Wang Yan's face was filled with despair. He was covered in blood, and a mixture of mud and blood smeared his face. His glasses were shattered, and the broken lenses had cut his eyelids. This transformed the usually gentle and refined Wang Yan into a terrifying figure.
Zhou Yi beside him looked even worse than Wang Yan. Her right arm hung limply, obviously broken in the successive explosions. Her clothes were tattered, and the human skin mask she wore had been destroyed. Even her own face was covered in large scars.
Zhou Yi was filled with regret. She regretted rejecting Fan Yu's offer to give her some defensive soul tools.
Even though Zhou Yi's husband was a core figure in the Soul Tool Department, she looked down on soul tools. She felt they went against the traditions of soul masters, abandoning their pride.
She had even argued with Fan Yu, saying that with Old Xuan, Shrek Academy's top expert, accompanying them, nothing could possibly go wrong!
At the time, Zhou Yi noticed that Fan Yu's expression had become very strange. After questioning him, she learned about the incident in the Star Dou Great Forest.
However, even after learning about that incident, Zhou Yi hadn't changed her mind. Instead, she said it was an accident. After that experience, Old Xuan would definitely change and would never allow such a tragedy to happen again.
But now, she realized she was wrong, terribly wrong! A dog couldn't change its ways, and Xuan Zi would never change his careless and incompetent habits!
"Old fool! You imbecile! Why don't you just die?"
Zhou Yi stared fixedly at Xuan Zi, who was using his soul power to protect the members of the Shrek Inspection Team, preventing them from being further affected by the corpse explosion.
Feeling a gaze fixed on him, Xuan Zi instinctively turned his head and saw Zhou Yi's eyes, which seemed to want to devour him alive.
Sensing her malice, Xuan Zi's face darkened, and he wanted to reprimand her. However, looking at Zhou Yi's disheveled hair and the bloodstains covering her body, and remembering that it was because of his momentary negligence that this tragedy had happened again, Xuan Zi's eyes dimmed. His lips trembled, and he could no longer say anything.
Seeing that the cave was about to collapse, Xuan Zi didn't dare to hesitate. He immediately used his soul power to lift these juniors and escape the cave.
The moment they escaped, the huge cave collapsed with a loud boom, and a violent roar accompanied by dust and mist swept in all directions.
Xuan Zi saw that only Ma Xiaotao and Dai Yueheng were in relatively good condition. Although they had also suffered severe injuries, at least nothing was missing from their bodies. As long as they received treatment from a top-level healing soul master, they would be able to recover quickly.
But of the other five selected team members, two had died instantly in the first wave of explosions. Gongyang Mo's body had also been blown to nothing by the Death God's Messenger. The other two team members were barely clinging to life, with no chance of survival.
Unable to control his emotions any longer, Xuan Zi's tears flowed freely as he began to weep uncontrollably.
Zhu Lu watched as Dai Huabin's kidney was ripped out, blood gushing from his body. Tears streamed down her face as she cried out anxiously.
"Huabin, how are you? How are you now?"
Dai Huabin could only wail in pain, unable to answer Zhu Lu's questions.
The two inner court students, Yao Haoxuan and Chen Zifeng, who were on their last breath, looked at Xuan Zi and asked their final question, their voices barely a whisper.
"Why? Old Xuan? Weren't you always following us? Why didn't you save us immediately? Didn't you say you'd act the moment you sensed something was wrong? Why is this happening?"
After uttering their final words, Yao Haoxuan and Chen Zifeng both exhaled their last breaths, their vital signs ceasing completely.
Xuan Zi had wanted to go to their side, but his body froze when he heard their words. He was on the verge of collapse.
He had only wanted to find some good ingredients, and then have these disciples help him prepare them. He had finally come out, and getting some wild game to taste was, of course, essential.
In Xuan Zi's opinion, the evil soul master was just a Soul King. Surely, sending out the geniuses of Shrek Academy would be enough to handle him? It should have been a piece of cake.
But who could have foreseen that a mere five-ring Soul King could unleash such terrifying power?
"I… I don't know. I really didn't know it would be like this. It's my fault. It's all my fault, I'm useless."
Wang Yan looked deeply at Xuan Zi. After struggling to stand up, he endured the pain from all over his body and spoke with difficulty.
"Don't say useless things now. The most important thing is to find someone to treat these injured students. If we delay any longer, it will definitely cause them irreparable harm!"
Xuan Zi was jolted awake by these words, realizing that what Wang Yan said was the most important thing to do.
However, just as he was about to take the students back to Shrek Academy immediately, to have Old Zhuang treat them and to apologize to Old Mu, he suddenly noticed that in this scene of sorrow, Ning Tian and Leng Qiuyu were completely unharmed, which seemed so out of place.
While everyone else was more or less injured, these two didn't have a single speck of blood on them. Xuan Zi instinctively questioned them.
"Why are you two alright?"
Before Ning Tian and Leng Qiuyu could react, Wang Yan frowned deeply. Should Xuan Zi be saying this?
"Does he have to see everyone injured, or even dead, before he's happy?"
Actually, to be honest, Xuan Zi didn't mean it that way. He just hadn't noticed that Ning Tian and Leng Qiuyu hadn't entered the cave with the others, so he'd asked the question. But his words had indeed caused a misunderstanding.
Ning Tian met Xuan Zi's gaze without flinching, and retorted, "Do you find it hard to understand that we're not dead, Old Xuan? In your eyes, do we also have to be either dead or injured like the others?"
Xuan Zi was rebuked by Ning Tian to the point of blushing, unable to speak.
But just then, Xuan Zi suddenly recalled that when he had arrived earlier, Ning Tian and Leng Qiuyu had been far from the cave where the Death God's Messenger was located, and hadn't entered with the others at all. He immediately became righteous again.
Xuan Zi took a step forward, and the pressure of a ninety-eight-ranked Super Douluo erupted, targeting Ning Tian and Leng Qiuyu directly.
"Ning Tian, right? As a member of the Shrek Inspection Team and one of the substitute members for this Soul Master Tournament, why didn't you enter with the others just now? Why did you choose to stand by and watch? Have you forgotten what you said before at the academy? Are you planning to betray Shrek?!"
Although Ning Tian's status as the young master of the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Clan didn't earn her any special treatment from Xuan Zi, the reason he hadn't directly attacked her, while still maintaining a shred of rationality, was entirely because she was also a student of Shrek.
However, when it came to Leng Qiuyu, things were completely different!
Most of Xuan Zi's pressure fell on Leng Qiuyu. This, coupled with the Soul Saint's already abnormal complexion, made her face even paler. The bones all over her body began to creak, and blood even uncontrollably trickled from the corner of her mouth.
"Why didn't you go in? If you were there, with your cultivation as a seventh-ring Soul Saint, how could we have suffered such a tragic loss of life among these outstanding disciples of Shrek Academy? Tell me! Were you doing this on purpose?!"
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