Yu Xiaogang's eyes were filled with certainty.
He firmly believed that, given enough time to study these people's methods of attack, his theories would surely uncover a way to counter them.
Meanwhile, on the Douluo Continent.
Inside the main sect hall of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
The atmosphere was so oppressive it seemed water might drip from it.
"Boom!"
At the center of the hall, the incredibly hard white marble floor tiles exploded apart in an instant.
A fierce sword intent suddenly erupted from Sword Douluo Chen Xin's body!
"Clang!"
With a clear ringing of steel, the Seven Kill Sword, two meters long and crystalline throughout, hovered before Chen Xin.
Nine Soul Rings in the optimal configuration pulsed wildly beneath his feet.
At that moment, Sword Douluo's hair and beard bristled, his face contorted with rage.
"They've gone too far! Far too far!"
Chen Xin stared at the screen of light in the sky, his chest heaving violently. In his extreme fury, even his sword hand trembled uncontrollably.
"Rongrong is the pearl in our Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's palm! She is my own heart's flesh!"
"On the Douluo Continent, who would dare raise their voice at her? Who would dare touch a hair on her head?"
"Yet those barbarians from the Great Thousand World actually dared to humiliate her like this!"
"Not only did they make her kneel, they kicked her and even forced her to release her Martial Soul as a toy for some little bastard!"
"Unforgivable! Unforgivable!!"
Chen Xin spoke through gritted teeth, the pressure of a rank ninety-six Super Douluo making the entire hall tremble.
Outside the hall, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect disciples on guard were forced to their knees by that raging sword intent, not daring even to breathe heavily.
"The old sword bastard is right!"
Just then, Bone Douluo Gu Rong slammed his hand onto his armrest, reducing the chair made from thousand-year-old agarwood to dust.
Clumps of eerie, ink-black mist instantly surged around Gu Rong's shriveled body.
The phantom of an enormous bone dragon flickered behind him, emanating a terrifying, nauseating aura of death.
"What damned Great Desolation Divine Realm! What damned Profound Ice Sect!"
"And that Martial Realm and Martial Ancestor they praise to the heavens?"
"They certainly sound intimidating."
"But the Great Thousand World's cultivation arts merely rely on abundant natural Spiritual Energy to put on a bigger show!"
"I reckon that Ice Spirit Clan is just a paper tiger, fierce outside and hollow within. At most, it's comparable to our Douluo Continent's Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan!"
As Gu Rong spoke, he turned toward Chen Xin, his eyes brimming with fighting spirit.
"Old sword bastard, we've known each other for decades and fought side by side countless times."
"That so-called Flame Emperor, Martial Ancestor, or that lord of the Great Desolation Divine Realm called Su Ming-so what if they really are supreme experts?"
"Even if neither of us could defeat them alone."
"I, Gu Rong, am known as the greatest defense under heaven, and your Seven Kill Sword is the greatest offense under heaven!"
"As long as we join forces, even against a rank ninety-nine Peerless Douluo, or even those lofty gods, we might still have the strength to fight!"
Hearing Gu Rong's words, Sword Douluo Chen Xin nodded heavily, pride rising in his eyes once more.
"Exactly!"
"Besides, we have Feng Zhi's Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda supporting us!"
"With an eighty-percent boost to all attributes, my Seven Kill Sword could sever anything in this world!"
"What Martial Realm? What Great Desolation Divine Realm?"
"Before my Seven Kill Sword, they're all clay chickens and earthen dogs, unable to withstand a single blow!"
With that, Chen Xin raised his head and roared at the mysterious Sky Screen above.
"Sky Screen!"
"Since you dared to take Rongrong, have the guts to select me too!"
"If you let me enter the Great Thousand World, I, Chen Xin, swear to slaughter that entire Profound Ice Sect with my Seven Kill Sword, leaving neither chickens nor dogs alive!"
"I'll personally face that so-called Martial Ancestor, Flame Emperor, and Divine Lord, and see whether they have three heads and six arms to dare let their subordinates humiliate our Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's little princess!"
At the head of the hall.
Seated on the sect master's throne, Ning Fengzhi had not lost his composure like the two Titled Douluos.
Yet his refined face was so dark it almost seemed water would drip from it.
"Uncle Jian, Uncle Gu, please calm yourselves."
Ning Fengzhi drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the anger in his heart.
"Although Rongrong is usually somewhat spoiled and overbearing, with a bad temper, we watched her grow up, after all. She is our Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's sole heir."
"Even if she's guilty of a thousand wrongs, those outsiders from the Great Thousand World have no right to discipline her!"
"You're both right. These people of the Great Thousand World are merely bluffing."
"As long as the Sky Screen selects someone from our Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect in its next drawing."
