At the very instant Tang Hao turned to ash.
A burst of wild laughter suddenly rang out from the horizon.
"Hahaha! Lin Langtian, using human lives to probe the formation. Your methods are as ruthless as ever!"
Along with the laughter.
Several more incomparably powerful auras swept across the distant sky.
A young man holding a golden spear came tearing through the air, riding an enormous Demonic Beast.
He wore golden robes, and the Yuan Power fluctuations around him raged like blazing fire.
He was none other than Wang Yan, the genius of the Wang Clan, one of the Great Yan Dynasty's Four Great Clans!
Immediately afterward, the clouds nearby churned again.
Qin Shi of the Qin Clan and the Heavenly Prodigy of the Huangpu Clan also descended above the canyon, each leading a large contingent.
For a moment, the finest of the Four Great Clans' younger generation had actually all gathered here!
They traded jibes, their words full of lofty arrogance.
Not one of them cared about the Rogue Cultivators and Tang Hao, who had just died before the bronze gate.
In the eyes of these favored children of heaven, even ten thousand ants without so much as a trace of Yuan Power could die without making them blink.
Watching these young Heavenly Prodigies from another world, each radiating the aura of the Qi Creation Realm or even the Half-step Creation Realm.
Those on the Douluo Continent had long since gone numb.
Inside Shrek Academy.
"Pfft!"
Tang San spat out a mouthful of blood, his vision went black, and he collapsed to the ground.
"San!"
Dai Mubai and Oscar hurried forward to support him.
But tears were already streaming down Tang San's face, as though his soul had been drained away.
The father he was so proud of, the Clear Sky Douluo who possessed a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring.
In their eyes, he was actually worth less than cannon fodder!
He had not even made it through the gate before the formation killed him instantly!
That immense disparity and sense of helplessness utterly shattered the resolve Tang San had built over two lifetimes.
Yu Xiaogang was trembling all over as well, his mouth open, unable to utter a single word.
Meanwhile, within the Clear Sky Sect, Tang Xiao was utterly grief-stricken.
Wails filled the entire hall.
The continent's once-insufferably arrogant First Sect could now only watch helplessly as its pillar died like a piece of trash in another world, not even daring to entertain the thought of revenge.
[Explorer Number One, Tang Hao: confirmed killed in action.]
As the notification sounded from the sky screen, ripples flowed across the light screen again.
[Switching to the perspective of Number Two Explorer, Dugu Bo.]
The image lit up, revealing Dugu Bo being dragged by a rope through the dense forest by that young man from the Great Demon Gate.
By sheer coincidence, the place they reached was also the outskirts of this canyon!
As it turned out, the Great Demon Gate's people had also come for this Nirvana Realm expert's tomb!
They had merely arrived a little later.
When the Great Demon Gate's people arrived, they happened to see the Four Great Clans ahead of them jointly breaking through the outer bronze gate and charging into the ruins.
"Senior Brother, the Four Great Clans have gone inside!"
The junior sister from the Great Demon Gate spoke somewhat anxiously.
"No hurry."
The young man from the Great Demon Gate sneered.
"A Nirvana Realm expert's tomb is riddled with traps, and its poison formations are beyond counting."
"With them charging ahead, they can take the blades for us."
"Come on. We're going in too."
With that, the young man tugged on Dugu Bo's rope and walked through the open bronze gate.
The moment they entered the gate.
A deep, dark passage paved with bluestone came into view.
A seemingly thin layer of multicolored poison miasma filled both sides of the passage.
At the sight of the poison miasma, the young man from the Great Demon Gate stopped.
"Nirvana poison gas..."
A trace of apprehension flashed through his eyes.
Even a Qi Creation Realm expert would instantly turn into a puddle of bloody liquid upon touching the slightest bit of this poison gas.
Then his gaze fell on Dugu Bo behind him.
"Old man, time for you to put what little use you have left to work."
The young man grabbed Dugu Bo by the collar and shoved him straight to the front of the passage.
"Don't you know how to play with poison?"
"Go scout ahead for us and absorb this poison gas."
Dugu Bo's face turned green at those words.
Outside, he had just witnessed firsthand how terrifying this world's poisons were.
That toad's venom had instantly melted his arm, let alone poison miasma left behind by a Nirvana Realm expert!
"I'm not going! I'll die if I go!"
Ignoring the pain of his severed arm, Dugu Bo struggled desperately to retreat.
"You don't get a choice!"
The young man snorted, not even bothering to waste words.
He raised his foot and kicked Dugu Bo squarely in the back.
