Chapter 107: I Should Let Go
After Huo Yuhao slammed his door shut, the corridor outside fell into a suffocating silence. Even through the thick, sound-dampening wood, Elder Xuan's heavy, labored breathing echoed into the hallway. Each ragged exhale carried an undisguised violence, radiating the sheer frustration of a Level 98 Super Douluo struggling to keep his temper in check.
Bei Bei, Wang Dong, and He Caitou stood frozen in the hallway. They exchanged tense glances, their eyes clouded with deep anxiety. They knew Huo Yuhao's personality better than anyone. He was usually the most gentle, accommodating, and resilient youth among them. If he had not suffered a truly deep injustice, he never would have retorted to an academy elder with such a bridge-burning, explosive attitude.
Bei Bei let out a long, weary sigh. Taking the lead, he walked toward Huo Yuhao's room. Wang Dong followed closely on his heels, their footsteps echoing with a heavy, hollow thud against the floorboards of the empty corridor.
"Yuhao, open the door. It's us," Bei Bei called out. He stood squarely in front of the wooden frame, softening his tone as he knocked with tentative, measured taps.
For a long moment, there was no response from inside. Wang Dong shifted his weight, raising a hand to knock again, but before his knuckles could strike the wood, the door slowly pulled open just a crack.
Huo Yuhao stood in the narrow gap. His usually bright, clear eyes looked dull and turbid, shadowed by exhaustion. A lingering, angry redness stained the corners of his eyes, betraying the intense emotional turmoil he had just endured.
"Eldest Senior Brother. Wang Dong." Huo Yuhao's voice scraped out of his throat, hoarse and dry as sandpaper. "I want to be alone for a while."
The sheer, bone-deep fatigue seeping from the young man's posture was suffocating. Seeing him like this, the words of comfort that had been resting on the tips of Bei Bei and Wang Dong's tongues withered and died in their throats.
"Yuhao..." Bei Bei forced a gentle smile, trying desperately to ease the heavy atmosphere. "Elder Xuan is just under too much pressure right now. Our losses this time were incredibly heavy, and he..."
Huo Yuhao slowly shook his head. A bitter, self-deprecating smile hooked the corner of his mouth. "Eldest Senior Brother, there is no need to say anything else. I know what I am doing. I am just too tired. I want to rest."
Without waiting for another word, Huo Yuhao stepped back. The door clicked shut with a quiet, absolute finality.
Bei Bei and Wang Dong stood frozen at the doorway. They stared at the tightly closed wooden panels for a long time before finally exchanging a helpless look and turning away.
Downstairs in the hotel lobby, the rest of the Shrek Academy team had gathered. Xu Sanshi, Jiang Nannan, and Xiao Xiao sat around a low wooden table, the air thick with unspoken tension. Concern was etched deeply into every face. The moment they heard footsteps on the stairs, all three heads snapped up.
"How is it? Is Yuhao willing to talk?" Xu Sanshi pushed himself up from his chair, stepping forward eagerly. He kept his voice to a low, urgent whisper, afraid of carrying the sound up the stairwell.
Bei Bei shook his head, his expression grim. "He is not in the mood. He still will not say a word about what happened. It seems the events at the auction hit him far harder than we realized."
"Actually, it is completely understandable." Jiang Nannan let out a soft, sympathetic sigh. She turned her gaze toward the ceiling, looking in the direction of Huo Yuhao's room. "No matter who it is, watching an item of vital importance being snatched away by a rival faction would never feel good. Not to mention..." She hesitated, her brow furrowing slightly. "What Elder Xuan said earlier was incredibly hurtful. He crossed a line."
For once, Xu Sanshi completely dropped his usual joking demeanor. He scratched the back of his head, his jaw tight. "Elder Xuan is out of line here. At a time like this, instead of figuring out how to comfort the team and stabilize our morale, he actually went out of his way to suspect Yuhao. After everything we have bled through together, do we not know exactly what kind of person our junior brother is?"
"We just have to trust him," Jiang Nannan said, her tone hardening into absolute certainty. "Although Yuhao definitely hides some of his secrets from us, he would never betray Shrek Academy. I can guarantee that with my life."
Bei Bei looked at Jiang Nannan, then swept his gaze over the varied, exhausted expressions of his remaining teammates. He gave a single, forceful nod. "Yes. We must trust him. Whatever decision he makes, he has his reasons. Everyone, go back to your rooms and rest. We still have to rely on our own strength to pull through tomorrow's matches in the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Dueling Tournament."
