The stallholder gave a cold snort.
His palm, wreathed in yin fiend qi, was like an iron clamp.
It tore through Flender's soul power defenses without resistance and locked firmly onto his shoulder.
Crack!
A crisp sound of breaking bone rang out.
Flender did not even have time to scream.
He only felt a surge of yuan power rush straight into his body through his shoulder, savagely ravaging his meridians.
There was a muffled thud.
The stallholder slammed Flender to the ground with one hand.
Even the bluestone paving was smashed into a large crater.
The Shrek headmaster, who had just been planning to snatch the goods and run, now lay pinned to the ground like a turtle, unable to move.
Flender lay at the bottom of the crater, the searing pain in his shoulder bringing tears streaming from his eyes.
He was a level seventy-eight Soul Saint, someone who could swagger unchallenged across the entire Heaven Dou Empire, yet now he could not even beat a street vendor?
"Seventh Soul Skill, Martial Soul Avatar!"
Flender roared unwillingly, trying to muster his remaining soul power to fight back.
But the stallholder merely sneered, and the fingers gripping his shoulder suddenly tightened.
An even colder, more tyrannical surge of yin fiend qi rushed into Flender's body, scattering the soul power he had just gathered.
His Martial Soul Avatar fizzled out before even a shadow of it appeared.
"At your age, without even a trace of yuan power, you still dare copy others and rob people in broad daylight?"
The stallholder lifted Flender like a little chick, then turned and shouted toward the other side of the street.
"City Guard! There's an old beggar stealing things here!"
Soon, two guards wearing the uniforms of the Myriad Gold Merchant Association hurried over.
The fluctuations emanating from both of them were actually above the Earth Origin Realm.
The stallholder pushed Flender forward and casually explained what had happened.
After listening, the guards unceremoniously pulled out a specially made rope and looped it straight around Flender's neck.
"You've got some nerve, causing trouble in Myriad Gold City."
One guard tugged on the rope, staring coldly at Flender.
"With those old arms and legs, you probably couldn't work even if we sold you to a mine."
"Send him straight to the Underground Arena. They happen to need a few meat stakes for demonic beasts to use as living targets. Before he dies, he can still earn the association some ticket money."
At the words "living targets for demonic beasts," Flender's face turned green.
"A misunderstanding! Sirs, this really is a misunderstanding!"
Ignoring his broken shoulder, he dropped to his knees with a thump and desperately kowtowed, begging for mercy.
The lofty air he had worn while teaching students at the academy had long since been flung beyond the ninth heaven.
But the two guards could not be bothered to listen to his nonsense. Tightening the rope, they dragged Flender toward the end of the street.
No matter how Flender wailed, none of the passersby spared him another glance.
Back on the Douluo Continent.
The training grounds of Shrek Academy were so quiet that a falling pin could have been heard.
Zhao Wuji covered his face, wishing he could find a crack in the ground to crawl into.
Boss Fu might usually have been greedy and stingy, but he had at least counted as somebody.
Yet the first thing he did in another world was rob a roadside stall, only to fail and get dragged off to become a living target for demonic beasts.
He had utterly disgraced the entire academy.
The image on the sky screen gradually dimmed.
[Number Three Explorer, Flender.] [Encountered a roadside vendor in Myriad Gold City.] [Status: attempted street robbery failed; captured.] [Current identity: sold to the Underground Arena, reduced to a living target for demonic beasts to test their moves.] [Live feed temporarily suspended.]
Immediately afterward, light rippled across the screen.
[Switching to the perspective of Number Four Explorer, the fifty-thousand-year soul beast, Demon Tiger Whale King.]
The image lit up again.
An endless ocean stretched into view.
The seawater was a deep, dark blue, and fierce winds howled across its surface, whipping up waves dozens of meters high.
This was the Chaotic Demon Sea, a vast and perilous region of the Martial Universe!
Golden light flashed in midair, and an enormous whale over twenty meters long, its entire body covered in dark red markings, crashed heavily into the sea.
This was the fifty-thousand-year Demon Tiger Whale King who had been selected.
The moment it entered the water, the Demon Tiger Whale King excitedly swung its enormous tail.
It had been an overlord in the waters of the Douluo Continent. Apart from supreme beings like the Deep Sea Demonic Whale King and the Evil Orca King, whom had it ever feared?
Though it had now been transported to this unfamiliar place, at least it was still in the sea.
Sensing the incredibly rich energy in the surrounding seawater, the Demon Tiger Whale King felt as though it had arrived in paradise.
If it devoured a few prey in these waters, perhaps it could use the energy here to break through the hundred-thousand-year threshold in one leap!
