"By taking deep breaths?"
"What an absolute farce!"
With that, Yu Xiaogang clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing around the room, like a great scholar delivering a lecture.
The more he analyzed it, the more he felt his logic was airtight and unassailable.
By the end, he was even pointing at the images on the sky screen, holding forth to thin air.
"Look at that person in the image, shattering a star with a single punch? That violates the basic law of conservation of energy!"
"Even a Titled Douluo has a limit to his soul power reserves. How could he possibly cause destruction on that scale?"
"And those people flying through the sky show no soul power fluctuations from using flight-type soul skills. This is clearly nothing more than a visual illusion created using the refraction of light and some special wires to suspend them!"
"Crude! Such utterly crude fakery!"
As he spoke, Yu Xiaogang kept shaking his head.
"And they even make absurd claims about living for a thousand years, living as long as heaven and earth."
"According to my research in 'The Theory of Martial Souls and the Human Life Cycle,' although a soul master's lifespan increases with cultivation, there is a limit to how many times human cells can divide."
"Even the legendary beings who reach level one hundred and become gods couldn't defy the fundamental iron laws of biology and live for thousands of years."
"This so-called Great Thousand World is nothing more than an enormous illusion riddled with holes, created to spread panic across the continent!"
In his eyes, the commoners outside, and even those soul masters who had been scared out of their wits, were all brainless fools.
They had actually been led around by the nose by a mirage.
Sure enough, in this world, only he, Yu Xiaogang, was the one clearheaded sage.
At that thought, Yu Xiaogang's eyes lit up.
This was simply a perfect opportunity for him!
All these years, because his martial soul mutation had failed, he had been doomed to remain a level twenty-nine Soul Grandmaster for life and had been mercilessly thrown out of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.
He had been mocked by the world, scorned by the soul master world, and cursed as a useless freeloader waiting to die.
But what if-what if he could personally expose this staggering fraud that covered the entire continent?
Yu Xiaogang rubbed his hands excitedly, immediately turned back to his desk, sat down, and spread out a fresh sheet of parchment.
"As long as I can use my supreme wisdom to utterly refute, on theoretical grounds, the plausibility of this Great Thousand World's existence."
"Then write and publish a paper titled 'On the Principles Behind the Sky Screen Illusion and the False Premise of Its Power System'..."
"When that happens, everyone on the continent will know that I, Yu Xiaogang, am the true Grandmaster who sees through everything!"
"Those old fossils in the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan will surely be consumed with regret for driving me out back then!"
"And Spirit Hall, and her..."
At the thought of Bibi Dong, a trace of morbid smugness even appeared on Yu Xiaogang's face.
"Dong'er, just watch. Even if I don't have powerful soul power, I have the cleverest mind in this world."
"I'll prove to you that wisdom is what stands above all power!"
The more Yu Xiaogang thought about it, the more excited he became. His pen scratched across the parchment, and he was already completely immersed in the fantasy of his impending worldwide fame.
He had absolutely no idea how much he resembled a pitiful clown capering about at that moment.
With his pathetic insight, like a frog at the bottom of a well, he dreamed of fathoming and denying a vast universe of endlessly higher dimensions.
He even felt that if the sky screen really did make its so-called random selections and dared to select him, Yu Xiaogang...
He would certainly use his vast knowledge, before a live broadcast to the entire continent, to tear the arguments of that mysterious puppeteer behind the scenes to shreds!
Meanwhile.
Spirit City, at the highest point of the Pope's Hall.
This place symbolized the very pinnacle of power across the Douluo Continent.
Yet at this moment, the atmosphere inside the Pope's Hall was suffocatingly oppressive.
Before the papal throne, Bibi Dong's face, beautiful enough to captivate all living beings, was filled with shock and uncertainty.
"Just what kind of power is this..."
Unlike Yu Xiaogang's blind arrogance, which let him leap to conclusions on the strength of a few tattered books.
As one of the foremost experts on the Douluo Continent today, and as the Rakshasa God's successor, Bibi Dong understood the nature of power better than anyone.
And precisely because she understood, she felt all the more terrified!
At the very instant the sky screen had descended just now, the vast, peerless level ninety-nine soul power within her, enough to destroy heaven and earth, had actually stopped circulating beyond her control.
What made her scalp prickle even more was that the Rakshasa divine sense hidden deep within her soul, a power belonging to a deity, was trembling!
That was the power of a god!
How could there possibly be a power in this world that made even gods afraid?
"The Great Thousand World, an upper plane."
Bibi Dong murmured those words to herself.
"Could the Divine Realm not be the pinnacle of this universe?"
"Above the Divine Realm, could such a terrifying upper plane truly exist?"
As the pope of Spirit Hall, Bibi Dong was suspicious by nature.
At first, she too had wondered whether this might be some staggering conspiracy orchestrated by Bo Saixi of Sea God Island, Tang Chen of Slaughter City, or even Qian Daoliu, who was cultivating in seclusion in the Elder Hall.
Its purpose would be to undermine her power and presence.
But she soon rejected that suspicion entirely.
Impossible!
That old bastard Qian Daoliu absolutely did not have the ability.
Even if those three Peerless Douluos joined forces, they could never produce such a terrifying pressure, capable of suppressing even divine sense!
This was undoubtedly a mighty power that transcended the laws of this world!
"No martial souls, cultivating spiritual energy, living for thousands of years or even as long as heaven and earth..."
As the sky screen continued revealing the rules of the Great Thousand World, Bibi Dong's shock gradually turned to greed.
She abruptly clenched her fists, her magnificent papal robes stirring without any wind.
If all this was true, if that world truly possessed such incredible cultivation methods and supreme treasures that extended life.
Then why would she still need to struggle to inherit the Rakshasa godhood?
Why would she still need to fear the Angel Clan and Qian Daoliu?
As long as she could obtain the opportunities of the Great Thousand World, as long as she could acquire even a tiny fraction of the power of that so-called supreme realm.
Never mind unifying the Douluo Continent-even storming the Divine Realm and destroying everything she hated would be as easy as turning her hand!
"Yue Guan, Gui Mei!"
At that thought, Bibi Dong abruptly turned around.
"Your subordinates are here!"
In the shadows of the Main Hall, Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan and Ghost Douluo Gui Mei were kneeling prostrate on the floor, trembling, not even daring to raise their heads.
Clearly, these two Titled Douluos had also been utterly terrified by the dreadful aura emanating from the sky screen.
"Relay my written orders. Effective immediately, every intelligence network of Spirit Hall is to operate at full capacity!"
"Keep the entire continent under relentless watch!"
"The moment anyone is selected by the sky screen..."
"One year from now, whatever the cost, the instant they return to the Douluo Continent, even if you have to rob them, even if you have to kill them, seize every treasure from the upper plane they bring back, intact, for me!"
"Kill anyone who dares stand in the way!"
Before you continue