At that moment, both Spirit Hall's seven Titled Douluo and Sword Douluo Chen Xin in the distance stood frozen in the wind, unable to speak for a long while.
It turned out that what they had been probing all along was not an inanimate object at all.
It was a being that could destroy the entire Douluo Continent the moment it woke!
Everyone at the edge of the abyss barely dared to breathe.
Clang!
A sharp sound rang out. Everyone turned to see that the Pope's Scepter in Bibi Dong's hand, the symbol of Spirit Hall's supreme authority, had actually fallen onto the rocks.
But she made no move to pick it up.
This peerless empress, who usually stood high above everyone, was now staring down without a shred of composure, even her red lips trembling uncontrollably.
"Alive... is this really alive?"
Beside her, Golden Crocodile Douluo looked at his still-bleeding hands, seeming to have aged ten years.
He recalled how he had just shamelessly boasted that this was merely a dead rock.
He had even used his Martial Soul Avatar to bite it.
Thinking back now, he felt like nothing more than a prancing clown!
He had actually tried to bite a creature larger than a planet?
How the hell was that any different from an ant biting an elephant?
No, he was not even as good as an ant!
At least an ant could leave a red spot on an elephant. He had not even scraped the dust off a single scale!
"Your Holiness, if this really is a soul beast..."
Gui Mei swallowed with difficulty, his voice frighteningly hoarse.
"Then how many years of cultivation must it have?"
"A million years?"
Hearing the words "a million years," Yue Guan gave a bitter laugh beside him.
"Old Ghost, you give million-year soul beasts far too much credit."
"The Deep Sea Demonic Whale King in the ocean is a million years old, but next to this thing, it probably wouldn't amount to a single hair."
"Ten million years?"
"Or hundreds of millions?"
All the Titled Douluo present fell silent.
This was far beyond anything they knew. They had always thought a hundred-thousand-year soul beast was an overlord, and a Million Years soul beast belonged to myth and legend.
Yet the thing before them had completely shattered the dimensions of life!
On the distant cliff.
Ning Fengzhi's forehead was also covered in cold sweat. He could barely stand and had to lean against a nearby rock.
"Uncle Jian, let's retreat."
"We can't stay in Star Dou Great Forest anymore. This is practically a powder keg that could explode at any moment!"
But Chen Xin shook his head with a bitter smile.
He looked at the dim Seven Kill Sword in his hand, his eyes filled with helplessness.
"Fengzhi, where would we retreat to?"
"If that being down there really wakes up, where do you think we could run?"
"Never mind the Heaven Dou Empire."
"I'm afraid this entire world would turn to ash with a single turn of its body."
Hearing that, Ning Fengzhi collapsed completely onto the ground, his eyes filled with horror.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Star Dou Great Forest.
The group from Shrek Academy was rapidly approaching the abyss.
Yu Xiaogang walked at the front, wearing the smile of a man who alone was sober while the whole world was drunk.
He held a little notebook, recording the surrounding soul beasts' unusual behavior as he walked.
"Look, Little San. The closer we get to the center, the more consistently these soul beasts face the same direction as they kneel."
"That means we're already very close to the ancient great array's array core!"
Tang San nodded, his anticipation growing.
What level of treasure lay within an array that could make even ten-thousand-year soul beasts prostrate themselves in worship?
If he could get his hands on it, his Tang Sect Hidden Weapons could surely dominate the entire continent!
"Teacher, there doesn't seem to be a path ahead."
Dai Mubai, who was walking ahead, suddenly stopped.
Everyone looked forward and discovered that the once-dense forest had abruptly vanished.
In its place was an enormous fissure stretching across the ground.
It looked as though someone had brutally split the earth open with an axe.
On the other side of the fissure, they could vaguely make out many figures, with bright flashes of light among them.
"It's Spirit Hall!"
Sharp-eyed Flender immediately recognized the Red-Robed Archbishops' robes those people wore.
"Everyone, stay quiet for now."
Yu Xiaogang hurriedly lowered his voice and had everyone hide behind the bushes.
He rubbed his chin, a gleam flashing through his eyes.
"It seems Spirit Hall has discovered these array ruins too."
"But that doesn't matter. Breaking an array takes brains, not numbers."
"We'll act as the opportunity arises. We might just snatch a great bargain from under Spirit Hall's nose."
Hearing Grandmaster's words, everyone from Shrek clenched their fists in excitement.
So what if it was Spirit Hall?
With Grandmaster's unrivaled theoretical knowledge here, it was still anyone's guess whose hands the treasures in this ancient great array would ultimately fall into!
