Seeing this, Tang Mo clicked his tongue in displeasure. He should have sealed Tang San's mouth first so he could not concede.
Even though Tang San's fortune and Tang Hao's protection meant Tang Mo could not kill him for now, as long as Tang San did not concede, Tang Mo had grounds to give him a savage beating.
After Tang Mo stopped, his eyes instinctively swept his surroundings. Whether it was because he had not tried to kill Tang San or because Tang Hao was too far away, he sensed no killing intent from Tang Hao.
In any case, Tang Mo did not believe Tang Hao would improve his concealment or deliberately suppress his killing intent.
In Tang Hao's eyes, Tang Mo was a genius, but only one who had yet to mature. As long as Tang Mo had not truly grown, he was not worth a fart before the Clear Sky Douluo, who could crush him to death with a casual pinch.
Thus, Tang Hao could not possibly suppress his killing intent deliberately near Tang Mo, much less believe Tang Mo could discover his whereabouts.
Since Tang Hao believed no one could detect him, why would he suppress his emotional fluctuations? Tang Mo therefore leaned toward the possibility that Tang Hao was watching everything happen from afar.
After all, Tang Mo's message had already reached Spirit City. Even if whoever came was not a Titled Douluo, they would at least possess a certain level of strength. Tang Hao did not want to expose his whereabouts to Spirit Hall so soon, so it was only natural for him to keep his distance from the Spirit Hall Branch in Nuoding City.
As their battle ended, Tang San dragged his grievously injured body slowly toward Nuoding Academy.
At that moment, Tang San gradually withdrew from the clamorous crowd like a dog that had lost its home.
Meanwhile, Tang Mo stood among the crowd, receiving their looks of reverence or envy.
Amid the jumble of emotions, Tang Mo suddenly caught a trace of appreciation from a superior toward a subordinate.
Following the source of that emotion, Tang Mo raised his head toward the sky. All he could see was the azure sky, white clouds, and dazzling sunlight.
He fixed his gaze on the clouds, surmising that whoever had come from Spirit City was probably concealed within them.
"Hmm?" Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan, who had merely been watching the show, suddenly noticed Tang Mo's gaze and let out a startled murmur. "This little fellow really is extraordinary. He actually sensed my gaze. And his soul power has already reached the Soul Grandmaster level. He only needs a soul ring to break through the bottleneck."
"Indeed." The usually taciturn Ghost Douluo Gui Mei suddenly voiced his agreement.
"Old Ghost, you're rather talkative today. Did you discover something?" Yue Guan asked.
As his longtime partner, Yue Guan knew very well that Gui Mei was not a talkative man. Whether Gui Mei spoke, and how much he said once he opened his mouth, depended entirely on his own emotional fluctuations.
In other words, something Tang Mo had done had deeply shocked Gui Mei. Otherwise, Gui Mei would at most have nodded, shaken his head, or made sounds such as "hmm," "oh," or "ah" to express his opinion.
"He looked at you first, then at me, and finally pinpointed both of us," Gui Mei replied, uncharacteristically offering a lengthy explanation.
At those words, Yue Guan's expression shifted slightly. Ghost Douluo Gui Mei lived up to his name. Because of his martial soul, he truly was like a ghost, and even Titled Douluos at the same level struggled to pinpoint him with his uncanny movements.
Even though Gui Mei was not deliberately concealing his aura now, Soul Masters below the Titled Douluo level should not have been able to detect his presence.
"What an interesting little fellow. Come, let's go tease him together." With a playful smile, Yue Guan descended from the sky first and slipped soundlessly into the Spirit Hall Branch.
Gui Mei turned into a black shadow and followed close behind, as though he had truly become Yue Guan's shadow.
After basking in the crowd's adulation for a while, Tang Mo grew bored and returned to the Spirit Hall Branch.
To him, slaying Bihuoshan's ninja chief and a host of ninjas had already been enough to leave a bold, vivid stroke in the history of his previous world.
In a sense, he had already accomplished a feat that would leave his name in the annals of history. These petty skirmishes now could, at most, give him a fleeting sense of satisfaction.
Unless he could unite the Douluo Continent and standardize its writing, weights, and measures, achieving uniformity in written characters and cart axle widths, even the sense of accomplishment from becoming a god would amount to little.
The instant he stepped into the Spirit Hall Branch, he felt a chill at his back. A cold sensation rose from beneath his feet and traveled up his spine to the back of his head.
After shuddering, he immediately realized he had stepped into a pseudo-domain someone had formed with their martial soul.
A domain was an ability that strengthened oneself and one's teammates while suppressing enemies within a certain area.
A pseudo-domain, meanwhile, referred to an area affected by a martial soul. It was somewhat like the oppressive feeling the strong exerted on the weak, but a few degrees more mysterious.
For instance, a fire-type martial soul could raise the surrounding temperature, while an ice-type martial soul could lower it. Such phenomena counted as pseudo-domains.
They possessed no special abilities, yet exerted a tangible influence on the surrounding environment. That was a pseudo-domain.
At that moment, Tang Mo could feel the temperature around him drop a few degrees. A layer of frost had formed on the floor at some unknown point, and something alive seemed to be struggling incessantly within the indistinct shadows around him.
The Spirit Hall Branch had become a ghost realm in the mortal world. Upon realizing this, Tang Mo immediately guessed whose handiwork these scenes were.
Ordinary Soul Masters could not wield a method that all but transformed the pressure of a martial soul into a domain. This was very likely the work of a Titled Douluo.
Apart from Ghost Douluo Gui Mei, Spirit Hall did not seem to have another Titled Douluo with such an uncanny martial soul.
"May I ask if I am in the presence of His Eminence Ghost Douluo?" Tang Mo cupped his fist and bowed toward the empty space before him.
Yue Guan, who had still been looking forward to a good show, instantly lost interest in watching further. After all, no one enjoyed a play that someone else kept spoiling.
Everything happening inside the Spirit Hall Branch had been a fine show, but unfortunately, Tang Mo had already guessed its causes and consequences. Since that was the case, there was no need to keep performing.
"Little fellows who are too clever rarely come to a good end." As Yue Guan emerged from the darkness, Gui Mei quit while he was ahead and withdrew his martial soul's pressure.
"The tree that towers above the forest is sure to be battered by the wind. So before growing into a towering tree, one must first find an ancient tree with luxuriant branches and leaves to cling to." That single remark from Tang Mo left Yue Guan briefly taken aback.
Tang Mo's remark was not particularly sophisticated, nor did it really qualify as an emotionally intelligent statement, but things were different in the Douluo World.
After all, during the war between Spirit Hall and the two great empires, even burning grain supplies counted as an ingenious stratagem for the ages.
More importantly, Tang Mo's words struck a chord with Yue Guan. Or rather, any Soul Master who had joined Spirit Hall would have paused to some degree upon hearing them.
That was because most Soul Masters, apart from Spirit Hall's Qian Family, had once entertained such thoughts. Had they not joined Spirit Hall for its resources?
Strictly speaking, every Soul Master who joined Spirit Hall was like a vine clinging to the great tree that was Spirit Hall. They merely wanted its protection and resources before they gained sufficient strength of their own, sheltering themselves from the wind and rain outside.
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