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Tang Chen looked at the scene in front of him. A cold light flashed in his eyes. He was a little surprised that the giant snake was suddenly suppressed by the dragon aura, but his fighting skills were very sharp. He knew he could not miss such a great chance to attack.
With a loud whoosh sound, Tang Chen moved forward like a flash of golden light. His speed reached the absolute limit in an instant. He flew right past the edge of the fading fire. He crossed the narrow stone bridge in a split second and appeared right in front of the Ten-headed Fierce Yang Serpent. The giant snake was completely frozen with fear, and its defenses were wide open.
Then, the golden dragon spear in his hand moved like lightning. It was incredibly sharp and fast, able to pierce through anything. Before the Ten-headed Fierce Yang Serpent could even move or react, the spear went straight into the middle of its neck. This was the weakest part of its body, where its ten heads joined together.
There was a quiet thudding sound. It did not sound like scales breaking. Instead, it sounded like an energy point being broken by force.
The massive body of the Ten-headed Fierce Yang Serpent shook hard. The hot flames on its ten heads went out instantly. The deep fear in its eyes changed into a dull gray color of death. It could not even make a final sound because that powerful strike, filled with the golden dragon aura, took away all its life.
With a huge crash, the massive body of the serpent fell onto the side of the boiling lava lake. It made huge waves of hot lava splash everywhere.
Tang Chen moved his wrist quickly, and the golden dragon spear slowly went back. He did not look at the large dead body at all. His eyes were focused right on the center of the snake. In that spot, a red orb about the size of a fist slowly came out and floated up. Ten different colors of flame patterns were moving on its surface.
This red orb was the true essence of the monster, known as the Ten-headed Fierce Yang Pill. It held all the energy from its long years of cultivation. It was a rare treasure of extreme heat and light, and it had many amazing uses.
Tang Chen smiled coldly and said, "An inner core? This is not bad. It will make a very good medicinal ingredient."
He waved his hand, and the hot inner core flew right into his palm. He used his spirit power to wrap around it safely and put it away with great care.
The whole process was very fast. From the moment the Ten-headed Fierce Yang Serpent appeared to the moment it was frozen by the golden dragon spear, and then killed by Tang Chen, only a few seconds passed.
Hu Liena was standing at the other end of the stone bridge. She had not even stepped onto the bridge completely yet. She was totally shocked by what she saw. Her hands were holding her short sword tightly, and they were covered in cold sweat. She wondered if it was really over so quickly.
She looked at him and asked, "How did you do that?"
Tang Chen did not turn his head around. He just said calmly, "It was just luck."
Hu Liena frowned a little bit. She looked at the hot inner core in his hand and warned him quickly, "Aren't you worried that this thing might be poisonous? It could also explode suddenly."
Tang Chen shook his head and replied in an indifferent voice, "This is just the inner core of the snake. It has lost connection with the main body, so it cannot explode now. As for the poison, I am not afraid of it at all. Let's go. The exit is right in front of us, and we will be out very soon."
As he spoke, the burning heat and the mental pressure in front of them became very strong. A strange, blurry white light was flashing at the end of the dark path. This light was the doorway to the outside world. Tang Chen started walking forward again. His voice was still quiet and calm. He did not show any excitement about leaving this dangerous place.
When Hu Liena heard these words, her spirit returned, and the heavy fear she felt for many days finally went away. She looked at Tang Chen's back with many complicated feelings inside her heart. If this powerful and mysterious God of Death had not led the way, she would never have reached this point so easily. Even though she was still a bit afraid of him, she knew he had saved her life.
She spoke in a soft and honest voice, "Thank you for all your help along the way. What is your real name?"
Tang Chen turned his body slightly. His eyes looked at her from behind his mask. Then he turned back toward the bright white light and said two words very calmly, "Xiao Yan."
After he spoke his name, he did not wait. He walked straight into the white light at the exit.
Hu Liena whispered the name Xiao Yan to herself. It was a completely new name to her. She had never heard of a young expert with this name on the continent. However, she guessed that this was probably not his real name. Still, having a name to call him was much better than calling him God of Death or just saying hey.
