Chapter 247: What? Elder Xuan Successfully Broke Through to Limit Douluo?
From the direction of the Sea God Pavilion, an oppressive, suffocating aura continued its relentless ascent.
Huo Yuhao stood rooted to the spot, the golden light shimmering within his Spirit Eyes refusing to fade. His piercing gaze cut through the dense layers of academy buildings and the thick, emerald canopies of ancient trees, locking dead onto the very peak of the sacred pavilion.
The atmosphere surrounding the structure warped and twisted. This distortion did not stem from blistering heat, but from a sheer, terrifying concentration of soul power so dense that the fabric of space itself groaned, producing subtle, rippling deformations. Deep within Yuhao's mental realm, his martial soul trembled violently. It wasn't born of cowardice, but rather the primal, instinctive reaction of a lower-tier existence confronting an absolute, higher-order power.
Wang Dong'er stood close by his side. Her slender fingers clamped tightly around his wrist, her knuckles turning white from the force of her grip. She refused to let go. Her soft lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line as her pink-blue eyes mirrored his focus, staring intently at the pavilion. She remained completely silent, the tension radiating from her rigid posture.
A few paces away, Bei Bei slowly tucked a thick tome beneath his arm. Deep creases formed between his brows. He shifted his gaze from the glowing peak of the pavilion to Yuhao's glowing eyes, finally breaking the heavy silence that had settled over their group.
"This aura..." he muttered, his voice tight. "It isn't quite right."
Xu Sanshi reluctantly stepped away from Jiang Nannan's side, moving to flank Bei Bei. His right arm hung loosely by his side, yet his weight shifted onto the balls of his feet. His muscles remained coiled, leaning forward in a defensive stance, primed to summon his Xuanwu Shield at a moment's notice. He narrowed his eyes at the distant structure, chewing on his lower lip before speaking.
"Elder Xuan has been locked in deep seclusion for a while now. He took a massive backlash and suffered heavy injuries after failing his last breakthrough attempt. This time... we aren't looking at another catastrophic failure, are we?"
Standing slightly apart from the boys, Xiao Xiao firmly shook her head.
"It doesn't feel like a failure. Think back to the last time. When his breakthrough collapsed, the soul power exploded outward in a chaotic frenzy, and his aura plummeted almost instantly. This is entirely different. The pressure has been climbing at a steady, methodical pace. There isn't a single sign of it destabilizing or falling."
Nannan cast a brief, appreciative glance toward the younger girl. She offered no words, only a solemn nod of agreement.
Bei Bei maintained his intense stare toward the pavilion for a long, agonizing minute. When he finally spoke again, his tone lacked volume, yet it carried an unshakable certainty.
"It's not a failure. He is succeeding. Elder Xuan... he might actually be breaking through to Rank 99."
The rest of the group snapped their heads toward him in perfect unison, their expressions a mix of shock and dawning realization.
Yuhao's glowing pupils constricted to pinpricks.
'Rank 99. A Limit Douluo.'
Ever since Elder Mu passed away, Shrek Academy had been left entirely devoid of a supreme powerhouse to anchor their foundation. It was the glaring weakness that left the academy's upper echelon utterly paralyzed when the Holy Spirit Cult's Death God Douluo, Ye Xishui, and the Dark Holy Dragon, Long Xiaoyao, descended upon them. It was the exact reason why Poison Undying, the arrogant master of the Body Sect, could single-handedly suppress Yan Shaozhe, Xian Lin'er, and Elder Song without breaking a sweat.
But if Xuanzi truly shattered the final bottleneck... this humiliating era of weakness would violently reverse.
Across the sprawling grounds of the inner courtyard, several imposing figures tore through the air, converging on the Sea God Pavilion from multiple directions.
Yan Shaozhe was the first to touch down. He hadn't even bothered to change out of his formal Dean's robes. Dark ink stained the pristine white cuffs of his sleeves—a clear sign he had abandoned a stack of official documents the very second this monumental aura flared. His boots struck the stone plaza with heavy, hurried thuds. Skidding to a halt, he threw his head back, his eyes locking onto the violently warping space above the pavilion's roof. A wild, irrepressible excitement flushed his normally composed features.