The tremendous force sent Dugu Bo flying on the spot, pitching him straight into the multicolored poison miasma.
"Aaaah!!!"
The instant he touched the multicolored poison gas.
Dugu Bo let out a scream.
Before he could even release his Martial Soul, his skin, his flesh, and then his bones.
Actually began rapidly dissolving at a speed visible to the naked eye!
In just a few breaths.
The exalted imperial retainer of the Heaven Dou Empire, the Level 91 Poison Douluo.
Turned into a foul-smelling puddle of bloody liquid, without even a speck of residue remaining!
At this sight.
On the Douluo Continent, in the Heaven Dou Imperial Palace.
Watching Dugu Bo turn into bloody liquid, Xue Ye felt a wrenching pain in his heart and fainted outright from fright.
The ministers throughout the hall were thrown into chaos.
And all the Soul Masters across the Douluo Continent sank into profound despair.
They had gone exploring.
Only to be used as cannon fodder to smash a gate, poisoned to death as pathfinders, or reduced to fire-tending maids and menial servants.
How was this exploration? This was plainly a one-sided slaughter!
That Martial Universe was simply the eighteen levels of hell for Soul Masters!
[Number Two Explorer, Dugu Bo: confirmed killed in action.]
As the text appeared, the golden light on the sky screen gradually drew inward.
[The live broadcasts for the third batch of explorers have all concluded.] [Exploration results: three dead, two captured.] [Assessment of this exploration: extremely poor.]
As the announcement ended, the image on the sky screen vanished completely.
Yet just as everyone on the Douluo Continent thought they could catch their breath.
Lines of large text appeared again.
[In view of the extremely poor performance of the Douluo Continent's explorers.] [A new batch of explorers will be selected in three days.] [Number to be selected: five.]
As the final line of golden text slowly faded from the sky screen, the entire Douluo Continent sank beneath clouds of gloom.
Meanwhile.
Deep within the Sunset Forest in the Heaven Dou Empire, at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
Where the concentrated ice and fire spring water converged.
A slender, frail stalk of Blue Silver Grass grew all alone in the soil.
Its leaves bore faint golden patterns.
But now, those once-noble golden patterns looked dull and lusterless.
Two long, narrow blades drooped limply onto the ground, covered in crystalline dewdrops that fell into the soil one by one, like someone weeping uncontrollably.
She was the Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast who had turned back into a seed after sacrificing herself all those years ago, the Blue Silver Emperor, Ah Yin!
Although she was now only a stalk of grass, unable even to take human form or speak.
As a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast possessed of intelligence, she too could see the light screen in the sky.
Having witnessed Tang Hao suffer the formation's backlash, leaving not even an intact corpse as he turned to ash on the spot.
Ah Yin felt as though her very soul had been torn apart.
"Hao..."
Her delicate blades tangled together in agony, stretching desperately toward the sky.
As though trying to catch Tang Hao's ashes as they scattered on the wind.
The despair of watching her beloved die a horrific death while being powerless to help made even the plants throughout the Sunset Forest wither a little.
Three days flashed by amid the entire continent's panic and torment.
When golden light shone in the sky once again.
Every Soul Master and commoner held their breath, praying desperately that they would not be selected.
"Bzzz!"
Ripples spread across the light screen.
Then five clearly legible names slowly appeared.
[The new batch of explorers is listed below:] [One: Heaven Dou Empire, ordinary cloth merchant, Wang Fugui.] [Two: Star Luo Empire, Level 29 Soul Grandmaster, Zhao Si.] [Three: Sunset Forest, Thousand-Year Soul Beast, Netherworld Cave Spider.] [Four: Spirit Hall, Level 42 Battle Soul Ancestor, Li Ming.] [Five: Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast cultivating anew, Blue Silver Emperor, Ah Yin.]
When the first four names appeared.
Rather than panicking, everyone on the Douluo Continent let out a long sigh of relief.
After all, at a glance, those four names belonged to small fry and ordinary people.
As long as the higher-ups of the major sects were not selected, most people considered it a tremendous stroke of luck.
But when everyone clearly saw the fifth name and the long string of titles before it.
An enormous uproar instantly swept across the entire Douluo Continent!
A Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast cultivating anew?! The Blue Silver Emperor?!
On Shrek Academy's training grounds.
Tang San, who had only just been devastated by Tang Hao's death, was already incredibly weak.
Now, seeing that name on the sky screen.
His eyes flew wide, and with a sudden retch, he spat out another great mouthful of blood.
"Mom!!!"
Tang San had gone mad.
He truly was going mad!
Only a few days earlier, his father, Tang Hao, had died in that other world without even leaving a corpse.