Meanwhile, in the pitch-black isolation of his room, Huo Yuhao was nowhere near resting.
He had manually switched off every single soul tool lamp in the room, plunging himself into absolute darkness. He sat cross-legged in the center of his bed, his breathing slowing to a steady, meditative rhythm. With a familiar mental pull, his consciousness detached from the physical world and sank deeply into the vast, boundless expanse of his Spiritual Sea.
At this moment, the atmosphere within his Spiritual Sea was stretched taut, tense to the absolute extreme.
Normally, this mental realm glowed with a warm, faint golden radiance. Now, due to the severe lack of life energy replenishment from the Life Gold, the entire Spiritual Sea appeared dim, gloomy, and suffocatingly cold. The mental waves crashed against the boundaries with a sluggish, heavy rhythm.
In the deepest, most isolated depths of his Spiritual Sea, a single mass of greyish-black Divine Sense hovered in the void. It was the core of Electrolux's soul. But right now, that once-solid orb of origin energy had become terrifyingly thin and translucent. It flickered like a dying candle in the wind, looking as though the surrounding spiritual waves might completely disperse it at any given second.
"Why the long face, my child? Yuhao, are you in a difficult position?"
Electrolux's aged, peaceful voice echoed through the dim Spiritual Sea. The sound was incredibly weak, lacking its usual resonant power, yet it still carried a deep sense of detachment—the calm acceptance of an ancient being who had long since seen through the mundane struggles of the mortal world.
Huo Yuhao stared at the flickering, looming phantom of the old man before him. A sharp, physical ache twisted in his chest. He clenched his mental projection's fists and asked with desperate urgency, "Elder Yi... since you have already awakened, then... what do you think of what Liu Yuan said earlier?"
Electrolux let out a low, raspy chuckle. It was a warm sound, meant to comfort a distressed junior. "Haha... What could this old man possibly think? Yuhao, I was originally nothing more than a fractured remnant of a soul. To have been able to cross the shackles of dimensional planes, to persist on this continent until now, and to witness the magical intricacies of your world's Martial Soul system... I have already earned far more than I deserve. You do not need to consider my fate so heavily."
The old man's translucent phantom slowly drifted closer to Huo Yuhao. His ancient eyes were pools of boundless kindness. "In the time to come, if you manage to find another piece of Life Gold or a similar divine object of creation, then that is naturally my good fortune. If not... I can still count myself incredibly blessed to have taken you as my successor. I have planted the seeds of my necromancy in this world. I truly have no regrets left in this life. Even if my soul dissipates right here and now, I will leave with a perfectly clear conscience."
These words sounded far too much like a final testament. Hearing the calm acceptance of death in the old man's voice, the Skydream Iceworm could not hold back any longer.
The massive, million-year-old spirit beast squirmed uneasily within the golden boundaries of the Spiritual Sea. His mental voice rang out, thick with deep, bitter unwillingness.
"Is there really no other way to keep the old man alive?! If that Life Gold were in our hands, his divine soul could have been perfectly stabilized for at least ten thousand years! Now that it has fallen into Liu Yuan's hands, it is simply a catastrophic waste of a divine treasure!"
The Ice Empress, who had remained entirely silent until now, finally spoke up. Her voice was like cracking glaciers, radiating a bone-chilling, absolute murderous intent. "What is the point of agonizing over this like a bunch of cowards? Find an opportunity and just slaughter him. We snatch the item back."
"That Liu Yuan is only a Soul Ancestor in his forties right now," the Ice Empress continued, her tone dripping with lethal pragmatism. "Even if his Double Pupils are inherently powerful, if we pool our origin energy and cooperate with Yuhao to launch a concentrated mental piercing attack, killing him is far from impossible. Murder and looting happen every single day in the Far North. Since he is unwilling to hand it over, we will just kill him and take it from his corpse!"
The Skydream Iceworm was so terrified by her sheer bloodlust that his massive, fleshy body shivered violently. He hurriedly scrambled to stop her train of thought. "Bingbing, it is not as simple as you think! Do not forget who is sitting right next to Liu Yuan! That is Du Busi! The Sect Master of the Body Sect! A Level 98 Super Douluo!"