Xian Lin'er landed mere seconds later, the rush of wind billowing her martial robes. She hadn't consciously summoned her Azure Fire Spear, yet a volatile, crackling azure light danced restlessly across her palms—her martial soul reacting autonomously to the overwhelming pressure saturating the environment. Stepping up beside Shaozhe, she mirrored his posture, staring upward. A chaotic storm of anticipation, relief, and fierce excitement swirled within her sharp eyes.
From the eastern path of the Inner Court, Elder Song approached. Her strides were measured, grounded, and purposeful. Thick, medicinal bandages remained tightly wrapped around her left hand and forearm. The brutal fracture she had suffered—when Poison Undying casually stepped on her limb and crushed the bone—had been surgically set, but the lingering ache served as a constant reminder of Shrek's recent impotence. She joined the two deans, taking her place on Shaozhe's right. Despite her stoic demeanor, the trembling of her uninjured hand betrayed an excitement that bordered on euphoria.
One by one, the remaining elders of the Sea God Pavilion descended upon the plaza. Some wore their immaculate, formal golden robes, while others arrived in sweat-drenched training garments. One elder even clutched a half-carved soul tool component, entirely forgetting to set it down in his mad dash across the island. Yet, regardless of their attire, every single elder adopted the exact same posture: chins tilted upward, eyes wide, breath held as they stared at the pinnacle of the pavilion.
The suffocating pressure continued to climb, pressing down on their shoulders like a physical weight.
Shaozhe's chest heaved, his lungs fighting for air in the dense atmosphere. When he finally spoke, his voice carried a faint, uncharacteristic tremor, yet he forced every syllable out with absolute conviction.
"Elder Xuan... he is actually going to make it this time."
Lin'er gave a sharp, definitive nod. Her tone remained far steadier than her counterpart's, though the raw, burning anticipation bleeding into her words was impossible to miss.
"Rank 99. Ever since Elder Mu left us, we have been walking on thin ice. Finally... Shrek Academy will have a Limit Douluo to hold the fort once more."
Elder Song offered no verbal agreement, but the cloudy dimness that usually veiled her elderly eyes vanished, replaced by a brilliant, predatory gleam.
From the back row of the gathered masters, a younger elder couldn't contain himself. His voice cracked with vindictive thrill.
"If Elder Xuan truly shatters the bottleneck... then those bastards over at the Body Sect..."
He trailed off, leaving the sentence hanging in the heavy air. He didn't need to finish it. Every single person present knew exactly what he meant.
The corners of Shaozhe's mouth twitched, slowly curling upward into a dark, satisfied smirk. He offered no vocal response, but the chilling promise etched into his features spoke volumes.
For far too long, Shrek Academy had been suffocating under a blanket of humiliation. The string of recent disasters had nearly broken their collective spirit. Fan Yu, their premier soul engineer, had been brazenly snatched away. Their desperate expedition to the Heavenly Soul Empire's capital to reclaim him had ended in a pathetic, tail-between-their-legs retreat, bleeding the academy dry as they were forced to hand over three priceless, hundred-thousand-year soul bones just to survive the encounter.
Worse still was the fate of Ma Xiaotao. Captured, paraded like an animal, and publicly humiliated on the Execution Platform before being dragged into the shadows by the twisted Holy Spirit Cult. Every single incident landed like a brutal, open-handed slap across the face of the continent's number one academy.
Then came the Body Sect. Poison Undying had descended upon them, using his overwhelming cultivation to suppress their entire leadership single-handedly. The untouchable prestige and absolute glory that Shrek had carefully cultivated over ten thousand years had been ruthlessly dragged through the mud, trampled into dust in the span of a mere two years.
The root cause of their endless suffering boiled down to a single, obvious truth: a lack of absolute strength.
When Mu En closed his eyes for the final time, Shrek lost its supreme deterrent. Poison Undying stood at the terrifying height of Rank 98. Shaozhe couldn't match him. Lin'er couldn't scratch him. Elder Song couldn't withstand a single blow from him. Even if the three deans joined forces and burned their lifeblood, they still couldn't defeat the madman.