Behind the bushes.
Yu Xiaogang stared at Spirit Hall's people by the abyss, observing them for quite some time.
He noticed that Bibi Dong and those Titled Douluo were all standing motionless.
Even Chrysanthemum Douluo and Ghost Douluo, who usually loved showing off most, looked utterly lost.
At this sight, the smile on Yu Xiaogang's lips deepened.
"Do you see that?"
He turned and spoke quietly to Tang San and the others.
"Spirit Hall's people are stumped."
"Arrays in ancient ruins like these are the greatest test of knowledge and depth of learning."
"They have strength, but they don't understand the principles behind an array's operation. All they can do now is stare helplessly."
Dai Mubai looked over with some concern.
"Grandmaster, that's Pope Bibi Dong leading them personally, along with several Titled Douluo."
"With just a handful of us, can we really get a share?"
Yu Xiaogang sneered and drew a pitch-black token from inside his robes.
It was precisely the Spirit Hall Elder Token Tang Hao had given him years ago.
"With this token, my standing in Spirit Hall is equal to an elder's."
"Besides..."
Yu Xiaogang paused here, Bibi Dong's stunning face appearing in his mind.
He was utterly confident.
Bibi Dong had always held him in her heart. With that old affection and the Elder Token, Spirit Hall would never dare lay a finger on him.
Even if he swaggered out, Bibi Dong would only treat him courteously.
"Stay hidden here, and don't make a sound."
Yu Xiaogang straightened his collar and brushed the dust off his clothes.
"I'll go negotiate personally."
"As long as I help them break this ancient great array, we at Shrek will naturally have a share of the treasures inside."
With that, Yu Xiaogang clasped his hands behind his back and strode confidently out of the bushes.
His head high and chest out, he marched toward the edge of the abyss.
"Halt! Who goes there!"
The Red-Robed Archbishops guarding the perimeter immediately spotted Yu Xiaogang. Several Soul Emperors instantly drew their weapons and blocked his path.
Without a change in expression, Yu Xiaogang raised the Elder Token high.
"Take a good look at what this is."
"I am Yu Xiaogang, a Spirit Hall Honorary Elder."
"Stand aside. I want to see the Pope."
The Red-Robed Archbishops all froze at the sight of the Elder Token.
They exchanged glances. Not daring to stop him, they could only clear a path.
Yu Xiaogang gave a soft snort and tucked the token back inside his robes.
He greatly enjoyed the feeling of being held in awe.
Soon, he passed through the outer cordon and reached the very edge of the abyss.
Bibi Dong was still immersed in fear.
Her gaze remained fixed on the enormous Dark Gold scale below.
Just then, an abrupt voice sounded beside her.
"Bibi Dong, it's been a long time."
At that familiar voice, Bibi Dong shuddered and slowly turned her head.
When she saw Yu Xiaogang standing nearby, her nerves, already taut with fear, were suddenly overwhelmed by a powerful sense of unreality.
Yu Xiaogang stood with his hands clasped behind his back, wearing a smile of feigned profundity.
"I know you've run into trouble."
He glanced at the Dark Gold wall below, then at Bibi Dong and the Titled Douluo.
"Attacking an ancient great array with brute force is extremely foolish."
"Not only will you fail to breach its defenses, but you'll also suffer the array's backlash."
As he spoke, Yu Xiaogang pointed at the deathly pale Gui Mei beside them, his tone carrying a hint of lecturing.
"Judging by his condition, he must have forcibly attacked the array and suffered a backlash that injured his foundation, correct?"
"You people really are too impulsive."
After those words, the entire edge of the abyss became so quiet that a pin dropping could have been heard.
The air seemed to freeze in that instant.
Golden Crocodile Douluo lowered his head and looked at his still-bleeding hands.
Yue Guan and Gui Mei stared at Yu Xiaogang as though looking at an idiot.
Even Ning Fengzhi and Sword Douluo Chen Xin in the distance looked as though they had seen a ghost.
An ancient great array?
An array's backlash?
What on earth was this Soul Grandmaster-level piece of trash thinking?
Did he know that the thing beneath his feet was a living creature larger than a planet?
As Bibi Dong looked at Yu Xiaogang's brimming confidence, not a trace of her old affection rekindled in her heart.
All she felt now was absurdity.
An indescribable sense of ridiculousness.
Just a moment ago, she had been considering what would happen if this soul beast woke, and how she should respond.
