Chapter 109: Falling Out With Elder Xuan
Within the boundless expanse of his Sea of Consciousness, Liu Yuan felt the torrential surge of life force gradually tame. Under Electrolux's precise guidance, the violent, untamed energy smoothed into a docile current. He did not dare relax his focus for a fraction of a second. Sinking his mind entirely into his spiritual realm, he mobilized the soul power of his Double Pupils Origin, synchronizing flawlessly with the slumbering necromancer to draw out the absolute depths of the Gold of Life.
High above his spiritual sea, a brilliant cyan light curtain—the liquefied essence of the Gold of Life—condensed into a heavy mist. It descended upon the dark purple waters below like a gentle, shimmering rain. With every drop that breached the surface, Liu Yuan's spiritual Origin expanded, pulsing with newfound density. Bathed in this extreme, primordial vitality, Electrolux's remnant soul, once so fragile it bordered on transparent, began to solidify. A holy, untainted radiance bloomed from the old man's spectral form.
Back in the physical world of the hotel room, Du Busi stood rooted to the floor. His hands were clasped firmly behind his back, and his piercing gaze remained locked onto Liu Yuan's seated figure.
When the absorption first began, the boy's aura had been erratic. Tendrils of a cold, sinister energy had seeped from his pores, chilling the air in the room. Yet, as the minutes ticked by, that dark residue burned away into nothingness. In its place rose an aura of absolute purity—a righteous, tranquil, and overwhelmingly vigorous vitality that seemed to make the very air in the room hum with life.
Du Busi's formidable senses easily tracked the changes occurring beneath his disciple's skin. He could feel Liu Yuan's meridians physically expanding, reinforcing themselves to accommodate a soul power circulation rate several times faster than before. A heavy breath escaped the Body Sect Master's lips. The knot of tension in his chest finally unraveled. The boy had crossed the most dangerous threshold of the fusion process.
Satisfied, Du Busi turned his massive frame, shifting his attention to the corner of the room. Huo Yuhao sat slumped against a chair, his head bowed, his expression utterly hollow. The young man's spiritual state had hit rock bottom. His eyes were vacant, staring at the floorboards as if his very soul had been hollowed out and discarded.
Du Busi was a man of supreme arrogance, a tyrant to his enemies, but as the master of the Body Sect, he adhered to a strict, unyielding code of principles. His heavy footsteps crossed the room until he stood towering over the boy. With a flick of his wrist, a small, pristine jade bottle materialized from his storage soul tool, followed by two thick secret manuals bound in ancient, weathered beast hide.
"This is a medicinal pill uniquely forged by the Body Sect," Du Busi stated, his deep voice carrying a calm but absolute majesty. He thrust the items toward Huo Yuhao. "It is called the Origin-Tracing Pill. It will fundamentally reconstruct your physique, forcefully bridging the massive gaps left by your deficient innate development."
He tapped the heavy hide-bound books. "As for these two manuals, the first contains our sect's exclusive insights on maximizing the success rate of a Martial Soul Secondary Awakening. The second details a simulation secret technique for the secondary evolution of a martial soul. If you placed these on an auction block in the outside world, the wealth of an entire city would not be enough to buy them."
Huo Yuhao blinked, his dull eyes widening slightly as the sheer weight of the offer registered. He stared at the priceless treasures suspended before him, his face twisting in deep confusion.
Du Busi caught the boy's hesitation and let out a heavy snort. "As the Master of the Body Sect, I assure you, our sect does not make a habit of owing debts."
The towering old man crossed his arms. "The one who promised you compensation was Liu Yuan. However, he has already been officially designated as the next Sect Master. Within the walls of the Body Sect, his promises carry the exact same weight as my own decrees."
"Since he gave you his word, the sect will fulfill it to the absolute letter. Take them. For a brat possessing the Spirit Eyes, these things will actually keep you alive."
A bitter, self-deprecating smile tugged at the corners of Huo Yuhao's mouth. He did not offer any false modesty. Reaching out with trembling fingers, he silently accepted the heavy, life-changing resources. He looked up at Du Busi's stern, uncompromising face, and then shifted his gaze to Liu Yuan, who sat in serene meditation. A strange, suffocating tightness gripped his chest.
