The Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land, Black Hair Turned White in One Step, Shocking the Douluo Continent!

"Zhu Zhuqing?!"

When the name "Zhu Zhuqing" rang out from the Heavenly Screen, on Shrek Academy's shabby training ground.

Tang San, Xiao Wu, Dai Mubai, and the others froze for a moment, then their eyes filled with surprise.

"It's actually Zhu Zhuqing..."

Dai Mubai looked at his fiancée, a trace of complexity flashing through his eyes.

There was surprise, envy, and a barely perceptible hint of... jealousy?

Oscar and Ma Hongjun, on the other hand, seemed to have far fewer scheming thoughts:

"Zhu Zhuqing, you're actually the third person chosen! Going straight to a new world to explore... I'm so jealous."

As for Tang San, although he said nothing, the light of his Purple Demon Eye flickered faintly in his eyes. Clearly, he was not as calm inside as he appeared.

Crossing worlds, exploring the unknown, plundering opportunities...

He subconsciously clenched his fists and murmured in a voice only he could hear, "Damn it! Why wasn't it me!"

As for Xiao Wu and Ning Rongrong, perhaps because they were women, their focus was clearly different from that of Tang San and the others.

Instead, they looked at Zhu Zhuqing with some concern:

"An unfamiliar world, with Zhu Zhuqing going alone... won't it be dangerous?"

"Rest easy!"

Just then, Yu Xiaogang walked slowly over with his hands clasped behind his back.

His gaze swept over the slightly restless Tang San, Dai Mubai, and the others, especially Xiao Wu and Ning Rongrong, his face brimming with confidence.

"Rongrong, Xiao Wu, there's no need to worry about Zhu Zhuqing."

"This so-called Shrouding the Heavens World absolutely cannot be all that powerful!"

"After all, our Douluo Continent has a complete Soul Master system. Which Titled Douluo doesn't possess the tremendous power to move rocks and fill lakes?"

"How could some obscure Shrouding the Heavens World compare to us?"

"However..."

At this point, Yu Xiaogang changed tack. "Although Shrouding the Heavens is a lower world, there are probably some useful opportunities there. When the time comes..."

Yu Xiaogang's tone grew solemn and serious. "Zhu Zhuqing, you're cool and reserved, but kind at heart. That's a strength, but in that world..."

"You must put that kindness aside for the time being!"

"Remember my words!"

"Once you discover anything in that world that might be useful to you, whether it's exotic flowers and rare herbs, ores and materials, or even things belonging to the natives!"

"As long as you think it's valuable, you must never show mercy!"

Yu Xiaogang's eyes were full of confidence, his manner lofty and superior. "In a lower world, we Soul Masters of the Douluo Continent are gods!"

"If necessary, you can use any means at your disposal. Use your powerful Martial Soul and Soul Skills to make those natives understand what true power is!"

Zhu Zhuqing listened quietly and nodded slightly without speaking.

She simply looked at the enormous Heavenly Screen in the sky, her eyes filled with resolve.

Her family's oppression, the womanizing Dai Mubai's unreliability, and her thirst for strength had long since taught her this world's cruel laws of survival.

A completely new, undeveloped world...

This might be the perfect opportunity for me to escape my fate and quickly gain strength. I... absolutely cannot let this chance slip away!

While Zhu Zhuqing was lost in thought, ripples spread across the Heavenly Screen once more. Three dazzling beams of golden light descended from it like rainbow bridges, enveloping Spirit City, Nuoding City, and Zhu Zhuqing at Shrek Academy respectively!

At the same time, the Heavenly Screen split into three sections, beginning a live broadcast from three different perspectives.

The Shrouding the Heavens World.

The Burial Emperor Star, Big Dipper, in the Southern Region of the Eastern Wasteland.

With a flash of golden light, three figures who did not belong to this world abruptly appeared out of thin air, then turned into three streaks of light and scattered to different corners of the Eastern Wasteland's Southern Region.

[First perspective: Nuoding City resident, Long Aotian (Level 0)]

"So this is... the Shrouding the Heavens World?"

Long Aotian looked at the primeval forest behind him, lush and verdant, its ancient trees towering into the sky, everything utterly silent.

And at the rocky ground beneath his feet, where not a blade of grass grew and only a few dead, ancient tree trunks still stood, as well as the enormous stone stele directly ahead...

The stone stele was at least several hundred meters tall, its imposing form reaching toward the sky, ancient and weathered, as though it bore the weight of endless ages.

Inscribed upon it were several archaic seal-script characters that Long Aotian should not have understood, yet somehow knew the meaning of-Desolate! Ancient! Forbidden! Land!

"This stone stele..."

Long Aotian seemed a little curious and slowly walked toward the stone stele.

The Douluo Continent.

Inside the Pope's Palace at Spirit Hall.

Bibi Dong sat high upon her throne, her slender fingers lightly tapping the magnificent Pope's Scepter. Her beautiful eyes narrowed slightly as she watched Long Aotian's perspective on the Heavenly Screen.

"The Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land?"

"This world doesn't look any different from ours, except for that stone stele..."

Bibi Dong did not know whether she was imagining it.

The stone stele inscribed with the words "Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land" merely stood there quietly, yet it made her heart inexplicably tremble.

But Bibi Dong soon shook her head. She was already a Titled Douluo. Aside from a handful of powerhouses, no one on the entire Douluo Continent could withstand even a single exchange with her.

How could a mere stone stele make her feel threatened?

