[Nine days earlier, a succession of utterly inhuman atrocities had occurred across the entire Douluo Continent.]
[Nearly every faction with a name to speak of had had its ancestral graves dug up by a mysterious force.]
[Not only had their ancestral graves been dug up and their burial goods taken, even their ancestors' remains had been burned to nothing.]
[What an atrocity! What an outrage against heaven itself!]
[Robbing graves was one thing, but why did they have to desecrate the remains of the dead too?!]
[Even more unconscionably, not only had the ancestors' remains been burned to ashes, not even those ashes had been left behind.]
[The grave robbers had even brazenly kicked over the gravestones and left signs that read:]
["Want to hit me? Come to the Star Dou Great Forest in nine/three/one days. I'll satisfy your desires."]
[They were far too arrogant!]
[Of course, if that had been all, it would not have been enough to make the various factions unite against them.]
[Especially the Clear Sky Sect and Spirit Hall.]
[The main problem was that these people had robbed the graves in one batch after another. A faction that had been laughing at someone else's ancestral graves being dug up one moment would find its own ancestral graves dug up the next day.]
[By comparison, they looked even more like clowns!]
["Treacherous scum! Traitorous scum! Vile scum!"]
["You dared commit such an outrageous offense as robbing the Heaven Dou Imperial Family's mausoleums! You truly have some nerve!"]
["What a disgrace! Since our Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect was founded, this is the first time anyone has robbed our ancestral graves! How are we supposed to answer to the Sect Master when he returns?!"]
["Our Clear Sky Sect's mighty name awes the world! Today, I shall see just which scoundrel was responsible for this!"]
[With a string of curses and seething fury, the various factions entered the Star Dou Great Forest. Before long, they sensed that something was different from usual: there were powerful tremors.]
[Countless Soul Masters were fleeing as well.]
["A beast tide! I think that little grave-robbing thief got scared! That's why he deliberately found a way to trigger a beast tide!"]
["How cunning!"]
[A Clan Elder from the Clear Sky Sect glanced disdainfully at the Soul Masters scattering in flight and charged fearlessly toward the center of the beast tide.]
[Yu Luomian, the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's second-in-command, followed close behind.]
["Vile scum! If I don't tear out your tendons, flay your skin, and slaughter your entire family down to the last descendant, all my cultivation as a Soul Douluo will have been for nothing!"]
[Yu Luomian's heart was full of bitterness!]
[Damn it all! The clan's two great geniuses, one scholarly and one martial, had been growing steadily, soon to lead the clan to new heights.]
[Yet in the time his elder brother had taken to go overseas for a meeting, someone had emptied their ancestral graves. Yu Luomian did not even know how he could face his brother.]
[The other factions followed close behind and soon reached a chaotic battlefield, then stared blankly at the melee below.]
[Soul Beasts were locked in battle with a group of monsters that did not look human at all.]
[Elsewhere, Spirit Hall's Bi Shuo and the Sons of Glory were leading a group of people who all looked half-dead.]
["What's going on here?"]
[...]
["You tell me, what's going on here?!"]
[Yu Tianming pointed at Yu Luomian and the other Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan members in the sky, questioning his wayward younger brother in a low voice.]
["When did you dig up our clan's ancestral graves behind my back?"]
["And... is that Senior Dugu Bo? Didn't you say you'd leave the Dugu Family's ancestral graves alone for Dugu Yan's sake?"]
["Uh... I can explain." Yu Tiansheng's eyes wandered as he summoned his Martial Soul, Golden Tangerine, and hugged his companion to his chest, trying to get through this on cuteness.]
["Woo? Awoo!"]
[Casually tossing Golden Tangerine aside, Yu Tianming lifted his slightly shorter younger brother with one hand, his indifferent eyes brimming with danger.]
["Uh... big brother!"]
["Think of it this way. If we dug up the other families' ancestral graves but left only ours and the Dugu Family's untouched..."]
["Wouldn't that be openly telling everyone that those two families were hiding something?!"]
["I wasn't hurting them! I was saving them!"]
[Hearing this, Yu Tianming's tightly furrowed brow eased a little. "You didn't touch our ancestors' remains, did you?"]
["Uh..." Yu Tiansheng's gray-white hair drooped as he glanced sideways, not daring to meet his jailer of a brother's eyes.]
