"I've experienced that domain. It was incredibly oppressive. If that Innate Domain keeps growing..."
"You're afraid?" Qian Daoliu's gaze shifted slightly, and his tone grew heavier.
"I'm not afraid," Qian Renxue said.
"I... don't know how to describe that feeling."
That domain was not merely oppressive. It was as silent as death!
Qian Daoliu frowned slightly. Just as he was about to press further, Golden Crocodile's voice came from outside the Angel Temple.
"Great Enshrined, I've brought him back."
Chapter 44: Lingering Dread
"Since you can't explain it easily, I'll experience it myself," Qian Daoliu said.
A Martial Soul was a Soul Master's pride!
The Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul was the most powerful Martial Soul in the mortal world!
The Angel Domain was a vital part of the Six-Winged Angel's overwhelming dominance, yet Qian Renxue was now wavering over the Angel Domain...
"Grandpa, how did you get him here?" Qian Renxue asked.
"That woman... would she let him go so easily?"
Sending Yue Guan to seize him personally was enough to show how seriously that woman took this matter.
After dealing with her in person, Qian Renxue did not think that woman would hand him over so easily.
"I had Golden Crocodile handle it," Qian Daoliu said.
"I don't know the details either. Let's go out and ask."
"Wait. Don't show yourself yet."
There were few decorations inside the Worship Hall, only an enormous statue of the Angel God.
Beneath the statue stood another door. Beyond it lay the true Angel Temple, which only those who possessed the Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul were qualified to enter.
The other enshrined could go no farther than this door.
The door slowly opened, and a handsome middle-aged man who looked to be in his thirties or forties walked out, his bearing serene, dressed in gold robes embroidered with silver.
"Great Enshrined." Golden Crocodile Douluo bowed his head in salute.
Xuan Ming quietly watched Qian Daoliu before him, neither speaking nor making any gesture.
Golden Crocodile Douluo frowned slightly. "Boy, don't you even know basic Soul Master etiquette?"
"No. I never learned it," Xuan Ming said.
"Do you need me to kowtow to him?"
"You!" Golden Crocodile Douluo choked on his words.
He was almost two hundred years old. No one had dared speak to him like that in over a century!
"Golden Crocodile." Qian Daoliu raised a hand, signaling him not to take offense.
"Child, what is your name?"
"You abducted me here without even knowing my name?" Xuan Ming asked back.
Golden Crocodile Douluo's expression darkened. "Boy, you..."
Qian Daoliu shook his head and asked through voice transmission, "What happened? Is he angry?"
The moment he saw this child, he had sensed a suppressed fury.
"I..." Golden Crocodile Douluo looked somewhat uncomfortable.
"When I took him away, my methods might have been a little direct."
"Direct?" Qian Daoliu looked at Xuan Ming, then at the two Black Dragons behind him, their eyes filled with coldness.
"What did you do?"
Even forcibly dragging him back should not have caused this, should it?
"That disciple of Bibi Dong's, Hu Liena," Golden Crocodile Douluo said.
"When I went to fetch him, she was with this boy. I... couldn't hold back and struck her."
"You..." Qian Daoliu began, then stopped.
Bibi Dong was extremely cold toward Qian Renxue, yet she doted on her disciple Hu Liena almost as though she were her own daughter.
That contrast had made Qian Renxue jealous and resentful of Hu Liena. She always felt that child had stolen her mother.
Golden Crocodile, in turn, doted on Qian Renxue, so he likewise found Hu Liena displeasing.
"You didn't seriously hurt her, did you?" Qian Daoliu asked.
"I only taught her a lesson," Golden Crocodile Douluo said.
"That's good." Qian Daoliu sighed.
If Golden Crocodile had truly injured Hu Liena, dealing with Bibi Dong would be troublesome.
"Your name is Xuan Ming?" Qian Daoliu asked.
"Yes," Xuan Ming answered.
"Elder Golden Crocodile merely acted on impulse earlier. That child is fine. You don't need to worry," Qian Daoliu said.
"We brought you here only because we wanted to learn about a few things."
"There's no need to be nervous."
"I'm not nervous," Xuan Ming said.
"I simply don't understand. Striking a nine-year-old girl-is this Elder Golden Crocodile's lofty virtue and prestige?"
"You!" Golden Crocodile Douluo's expression froze.
"Enough." Qian Daoliu glanced at Golden Crocodile.
"Elder Golden Crocodile did act improperly, but there were other reasons behind this. Golden Crocodile wasn't deliberately trying to bully her."
"He was the one who struck her, the one who forcibly took me away, and now he's also the one who didn't mean it," Xuan Ming said.
"I'm just a country bumpkin who knows nothing of etiquette. May I ask, if I slapped him, could I also say I didn't mean to offend him?"