"Roar!"
The Demon Tiger Whale King surfaced and let out a deafening roar, announcing the arrival of this overlord of the sea.
Its powerful sound waves spread across the surface, stirring up wave after wave.
Douluo Continent, Sea God Island.
Bo Saixi frowned slightly as she watched the Demon Tiger Whale King on the screen.
"That beast is rather lucky, being transported into the sea."
On land, sea soul beasts might not have been able to unleash even half their strength, but in water, they were true overlords.
This fifty-thousand-year Demon Tiger Whale King's combat strength was certainly no weaker than an ordinary human Titled Douluo's.
Yet this thought had only just crossed Bo Saixi's mind.
On the screen, an enormous shadow suddenly appeared in the deep blue water beneath the Demon Tiger Whale King.
The shadow was absurdly large, like a small island moving beneath the sea.
Before that shadow, the Demon Tiger Whale King's twenty-odd-meter body did not even amount to a little loach.
The Demon Tiger Whale King also noticed the unusual currents below.
It lowered its head, a trace of wariness flashing through its slit pupils.
Then the sea's surface exploded.
A gaping, blood-red maw shot straight up from the depths.
This was a ferocious beast quite common in the Chaotic Demon Sea, the Sea-Swallowing Ray!
Its strength was enough to rival a human Nirvana Realm expert.
Faced with the enormous mouth suddenly bursting out of the water, the Demon Tiger Whale King did not even have a chance to unleash a soul skill.
The Sea-Swallowing Ray simply surged upward with the current.
There was a gulp.
With its fifty thousand years of cultivation, the Demon Tiger Whale King that had tyrannized the waters of the Douluo Continent did not even have time to scream before the Sea-Swallowing Ray swallowed it whole.
The Sea-Swallowing Ray fell back into the sea, sending spray flying into the sky, then leisurely sank into the depths without so much as a belch.
All of Sea God Island fell utterly silent.
Bo Saixi's eyes widened, and the scepter in her hand fell straight to the ground.
Just like that, it was gone?
That was a fifty-thousand-year Demon Tiger Whale King!
It had not even been granted the chance to struggle, simply swallowed like a dried minnow?
At that moment, every sea soul master on the Douluo Continent felt a shudder rise from the depths of their hearts.
The sea of that world was ten thousand times more terrifying than its land.
[Number Four Explorer, Demon Tiger Whale King.] [Encountered a demonic beast in the Chaotic Demon Sea.] [Status: killed in action on the spot.] [Current identity: reduced to food for a demonic beast of the Chaotic Demon Sea; no remains left.]
As the captions vanished, the sky screen did not pause.
It switched straight to the final explorer's feed.
[Switching to the perspective of Number Five Explorer, Hu Liena of the Spirit Hall Golden Generation.]
The image brightened. This time, the location was a vast city built on a plain.
Two enormous stone tablets stood at the city gates, engraved with the two large characters for Yan City.
Dressed in her highly alluring, tight-fitting leather outfit, Hu Liena appeared in a patch of woodland outside the city.
The moment she landed, she swiftly crouched low and concealed herself in the surrounding grass.
As the Saintess painstakingly nurtured by Spirit Hall, Hu Liena possessed mental fortitude far beyond that of a greenhouse flower like Ning Rongrong.
"The energy here is very violent. I shouldn't act rashly."
Hu Liena cautiously peeked out, observing the enormous city ahead.
Just then, footsteps sounded along the dirt road outside the city.
Three young men in matching gray robes were walking along the road, chatting and laughing.
An unusual rune emblem was embroidered on the chest of each man's robes.
Hu Liena watched the three men, rapidly analyzing the situation.
These three don't look very old. They should be low-ranking disciples of some faction in the city.
As long as I use my Charm skill to control one of them, I can follow the vine to the melon and learn the specifics of this world. I might even find somewhere to settle down through this.
Having made up her mind, Hu Liena took a deep breath.
She slowly emerged from the bushes, deliberately pulling her clothing a little lower to reveal a broad expanse of snow-white skin.
At the very moment the three gray-robed men approached.
A faint pink glow suffused Hu Liena's beautiful eyes, and a fluffy fox tail swayed gently behind her.
"First Soul Skill, Charm."
In an instant, a subtle spiritual fluctuation flowed through her eyes and shot straight toward the gray-robed man walking in front.
A confident smile curved Hu Liena's lips.
Among her peers on the Douluo Continent, this move had never failed against anyone except that freak Tang San.
Inside the Pope's Palace, Bibi Dong nodded slightly at the sight.
