"What's wrong?"
Tang San looked at the girl beside him in utter confusion.
Xiao Wu had been the one urging him to come out shopping with her.
Now she was also the one fretting like an ant on a hot pan, desperately urging him to go back.
As that bloody light in the sky approached at an unbelievable speed,
even the air began to carry a faint smell of blood.
"Oh, just forget it! Hurry!"
An unmistakable sob had crept into Xiao Wu's voice.
She clamped onto Tang San's wrist and sprinted toward the academy dormitories with all her strength.
But it was too late.
Boom-!
A blood-colored streak of sword light, like a meteor falling from the highest heavens, carried a terrifying force that tore through space.
It crashed onto the flagstone road directly in front of them!
The violent blast sent shattered stones flying everywhere.
Tang San's pupils contracted sharply, and he pulled Xiao Wu protectively into his arms.
Using Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, he retreated dozens of steps in disarray before barely managing to steady himself.
When the dust cleared, a terrifying sword scar several dozen feet long and too deep to see the bottom had appeared across their intended path!
Within that ravine, dark-red slaughter energy still lingered, so dense it seemed tangible.
It was as though even the air was being corroded by that aura.
Whoever this is, they haven't come in peace!
Alarm bells rang in Tang San's mind, and cold sweat instantly soaked his back.
He kept Xiao Wu firmly behind him.
His hands had already slipped toward the Twenty-Four Bridges Moonlit Night at his waist, his eyes fixed on the dust ahead.
"Where are you looking?"
An emotionless, icy voice, as though rising from the deepest hell, sounded without warning beside Tang San's ear, directly behind him!
Tang San was utterly horrified, his eyes flying wide.
He did not even have time to turn around.
Relying entirely on the combat instincts of two lifetimes, he reflexively raised his right hand, about to trigger his Sleeve Arrow.
Slash-!
The sound of a blade slicing through flesh was especially piercing in the deathly still night.
"Aah-!"
Accompanied by a shrill scream,
a ribbon of bloody light swept past, and Tang San's newly raised right arm, Sleeve Arrow and all, flew straight into the air.
Warm blood instantly gushed out, splattering the ground!
"Brother San!!!"
Xiao Wu cried out shrilly, tears spilling from her eyes.
Tang San clamped his hand over his bleeding stump.
The excruciating pain twisted his features.
He staggered around and finally saw the demon who had severed his arm in an instant.
It was a tall, slender young man.
His black clothes were spotless, his handsome face so pale it was almost sickly.
He held a dark-red Asura Longsword in a reverse grip with one hand.
Not a drop of blood stained its blade.
There was not a trace of human emotion in his deep eyes.
He was like a demon lord descended into the world, sending chills down the spine.
"Sir, please stop!"
Just then, a middle-aged Four-Ring Soul Ancestor rushed out of the academy and called out to intervene.
His heart jolted when he saw the severed arm on the ground and Tang San covered in blood.
But for the sake of the academy's reputation, he suppressed his fear and anger and spoke deferentially:
"Sir, why are you committing violence outside Nuoding Academy..."
"San! Are you all right?!"
Before the teacher could finish, another middle-aged man hurried out of the teaching building.
He was rather thin, with short hair.
There was something dispirited and stiff about his bearing.
There was no need to say who he was.
When Yu Xiaogang saw Tang San's empty right shoulder, his eyes nearly split with fury, and a nameless rage surged straight to his head.
He whipped around, pointed furiously at Lu Xuan, and cursed, "Who exactly are you?! Why would you be so vicious as to hurt a student of our academy?!"
Lu Xuan did not even lift his eyelids.
Whoosh-!
Another impossibly fast streak of bloody light swept past.
"Aah!"
Yu Xiaogang's scream followed immediately.
The right arm he had pointed at Lu Xuan also flew high into the air before landing heavily in the mud some distance away.
They truly were master and disciple; in the blink of an eye, both had become one-armed heroes.
"Are you going to interfere?"
Lu Xuan ignored the screaming Yu Xiaogang.
Instead, he slowly turned his head, his icy eyes locking onto the Four-Ring Soul Master.
Boom!
An almost tangible pressure, like mountains of corpses and seas of blood, instantly swept toward the middle-aged man.
Then, before everyone's horrified eyes, suffocating Soul Rings slowly rose one after another beneath Lu Xuan's feet.
Two purple, three black, two red, and one orange!
Eight Soul Rings in all!
"M-my lord! I wouldn't dare! I'll leave at once!"
The Four-Ring Soul Ancestor's legs went weak, and he nearly dropped to his knees.
Faced with such terrifying pressure, something that existed only in legends,
he could not summon even the slightest thought of resistance and scrambled back into the academy.
"How... how is this possible?!"
