trouble, but gather your clansmen, seal away your supplies, and then meet me at the location specified in the letters."
The letters lay in Niu Gao's and Yang Wudi's palms, heavy as mountains. Their lips trembled as they tried to offer another word of persuasion. "Sect Master, this..."
But An Jing no longer had the patience for needless words.
A silvery-white halo rippled faintly around him. Stepping on empty air, he abruptly ascended several dozen feet, as though shrinking the earth beneath his feet to a single inch.
Immediately afterward, rippling distortions spread through the surrounding space. Together with Tai Tan, who remained tightly imprisoned by that space, An Jing vanished into the hall's deathly silence like drops of water merging into the sea.
They disappeared without a sound, leaving not even the faintest rush of displaced air.
"This time, the old ape... is probably facing a catastrophe."
Only after a long while did Niu Gao let out a deep, weary breath. Looking at the bloody severed arm on the floor, his expression grew impossibly conflicted. His eyes held both the reluctance to abandon a longtime companion and an indescribable chill.
"What's done is done. More words won't help."
Yang Wudi clenched the letter tightly in his palm and patted Niu Gao's shoulder expressionlessly, his voice low and cold:
"Our entire clan's blood debt came first, and then he took the enemy for his father.
"He brought today's disaster upon himself by willingly becoming a slave."
Before Heaven Dou's God of Slaughter, who butchered even Titled Douluo like pigs and dogs, no one could save Tai Tan's life.
The two exchanged a glance, then turned and left in unspoken agreement, each returning to his own sect to take stock of the clan's assets and assemble its members.
The great edifice was about to collapse. They had little time left to choose.
In the blink of an eye, only Bai He remained.
He stood there, utterly distraught, staring hollowly at the blood on the floor that had yet to congeal. His face was pale as paper, and his frail body trembled in the cold draft sweeping through the hall. For a long time, he could not recover his senses...
For several days, An Jing traveled through seas of clouds, flying at an unhurried pace.
At first, Tai Tan, trapped within his invisible cage, kept up a fierce facade, hurling curses despite his inner fear.
He blustered about everything from the Clear Sky Sect's illustrious reputation to Tang Hao's undefeated battle record.
Yet no matter how hoarse and parched his throat grew from shouting, An Jing remained indifferent, as though traveling through the world with an inanimate object in tow.
Only several days later, when familiar, towering city walls and bustling streets gradually emerged beneath the clouds, and the dark blue-black buildings south of Heaven Dou City, bristling with chimneys, appeared in Tai Tan's eyes,
did his face, previously filled with ferocity, finally twitch violently.
That was the foundation he had spent years building-the Strength Clan's headquarters!
"The Clear Sky Sect sealed its mountain and withdrew from the world. That cowering turtle's shell is so thick that finding it quickly is indeed difficult."
An Jing looked down upon the orderly estate below, his icy voice echoing in Tai Tan's ears. "But I know your Strength Clan's nest like the back of my hand."
Boom!
Those words struck Tai Tan squarely at the crown of his head, blasting every bone in his body with a penetrating chill.
"You... you lunatic!!"
Tai Tan's eyes bulged as though they would split. The vicious gleam in them was utterly replaced by boundless horror, and his voice changed pitch, becoming almost painfully shrill:
"Exterminating a clan defies all morality! This is the demonic path!
"Acting so insanely, aren't you afraid the two great empires, Spirit Hall, and even every Soul Master on the continent will rise against you and grind your bones to dust?!"
"Every Soul Master on the continent?"
An Jing gave him a casual glance, his eyes devoid of anger, and replied mildly, "Irrelevant."
Ignoring the hysterical Tai Tan, he lifted his foot and stepped lightly on empty air.
"Whatever grievances you have, go weep to your master about them."
As his words fell, An Jing pressed one hand down through the air!
Rumble-!
The clear sky abruptly changed color!
With the Strength Clan's compound at its center, the sky within a radius of ten thousand feet darkened without warning. Surging ripples of gravity, like a tangible, pitch-black storm, compressed furiously in midair, producing dull sonic booms that threatened to tear the soul apart!
"My master... my master will never spare you! He'll avenge me! He'll avenge the Strength Clan! As long as my master lives, the soul of the Strength Clan will never perish...!!"
Tai Tan trembled violently. The already-dried wound at his severed shoulder split open again in his terror, and scorching flecks of blood sprayed out with his roars.
Yet the tremor at the end of his words exposed the complete collapse of his inner defenses.
Below, countless members of the Strength Clan were alarmed by the suffocatingly oppressive storm overhead. They set down their hammers and forging tools and poured into the courtyards, looking up in astonishment.
But in the next instant, the astonishment in every pair of eyes became terror and despair they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
Hum-
Beneath the heavens, black light blazed!
Pitch-black! Pitch-black! Pitch-black...!
Seven ink-black Ten Thousand Year Soul Rings, radiating bone-piercing cold and towering, blood-soaked malice, emerged one after another beneath An Jing's feet like sinister black suns, plunging all of southern Heaven Dou City into lightless darkness!
"After today, the Strength Clan will no longer exist in this world."
Before you continue