This atmosphere—this absolute unity where master and disciple stood on the same front, where promises were treated as ironclad laws—was entirely alien to him. He had never felt this at Shrek Academy. At Shrek, all he had ever experienced were suffocating rules, rigid hierarchies, and the cold prejudice of status. Yet here, standing in the presence of the continent's most notorious 'evil' sect, he witnessed a pure, unadulterated protectiveness and integrity.
"Thank you, Senior Du." Huo Yuhao bowed deeply, bending at the waist until his back was perfectly straight. He knew Electrolux was gone. There was nothing left for him in this room. After offering his final respects, he turned on his heel, walked out the door, and let the shadows of the corridor swallow his departing figure.
Stepping out of the Body Sect's hotel and into the cool night air, Huo Yuhao found no solace in the priceless treasures resting in his storage ring. Instead, the crushing void of losing Elder Electrolux slammed into him like a tidal wave, drowning out everything else.
He wandered the sprawling streets of Star Luo City like a ghost. The late-night soul lamps flickered overhead, casting long, distorted shadows across the cobblestones. His mind was a tangled mess of grief and directionless anger. Without realizing where his feet were taking him, he drifted toward the dim, amber glow of an open-air tavern that still had its doors open to the night owls.
He slumped onto a wooden stool at the counter. "Give me a drink," he rasped, his voice sounding like cracked glass. "The strongest thing you have."
It was the very first time in his life he had ever ordered alcohol.
The bartender slid a heavy glass across the wood. Huo Yuhao downed it in one brutal gulp. The pungent, fiery liquid scorched its way down his throat, pooling like molten lead in his stomach. He coughed, his eyes watering from the burn, but he welcomed the physical pain. It was a sharp, biting distraction that temporarily numbed the agonizing sorrow tearing at his soul.
He slammed the glass down. Motioned for another. Then another. Glass after glass, the young man rapidly drank himself into a stupor.
Fueled by the violent surge of cheap alcohol, the rational defense mechanisms in his brain completely shattered. The memories he had been desperately trying to suppress clawed their way to the surface. The events at the Starlight Auction House began to loop in his mind like a twisted, never-ending nightmare.
He saw himself standing there, practically begging Elder Xuan to bid on the Soul-Devouring Evil Blade. He heard the elder's cold, dismissive refusal echoing in his ears. He remembered the exact look in the old man's eyes—the casual, unfeeling decision to sacrifice a student's desperate need for the sake of Shrek's so-called 'big picture' and financial pride.
The more he drank, the hotter the fury burned in his veins. His chest tightened until he could barely draw breath. When he had handed over the blade to Liu Yuan, he had forced himself to look calm, to act as though he had made peace with the transaction. But that was only because he had been backed into a corner, forced to sacrifice his own pride just to ensure Elder Electrolux's survival. Beneath that calm facade, his heart had been bleeding out.
"It's all his fault..." Huo Yuhao's grip on his current glass tightened until his knuckles turned bone-white. A low, guttural roar tore from his throat. "Elder Xuan!"
"If he hadn't been so damn stingy with those gold coins! If he had just trusted me for one single second, how could Elder Electrolux have been forced to leave me?" He slammed his fist against the bar, rattling the empty bottles. "Shrek Academy! They preach all day about how much they value geniuses, about their glorious legacy! But who do they actually value? Only their own face!"
The alcohol acted as a magnifying glass, turning his simmering resentment into a raging inferno. Yet, even through the drunken haze, a bitter reality anchored him. His anger was utterly powerless. Elder Xuan was a Level 98 Super Douluo. He was the deputy leader of the Shrek Guardians. And who was Huo Yuhao? Just a disposable reserve team member with pitiful cultivation, a kid who had to rely on sheer luck just to warm the bench.
The impossible chasm in their status and strength meant only one thing: he had to swallow his blood, lower his head, and endure the humiliation.
It was the early hours of the morning when Huo Yuhao finally stumbled away from the tavern. Reeking of cheap liquor and sweat, he staggered through the quiet streets, eventually dragging his heavy feet back to the Shrek Academy hotel.
His only plan was to crash into his bed and let the darkness take him. But as he rounded the corner into his corridor, a figure stepped out from the shadows. Elder Xuan stood there, his hands clasped behind his back, his face a mask of absolute frost.
