He tossed a piece of meat pulsing with Yuan Power from his hand, and it landed right beside the Fire Python Tiger.
Distracted, the Fire Python Tiger clamped its jaws around the meat and finally stopped its killing pounce, though its eyes still glared viciously at Yu Xiaogang.
"Hah, hah..."
Having escaped death, Yu Xiaogang slumped on the ground, gasping for breath as though he had just taken a trip through the gates of hell.
The martial hall disciples approached and pointed their blades at Yu Xiaogang's nose.
"Where did this beggar come from? You dare sneak into our Mad Blade Martial Hall to steal?"
"Break his legs and throw him out!"
Seeing that the disciples were about to strike,
a sudden flash of inspiration struck Yu Xiaogang.
He remembered what Lin Xiao, the head of the Lin Family, had said in the mine that day.
That boy named Lin Dong seemed to be the most celebrated genius in all of Qingyang Town lately!
If he could borrow that genius's banner at this life-or-death moment, he might just save his skin!
At that thought,
Yu Xiaogang found strength from somewhere.
He lunged forward, wrapped his arms around the lead disciple's thick leg, and shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Spare me, good heroes!"
"I'm not a beggar! And I didn't come here to steal!"
"I'm Lin Dong's friend! I'm friends with that genius from Qingyang Town's Lin Family, Lin Dong!"
Yu Xiaogang's cry was particularly pitiful, his voice echoing throughout the courtyard.
At the mention of "Lin Dong,"
the Mad Blade Martial Hall disciples who had been about to strike instantly froze.
The lead disciple frowned, a clear trace of apprehension flashing through his eyes.
Lin Dong!
These days, that name rang like thunder in everyone's ears throughout Qingyang Town.
Not long ago, that Lin Family brat had beaten all the experts from the Lei Family and their Mad Blade Martial Hall in front of the entire town.
Even their hall master, Wu Yun, was wary of the boy.
"You say you're Lin Dong's friend?"
The lead disciple eyed Yu Xiaogang on the ground, half believing him.
"Looking as shabby as you do, without even a trace of Yuan Power, why would a genius like Lin Dong know you?"
Hearing his tone soften,
Yu Xiaogang was delighted, knowing he had gambled correctly.
He hurriedly wiped the cold sweat from his face and forced himself to look composed.
"It's absolutely true!"
"Although I have no cultivation, I'm well versed in all kinds of tactical guidance and theoretical knowledge."
"Young Master Lin Dong has been preparing for his clan competition lately, and he specifically invited me to serve as his strategist behind the scenes!"
"I came to the Mad Blade Martial Hall this time because... because I wanted to discuss a partnership with your hall master. I just accidentally went through the wrong entrance and ran into this tiger!"
Yu Xiaogang's words flowed more smoothly by the moment as he pushed the bluffing skills he had used on the Douluo Continent to their limit.
The disciples exchanged glances, unable to make up their minds.
After all, Lin Dong's reputation was so resounding now that if this old man was telling the truth, they really would not dare casually kill him.
Just then,
a deep voice suddenly came from the end of the courtyard corridor.
"You say you're the strategist Lin Dong invited?"
As the voice rang out,
a burly middle-aged man with a scar across his face slowly emerged from the shadows.
The fluctuations of Yuan Power emanating from him were exceptionally powerful, countless times stronger than that mine overseer's.
He was none other than Wu Yun, master of the Mad Blade Martial Hall and one of Qingyang Town's top experts!
Seeing their hall master appear,
the disciples hurriedly withdrew respectfully to the side.
Wu Yun walked up to Yu Xiaogang and looked down at him from above.
"Old man, do you know something?"
"Our Mad Blade Martial Hall and the Lin Family have never been on particularly good terms."
"Since you're one of Lin Dong's men, how dare you swagger into my territory?"
"Do you think my blade isn't fast enough?"
Facing Wu Yun's murderous gaze, Yu Xiaogang felt all the blood in his body turn cold.
His mind raced, and cold sweat streamed down his forehead.
Damn it!
Yu Xiaogang cried inwardly.
I was careless! I only thought about using that genius Lin Dong's reputation to save my life, but I don't know anything about the grudges between Qingyang Town's factions!
The Mad Blade Martial Hall is actually the Lin Family's sworn enemy!
In Yu Xiaogang's reasoning, a small town's major factions usually suppressed one another.
The instant Wu Yun said this, he believed it.
To save his old hide, Yu Xiaogang changed his story on the spot without even half a second's hesitation.
"A misunderstanding! Hall Master Wu, this is an enormous misunderstanding!"
Kneeling on the ground, Yu Xiaogang hurriedly waved his hands, replacing his expression with one of righteous indignation.
