"Fine." Yun Ming put away the Skytop Spear, his soul rings withdrawing. He turned to Gu Ming and asked, "Elder Gu, if it turns out this matter was instigated by Dragon Phoenix Hall, will you still help them?"
Gu Ming frowned, thought for a moment, and then said, "If what you say is true, then I won't get involved in this matter at all—neither side will I aid."
"But if Dragon Phoenix Hall is in the right, then I will stand firmly on their side, even if it means making mortal enemies of you Shrek people."
Yun Ming then looked at Xu Lin.
"My attitude is the same as Teacher's," Xu Lin said.
"Good." Yun Ming nodded, then turned his cold gaze to Di Tian. "Today, I'll waste some of my time to expose your crimes."
"I'd like to see how you plan to smear us," Di Tian shot back, unwilling to give an inch even verbally.
"Five days ago, a student from Shrek Academy's outer court mysteriously disappeared at a Tang Sect branch. These past days, we searched the entire continent and found nothing."
"But just over an hour ago, we located him, two hundred li north of Mingdu."
"At that time, there were four others with him: Yun Ze, Yun Tian, and two other Dragon Phoenix Hall members. Elder Song and I saw this with our own eyes—could that be false?" Yun Ming said loudly.
He paused, then added, "As for the motive—you kidnapped him for the dragon bloodline in his body. The missing bloodline in him is ironclad proof."
"The traces of battle two hundred li north of Mingdu, and that strange magic array, are all evidence."
"Can you possibly deny this?" Yun Ming's voice rang out with authority, his words shaking some of the onlookers' confidence.
"This child's bloodline is now missing, his vital energy depleted. When he wakes up, his strength will inevitably be greatly diminished. A genius student of our Shrek Academy was ruined by you—should I not be furious? Should I not avenge him?"
"To save him, we even lost a Super Douluo. Should Shrek Academy just swallow this blood debt?"
Yun Ming's words left many people confused. It sounded true, and the credibility didn't seem low. Could it be the facts?
"If you want to frame someone, any charge will do. If we refute it, what next—are you going to project your thoughts into images?" Di Tian sneered.
Those words of Yun Tian's made Yun Ming pause. To be fair, he was indeed planning to directly project his thoughts.
His spiritual power had reached the Spirit Domain Realm, allowing him to manifest his memories visually for others to see.
As long as he projected the earlier scenes, he wanted to see what excuses these people could still make. But now, Yun Tian's words gave him a bad feeling.
Why was this man, who knew Yun Ming could project thoughts into images, still so calm and unflustered?
"That's right. I was planning to project my thoughts—to present the scene from just over an hour ago. Those are the facts. Can you deny them?"
Yun Ming spoke frankly. Thought projection was the manifestation of memory—it was basically free from falsehood. It was ironclad proof.
"I'm just afraid you'd fake it. You could easily project an imagined scene to deceive everyone—like this." As Di Tian spoke, he activated his spiritual power.
Above his head, a giant light screen appeared, with images forming upon it—gruesome ones: Yun Ming battling Dragon Phoenix Hall members.
The light screen was huge, visible even from the ground, and the live broadcast cameras turned toward it, streaming the images into the live feed.
In the images, soul masters in Dragon Phoenix Hall uniforms were besieging Yun Ming. Their faces were clear, their martial souls identifiable—some identical, some different. Soul rings flashed as they attacked Yun Ming, unleashing soul skills in bursts of glowing light.
Yun Ming wielded his spear like a dragon, his attacks fierce and domineering. Each strike left a bloody hole—always at a vital spot.
One thrust pierced a heart, then a flick of the spear shattered a Soul Douluo's body into four pieces—a bloody mess.
A sweeping strike carried the momentum of a thousand troops, precisely slashing across the necks of nearby soul masters, leaving fatal wounds—some so severe they were decapitated on the spot.
Witnessing the crystal-clear images, people were left wide-eyed, their gazes toward Yun Ming now tinged with fear. What a brutal man.
Gu Ming, Xu Lin, and the others glanced at each other, astonished. At first, they nearly believed what they were seeing.
But calming down, they realized something was off. If this were real, how could they not have heard about it already?
Clearly, these images were fabricated by Di Tian, merely projected from his thoughts.
Yun Ming clenched his fists. Finally, he understood why Yun Tian had said what he did earlier. So this was their scheme.
They had preemptively used thought projection to create a fake scene, muddying the waters and planting doubt in everyone's minds about whether thought projections could be falsified.
In this way, even if Yun Ming projected the real events, people wouldn't automatically believe them. They'd think it could be fake as well.
"Despicable and shameless!" Yun Ming glared daggers at Di Tian.
Di Tian ended his projection and let out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, he hadn't screwed up—if something had gone wrong, it would have been a disaster.
"The little lord's method really worked," Di Tian thought. When they had discussed countermeasures earlier, they had already talked about this thought-projection issue.
To counter it, they staged what had just happened—he used a technique Yun Ze taught him to create fake memories.
"I think this is a reasonable doubt. With both of us at Spirit Domain-level spiritual power, if I can fabricate a projection, then you should be able to as well, right?" Di Tian said coolly.
He could sense that Yun Ming's spiritual power was extremely strong, no weaker than his own—clearly also at the Spirit Domain Realm.
"Reasonable," Gu Ming said, and the others nodded.
"I'm not as filthy as you, fabricating fake memories," Yun Ming said with disdain, shocked that someone on the verge of godhood could be so shameless.
Above Yun Ming's head, a massive light screen appeared, with images forming within—what he had witnessed earlier.
Inside were Yun Ze, Di Tian, Gu Yue Na, Xiong Jun, the fallen Tang Wulin, a battered golden figure, and that golden giant dragon.
"I, Yun Ming, swear upon my martial soul that the following images are all real events, not imagined," Yun Ming declared solemnly.
No sooner had he spoken than Di Tian's voice rang out as well, with the exact same wording:
"I, Yun Tian, swear upon my martial soul that the images I just presented were absolutely real, not imagined. If there is falsehood, may my martial soul shatter as punishment."
Saying this as if he wouldn't—using Yun Tian's name, he dared speak as harshly as he liked.
Besides, his martial soul was just for show, to bluff people. Even if it shattered, it wouldn't affect him much. He wasn't afraid at all.
"You—!" Yun Ming was furious. That oath had just made his own words practically meaningless.
The crowd carefully studied Yun Ming's projected images. The clarity was on par with Di Tian's fabricated ones, looking just as real.
After watching, people once again felt lost, an involuntary thought surfacing in their minds: Could this be fake too?
(End of Chapter)