In the outside world.
Qian Daoliu had also returned to Spirit Hall.
He stood before the enormous Angel God Statue with his hands behind his back, countless thoughts running through his mind.
Lu Xuan now bore two great divine trials and had officially set foot on the path to godhood.
Was it time for Xiao Xue to begin as well?
"Grandpa, where's Lu Xuan? I want to spar with him!" Qian Renxue's voice rang out, breaking the silence in the hall.
Last time, she had given up on sparring because Lu Xuan had given her a Soul Tool.
After that, Lu Xuan had gone into seclusion. Even if she wanted to spar, she couldn't find him.
Now that she had finally learned Lu Xuan had emerged from seclusion, she wanted to spar with him.
She wanted to test her strength as a Soul King!
As Qian Daoliu looked at Qian Renxue, a complicated look flashed through his eyes.
"Xiao Xue, Xiao Xuan has already begun his divine trials. Right now, he's in his own trial grounds."
"Divine trials...!" Qian Renxue's eyes widened, then her expression visibly fell.
She bit her red lip, disappointment and unwillingness flashing in her eyes.
Had Lu Xuan already gone that far?
But she soon rallied. "Grandpa, I want to begin my divine trials too! I can't let him leave me behind!"
"Have you thought this through? On the path of divine trials, nine out of ten die. Even I can't guarantee you'll survive!" Qian Daoliu asked solemnly.
"Yes!" Qian Renxue nodded with a serious expression.
Qian Daoliu did not refuse. He had Qian Renxue stand before the Angel God Statue.
Brilliant golden Soul Power erupted from his hands.
The instant it touched the Angel God Statue.
The Angel God Statue, which had lain dormant for countless years, seemed to be given life.
The wings behind it trembled slightly, and dazzling, pure white holy light gushed forth.
Immediately afterward.
A fissure seemed to open in the heavens.
A pillar of incomparably pure golden light descended from the sky, enveloping Qian Renxue.
Within the pillar, the phantoms of nine golden angel feathers appeared one after another.
They circled Qian Renxue, slowly revolving.
The sacred pressure made every Soul Master in Spirit City feel an irresistible urge to prostrate themselves in worship.
"The Angel Nine Trials!"
Qian Daoliu looked up at Qian Renxue, bathed in sacred radiance, his gaze dazed.
Everyone said Qian Renxue had the makings of a god.
But until the final moment, no one could jump to conclusions.
Only with this golden light representing the nine trials of a god was it confirmed: Qian Renxue, his granddaughter, would surely become a god!
Half a month later...
The Hell Slaughter Arena.
"No-!"
"Help! He's not human at all! He's a monster!"
Piercing screams echoed across the platform.
Yet in the blink of an eye, they were drowned out by the deafening cheers from below.
Inside the dim slaughter arena.
One dazzling beam of Soul Power after another interwove into a net of death.
They mercilessly reaped living lives.
Severed limbs flew everywhere.
As the light gradually faded.
Only a black-clad boy remained standing on the platform, surrounded by wreckage.
This boy was extremely unusual, with dozens of oddly shaped mechanical cannon barrels floating in formation around him, gleaming with a cold metallic sheen.
He stood expressionlessly in the center of a pool of blood, his gaze as indifferent as if he were looking at a swarm of worthless ants.
"Hahaha, well killed! That's the way!"
"Mechanical Pioneer, you have to keep winning!"
The spectators below descended into a morbid frenzy.
They roared wildly, offering their most fanatical cheers to the boy who brought them the ultimate visual spectacle and a viewing experience that left nothing to be desired.
Lu Xuan turned a deaf ear to the deafening cheers.
He silently put away the terrifying cannon barrels around him.
Then he stepped through the blood covering the ground and quietly walked off the platform.
So far, Lu Xuan had won twenty-seven matches, and the lives staining his hands numbered over four hundred.
And that number had not come solely from opponents grouped with him on the platform.