Using her own advantages to control low-ranking disciples and gather intelligence was indeed the smartest approach.
Yet on the screen, the gray-robed man struck by the Charm skill showed no sign of infatuation.
Instead, he stopped and looked at Hu Liena, who was preening and posing ahead of him, as though she were an idiot.
"What's wrong with you, woman?"
The gray-robed man frowned and turned to his companions.
"Did she just release a little spiritual power at me?"
The companion beside him snorted with laughter.
"You call that spiritual power?"
"She hasn't even opened her Niwan Palace. With those feeble fluctuations, she probably couldn't even hypnotize a rat."
"Here in Yan City of our Great Desolation Commandery, someone actually dares show off spiritual power to people from the Symbol Master Tower?"
Upon hearing this exchange.
The confidence on Hu Liena's face instantly froze.
Upon hearing this exchange, the confidence on Hu Liena's face instantly froze.
The Charm skill she took such pride in, which could even control opponents above her level, had actually proved completely useless.
"You..."
Hu Liena bit her red lip, a powerful sense of unease immediately rising within her, and instinctively took two steps back.
The three gray-robed men, meanwhile, had stopped walking.
The man in front looked Hu Liena up and down. As he studied the voluptuous curves outlined by her tight leather outfit, a flicker of lustful fire immediately rose in his eyes.
"Dressed so provocatively, yet you don't have even a trace of yuan power."
"Wherever you crawled out from, since you dared scheme against us from the Symbol Master Tower, you can forget about leaving."
The gray-robed man sneered and tipped his chin toward his two companions.
"We've been condensing our natal symbol seals in the tower lately, and our nerves have been stretched tight."
"Take this woman back. We'll have some proper fun tonight and unwind."
Hearing this, the other two men let out knowing, lewd chuckles and strode straight toward Hu Liena.
At the sight, Bibi Dong abruptly rose to her feet in the Pope's Palace, killing intent laid bare in her eyes.
Meanwhile, in the image, how could Hu Liena possibly submit meekly to capture?
"Want to catch me? In your dreams!"
She let out a sharp cry, and the five Soul Rings around her instantly blazed with light.
The black Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring in the fifth position lit up, and the fluffy fox tail behind Hu Liena instantly swelled, lashing viciously at the three gray-robed men with formidable force.
"You're courting death."
Faced with Hu Liena's all-out strike, the gray-robed man in the lead did not even raise a hand.
His gaze merely turned cold, and a powerful, invisible ripple immediately surged from between his brows.
That ripple rapidly condensed in midair, actually forming a spike of Spiritual Power invisible to the naked eye that plunged straight into Hu Liena's mind.
"Aaaah!!!"
Hu Liena did not even have time to react. She only felt as though someone had driven a nail hard into her head.
The agony, like her soul being torn apart, instantly robbed her of control over her body.
The fox tail behind her dispersed outright, and all five Soul Rings vanished without a trace in an instant.
Hu Liena screamed, clutching her head as she curled up on the ground in pain.
It had taken only a single exchange.
Spirit Hall's Golden Generation member, a rank fifty-one Soul King, had been taken down on the spot by a single strike of her opponent's Spiritual Power!
"You don't know your own limits."
The gray-robed man stepped forward and looked down at Hu Liena as she struggled in agony on the ground, his eyes filled with contempt.
"A useless wretch who hasn't even opened her Niwan Palace dares to show off before a Two-Seal Symbol Master?"
With that, he reached out and grabbed for Hu Liena's collar, intending to lift her up and take her away.
At that moment, Hu Liena was undoubtedly in despair.
She no longer even had the strength to kill herself and could only watch helplessly as that hand reached toward her.
Yet just as the gray-robed man's hand was about to touch Hu Liena-
A tiger's roar, brimming with oppressive force, suddenly rang out from the far end of the distant woods!
Immediately afterward, a young voice tinged with teasing drifted leisurely over as well.
"Have the people of the Yan City Symbol Master Tower become this overbearing in how they do things?"
"If the tower master or Sister Ziyue found out you were abducting a woman outside the city like this, I'm afraid you wouldn't escape punishment, would you?"
Upon hearing this sudden voice-
The three gray-robed men, who had been so arrogant and domineering, instantly froze.
They abruptly turned their heads and looked in the direction the voice had come from.
There, at the other end of the woods-
An enormous tiger, flames burning all over its body and blood-red wings sprouting from its back, was slowly padding toward them.
And on the back of that Fire Python Tiger-
Sat a young man with delicate features, dressed in a plain blue robe.
Before you continue