["Ow!"]
["Brother! I had a reason! With so many powerful people's corpses lying around, what if the Chaos God used them someday?!"]
["Owww! You even enchanted it with black lightning!"]
["I made a contribution! If I hadn't pulled this off, that bastard Ye Wuhen would've already sacrificed most of these Soul Beasts and Bi Shuo's bunch! Both humans and Soul Beasts would've suffered devastating losses!"]
["Now that I've done this, we'll lose a few Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts at most!"]
["Besides, if I hadn't planned this, the next place Ye Wuhen went would've been the Sunset Forest!"]
["Aaaah! Golden Tangerine, save me! Your master's going to be beaten to death!"]
In reality, Yu Yuanzhen and Yu Luomian exchanged a glance, then turned in unison toward Yu Tiansheng and Yu Tianming's room, their expressions dark and shifting.
Even in the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's hardest days, nothing had ever happened to its ancestral graves.
Never in their wildest dreams had they imagined that, in the future, the clan's own genius would dig them up!
This... this... unfilial brat!
"Ah!! Waaaah!"
Just as Yu Yuanzhen was wrestling with whether he should exercise his authority as clan leader and give the child a beating ahead of time to teach him a lesson...
An earthshaking wail came from the brothers' room.
Along with it came repeated cracks of lightning.
Child traffickers?!
Instinctively, both heads of the family realized at once that someone had most likely come to steal the children.
They immediately summoned their Martial Souls, released their Soul Rings, kicked the door open, and charged inside.
Then they saw Yu Tianming, who should have been sitting with his younger brother on their specially prepared windowsill, watching the Celestial Screen.
Instead, he was swinging a black lightning whip, striking Yu Tiansheng's small body over and over in different ways, beating the child until he cried for his father and mother.
"Hey, hey, hey! Tianming, what are you doing?! Even if you're going to beat your little brother, this isn't how you do it!"
Yu Yuanzhen's heart immediately ached. He rushed forward and caught Yu Tianming's slender wrist, stopping this little-brother-thrashing session.
Both children were future pillars of the clan. They could not be beaten so badly that they were damaged!
Wait!
Brother, explain yourself. What do you mean, this isn't how you beat your little brother?!
Holding the pitifully sobbing Yu Tiansheng in his arms, Yu Luomian looked at his elder brother in disbelief.
"Tiansheng was disobedient in the future and did something wrong. As his elder brother, I have to teach him a lesson."
Looking at the clan leader holding his hand, Yu Tianming explained his reason in his usual tone.
What a sensible child!
Yu Yuanzhen and Yu Luomian were immediately pleased, and Yu Yuanzhen promptly offered earnest instruction:
"Tianming! What happens in the future hasn't happened yet. We can't punish someone for something that hasn't happened."
"Besides, Tiansheng is still a child! Something will go wrong if you beat him like this!"
"But Uncle Clan Leader, Tiansheng will do something wrong in the future. Not only will he desecrate our ancestors, he'll also bring trouble upon the clan."
Faced with Yu Tianming's confusion, Yu Yuanzhen smiled and stroked his head, continuing:
"Yu Tiansheng is still a child. Now that we know what happens in the future, we can teach him slowly. Beating him like this will cause problems."
"Then the trouble he'll bring the clan..."
"That's all trivial! Our Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's mighty name awes the world. Never mind that Tiansheng hasn't caused any trouble yet-even if he really did it, how many people would dare come here looking for trouble?"
They probably would not pick on a child, would they?
Yu Yuanzhen's heart pounded uneasily, but he still put on an air of utter confidence before waving a hand.
"Luomian! Take Tiansheng to get treated first. Don't let him end up with any lasting problems!"
"Yes." Without dwelling any further on the question of "how one should beat a little brother," Yu Luomian carried the howling Yu Tiansheng out.
Before leaving, however, little Yu Tiansheng, covering his tearful eyes, looked up at Yu Tianming and gave him a look only the brothers could understand.
Yu Tiansheng: Brother, I know I asked you to hit me, but didn't you hit a little too hard?
Yu Tianming: Because even if you hadn't asked, I was planning to beat you anyway.
Yu Tiansheng: "..."
Before you continue