The following evening, inside the Sun Moon Imperial Palace.
Crown Prince Xu Tianran lay sprawled on his bed in a strange position, groaning, seemingly drawing far more breath in than he let out.
This was usually how someone on their deathbed behaved. Given Xu Tianran's physical condition, he should not have reached this state for another thirty to fifty years. Why did he look like this today?
The reason was simple: anger.
Ever since the grand court assembly that morning, bad news had poured in from the frontiers, one report after another.
On the Star Luo Empire's border, the frontier territory they had finally managed to seize had been snatched back overnight. Not only were the experimental High-Altitude Detection Soul Tools gone, but an entire Soul Engineer Corps had been wiped out, and even the Death God Tower had been lost.
Ye Xishui, that so-called Limit Douluo whom theoretically no human Soul Master on the continent was qualified to challenge, had actually fled back to Mingdu overnight with disheveled hair and bloodshot eyes.
While cautiously asking Ye Xishui what had happened, Xu Tianran had frantically contacted the Communication Stations along the border. Only when the sky turned fish-belly white had he pieced together what had happened the night before, based on reports of the midnight attack and subsequent reports of soldiers being driven back when they tried to scout the Mingdou Mountain Range.
Ye Xishui had been blasted back by a Level 9 Fixed-Installation Shell! Moreover, that Level 9 Fixed-Installation Shell was none other than Metal Storm, the shell produced by the Holy Spirit Cult that Chen Ping of Shrek Academy had taken through trickery and force at the Continental Elite Soul Master Tournament!
When Xu Tianran learned this, his vision went black, and he nearly passed out. He had