She stopped thinking too much and took a deep breath. She controlled her nervous feelings and her fear about the outside world. Then she followed Tang Chen right into the white light.
At that exact moment, as soon as Tang Chen and Hu Liena went into the exit and disappeared, Slaughter City fell into total madness and chaos.
At first, only the lower-level members felt a strange pain in their stomachs after they drank the bloody mary. Their spirit power moved very slowly, and they found it much harder to control their desire to kill. They did not care much at first. They just thought the drink tasted a bit different today, or maybe they were just tired.
But very quickly, things became much worse. The small pain turned into a terrible, burning agony. The slow spirit power became completely wild and started flowing backward inside their bodies. Their minds were already very stressed from killing people for a long time. Now, the strange and cold poison in their blood acted like a match on a pile of gunpowder.
Many people started screaming and yelling in pain. They shouted about their stomachs hurting terribly. They told others to stay away or they would kill them. They demanded more blood and more bloody mary. They laughed like crazy people and wanted to kill everyone.
These screams, wild roars, and crazy laughs destroyed the fake peace of Slaughter City instantly. The terrible physical pain and the wild spirit power made everyone lose their minds. Their natural desire to kill and their dark feelings became much stronger, controlling everything they did.
The people in Slaughter City never trusted each other anyway. Now, even a tiny movement could start a massive fight. One person walked into another because of the great pain, and the other person stabbed him with a sword immediately. Another person with blank eyes had his head crushed by a giant hammer from a laughing madman.
Inside the local tavern, dozens of people started fighting fiercely to grab the last cup of bloody mary. Swords hit each other, and blood flew everywhere. The whole tavern became a terrible place of death.
The streets looked even worse. People with red eyes and spit falling from their mouths screamed while holding their bodies. They attacked each other like wild dogs. They did not use any special skills or think about the results. They only used their basic instincts to take out their pain on any living creature they could see.
Blood washed over the stone streets, and broken body parts were left everywhere. The loud roars, painful cries, and the sound of buildings breaking combined into a dark song of death. Slaughter City was already a dark and dirty place, but now it was completely covered in thick blood and insanity. The chaos spread very fast, just like a disease. The entire city became like a boiling pot of bloody soup.
This massive, crazy fighting happened because the main source of the bloody mary was poisoned. It was killing the people of Slaughter City very quickly. This was destroying the very foundation of this land of crime.
Deep inside the hidden room of the city, the large pool of blood was moving very violently. Sitting on his large throne, the Slaughter King opened his red eyes suddenly. His pale fingers held the handle of the dark red sword next to him. He roared out in anger, "Who dares to poison my blood source and shake the very foundation of my Slaughter City?"
While Slaughter City was falling into this madness, Tang San and his friends found the Rakshasa God legacy on a lonely island far across the sea. At the same time, the situation on the Douluo Continent was changing very fast.
A great meeting to choose the new Seven Great Sects was held with a lot of noise and power in Spirit City.
Before this, the Clear Sky Sect was the number one sect in the world, but it was almost completely destroyed. The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School was very rich, but it suffered terrible damage. The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan was the strongest, but it was wiped out completely. Because of this, the old system of the Upper Three Sects was totally broken. Spirit Hall took complete control and helped new groups rise up quickly to form the new Seven Great Sects.
The new Upper Three Sects were the Elephant Armored Academy, which was famous for its great defense, the Sacred Dragon Sect, known for its Sacred Dragon spirit, and the Wind Sword Sect, which was very good at using wind swordsmanship.
The new Lower Four Sects were the Fire Leopard Sect, which had powerful fire attacks, the Black Tiger Sect, which was very fast at attacking, the Rock Antelope Sect, which was good at defense and control, and the Sparrow Bee Sect, which used poison and high speed.
All of these new Seven Great Sects were groups that secretly or openly worked for Spirit Hall. Their new power showed that Spirit Hall was now controlling the world of spirit masters openly instead of staying hidden. They had successfully gathered and organized the top spirit master powers on the continent.
Right after this, a shocking announcement was made to the entire continent. Spirit Hall changed its name immediately and became a new country called the Spirit Empire.