"Hall Master Wu, to tell you the truth, I've disliked that Lin Dong for a long time!"
"That brat is arrogant and conceited, with no regard for anyone!"
"When I said I was his friend, I was just making things up to save myself from this tiger's jaws!"
Yu Xiaogang grew increasingly animated, as though he truly held some deep, bitter grudge against the Lin Family.
"Hall Master Wu, I may have no Yuan Power, but my head is full of tactics and theories."
"The truth is, I climbed over the wall this time because I wanted to join your Mad Blade Martial Hall!"
"As long as you're willing to take me in and give me something to eat, I can absolutely come up with a dozen ways to kill Lin Dong and help you swallow up the entire Lin Family!"
Once Yu Xiaogang said this,
the entire rear courtyard of the Mad Blade Martial Hall instantly fell silent.
The disciples exchanged glances, their expressions strange beyond measure.
Meanwhile, Hall Master Wu Yun, standing at the front, stared fixedly at Yu Xiaogang on the ground without speaking for a long while.
Just as Yu Xiaogang thought his declaration of "abandoning darkness for the light" had moved him,
"Pfft."
Wu Yun suddenly failed to hold back and let out a cold laugh.
Immediately afterward, the disciples around them burst into laughter as well, their laughter filled with the mockery reserved for an idiot.
"You really are a rare specimen, you old fool."
Wu Yun shook his head, looking at Yu Xiaogang as though he were a clown capering on a stage.
"I only tossed out a bluff, and you laid yourself bare right down to your underpants."
Hearing this,
the smile on Yu Xiaogang's face instantly froze, and his heart lurched.
"Hall Master Wu... you... what do you mean?"
Wu Yun snorted, stepped forward, and unceremoniously kicked Yu Xiaogang in the shoulder, sending him sprawling.
"What do I mean?"
"Our Mad Blade Martial Hall just joined forces with the Lin Family a while ago to wipe out the Lei Family and Xie Family completely."
"Right now, no two families in Qingyang Town are closer than ours!"
"And Young Master Lin Dong is a young hero I admire. Yet some vagrant from who knows where comes onto my territory and says he'll help me destroy the Lin Family?"
Wu Yun's words struck Yu Xiaogang's head like a heavy hammer.
Yu Xiaogang was completely dumbfounded.
He had never imagined that the intelligence and adaptability he considered peerless under heaven
would fail to get him past even a single remark from this native of another world, leaving him played like a performing monkey!
"No... Hall Master Wu, listen to my explanation..."
Yu Xiaogang still wanted to argue.
But Wu Yun had completely lost patience and waved his hand irritably.
"Enough. Stop listening to this old lunatic's nonsense."
"Since he enjoys climbing walls so much, throw him into the Beast Pen in the back."
"From now on, he'll clean up all this Fire Python Tiger's dung by himself."
"If he dares slack off, chop him up and feed him to the tiger!"
"Yes, Hall Master!"
Two disciples immediately stepped forward, seized Yu Xiaogang by the arms, and dragged him straight toward the Beast Pen that reeked of blood and filth, as though dragging a dead dog.
"Let go of me! I'm the Grandmaster! You can't treat me like this!"
Yu Xiaogang's screams echoed through the courtyard, but no one paid him any attention.
The light screen froze.
[Number Three Explorer, Yu Xiaogang.] [Encountered Wu Yun, master of the Mad Blade Martial Hall.] [Status: tried to be clever and was mercilessly toyed with.] [Current identity: reduced to the Mad Blade Martial Hall's Dung-Cleaning Errand Worker, responsible for cleaning up Fire Python Tiger dung.] [Live feed paused.]
On the Douluo Continent.
The grounds of Shrek Academy were now so quiet that even a needle dropping could have been heard.
Every student lowered their head, not daring to look at the light screen.
Humiliating.
It was simply too humiliating.
Getting beaten at the Great Yan Dynasty's mine earlier was one thing.
Now he had gone to someone else's martial hall and tried to be clever by sowing discord, only to have his true colors bluffed right out of him.
The esteemed theoretical grandmaster had performed like a clown before the entire continent, demonstrating what it meant to cling to life in fear of death and trim one's sails to the wind.
And now, wonderful-he had been reduced to a dung cleaner.
Trembling with rage, Flender kicked over the table beside him.
"That idiot!"
"It's one thing to act profound at the academy, but in a place where he could lose his head at any moment, he still dared show off his laughable little tricks!"
"He's thrown away every scrap of Shrek Academy's dignity!"
Meanwhile, Tang San stood among the crowd with both fists clenched tight.
He felt his face burning with pain.
Just minutes earlier, he had been confidently praising his teacher's wisdom in the scrolling comments, declaring that his teacher would surely thrive in this world.