There had also been coordinated attacks from all sides.
Over the past half month, Lu Xuan had encountered more than ten coordinated attacks outside the arena, both large and small.
Slaughter City never lacked greedy people.
Those people had set their sights on Lu Xuan's seemingly endless array of astonishingly powerful Soul Tools.
To give themselves another means of surviving in Slaughter City.
They banded together to intercept him in dark alleys or along the routes he had to take back to his lodgings.
But without exception, they had all died.
And because of Lu Xuan's outstanding record in the Hell Slaughter Arena.
As well as the terrifying strength that had let him emerge unscathed from more than ten coordinated attacks.
Combined with Lu Xuan's mechanical fighting style, so unlike that of traditional Soul Masters.
Those people had given Lu Xuan a resounding title-the Mechanical Pioneer!
Lu Xuan: No, no, no.
Just as he stepped out of the Hell Slaughter Arena.
Lu Xuan's steps paused slightly.
"Sigh, here we go again!"
Lu Xuan sighed helplessly.
Lu Xuan sensed that this time, roughly seven people were following him again.
He wondered, since these people were so eager to rush to their deaths.
Whether he would even be able to complete his hundred victories in the Hell Slaughter Arena in the end.
He feared there wouldn't be enough people left to kill later!
With twenty-seven victories now, Lu Xuan already had to wait a while.
It wasn't that Lu Xuan couldn't achieve a higher win count.
There simply weren't enough people.
If they couldn't gather enough people for a match, what could he do?
"Humm-!"
A sword's ringing cry sounded.
Lu Xuan knew what was happening without even looking.
The Asura God Sword had been following him all this time.
Whenever Lu Xuan was surrounded, he didn't even need to act.
The sword would simply kill everyone blocking his way for him.
And after killing them, the sword would become especially excited, the blood-red glow flowing over its blade actually growing a whole shade brighter.
Lu Xuan even wondered whether this sword could feed on human blood.
Sure enough, the Asura God Sword soon flew above Lu Xuan.
Its blade was wet, and even its blood-red color had deepened.
Lu Xuan: Stay away from me.
The Asura God Sword: whimper, whimper...
The sword only acted when he was ambushed outside.
When he competed inside the Hell Slaughter Arena, however, it obediently stayed outside, never interfering with the life-and-death battles on the platform.
This sword was quite good at following the rules.
Time slipped by beneath Slaughter City's dark red sky, where the light of day never shone.
A year quietly passed.
The Soul Masters of the Douluo Continent truly did develop at an astonishing rate.
Though only eight years old, Lu Xuan had already grown to a height of 1.6 meters.
His figure was tall and straight, and some of the childishness had faded from his features.
In its place were a cold sharpness and composure tempered amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
And Lu Xuan's victories in the Hell Slaughter Arena had accumulated to sixty-nine.
The higher his win count, the fewer people dared to sign up.
The difficulty of finding opponents increased exponentially.
He had been stuck at sixty-nine victories for two and a half months.
At this moment, the atmosphere inside the Hell Slaughter Arena was oppressive to the extreme.
Lu Xuan stood quietly in the center of the platform.
Around him stood seven men and two women in a ring.
All nine were ruthless figures who had scraped out a living in Slaughter City for years.
Every one of them radiated an intense baleful aura.
This was the seventieth match Lu Xuan had waited so long for.
In an instant...
Around Lu Xuan.
One cold mechanical cannon barrel after another emerged like a blossoming steel lotus.
They protected him at their center from every direction, without a single blind spot.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Dazzling energy beams poured forth like a violent windstorm and torrential rain.
The entire platform was instantly engulfed in blinding white light and deafening explosions.
Five seconds.
After just five seconds, the deafening cannon fire abruptly ceased.
The smoke cleared. Aside from Lu Xuan, not a single living thing remained standing on the platform.
His seventieth victory, complete!
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