"Where did you go?" Elder Xuan demanded. Taking in the boy's disheveled, decadent state, the old man's brow furrowed so deeply it could have crushed a fly.
The alcohol sloshing in Huo Yuhao's brain instantly ignited the unextinguished rage in his chest. He didn't lower his head. He didn't offer a respectful greeting. Instead, he stared dead into the Super Douluo's eyes and sneered, "What does that have to do with you?"
Elder Xuan froze. For a split second, sheer disbelief flashed across his aged features. He had never expected the usually meek, fiercely loyal Huo Yuhao to dare speak to him with such blatant disrespect.
The elder took a heavy step forward. The pungent stench of alcohol rolling off the boy only fueled his disgust. His voice dropped to a dangerous, icy register. "You went to find the Body Sect, didn't you? You went crawling to Liu Yuan, leaked academy secrets that should never have been spoken, and now you stumble back here pretending to be drunk just to cover your tracks?"
Huo Yuhao's head snapped up. His bloodshot eyes locked onto Elder Xuan's wrinkled face. "You followed me?"
"Of course I did. That is exactly how one monitors a traitor," Elder Xuan scoffed, his gaze dripping with absolute judgment and contempt. "Did you honestly believe you were being clever? That communication soul tool you used—did you really think I was blind to it?"
"I am not a traitor!" Huo Yuhao roared, the last threads of his rationality snapping under the weight of the accusation. "I was doing what I had to do! I went to save the person I needed to save!"
"Saving someone? Saving who?" Elder Xuan pressed forward, step by agonizing step. A suffocating wave of soul power pressure bled from his body, turning the air in the narrow corridor as heavy as lead. "You stayed inside the Body Sect's stronghold for hours. How exactly do you explain that?"
He stopped inches from the boy. "Huo Yuhao, I am going to ask you this one final time. Exactly how many of Shrek's secrets did you sell to those villains?"
"I told you, what does that have to do with you?!" Huo Yuhao screamed, his lungs burning as if they were about to rupture. "Besides doubting your own students, besides pointing fingers to cover your own failures, what else are you actually capable of?! You don't understand a damn thing!"
That was the breaking point. Elder Xuan's face flushed dark red with absolute fury. He didn't strike the boy, but his violent, oppressive aura slammed down, locking Huo Yuhao firmly in place like a bug pinned to a board.
"Good. Very good, Huo Yuhao," Elder Xuan hissed, his voice trembling with rage. "Relying on your meager bit of talent, you dare to show such blatant disrespect to your elders. Just you wait. Once this tournament concludes and we return to Shrek Academy, you will see exactly how I deal with traitors under the academy's laws! And when that time comes, do not think for a second that your little companions will escape punishment either!"
Hearing the threat against his friends, the drunken chaos in Huo Yuhao's mind violently shattered. A new, far more terrifying rage erupted from his core. He stared at the Super Douluo, his lips curling into a sharp, highly sarcastic laugh that echoed down the hall.
"Heh... When we go back to Shrek? Fine! When we go back, I'll report you too!" he spat, his eyes wild. "If it weren't for your blinding arrogance, would we have ever been ambushed by the Death Messenger?!"
"If it weren't for your pathetic short-sightedness, how could the official Shrek Team have been crippled to the point where they have to rely on us—a bunch of half-dead reserves—to bleed and fight for our lives on that stage?!"
"You are the leading elder! Yet you completely failed your most basic responsibility to protect your disciples! And now, instead of fixing your mistakes, you stand here causing internal strife and threatening the survivors! You wait too, Elder Xuan! Elder Mu will hear every single detail of your incompetence!"
"You unfilial wretch!" Elder Xuan roared, his face turning a sickly shade of blue. He raised a trembling hand, soul power gathering in his palm to strike the boy down. But his hand froze in mid-air, trembling violently as he forced himself to hold back.
Huo Yuhao didn't even flinch. Ignoring the lethal hand hovering inches from his face, he deliberately rammed his shoulder against Elder Xuan's chest as he pushed past him. He staggered the last few feet to his room, stepped inside, and slammed the heavy wooden door shut with a deafening bang.
The corridor fell into a dead, suffocating silence. Only Elder Xuan remained standing in the shadows. His hand was still raised, his expression twisted into a mask of ferocious anger, yet beneath the fury, the old man looked entirely at a loss in the quiet night.
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