And now, that bizarre sky screen had actually selected his mother, who had yet to take human form!
"No! That's impossible!"
"She's just a blade of grass that can't even protect herself right now!"
"If you send her to that man-eating world, she'll never survive!"
Tang San's eyes were bloodshot as he roared hysterically at the sky like a beast gone mad.
He scrambled on hands and knees, trying to grab that screen of light, only to fall helplessly to the ground.
Yu Xiaogang, standing nearby, was also stunned.
He swallowed, his heart turning ice-cold as well.
The fate of a plant-type Soul Beast sent to a world full of Demonic Beasts and terrifying martial artists was all too easy to imagine.
She would either be chewed up in one bite by a herbivorous Demonic Beast or uprooted by herb-gathering martial artists and boiled into soup.
Meanwhile.
Deep within an ancient, secluded forest somewhere on the Douluo Continent.
An enormous Blue Silver Grass that had grown for eighty-five thousand years suddenly began shaking violently.
This was none other than the Blue Silver King, the leader of all Blue Silver Grass on the Douluo Continent apart from Ah Yin!
"Empress..."
"Our empress was actually chosen..."
As the Blue Silver King let out a mournful cry.
The billions of ordinary Blue Silver Grass plants throughout the forest, and even across the entire Douluo Continent, seemed to sense their empress's departure at the same moment.
Rustle...
All the Blue Silver Grass limply bent their blades, bowing their heads toward the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.
It was as though they were seeing their empress off.
Across the mountains and plains, waves of heartbreaking rustling rang out.
No matter how desperate the people of the Douluo Continent were.
The countdown in the sky continued ticking away mercilessly.
[Teleportation countdown complete. The new batch of explorers is in position.]
As ripples flowed across the screen.
Beside the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, the delicate Blue Silver Grass emitting a faint golden glow instantly vanished.
Not only she, but Wang Fugui, a merchant from the Heaven Dou Empire, Zhao Si, a Soul Grandmaster from the Star Luo Empire, and the others were also forcibly teleported over at the same time.
[Now activating First-Person Perspective: Ah Yin, a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast cultivating anew.]
The image on the screen gradually cleared.
An immense, boundless primeval mountain range came into view, surrounded by all manner of towering ancient trees that blotted out the sky.
The air was saturated with dense, even somewhat berserk, energy of heaven and earth.
And Ah Yin's slender, fragile Blue Silver Grass body happened to land on the edge of a steep cliff.
She could not even move the slightest bit.
Like the most ordinary weed, she could only take root all alone in a crack between the rocks.
Under the terrifying gravity of this world, which far exceeded that of the Douluo Continent.
Ah Yin's two blades were pressed flat against the stone, making even straightening herself somewhat difficult.
At Shrek Academy.
Watching his mother's pitiful state on the screen, Tang San shed tears of heartache.
"Thank goodness, thank goodness. She landed on the edge of a cliff. There probably won't be any Demonic Beasts passing by."
Tang San kept comforting himself inwardly.
As long as she could hunker down and survive, a blade of grass was actually among the easiest things to hide.
But before Tang San could fully breathe a sigh of relief.
On the screen, a sudden, tremendous crash of snapping trees came from the dense forest below the cliff.
Then, within Ah Yin's terrified perception, an enormous Demonic Beast shaped like a wild boar, but covered in crimson scales, came snorting out of the woods.
Although this Demonic Beast could not be considered to possess any top-tier bloodline, the aura it emanated had still reached the Earth Origin Realm.
Worst of all, it was an omnivorous Demonic Beast!
The Red-Armored Pig twitched its nose, seemingly catching some unusual fragrance.
Its green-glowing eyes fixed straight on the Blue Silver Grass at the cliff's edge, which gave off a faint golden light and carried the aura of a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast!
On the screen.
The Earth Origin Realm Red-Armored Pig let out an excited growl, foul-smelling saliva dripping from its mouth, then charged on all fours straight toward Ah Yin at the cliff's edge.
To it, this little blade of grass giving off a strange golden glow was undoubtedly a potent tonic.
Faced with that gaping, blood-red maw drawing ever closer.
Ah Yin's two fragile blades could only curl together in despair, without even the slightest chance to resist.
"No!!!"
On the training grounds of Shrek Academy on the Douluo Continent.
Tang San's eyes strained as though they would split apart. His knees buckled, and he dropped straight to the ground, his hands clutching tightly at the soil.
He had only just lost his father. Was he now going to have to watch helplessly as his mother was chewed to pieces and swallowed by a disgusting wild boar?
Before you continue