Caught completely off guard, Gao Shang fell along with the shattered floor.
Fortunately, the underground space was not deep, about the height of an ordinary room. He adjusted his posture in midair and landed steadily.
Raising his left hand, Gao Shang summoned a wisp of flame from his palm, illuminating the surrounding darkness.
This was a small underground secret chamber.
Ten large chests stood inside, along with a dozen or so armor stands by the walls.
But instead of armor, the stands held deathly white skeletons, pieced together and fastened in place.
Each skeleton was only around 1.4 to 1.5 meters tall, with slender bones and a low, broad pelvis-clearly the remains of young girls.
"This Zhou Qi really was a beast."
Gao Shang stared at the skeletons, wishing he could bring Zhou Qi back to life and put him through death by a thousand cuts all over again.
Forcibly abducting commoner girls had not been enough. He had even killed them and stripped away their flesh, refusing to leave even the dead's remains in peace.
Such conduct was even more hateful than that of Fallen Soul Masters.
"I hope you never meet another villain like him in your next lives."
With a helpless sigh, Gao Shang waved his hand. Clusters of flame broke away from his palm and settled on the skeletons.
The flames surged, engulfing the skeletons and armor stands together.
Soon, the deathly white bones turned to ash and drifted down inside the chamber.
Gao Shang knew that this was far from the only Zhou Qi on the Douluo Continent. Behind closed doors, those great nobles would only be filthier.
Unfortunately, with his current strength, he still lacked the ability to change any of this.
All he could do now was lay these people who had died unjustly to rest.
Once the flames subsided, Gao Shang walked toward the nearest chest.
It was unlocked, and he lifted its lid with a hand.
But a single glance made his expression darken.
He had thought that anything hidden in a place like this would be nothing more than gold, silver, treasures, antiques, and paintings.
Yet in reality, the chest did not contain even a single Gold Soul Coin.
Rows of transparent glass specimen jars sat neatly inside, and what floated in their preserving fluid were hearts.
Some were still bright red, as though freshly taken from living people's chests; others had already blackened and rotted, their preserving fluid turned utterly murky.
This chest alone held more hearts than there were skeletons by the walls.
"Zhou-Qi!!"
Gao Shang practically forced the words through gritted teeth.
He truly had never imagined that a person's evil could reach such depths.
Taking a deep breath, Gao Shang forcibly suppressed the anger churning in his chest and opened the remaining wooden chests one after another.
Livers, kidneys, lungs, gallbladders...
Ten full chests, all filled with different human organs.
There were plenty of every kind, over twenty at the fewest and even more than forty at the most.
By the time he finished looking, Gao Shang had instead fallen silent.
Raging at a dead man would change nothing and only waste time.
He raised his hand, and Ultimate Fire poured from his palm into each of the ten chests, engulfing the wooden containers and their contents together.
The flames kept rising, and the temperature inside the chamber climbed higher and higher.
The surrounding walls cracked in the heat, great patches of plaster falling away amid an unending series of sharp cracks.
Gao Shang paid it no mind. It would be fine if the chamber collapsed; it would bury these people who had died unjustly.
But when the eastern wall cracked far enough, the entire wall toppled backward with a tremendous crash.
There was no earth behind it. Instead, another, even more concealed secret chamber lay beyond.
At the sight, a vein jumped on Gao Shang's forehead. His limited imagination could no longer conceive of what might be inside this chamber.
But things had come this far. No matter what, he had to go in and look.
Yet the moment Gao Shang took a step, a cold gleam shot out of the darkness, aimed straight at his throat!
Clang!
At that critical instant, a translucent Soul Power barrier automatically sprang from the Dragon Scale Protection on his chest.
The barrier overlapped in layers like dragon scales, easily blocking the lethal attack.
Gao Shang's pupils instantly transformed into rapidly spinning, blood-red Sharingan, and a purple Soul Ring rose from beneath his feet.
With his vision enhanced by his Martial Soul, he immediately made out the attacker's appearance.
It was a young girl.
More precisely, it was a young girl pieced together from different parts.
Stitches were visible on her face, neck, and even between her fingers. Her skin varied in shade from one part to another, making the boundaries between the joined pieces especially obvious.
Gao Shang's gaze first fell on the blade in her hand. It was a Martial Soul shaped like a scalpel, while beneath her feet were four full Soul Rings.
But the upper two were an eerie gray.
Despite having four rings, the Soul Power fluctuations coming from her were only around rank twenty.
"You're... Zhou Qi?"
"You actually survived?"
The same Martial Soul, the same number of Soul Rings, and hidden in a secret chamber in Zhou Qi's estate to boot-Gao Shang did not believe in such a coincidence.
The anger that had found no outlet earlier finally had somewhere to go. Looking at the body before him, Gao Shang suddenly laughed.
"Good. It's good that you're still alive."
"That saves me from having any regrets."
Zhou Qi did not answer, merely staring at the barrier in front of him.
He did not know what sort of defensive measure this was, but that strike had been his best chance.
If even a surprise attack had failed, continuing the fight would only make things worse.
He knew Gao Shang's previous battle record very well. This imperfect puppet body could, at best, exert combat strength equivalent to rank-twenty Soul Power. It was no match for him at all.
Zhou Qi shifted half a step sideways, his gaze passing Gao Shang to sweep the space behind him.
As long as he made it out alive today, he would eventually have a chance to settle this score.
Gao Shang followed his gaze with a glance and understood his intentions.
"Heh, you don't actually think you still have a chance to leave, do you?"
He reached out and grasped, and a long saber fell into his palm.
"First Soul Power, Tyrant's Power!"
His Soul Skill activated, and Gao Shang brought his saber straight down at Zhou Qi's head.
He was injured. Although the healing medicine produced by the system had temporarily eased his injuries, if this turned into a prolonged battle, he would be the one at a disadvantage.
Zhou Qi's gaze changed, and he immediately raised his scalpel at an angle.
The instant the two blades collided, he pulled hard along the saber's momentum, guiding it to the side while using the force to dodge the other way, narrowly avoiding the strike.
But Gao Shang's assault did not pause for an instant. Turning his wrist, he smoothly changed the chop into an upward diagonal slash, aiming straight for Zhou Qi's chest and abdomen!
Swish!
The blade was too fast, its angle too devious. Zhou Qi had only just dodged the first strike and had yet to regain his footing, leaving him no choice but to raise his scalpel to block again.
But this time, he had no room to sufficiently redirect the force. The moment his scalpel met the saber, it was knocked aside.
The strength of his current body could not withstand a direct blow from Gao Shang at all.
Still, that block did deflect the blade slightly.
Instead of cutting open his chest and abdomen, the saber sliced past his shoulder, severing one of his arms.
The severed arm hit the floor. Gao Shang glanced at it, then looked back at Zhou Qi, whose emotions had barely fluctuated throughout.
"Interesting."
"Only rank-twenty Soul Power, yet you're no weaker than Wang Tianyuan. Looks like you were once a genius too."
The blade gleamed with a chilling coldness in the firelight as Gao Shang slowly closed in, undisguised killing intent in his eyes.