"No matter what, we must use the strength of our entire sect to bring Rongrong back safely!"
Elsewhere, in a sacred place isolated from the world, surrounded by a boundless ocean.
Sea God Island!
At that moment, at the highest point of Sea God Island, atop Sea God Mountain.
Before the majestic, solemn Sea God Hall stood a woman of peerless beauty, dressed in a scarlet robe threaded with gold.
She held a glittering scepter three meters long, its tip set with a diamond-shaped, sea-blue gemstone.
Her beauty was exquisite, her bearing noble and elegant, like a deity untouched by the mortal world.
She was none other than Sea God Island's high priestess, the rank ninety-nine Peerless Douluo Bo Saixi, known as invincible upon the ocean!
Behind her, Sea God Island's seven Sacred Pillar Guardians knelt respectfully.
At that moment, Bo Saixi's eyes, deep as the ocean, quietly watched the screen of light in the sky.
Watching the Ancient Frost Flood Dragon tens of thousands of zhang long, and hearing the terrifying deeds of the Flame Emperor, Martial Ancestor, and Great Desolation Divine Lord revealed in the Great Thousand World's conversations.
Bo Saixi smiled disdainfully as well.
"The Great Thousand World? The Flame Emperor? The Martial Ancestor? And that Great Desolation Divine Lord?"
"Merely a bunch of mortals who found a few shortcuts in cultivation."
Bo Saixi shook her head slightly, her fair hand tightening around the Sea God Scepter.
As the Sea God's representative, she had bathed in a god's radiance for decades, and her worldview was more rigid than anyone's.
In her eyes, the Douluo Continent's Divine Realm was the sole, absolute pinnacle of the entire vast universe!
Without a god's inheritance or the blessing of divine power, no matter how abundant the Spiritual Energy in that so-called upper plane might be, mortals were ultimately just mortals.
"High Priestess..."
Sea Dragon Douluo, kneeling behind her, raised his head, an unconcealable trace of shock in his eyes.
"In the Sky Screen's images, that Great Thousand World seems to possess extraordinary foundations."
"That Ancient Frost Flood Dragon pulling the carriage is tens of thousands of zhang long. I fear even the hundred-thousand-year Demon Soul Great White Shark packs around our Sea God Island couldn't withstand the pressure it gives off."
"And that Martial Ancestor said to have established the Martial Realm, as well as the Great Desolation Divine Lord..."
"If they really are as terrifying as the rumors say, should the Sky Screen's passage open completely, our Sea God Island..."
Before Sea Dragon Douluo could finish.
"Insolence!"
Bo Saixi abruptly turned and slammed the Sea God Scepter in her hand against the ground.
"Thud!"
A terrifying sea-blue ripple of sacred power instantly spread outward from her.
The sacred pressure forced all seven Sacred Pillar Guardians to keep their heads bowed.
"Sea Dragon, I think that mirage-like illusion has frightened the courage right out of you!"
Bo Saixi looked down upon them, her eyes filled with devotion to her god.
"That flood dragon may be enormous, but at most, it's merely a mutated Soul Beast!"
"Don't forget, our great Lord Sea God single-handedly subdued the ocean's true overlord, the million-year Deep Sea Demonic Whale King!"
"A mere ice-attribute flood dragon that's grown a little larger than usual would be less than a loach before Lord Sea God's trident!"
With that, Bo Saixi sneered repeatedly and turned back toward the Sky Screen.
"As for that Flame Emperor and Martial Ancestor? What an utter joke!"
"With mortal bodies, they dare proclaim themselves emperor and ancestor?"
"Judging by his title, that so-called Flame Emperor should be a mortal cultivator who practices fire-attribute powers."
"Water overcomes fire. That is an eternal truth of heaven and earth."
"This is Sea God Island! The absolute domain blessed by our great god!"
"Never mind some Flame Emperor who rose from a lower plane."
"Even if he brought every expert from that so-called Martial Realm and Great Desolation Divine Realm out in full force and dared set half a foot into my boundless ocean."
"Under the suppression of Sea God Island's absolute domain, I would need only borrow a sliver of Lord Sea God's divine might to raise a towering tsunami and instantly extinguish their laughable Spiritual Energy flames!"
In Bo Saixi's rigid understanding.
Divine power was a higher form of energy, an unbridgeable gulf.
However strong the Great Thousand World's Spiritual Energy might be, it was still mortal power and could never break through the barrier of divinity.
"So all of you can put your hearts back in your bellies."
Bo Saixi lifted her exquisite chin slightly, like a proud white swan.
"No matter how grand a spectacle this Great Thousand World puts on, no matter how fiercely they boast."
"Before a true god, they're merely a bunch of slightly larger ants."