All the small spirit hall buildings inside the Heaven Dou Empire and the Star Luo Empire were closed in a single night. All the spirit master workers were moved back quickly to the new lands of the empire.
The land of the Spirit Empire did not come from nothing. It was made by taking over more than ten small kingdoms and duchies that were located between the two large empires. This new land looked like a sharp wedge placed right between the Heaven Dou Empire and the Star Luo Empire. It completely cut off the connection and help between the two old countries. Its total size was just as large as either of the two empires.
Looking at the map, the Spirit Empire seemed to be in a bad position because it could be attacked from both the north and the south. However, after it was created, the Spirit Empire did not just defend itself. Instead, it attacked fiercely and grew larger in both directions at the same time.
In just over ten days, without any giant army battles, it used its top-tier spirit master power to strike and scare its enemies. It easily took two large provinces from each of the two empires.
The new Spirit Empire did not have as many ordinary soldiers as the two old empires, which had long histories and huge lands. However, it had a special advantage that could change the rules of war completely. It had spirit masters.
The number of spirit masters controlled by the Spirit Empire was terrifying. After the country was made, they said that anyone who did not join them was an enemy. Because of this rule and the example of the new Seven Great Sects, more than seventy percent of all spirit masters on the continent joined the Spirit Empire.
The empire had more than ten Titled Douluo, and its spirit master groups were massive. A team of one thousand spirit masters on a battlefield had enough power to fight against tens of thousands of ordinary soldiers.
Because the power gap was so huge, the Heaven Dou and Star Luo Empires were very angry, but they had to stay quiet. They could only build up their strength in secret and make their defenses stronger. They did not dare to start a big counter-attack because if their main armies lost, they would never recover.
The first leader of the Spirit Empire was crowned by Supreme Pontiff Bibi Dong. This female leader ruled a massive country. After growing the land quickly to show her power, she began to organize everything inside the empire. She removed anyone who disagreed with her. Using the massive amount of money that Spirit Hall had saved over many years, she trained new soldiers and built a powerful war machine.
In just a few months, the Spirit Empire changed from a religious group into a giant country with a single government and faith. It had a strong military and could stand equally with Heaven Dou and Star Luo. In fact, it was slightly stronger than them. Its northern and southern borders had more than twenty thousand spirit masters stationed there. They were led by Titled Douluo elders from Spirit Hall, making the borders impossible to break.
Finally, after organizing everything inside and reaching its peak power, the Spirit Empire attacked the Heaven Dou Empire again. They did not send a long message to declare war. Instead, they started a fast and sudden attack that they had planned for a long time.
The spirit master groups of the Spirit Empire moved like sharp arrows. They were supported by the well-trained new imperial soldiers. They broke through twenty-three important border cities of the Heaven Dou Empire with incredible speed and power.
Wherever the army went, ordinary soldiers could not stop the power of the spirit masters. Cities fell one after another, and urgent letters were sent quickly to Heaven Dou City.
The fire of war was completely lit. The long peace between the two old countries was broken, and a new three-way war began.
Inside the imperial study room in Heaven Dou City, the sky outside the window was very dark. Gray clouds hung low over the roofs of the city, looking like they might rain at any moment. Inside the room, the feeling was even more serious and heavy than the weather outside.
Many urgent letters from the border were spread out on the large wooden desk. Each letter had a bright red stamp that meant it was highly dangerous military news.
A few people were standing around the big desk. Emperor Xue Beng had lost his usual calm look. His face was as white as paper, and his fingers were nervously touching the corner of a war report. His eyes were full of fear and helplessness. He had only recently taken the throne, and his seat was not even warm before this great disaster arrived.
Xue Beng's voice shook as he broke the silence, saying, "Twenty-three cities! Twenty-three cities have fallen in just a few days! Those spirit masters from Spirit Hall are like real demons!"
When Ning Fengzhi heard this, he corrected the young emperor and said, "Your Majesty, it is called the Spirit Empire now. They are no longer just a group of spirit masters. They are a real empire with a full army, land, and a war machine. This attack was planned very carefully. They used top spirit masters to break our lines, and ordinary soldiers followed them to take the cities. It is clear they have been planning this for a very long time."