Ten thousand years had passed, and the Mingdou Great Forest, which had once stretched between the Sun Moon Empire and the Star Luo Empire, had long since become a vast, boundless plain. Now, a silver-white high-speed Soul Guidance Train raced across it.
Inside the VIP carriage at the very front of the train, the oppressive atmosphere had all but solidified. Only two white-haired old women sat facing one another in the spacious compartment. Their faces were iron-gray, and the malice lurking between their brows seemed almost tangible. They were Cai Yue'er and Light and Darkness Douluo Long Yeyue, who had fled Mingdu in disgrace not long ago.
"Elder Cai, your hot tea." The chief attendant held the tea tray with trembling hands, scarcely daring to breathe. Following her earlier instructions, he carefully placed a cup of hot tea before Cai Yue'er.
Cai Yue'er picked up the teacup and took a small sip. The next instant, she hurled it viciously at the chief attendant like a rabid dog. "Why are you still standing here? Get out!"
"Yes, yes..." The hot tea scalded the chief attendant, but he dared not utter a word of complaint. He could only grit his teeth and endure it as he bowed and started to withdraw.
"I said, roll out!" An icy voice sounded behind him.
The chief attendant froze, his face turning deathly pale. Not daring to disobey, he scrambled onto his hands and feet and rolled miserably out of the carriage. A flicker of sick pleasure flashed through Cai Yue'er's eyes.
Even if I can't deal with that bitch Shen Xi, can't I put an ordinary person in his place? A maddened viciousness nearly spilled from Cai Yue'er's bloodshot eyes. The humiliating image of herself kneeling in public, surrounded by countless onlookers watching her like a performing monkey, clung to her like maggots burrowing into bone, gnawing at her nerves every moment. For someone who had once run rampant and done whatever she pleased, that humiliation was harder to endure than being flayed and having her tendons torn out.
Long Yeyue glanced up at the chief attendant's wretched retreat without the slightest change in expression, as though an irritating ant had merely been crushed. He was only an insignificant ordinary person. Being allowed to help Yue'er vent a little of her frustration was already an immense "honor" for him.
"Rest assured," Long Yeyue said slowly, her certainty allowing no doubt. "Shrek Academy will never let this matter end here."
"Good!" A blazing light instantly kindled in Cai Yue'er's eyes. She had absolute confidence in Shrek Academy, and boundless worship and trust for Yun Ming, the untouchable love of her life.
"I'll make that bitch Shen Xi kneel and kowtow to me in public! I'll tear her clothes to shreds and make that little bastard watch me humiliate his mother in front of everyone! I'll make both mother and son..."
Screeech-
The piercing shriek of emergency brakes suddenly rang out, sharp enough to hurt their eardrums. For some unknown reason, the speeding Soul Guidance Train abruptly began braking at an alarming rate.
"What's going on?!" Long Yeyue's brows knitted tightly, and a trace of vigilance flashed through her clouded eyes.
"Someone get in here and explain this!" Cai Yue'er's already volatile temper erupted completely as she screamed toward the carriage door. "Bring me the driver! What the hell is this? Is this how you drive?!"
"Heh~"
An eerie chuckle answered her, its bewitching, sinister sound echoing through the carriage.
"Shrek Academy certainly throws its weight around."
"Who's there?!" Long Yeyue's gaze abruptly sharpened as she roared. The formidable Soul Power of a Limit Douluo erupted from her aged body, and overwhelming draconic might soared into the sky. For an instant, a black dragon and a white dragon seemed to intertwine as they rose, their cries shaking the heavens. Four-Word Battle Armor woven from light and darkness appeared over her body like dragon-scale armor, and her powerful aura approached that of a Quasi-God.
Beside her, Cai Yue'er also entered combat readiness in an instant. A bright silver moon rose into the air, though its flickering light betrayed signs of an unstable aura. With the amplification of her Three-Word Battle Armor, her aura approached the Limit rank, but she had not truly crossed that threshold.
Two figures burst through the carriage and rose high into the sky.
"Who?" A cold, desolate voice rang out. "We are merely wronged souls who have come to claim your lives."
Under the startled gaze of Long Yeyue's clouded eyes, two immense auras shot skyward, neither weaker than hers and perhaps even faintly stronger. Like two pillars holding up the heavens, one black and one white, they stood between heaven and earth. Around the white pillar of light, bloodstained golden chrysanthemum petals danced through the sky, bewitching and sinister. The black pillar radiated pure terror. Countless resentful souls that did not belong among the living howled madly within it, as though seeking to drag every living creature into a boundless hell.