Tang San and Yu Xiaogang, who was clutching his severed arm, stared fixedly at the Soul Ring configuration beneath Lu Xuan's feet and cried out in unison.
Especially Yu Xiaogang-his cherished Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul
were shattered at that moment by this Soul Ring arrangement that defied all common sense!
Lu Xuan ignored their shock.
He slowly raised the Asura God Sword, pointing its tip directly at the trembling Xiao Wu, whom Tang San was shielding firmly behind him.
"This person is a hundred-thousand-year Soul Beast. I'm taking her."
Lu Xuan's voice was not loud, but it carried clearly across the scene. "Anyone who interferes will be killed without mercy."
"A hundred-thousand-year... Soul Beast?!"
Tang San felt as though lightning had struck him, and he turned to look at Xiao Wu in disbelief.
Meanwhile, when Yu Xiaogang heard the words "hundred thousand years," an extremely well-concealed flicker of greed flashed through the depths of his eyes.
Enduring the agony of his severed arm, he took a token from his robes with his remaining left hand.
It was the Spirit Hall Elder Token Tang Hao had left him!
"Do you know who I am?!" Yu Xiaogang held the Elder Token high, roaring with a fierce facade that masked his inner weakness.
"I am an honorary elder of Spirit Hall! This is my Elder Token!"
"If you withdraw now, I will no longer hold you accountable for severing my arm and my disciple's!"
"If you insist on running wild, Spirit Hall is no pushover! They will hunt you to the ends of the earth!"
Yu Xiaogang was making his rosy calculations.
He wanted to use this token to frighten off the man before him.
Then he would hide Xiao Wu somewhere no one knew about.
Once Tang San's Soul Power level was high enough in the future, he would have Tang San absorb this Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring.
Yet he had no idea whom he was facing.
"Heh... Spirit Hall? I'm not afraid of them."
A mocking sneer curled Lu Xuan's lips, his gaze instantly dropping to freezing. "You dare threaten me?"
Before his words had faded,
an endless surge of icy slaughter energy brutally invaded Yu Xiaogang's body.
Like a force crushing rotten wood, it instantly shredded his dantian!
"Pfft-!"
Yu Xiaogang spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed to the ground like a heap of mud.
"No! My Soul Power! My dantian!"
Yu Xiaogang's eyes turned crimson as he felt the utter emptiness of Soul Power within him.
He let out a wail even more desperate and terrified than when he had lost his arm.
That was his level-29 Soul Power, earned through decades of painstaking cultivation!
Meanwhile, Tang San looked at the deathly pale Xiao Wu in his arms and asked in a trembling voice:
"Xiao Wu, are you... really a Soul Beast?"
"Brother San... I'm sorry!" Tears fell like rain as Xiao Wu sobbed her apology.
"It's all right."
Tang San gritted his teeth and held Xiao Wu protectively in his remaining left arm, determination showing in his eyes.
"So what if you're a Soul Beast?"
"You're already my little sister, the closest family I have in this world!"
"If anyone wants to kill you, they'll have to step over my corpse first!"
Those righteous words moved Xiao Wu so deeply that she could only sob.
Yet just as Xiao Wu's emotions surged violently, and a faint red light even began to shine from within her-
Boom!
A terrifying pressure far beyond the previous one slammed into Xiao Wu like a heavy hammer.
Before Xiao Wu could even grunt, her eyes rolled back, and she was knocked unconscious.
The next moment, an invisible suction surged forth.
Xiao Wu's body rose straight into the air and landed securely in Lu Xuan's hand, his grip seizing her by the fate-controlling scruff of her neck.
"I almost forgot. This little rabbit will sacrifice herself if she's driven into a corner."
Lu Xuan looked at the completely unconscious Xiao Wu in his hand and murmured softly in an even tone.
"No!!! Let go of my Xiao Wu!!!"
Seeing Xiao Wu snatched away,
Tang San's eyes instantly turned blood-red, and his reason collapsed completely.
Roaring like a madman, he threw himself at Lu Xuan without regard for anything.
Slash!
Another merciless streak of blood-colored sword light flashed past.
Tang San's lunging body abruptly stiffened.
His only remaining left arm was also severed at the shoulder and flung away!
Blood sprayed like a gushing spring.
Now he could not even be a one-armed hero; he had become a cripple without either arm.
Agony and despair completely broke Tang San's defenses.
His knees buckled, and he dropped onto the cold flagstones with a thud.
"Please... spare Xiao Wu..."
Blood stained the ground red as Tang San struck his head hard against the stone slabs, producing a dull thud.
He abandoned all his dignity and pride, pleading hoarsely:
"You can do whatever you want with me... kill me, cut me to pieces... just spare her! Please..."
Before you continue