That sheer disparity in power was the sole reason the Body Sect dared to poach their talents with such brazen impunity. It was why they dared to publicly cripple and humiliate Shrek's ruling elders in the heart of the imperial capital.
But the tides were shifting.
If Xuanzi successfully crossed the threshold into Rank 99, the entire geopolitical landscape of the continent would violently overturn. The chasm between Rank 98 and Rank 99 was not a mere numerical difference. It was an impossible gorge—a fundamental evolution of life itself.
No matter how freakishly powerful Poison Undying's martial soul was, he remained chained to Rank 98. Standing before a true Limit Douluo, the sect master would have absolutely zero chance of survival.
Lin'er's voice cut through the howling winds sweeping across the plaza. She didn't shout, but her icy tone carried absolute clarity.
"If Elder Xuan succeeds today... then we will no longer have to swallow our pride. The Body Sect will pay."
Elder Song remained mute, but the fingers of her uninjured hand curled inward, gripping the bandages wrapped around her broken arm with enough force to draw fresh blood.
Shaozhe drew in a long, ragged breath, letting it out in a slow hiss. He forced his facial muscles to relax, projecting a facade of calm authority.
"Let us wait for Elder Xuan to emerge first. Do not let your imaginations run wild until the deed is done."
Silence reclaimed the plaza. Not a single soul dared to utter another word. Dozens of eyes remained glued to the shimmering roof of the pavilion.
The golden aura continued its terrifying ascent. The ambient pressure multiplied, growing so suffocatingly dense that the very air felt viscous, like wading through deep mud. Simply drawing breath became a grueling chore for the weaker elders present.
Surrounding the pavilion, the massive, radiant branches of the Golden Tree began to thrash. Its luminous leaves trembled violently against the spiritual shockwaves, generating a deafening, continuous rustle that echoed across the island. Dozens of golden leaves were torn from their stems, caught in the swirling vortex of soul power, dancing frantically in the distorted air before finally plummeting to the stone tiles below.
Despite the physical toll, not a single person took a step back.
An agonizing fifteen minutes crawled by.
Then, without warning, the explosive expansion of the aura violently stagnated.
It didn't collapse. It didn't bleed away into the atmosphere. It simply froze. It felt as though a mountain climber had finally dragged himself onto the absolute highest peak of the world and planted his feet, refusing to move an inch further.
Every living being on the plaza collectively held their breath.
Shaozhe's fists clenched so tightly that his neatly trimmed nails pierced the skin of his palms. Lin'er refused to blink, her eyes burning with a desperate intensity as she stared unblinking at the structure. Elder Song slowly lowered her trembling hand, letting it hang limply by her side.
High above the pavilion's roof, the violently warped space began to smooth out, slowly returning to its natural state.
In perfect synchronization, the terrifying, continent-shaking aura began to rapidly contract. The vast, diffused ocean of soul power receded, shrinking inward bit by bit, forcibly compressed down into a single, infinitely dense point of origin.
The agonizing compression process lasted for precisely thirty seconds.
And then... absolute tranquility descended.
The heavy wooden doors of the Sea God Pavilion creaked loudly as they were pushed open from the inside.
Xuanzi stepped out into the light.
He paused at the threshold, making no move to descend the steps, nor offering a single word of greeting. He was still draped in his signature, faded grey robes, stained with grease and dirt. His wild hair jutted out in every direction, giving him the appearance of a thoroughly unkempt, homeless old man.
Yet, the moment the elders looked at his face, they froze.
His eyes had fundamentally changed. The perpetual, drunken cloudiness that usually veiled his gaze had been burned away. In its place lay a deep, abyssal depth—a terrifying clarity that had never existed there before.
Shaozhe stared up at the old man. His lips twitched uncontrollably. When he finally managed to force the words past his constricted throat, his voice was tight, fragile, and laced with desperate hope.
"Elder Xuan... did you... did you make it?"
Hearing the question, the corners of Xuanzi's wrinkled mouth split into a wide, uncharacteristically sharp grin.
"I made it."
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