Then, a second later, this man who was not even a Soul Elder jumped out, pointed at a scale larger than a continent, and told her it was an array?
"Who are you?"
Golden Crocodile Douluo was the first to react. Already hot-tempered by nature, he was now so angry that his beard bristled.
"Pope, where did this lunatic come from?"
Yu Xiaogang frowned and turned toward Golden Crocodile Douluo.
Although he did not recognize Golden Crocodile Douluo, he thought the man was merely an ordinary Spirit Hall elder.
"My name is Yu Xiaogang, the foremost theorist in the Soul Master World across the entire continent."
Yu Xiaogang puffed out his chest, his tone exceedingly arrogant.
"Not only do I possess an Elder Token, but I also understand the situation here better than you do."
"What lies below isn't a wall at all, but an ancient array core."
"As long as you let me carefully examine the patterns on it, I can find a way to break it."
As he spoke, Yu Xiaogang actually took two steps forward and leaned out to look down into the abyss.
"Enough."
Bibi Dong finally spoke.
There was no anger in her voice, only profound exhaustion and helplessness.
"Xiaogang, take your people and leave."
"This is not a place you can meddle in."
Hearing Bibi Dong's words, Yu Xiaogang not only refused to back down, but instead thought she was concerned for his safety.
The smile at the corners of his mouth only deepened.
"Bibi Dong, you don't need to worry about me."
"I have absolute confidence in my theories."
As Yu Xiaogang spoke, he gathered his feeble rank-twenty-nine Soul Power, attempting to sense the Dark Gold patterns below.
Yu Xiaogang closed his eyes, putting on an inscrutable air.
He controlled the meager rank-twenty-nine Soul Power inside him, slowly extending it down along the edge of the abyss toward that Dark Gold wall below.
The Titled Douluos present all watched his performance with cold eyes.
Golden Crocodile Douluo, in particular, had nothing but disdain in his eyes.
Even powerhouses like them, who stood at the continent's summit, had hit a wall when they attacked with all their might. What could a piece of trash who wasn't even a Soul Elder possibly uncover?
Sure enough.
The moment that wisp of Yu Xiaogang's Soul Power touched the surface of the Dark Gold scale, it was like a drop of water landing on a red-hot iron plate.
It vanished without a trace in an instant.
It didn't even raise a splash.
Yet Yu Xiaogang suddenly opened his eyes, his face showing no embarrassment at all. Instead, he wore a smug smile that said, "Just as I thought."
"Bibi Dong, everyone, look."
Yu Xiaogang turned around and pointed down into the abyss with complete confidence.
"My Soul Power was drained dry the instant it made contact."
"This proves that my theory is entirely correct."
"This is definitely an ancient defensive array that automatically absorbs external energy to sustain its operation!"
Hearing this utterly bizarre deduction, Golden Crocodile Douluo nearly laughed aloud in anger.
Automatically absorbs energy, my fucking ass!
How could anyone in this world be so thick-skinned?
His power was so weak that the backlash wiped it out, and he somehow twisted that into something about an array?
Bibi Dong rubbed her brow as well, her eyes filled with disappointment.
She was just about to order someone to throw this embarrassing fool out.
But Yu Xiaogang persistently took another step forward.
He pulled a monocular magnifying lens specifically used for exploring ruins from inside his robe and aimed it at an enormous groove in the Dark Gold wall.
To human eyes, that groove resembled a dried-up riverbed, hundreds of meters wide.
But on the protagonist's enormous body, which coiled around the planet, it was merely a minuscule marking on the surface of a scale.
"Earlier, you were all so busy smashing it with brute force that you never carefully examined the details."
Yu Xiaogang adopted a lecturing manner.
Pointing at the deep groove, he beckoned to a nearby Red-Robed Archbishop.
"You, throw a high-intensity illumination crystal down there, into the channel of that array pattern."
The Red-Robed Archbishop glanced at Bibi Dong. Seeing that the Supreme Pontiff did not stop him, he took out an illumination crystal the size of a human head and threw it in the direction Yu Xiaogang indicated.
The crystal emitted a dazzling light in midair as it plunged into the depths of the broad, Dark Gold groove.
As the crystal fell deeper and deeper.
An unbelievable sight appeared.
The material at the bottom of the channel was actually not completely opaque.
Under the intense light shining on it at close range, that small patch of Dark Gold surface took on a translucent, amber-like appearance.
And beneath that translucent layer lay a boundless expanse of golden liquid!
Because the wall was simply so enormous, the liquid looked to everyone like a surging golden ocean!