Then a martial hall master had turned around and ground his intelligence into the dirt.
This psychological blow was harder to bear than being killed outright.
"Impossible... how could Teacher make such an elementary mistake..."
Yet the sky screen paid no attention to the feelings of those on the Douluo Continent.
As ripples flowed across it,
[Switching to the perspective of Number Four Explorer, Ning Rongrong of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.]
The image lit up again.
A vast primeval forest appeared, permeated with an ancient, timeworn aura.
The surrounding trees towered into the clouds, and the air was filled with violent Heaven and Earth Energy. Even the sky held faint wisps of blood-colored mist that made one's heart tremble.
This was none other than the Ancient Battlefield of the Martial Universe, an incomparably brutal place where countless geniuses gathered!
The moment Ning Rongrong landed, she trembled all over with fright, her long, fair, delicate legs shaking uncontrollably.
She had been pampered in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect since childhood, cherished in Sword Douluo's and Bone Douluo's palms as their Little Demoness. When had she ever come to such a desolate wilderness?
"Is anyone there...?"
"Grandpa Sword, Grandpa Bone, Rongrong is scared..."
Her voice thick with tears, Ning Rongrong cautiously inched forward.
Just as she passed through a patch of bushes,
a teeth-grating rustling suddenly came from the treetops ahead.
Immediately afterward.
A terrifying spider as massive as a small hill, with a hideous human face on its back, slowly lowered itself from a tree.
Its eight spear-sharp legs gleamed with a sinister blue, venomous light in the gloom.
This was precisely the unlucky soul selected in the same batch as Ning Rongrong.
A ten-thousand-year soul beast from the Star Dou Great Forest, the Man Faced Demon Spider!
At the sight of this terrifying monster.
Ning Rongrong collapsed onto the ground in fright, her beautiful face drained of color.
The Man Faced Demon Spider, already seething with pent-up anger back in the Star Dou Great Forest, let out a hiss upon seeing a human girl utterly incapable of fighting back.
It opened its bloody maw and spat out a massive, venomous web, casting it straight down over Ning Rongrong.
"Aah!!!"
Ning Rongrong shut her eyes in despair and covered her head with both hands.
Yet at this critical instant, when her life hung by a thread.
A savage burst of wild laughter suddenly rang out from the distant sky.
"Hahaha! I've only just entered this Ancient Battlefield, and I run into such a disgusting-looking low-tier demonic beast. What rotten luck!"
As the voice fell.
A pillar of ink-black Yuan Power descended from the sky.
Boom!
The black pillar struck the Man Faced Demon Spider with unerring precision.
Before it could even let out a scream.
That ten-thousand-year Man Faced Demon Spider, which could give even a Soul Emperor a headache on the Douluo Continent.
Failed to last even a single second before that terrifying black Yuan Power. Its enormous body instantly shattered into scraps of flesh and blood that scattered through the air!
Even the trees within dozens of meters were reduced to ashes by that single strike.
The sudden turn of events left Ning Rongrong utterly stunned.
She opened her eyes in terror.
Before the scraps of flesh and blood littering the ground, a young man in black brocade robes, his face shadowed with gloom, slowly descended from the sky.
The man stood with his hands behind his back. The fluctuations of Yuan Power emanating from him were like a vast ocean, pressing down on Ning Rongrong until she could barely breathe.
This was none other than Shi Xuan, a top genius from the high-ranking Demon Rock Dynasty!
With the man's appearance, a row of dazzling golden captions immediately appeared beneath the sky screen.
[Martial Universe location: Ancient Battlefield!] [This was an independent space opened up by the Great Thousand World to select disciples for super sects.] [At this moment, peerless geniuses from hundreds upon thousands of dynasties were gathering here, about to begin the brutal Hundred Dynasties War!] [Current individual: Shi Xuan, a genius from the high-ranking Demon Rock Dynasty.] [Cultivation: half-step Nirvana Realm!]
At the sight of these lines of captions.
Everyone on the Douluo Continent felt a chill shoot straight to the crown of their heads.
A gathering place for geniuses from hundreds upon thousands of dynasties?!
At Shrek Academy, Tang San clenched his fists, his forehead covered in cold sweat.
"No wonder the energy here is so violent..."
"That young man named Shi Xuan looks barely over twenty, yet he's already at the half-step Nirvana Realm!"
"He killed a ten-thousand-year soul beast instantly with a casual strike. With destructive power like that, even a Titled Douluo would have to give him a wide berth!"
Meanwhile, within the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
Sword Douluo Chen Xin and Bone Douluo Gu Rong were so tense that even their breathing had stopped.
"Rongrong... whatever you do, don't do anything foolish. Don't anger that monster!" Bone Douluo paced in frantic circles.
Before you continue