"Try it if you have the guts," Golden Crocodile Douluo said flatly.
"I certainly have the guts. I simply lack the ability," Xuan Ming said.
"But I am curious. If our positions were reversed, would you have the guts to try me?"
"You!" Golden Crocodile Douluo's gaze hardened, and terrifying Soul Power pressure spilled out.
In an instant, Xuan Ming was crushed to the floor. The bones throughout his body clattered against one another, as though he might be flattened at any moment.
"Boy, today I'll teach you how to respect your elders," Golden Crocodile Douluo said flatly.
"I haven't learned any respect, but throwing your weight around and bullying the young has certainly opened my eyes!" Xuan Ming said through gritted teeth.
"Your exemplary conduct as a senior truly surpasses even Poison Douluo's!"
"This junior is impressed!"
"You!" Golden Crocodile Douluo was enraged and instinctively moved to increase the pressure.
"Golden Crocodile." Qian Daoliu merely glanced over, and an invisible force instantly dispersed Golden Crocodile Douluo's pressure.
"You're almost two hundred years old, yet a few words from a child have provoked you to this extent. Your composure is far too flimsy."
"Great Enshrined, I've conducted myself improperly." Golden Crocodile Douluo's expression shifted slightly, and he lowered his head in apology.
"Bullying those beneath you and fawning over those above. You're even more shameless than Dugu Bo." Xuan Ming wiped the blood seeping from the corner of his mouth and forced himself to his feet.
"You should hold your tongue too." Qian Daoliu glanced at Xuan Ming.
"Knowing full well you're powerless to resist, you still insist on scoring verbal victories. You really are foolish."
Qian Renxue had even claimed this boy was deep and calculating. This was deep and calculating?
Other than his boundless audacity, Qian Daoliu truly could not see anything deep or calculating about him.
"I'm about to die, and I'm not even allowed to curse a little?" Xuan Ming said.
"Would you let me go if I knelt and begged for mercy?"
"Die?" Qian Daoliu was taken aback.
"When did I say I wanted you dead?"
"You've abducted me into these remote mountains and forests to destroy my body and erase the evidence. How is that not wanting me dead?" Xuan Ming said.
"Remote mountains and forests?" The corner of Qian Daoliu's eye twitched slightly.
Both the Worship Hall and Douluo Hall stood at the mountaintop. The road up was indeed rather rugged, and almost no one other than Titled Douluo usually traveled it, but surely that did not make this some remote mountain wilderness?
"You... didn't tell him?" Qian Daoliu looked at Golden Crocodile.
Don't tell me you abducted him straight up the mountain without saying a word?
"Well..." Golden Crocodile Douluo looked somewhat embarrassed.
He had wanted to explain the situation, but ever since he had slapped Bibi Dong's disciple unconscious, this boy had looked at him as though he wanted to kill him.
What else could he say?
Getting him up here at all was good enough.
"You..." Qian Daoliu began, then stopped. In the end, he merely let out a deep sigh.
"This is a misunderstanding. This is the Worship Hall, not some remote mountain wilderness."
"We don't intend to kill you either. We only brought you here to ask about a few things."
"What things?" Xuan Ming asked.
"Your domain," Qian Daoliu said.
"I heard..."
Before he could finish, a tranquil white light burst forth, instantly enveloping Qian Daoliu.
"This..." Qian Daoliu's gaze changed.
Golden Crocodile Douluo's expression also grew somewhat unnatural.
This was no simple sense of oppression. It was death!
It was the helplessness of feeling everything about oneself rapidly slipping away, yet being unable to stop it!
The feeling Qian Renxue could not describe was a suffocating sensation of drawing infinitely close to death, something she had never experienced!
No wonder Yue Guan and the others had said even Titled Douluo would be affected by this bizarre domain for an instant.
It was not that this domain could truly suppress a Titled Douluo, but that even a Titled Douluo would feel helpless before the suffocating sense of death it brought!
Though it was merely an illusion, it was so incredibly real that one could not distinguish truth from falsehood!
"Bizarre indeed." Qian Daoliu narrowed his eyes.
Anyone who had never experienced nearing death would mistakenly believe that everything about them had been suppressed, even brought close to a standstill.
He had completed the Angel's Eight Trials, surviving by the skin of his teeth, so naturally he understood what nearing death felt like.
Golden Crocodile possessed a hundred-thousand-year ninth Soul Ring. When he absorbed it, that terrifying assault on his soul had nearly killed him as well.
Yet precisely because of that, they were even less able to resist this illusion. The dread still lingered...
"Do you know what your domain does?" Qian Daoliu could not help asking.
"Yes. About to die," Xuan Ming said.
Qian Daoliu froze. "How do you know?"