It flowed slowly beneath the Dark Gold surface, stirring up ripples of energy visible to the naked eye.
"Do you see that!"
Yu Xiaogang slapped his thigh in excitement, his voice trembling.
He turned his head and looked at Bibi Dong and all the Titled Douluos present, his face brimming with pride.
"This is what we call the power of knowledge!"
"The golden ocean flowing beneath that channel is the array fluid of this Ancient Great Array!"
"It's continuously supplying energy to the entire array!"
"As long as we find a way to cut off this river of energy, this invincible defensive array will naturally collapse without us even attacking it!"
Yu Xiaogang flaunted his theories in an endless stream.
He fully believed that his brilliant discovery and reasoning would make everyone present see him in a new light.
But after he waited for quite some time, not a single person around him voiced agreement.
The air was eerily quiet.
Yu Xiaogang turned his head in confusion, only to discover that everyone's face had turned as white as paper.
Bibi Dong stared fixedly at the flowing golden ocean, her feet even retreating uncontrollably.
Yue Guan and Gui Mei were trembling all over like chaff in a sieve.
Because they were Titled Douluos!
Their perception was many times stronger than that of a Soul Grandmaster like Yu Xiaogang.
So the instant the illumination crystal lit up that golden liquid, what they sensed was not array energy at all.
Worse still, as that golden ocean flowed, they clearly sensed something they could neither describe nor explain.
That liquid seemed to contain an immeasurably vast abundance of blood vitality.
Even through the thick surface layer, its pressure nearly drove them to their knees.
"This..."
For a moment, even Golden Crocodile Douluo's voice quavered, his aged eyes bulging so wide they nearly popped out.
"That's clearly blood..."
Yu Xiaogang froze for a moment, then frowned as well.
"Second Worship, please respect science and theory."
"How could golden blood exist in this world? And what creature could have blood vessels as broad as an ocean?"
"This is clearly..."
"Shut your mouth!"
Seeing this fucking idiot of a middle-aged man step forward to show off again, Golden Crocodile Douluo could no longer contain himself and immediately cursed him out.
Golden Crocodile Douluo grabbed Yu Xiaogang by the collar and lifted him bodily into the air like a chick.
"Open those dog eyes of yours and sense it properly!"
Golden Crocodile Douluo pointed at the golden ocean below and roared furiously at Yu Xiaogang.
"The heat coming from it is the body heat of a living creature!"
"You call that array energy?"
"That's a fucking blood vessel!"
"What's flowing inside it is this enormous creature's blood!"
Golden Crocodile Douluo sprayed spit all over Yu Xiaogang's face.
Yu Xiaogang was completely dumbfounded.
Held in midair by Golden Crocodile Douluo, he finally calmed down and sensed the waves of heat rising from below.
They were scorching.
They even carried a pressure that made his Martial Soul, Luo Sanpao, want to kneel.
This kind of bloodline suppression was something no inanimate object or array could simulate.
Yu Xiaogang's lips began to tremble.
A blood vessel?
If that golden river, as vast as an ocean, was merely a single blood vessel in this wall...
Then this wall, whose end was nowhere in sight, really was a creature's scale!
Yu Xiaogang turned his stiff neck with difficulty and looked at the Dark Gold surface stretching to the limits of his vision in both directions, his mind utterly blank.
"No, impossible..."
Yu Xiaogang muttered to himself, an uncontrollable warmth actually spreading through the crotch of his pants.
He had actually wet himself in terror.
"How could a creature this big exist in this world..."
Then Golden Crocodile Douluo flung Yu Xiaogang onto the ground like trash, not bothering to spare him another glance.
The hearts of the Titled Douluos present had now grown heavy to the extreme.
Before, they had only suspected that this thing was alive.
Now that they had seen the flowing golden blood with their own eyes, every last shred of wishful thinking was gone.
Not only was this monster alive, but its vitality was flourishing!
Even as it merely slept here, a single capillary near its surface was broader than any river they had ever seen.
Just as everyone stood at a loss for what to do, Sword Douluo Chen Xin, standing some distance away, suddenly cried out in alarm.
"Fengzhi, look at how fast that blood is flowing!"
Ning Fengzhi hurriedly focused his gaze.
The golden blood beneath that translucent material seemed to be flowing a little faster than before.
As the blood accelerated, a faint, highly rhythmic tremor suddenly passed through the ground across the entire Star Dou Great Forest.
Bibi Dong keenly noticed the change.
Her heart instantly leaped into her throat.
"Its blood is flowing faster..."
Before you continue