"I must be overthinking it..."

Shrek Academy, the training ground.

Tang San, Xiao Wu, Dai Mubai, and the others were also watching the Heavenly Screen's live broadcast.

"The Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land?" Tang San murmured subconsciously.

"This place is called a forbidden land. Could it be dangerous?" Xiao Wu asked curiously.

Hearing this, Yu Xiaogang shook his head, his eyes full of indifference. "Xiao Wu, you can't judge a problem by its surface. You must learn to analyze it."

"These so-called 'forbidden lands' are often nothing more than ignorant natives fearing and deifying unknown powers."

With his hands clasped behind his back, he spoke with easy confidence. "Think about the truly dangerous places on our Douluo Continent, such as the central area of the Star Dou Great Forest, or the Core Circle of the Far North..."

"Those places teem with danger. Even Titled Douluo can fall there. Have they ever erected stone steles as warnings? No!"

"Because true danger is silent and invisible, permeating the surroundings. It has no need for such formalistic markers."

The more Yu Xiaogang spoke, the more he felt his analysis was well-founded. He pointed at Long Aotian, who was cautiously walking forward on the Heavenly Screen:

"Look, this Long Aotian from Nuoding City is just an ordinary person. Has anything unusual happened since he entered? Doesn't his surroundings look perfectly peaceful?"

"I dare say this so-called 'Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land' is most likely a hunting ground or sacrificial area marked out by that world's natives. They merely erected a stone stele to frighten people."

"At most, there might be some venomous insects and fierce beasts, probably weaker than even a Ten-Year Soul Beast..."

Yet before Yu Xiaogang could finish his "expert analysis," the expression of assured wisdom on his face instantly froze!

In its place, his pupils abruptly constricted, filling with horror and disbelief!

It was not just him...

Tang San, Dai Mubai, Oscar, Ma Hongjun, Ning Rongrong, Xiao Wu, and even Flender on the training ground-everyone watching the Heavenly Screen, at that moment...

Felt every hair on their bodies stand on end!

On the Heavenly Screen, Long Aotian was walking toward the stone stele of the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land.

When he lifted his foot for his first step, he was still a man in his prime, in his thirties.

But the instant his foot landed, something eerie and terrifying happened!

With that one step, he seemed to cross decades of time!

Before the trace of curiosity on his face could even change, his entire body rapidly aged at a speed visible to the naked eye!

His skin lost its luster and grew wrinkled, while his hair went from withered yellow to gray...

He went straight from a man in his thirties to the twilight years of his fifties or sixties!

By his second step, his hair was completely white and his vitality was fading. He looked every bit like an eighty- or ninety-year-old man with one foot in the grave!

Yet he himself seemed entirely unaware...

He had only just lifted his foot for his third step and had yet to set it down.

Just then, a mountain breeze gently brushed over his body, already like a lamp whose oil had run dry, as rotten as decayed wood.

The next moment...

In that gentle mountain breeze, Long Aotian's body, starting from his raised foot.

Like sand exposed to sunlight, it silently crumbled and dispersed, turning into countless tiny particles of dust that drifted away on the wind...

There were no screams, no struggles, not even the slightest trace left behind.

A living person had, within those three brief steps, walked through the decades of life he should still have had, and in the end...

Returned entirely to dust, as though he had never existed in this world.

Gasp!!!

Silence!

Deathly silence enveloped all of Shrek Academy, Spirit Hall, the Heaven Dou Empire, the Star Luo Empire, and the entire Douluo Continent, past and future!

"Gulp..."

Oscar swallowed with difficulty, the sound exceptionally clear on the deathly silent training ground. "F-Fatty... are my eyes playing tricks on me?"

"That man... he... he turned to ash?"

Ma Hongjun's plump face was deathly pale, every fold of fat on his body trembling as he stammered:

"N-no... your eyes aren't... three steps... just three steps... a living person... just... just vanished..."

Beads of cold sweat also seeped from Tang San's temples, and his back was icy cold.

As a Tang Sect genius in his previous life, he had seen all manner of strange poisons and Hidden Weapons, but he had never seen such an eerie, direct, and overbearing way of stripping away life!

This was not an attack. It was more like... erasure by time!

Behind his crystal glasses, Flender's eyes had also widened into perfect circles, his voice terribly dry:

"X-Xiaogang... this... this is what you called... danger weaker than even a Ten-Year Soul Beast?"

Yu Xiaogang's lips trembled. He did not understand either...

Yet Yu Xiaogang was still Yu Xiaogang.

Even though he could not make sense of it and his face remained deathly pale, he forcibly suppressed the stormy waves in his heart and explained confidently:

"Ahem, there's no need for everyone to panic!"

"This effect of instantly aging and annihilating someone is clearly a Soul Skill."

"Someone probably ambushed Long Aotian while we weren't paying attention, that's all."

"So that's what happened..."

For a moment, Tang San, Dai Mubai, Ma Hongjun, and the others all looked enlightened, gazing admiringly at Yu Xiaogang, whose analysis was so coherent.

And Yu Xiaogang was not the only one who thought this way.

After all, people could not understand things beyond the bounds of their knowledge.

Thus, even powerhouses such as Bibi Dong, Qian Daoliu, Mu En, and Electrolux all felt that someone must have ambushed Long Aotian.

"But judging from this, the Shrouding the Heavens World probably isn't that simple. At the very least, it has special abilities..."

And just then.

On the Heavenly Screen, the images from the other two perspectives also changed.