"With Lord Sea God's protection, even if that Great Desolation Divine Lord came in person, I am absolutely certain I could leave his halberd broken and buried in the sand of this ocean, kneeling in submission!"
Meanwhile, in the Great Thousand World, before the Ice Spirit Clan's gates.
Hearing Ning Rongrong's arrogant cries, which betrayed her ignorance of heaven's height and earth's depth.
Not only the Great Thousand World experts queuing to present gifts, but even the Profound Ice Sect members who had captured her laughed in sheer exasperation.
"I've seen fools, but never a lower-plane ant as foolish as you."
The gray-robed elder from the Profound Ice Sect shook his head slightly.
"Since a frog at the bottom of a well like you still doesn't know the height of heaven or the depth of earth, even with death at your doorstep."
"I'll show you great mercy today and let you die knowing why!"
The gray-robed elder looked down at Ning Rongrong, who sat collapsed on the deck, his voice exploding through the air like rolling heavenly thunder.
"Didn't you ask who the Flame Emperor and Martial Ancestor are?"
"Then I'll tell you!"
"The Flame Emperor who established the Endless Fire Domain also came from a lower plane like yours, where Spiritual Energy had run dry!"
"Yet through his godlike mastery of fire, he forcibly broke through his plane's shackles and ascended to the Great Thousand World!"
"How deep were the foundations of the ancient Fire Spirit Clan, with its tens of thousands of years of heritage in the Great Thousand World?"
"And what happened? That Flame Emperor stormed into the Fire Spirit Clan alone. Even when their ancestor personally intervened, he still forcibly borrowed their clan's divine flame!"
"The entire Fire Spirit Clan was suppressed so thoroughly they didn't dare let out a fart. They could only watch him leave at his leisure!"
As the elder's words fell, the defiance Ning Rongrong had struggled to maintain in her eyes froze instantly.
On the Douluo Continent, countless listeners felt their scalps prickle.
One man had challenged a mighty race with tens of thousands of years of heritage, and even trampled its ancestor underfoot?
Yet the elder was not finished.
He sneered and continued, "And then there's the Martial Ancestor!"
"The husband of Lady Ice Master Ying Huanhuan, whom you just insulted!"
"To save his wife, he fought his way into this Ice Spirit Clan."
"The Ice Spirit Clan deployed its entire strength back then, even activating its Clan Protection Array, powerful enough to withstand a Heavenly Sovereign!"
"Yet that Martial Ancestor, alone with a single Thunder Emperor Scepter, still battered his way through the entire Great Array and beat the whole Ice Spirit Clan until they couldn't raise their heads!"
"That is the Martial Ancestor you look down upon!"
At those words.
Not only did Ning Rongrong turn deathly pale with fright, her whole body feeling as though she had plunged into an ice cavern.
The entire Douluo Continent was utterly stunned as well.
What did it mean to be a peerlessly ruthless man?
This!
By comparison, their Douluo Continent's so-called Titled Douluo battles and clashes between the Two Great Empires were as laughable as village thugs fighting over turf!
Sword Douluo and Bone Douluo, who had just been spouting such outrageous boasts, now felt their cheeks burn and their throats go dry.
The two of them joining forces to challenge the Martial Ancestor?
With one swing of his staff, probably not even ashes would remain of the entire Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, the two of them included!
"No, impossible..."
Ning Rongrong sat collapsed on the deck, desperately shaking her head as tears streamed down without stopping.
"How could human strength possibly reach such a level..."
Yet within the Sky Screen, the gray-robed elder suddenly drew a deep breath.
Then he continued:
"But if we're talking about the fiercest figure in the Great Thousand World over the past few tens of thousands of years..."
"It has to be the Great Desolation Divine Lord, Lord Su Changqing, who just sent a female disciple to deliver gifts!"
At the name Su Changqing, the faces of the several Great Thousand World powerhouses nearby, who usually stood high above others, all turned pale.
They instinctively straightened their backs, not even daring to breathe loudly, as though merely hearing that name would bring down heavenly punishment.
Seeing everyone react as if they had seen a ghost, Ning Rongrong was utterly dumbfounded as well.
Everyone on the Douluo Continent, including Tang San, Bibi Dong, and Bo Saixi, also unconsciously pricked up their ears, staring fixedly at the Sky Screen.
"Judging by this Divine Lord's life, he could be called the most ruthless man in the entire Great Thousand World!"
The old man's gaze grew distant, as though he were recalling an earth-shaking legend.
"Rumor has it that this Divine Lord likewise came from an extremely impoverished Lower Plane."
"He was born into poverty, with no backing whatsoever, and did not even have any resources for cultivation."
"But he was born with the exceedingly rare Profound Python Fate!"
Before you continue