Yue Guan: "Holy Spirit Cult, Demon Empress."
Gui Mei: "Holy Spirit Cult, Nether Emperor."
Long Yeyue's aged face grew solemn, as though she faced a formidable enemy. "Two Quasi-Gods!"
The Holy Spirit Cult's One Emperor, Two Emperors, Four Heavenly Kings-this was information they had previously obtained from captured Evil Soul Masters. They had dealt with the Ghost Emperor and the Four Heavenly Kings and knew something about them, but the identities of the remaining two emperors were still unknown.
Within the sky-piercing pillars of light, two figures appeared, entirely shrouded in black and white auras.
Gui Mei looked at the two women, undisguised hatred filling his icy voice. "Since our old acquaintances are all gone, we'll collect a little interest from the likes of you."
"Gui Mei Phantoms!"
With that low cry, countless Vengeful Spirits suddenly roared. Purple-black mist erupted from Gui Mei's body like a tidal wave, instantly spreading across the entire sky. Countless purple-black skulls, each dozens of meters tall, emerged from the mist. Howling like genuine Vengeful Spirits, they charged at Long Yeyue and Cai Yue'er.
Every skull radiated a terrifying aura that shook Cai Yue'er to her core. Those formidable soul fluctuations already approached the limits of the Spirit Domain Realm. Wherever they passed, space was effortlessly torn apart, leaving pitch-black fissures behind.
A sinister smile curled Yue Guan's lips. He slowly raised his hand, and a strange chrysanthemum appeared in his palm. It was a mutated singular velvet sky chrysanthemum, its golden petals covered in blood-red patterns like spiderwebs. Its ghostly white stamens resembled sleeping souls, giving off a faint air of deathly stillness. It seemed like a hybrid of a singular velvet sky chrysanthemum and an otherworld flower, beautiful yet deadly.
"Sigh at the World's Splendor."
Yue Guan gently raised his hand and pushed the bewitching flower forward. In an instant, heaven and earth changed color. A blood-red chrysanthemum more than a thousand meters across abruptly bloomed beneath Long Yeyue and Cai Yue'er, like a flower of death blossoming in hell.
Countless intangible wisps of gray aura silently attached themselves to the two women like festering sores clinging to bone, ravenously devouring their vitality and Soul Power. A violent tug came from the depths of their souls, as though seeking to strip them from their bodies and plunge them into the boundless netherworld.
"Radiant Sacred Dragon True Body!"
Long Yeyue roared, and nine Soul Rings-seven black and two red-
appeared beneath her. Dazzling power of light erupted in every direction, accompanied by incomparably powerful draconic might. A platinum dragon a thousand meters tall stood between heaven and earth, its brilliant light shining like a great sun as it battled the despairing, deathly stillness around it that seemed poised to devour everything.
Long Yeyue roared as dazzling light gathered wildly upon her sharp dragon claws. "A pack of sewer rats dares ambush me?!"
Radiant Sacred Dragon Slash!
The brilliant light resembled the dawn illuminating the dark night.
Yet how could a faint ray of light contend with boundless darkness?
"Heh~"
The enormous purple-black skulls roared as they devoured that ray of dawn. The terrifying collision seemed to divide heaven and earth into two halves, day and night. Violent energy fluctuations triggered blaring alarms in cities hundreds of kilometers around and satellites high above.
"Yue'er! We'll fight them to the death!" Long Yeyue growled.
Soul Power erupted from Cai Yue'er's entire body, and that curved silver moon burst with dazzling splendor amid the deathly stillness. A dragon and a moon seemed ready to give everything they had, facing death without flinching.
Boom-
A deafening explosion rang out. The terrifying energy shock wave swept through everything within more than ten kilometers like an invisible beast. The Soul Guidance barrier mounted on the train's exterior groaned under the unbearable burden. It held for only a moment before shattering with a thunderous crash, fragments flying everywhere.
Where Long Yeyue and Cai Yue'er failed to notice, seemingly illusory bloodstained golden chrysanthemum petals protected the passengers one after another. They left them with minor injuries while allowing just enough destruction to reduce the entire Soul Guidance Train to an unrecognizable wreck.
"Hm?"
Looks of surprise appeared on Yue Guan's and Gui Mei's faces at the same time.
When the terrifying aftershocks dispersed, Cai Yue'er's aura had withered, and her Three-Word Battle Armor lay shattered. Like a dead dog, she was clutched in the palm of an enormous black ghostly hand. A badly injured platinum dragon had already fled more than ten kilometers away.
They had thought Long Yeyue intended to fight to the death.
Instead, she had sold out her teammate and run for her life?!