"Never mind our current restricted state as intelligent Soul Rings—even in your absolute prime as a ferocious beast, you might not have gained a single advantage against that human madman in a one-on-one fight! If we dare to make a move, I guarantee that before we even graze a single hair on Liu Yuan's head, that old monster will have already crushed Yuhao into a bloody smear of meat paste!"
The Ice Empress let out a sharp, cold snort, but she did not offer a retort. Despite her immense pride, she clearly understood exactly how terrifyingly troublesome a monster like Du Busi truly was.
Huo Yuhao sat in the physical darkness of his room, listening to the fierce argument echoing within his Spiritual Sea. His hands dug so tightly into his knees that his knuckles turned a stark, bone-white. His fingernails pierced through his trousers, embedding deeply into his own flesh, yet he felt no pain.
He had fallen into an unmatched state of hesitation and agonizing struggle. He knew that everyone in his Spiritual Sea was thinking solely for his sake—especially Electrolux. This venerable elder, purely to prevent his disciple from bearing a crushing psychological burden, would rather choose to face the terrifying fate of complete soul dissipation with a calm smile.
But Huo Yuhao was never the kind of ungrateful wretch who could abandon his benefactors.
Electrolux had saved his life on multiple occasions. He had carefully guided his cultivation, offering wisdom that no academy could teach. In Huo Yuhao's heart, Elder Yi was already an irreplaceable existence—a revered master and a father figure rolled into one.
If he were to throw away this single, fleeting opportunity for Electrolux to survive—just for his own selfish interests, to protect some so-called 'trump card,' or to preserve a pathetic shred of illusory self-esteem—he would absolutely never forgive himself. Not in this lifetime, nor the next.
also, Elder Xuan's suffocating attitude today had already torn a massive, unhealable rift in Huo Yuhao's heart.
Shrek Academy had indeed cultivated him. They had provided resources and a platform. But today, when he truly needed their absolute support, what had he received? Suspicion. Blame. A cold, arrogant indifference toward his personal opportunities and his desperate need for the Life Gold. They demanded his absolute loyalty but offered only conditional trust in return.
'If I stay here, Elder Yi will surely die. Shrek Academy cannot save him. And I cannot save him.'
Huo Yuhao repeated this brutal truth in his heart, over and over again, letting the reality of his weakness wash over him.
His mind drifted to the terrifying, abyssal depths of Liu Yuan's Double Pupils. He thought of the cold, pragmatic confidence radiating from the Body Sect's successor, and he thought of the small communication soul tool that Liu Yuan had deliberately left behind.
That entire night, Huo Yuhao did not close his eyes for a single second.
He sat entirely alone in the suffocating darkness of his room. Through the narrow gap in his curtains, he watched the sprawling expanse of Star Luo City shift from a bustling, brightly lit metropolis into a silent, sleeping giant, and finally, into the pale, creeping grey of dawn.
The heavy chips Liu Yuan had casually tossed onto the table echoed repeatedly in his mind.
Actually, the immense material wealth and the backing of the Body Sect were not what truly mattered to him. He could live without the glory. What truly made his loyalty waver, what shattered his resolve to stay with Shrek, was the image of Electrolux's increasingly faint, dying phantom.
Finally, it was late into the night of the following day.
The night sky above Star Luo City was a vast canvas scattered with cold, glittering stars. The pedestrians on the streets below had already thinned out, leaving the capital in a rare state of tranquility.
Huo Yuhao stood motionless in front of his window. His knuckles were white as he tightly clutched a small, dark gold metal cylinder in his right hand.
He took a long, trembling breath, as if summoning every last ounce of strength in his body. Slowly, deliberately, he injected a single, precise trace of his spiritual fluctuation into the communication soul tool.
A moment later, the smooth white crystal embedded at the top of the metal cylinder flickered to life. It pulsed with a faint, rhythmic light, and a low, perfectly calm voice connected from within.
"Huo Yuhao. It seems you have finally made your choice."
It was Liu Yuan. The tone was devoid of surprise, carrying only the absolute certainty of a predator who knew his prey had nowhere else to run.
Huo Yuhao slowly closed his eyes. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard, his dry throat clicking in the silence.
"I have decided," Huo Yuhao responded, his voice hoarse but laced with a newfound, unbreakable resolve. "Let us pick a place. As long as you can guarantee Elder Yi's survival... I agree to your terms."
[Akarin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/AkarinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/AkarinTL
🔗 All My Links: linktr[.]ee/AkarinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]