Chapter 161: A Stray Dog, Perhaps It's Time to Return to the Sect
Since the three of them had already learned what had happened from Zhao Yun and confirmed that the danger had been resolved, they immediately turned back, quickly dispersing the gathered teachers and staff who had come to investigate, while also sealing off the news.
...
Meanwhile, just a few minutes earlier.
When Tang Hao swung that hammer, he still held a trace of luck in his heart.
He believed that by disregarding his hidden injuries and forcibly using Ring Explosion combined with the Great Sumeru Hammer, he could perfectly restrain Zhao Yun's movements and force him into defense.
That would give him some precious time to escape calmly.
However, he never expected that Zhao Yun, an Ultimate Douluo, would possess such terrifying depth!
While directly resisting the Great Sumeru Hammer head-on, Zhao Yun was actually able to split his attention.
He released an incomparably condensed lightning spear shadow to launch a long-distance fatal strike against him!
Even though Tang Hao sensed the danger during his escape and hurriedly turned back to block it, his proud protective qi was like paper before that spear shadow!
His right shoulder was still mercilessly pierced by that silver spear shadow!
Blood sprayed wildly. His entire right arm, along with the soul bone, was severed cleanly at the root and fell off!
The pain pierced the bone!
But Tang Hao had no time to retrieve his severed arm. He didn't even dare to pause for a moment!
Because he knew clearly.
If Zhao Yun could launch such a precise and terrifying attack from such a distance, then it meant Zhao Yun had already easily blocked his Great Sumeru Hammer and remained completely unscathed.
If he dared to stop and pick up his arm, the next moment, Zhao Yun's spear would pierce not his arm but his throat!
He had to escape at the fastest possible speed. This was his only chance to survive!
Losing an arm fused with a soul bone came at an extremely high cost.
Tang Hao could clearly feel that his overall soul power limit had dropped off a cliff!
It dropped by a full ten ranks!
He had fallen from a rank ninety-five Super Douluo directly to the rank eighty-five Soul Douluo Realm!
But because he had just lost the arm, his body's instincts and residual soul power still remained.
So his escape speed did not immediately slow down. For a short time, he could still barely maintain a speed above that of a Titled Douluo.
During this golden time of escape, Tang Hao was like a stray dog, frantically overexerting and consuming his soul power.
He pushed himself to increase his speed at all costs until both his soul power and stamina were nearly exhausted.
Only then did he finally dare to stop in a relatively hidden, desolate ruined temple to rest.
The moment he stopped, Tang Hao couldn't help but spit out a mouthful of black blood mixed with fragments of internal organs.
At this moment, his condition was far from good. It could even be described as miserable.
Using his remaining left hand, he calmly applied every usable healing medicine from his soul tool onto the wound of his severed arm.
As for the precious oral healing medicines, he swallowed them all as if they cost nothing.
Only after the medicinal effects spread did he barely suppress the hidden injuries within his body that were on the verge of erupting due to the forced ring explosion.
Leaning against the cold wall of the ruined temple, Tang Hao's face was as pale as paper, extremely unsightly.
This time, he had truly tried to steal a chicken only to lose the rice, suffering heavy losses on all fronts.
He originally thought that with the long-inherited Ring Explosion secret technique of the Clear Sky Sect, combined with the overbearing power of the Great Sumeru Hammer, even if he could not dominate the world, facing a rank ninety-nine Ultimate Douluo, he would at least have the power to strike once unexpectedly and retreat safely.
But now it seemed that he, Tang Hao, had been too narrow-minded and overly arrogant!
Although his Great Sumeru Hammer this time only exploded the first six rings and was not his peak full power of exploding all nine rings, from Zhao Yun's seemingly effortless counterattack just now, he could clearly sense that even if he truly risked his life today and exploded all nine rings, Zhao Yun would still face his desperate attack with ease and might even kill him without suffering any injury.
This was the immense, chasm-like gap between an Ultimate Douluo and an ordinary Super Douluo!
At this moment, having experienced a brush with death and a crushing defeat, Tang Hao suddenly gained a trace of realization.
He could now somewhat understand why, back when the Clear Sky Sect was at its peak, when faced with the overwhelming pressure from Spirit Hall, the sect elders had chosen without hesitation to back down, seal the sect, and withdraw from the world.
And why his father, the previous sect master of the Clear Sky Sect, had died in depression and regret.
That was because Spirit Hall was truly too powerful!
This kind of power was not a matter of numbers among low-level soul masters but an absolute crushing force in top-tier combat power!
Not to mention the Titled Douluo on the surface within Spirit Hall—just the Grand Worship of the Douluo Hall, the rank ninety-nine Ultimate Douluo Qian Daoliu alone!
He could likely flatten the entire Clear Sky Sect of that time by himself.
The might of an Ultimate Douluo could not be challenged!
Cough, cough…
Tang Hao coughed up another mouthful of blood and looked down at his now-empty right shoulder.
Now, having lost his right arm and with his strength permanently damaged, falling to the Soul Douluo level, he clearly could no longer hide in the shadows and properly protect Tang San as before.
"Perhaps… I should return to the sect."
A trace of complexity and resolve flashed in Tang Hao's murky eyes. "To plead guilty to the sect and then inform the higher-ups of Tang San's existence."
Tang Hao calculated in his heart.
The sect had longed to return to its former glory. If they learned that Tang San possessed the extremely rare twin Martial Souls and also had innate full soul power, for the sake of this talent that could lead the Clear Sky Sect to revival, even if the elders hated him and refused to forgive the grave mistakes he committed back then, they might still accept Tang San back into the sect for the sake of its future.
Actually, if possible,
Tang Hao had originally planned to wait until Tang San's cultivation was higher, at least reaching the level of Soul King or Soul Emperor, so that he would have some self-protection ability and enough value to show before bringing his son back to the Clear Sky Sect.
He wanted his son to use his strength to atone for his father's sins and wash away the humiliation.
But plans could not keep up with changes.
With his current crippled body, with his mere rank eighty-five cultivation, and having lost a high-quality right arm soul bone of around eighty thousand years that he had fused with for many years, severely damaging his foundation, his physical condition could no longer withstand the backlash of Ring Explosion.
Even if he risked his life to use it now, he could probably only explode the first four rings at most, those low-year hundred-year, and thousand-year soul rings.
And exploding such low-level soul rings would not provide much boost to his strength, at most barely pushing him to the threshold of the Titled Douluo level.
Yet the side effects would be extremely severe. This approach brought far more harm than benefit.
...
End of Chapter