For some reason, hearing Xuan Zi's boasting only made Huo Yuhao feel a chill rush from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his skull.
Huo Yuhao truly couldn't rest easy, so he placed his left leg soul bone skill, Invincible Barrier, onto Ma Xiaotao. It would trigger automatically upon encountering danger. This was the value of a hundred-thousand-year soul bone; it was also because he had this skill that Huo Yuhao couldn't be bothered to make Invincible Barriers himself anymore.
After Wang Yan and the others finished arranging the tasks, Huo Yuhao walked alone to the foot of the Mingdu Mountains. He had been eating dry rations all the way and planned to make some barbecue here to comfort himself.
Under Wang Yan's leadership, the entire Shrek Inspection Corps set out, their objective aimed directly at the Hand of Death bandit group. Ordinarily, finding a bandit group of a few hundred people in the complex terrain and lush vegetation of the Mingdu Mountains shouldn't have been too difficult for this group of Shrek elites.
However, the intelligence Dai Hao had planted through his subordinates for Shrek was slightly off. After wandering for an entire night, they still hadn't found them.
At this point, Wang Yan felt some regret. If Huo Yuhao had come along, they could have easily found a few clues relying on his Spiritual Detection instead of circling around these mountain gullies.
In the end, it was Lan Xuanyu who, relying on the control of the Blue Silver King martial soul over the surrounding Blue Silver Grass, found a forest containing Wenlan Trees. With Wang Yan's rich knowledge, they found a few traces and finally approached the cave where the Hand of Death was located.
Watching the Shrek Inspection Corps successfully locate the bandit group, Xuan Zi nodded with satisfaction. Then, with a flash of his body, he arrived at the mountain peak and began drinking wine blissfully. The bloody stench at the cave entrance was too thick; the old man didn't care for the smell.
Through his sensory perception of their auras, he clearly felt that the strongest enemy here was a five-ring Soul King at best. Even if he was an evil soul master, before his elite Shrek Inner Court disciples, he was merely a mantis trying to stop a carriage—doomed to die!
What do you call this? My Shrek is invincible under heaven!
...
Igniting a campfire, Huo Yuhao sliced the cleaned muntjac meat, mixed in the seasonings, and began roasting it over the fire. After eating more than half the muntjac, he exhaled a satisfied breath.
He turned his head toward the mountainside; for some reason, he felt a constant sense of unease.
After the attribute connection with the Emperor Auspicious Beast, Long Qiu'er, Huo Yuhao knew his martial soul had undergone a certain evolution, but he wasn't quite sure to what extent. He could only vaguely sense things related to himself.
It shouldn't go that far, right? With Sister Xiaotao, whose cultivation was close to a Soul Saint, present, a mere bandit group and a few Soul Kings shouldn't be an issue. Besides, there's also Xuan Zi, that Level 98 Super Douluo...
Wait!
Inevitably, Huo Yuhao remembered the story Zhang Lexuan once told him about that trip to the Star Constellation Great Forest, where out of 12 people, she was the only survivor.
What if that old thing...
As if to validate his conjecture, a deafening explosion rang out.
Boom—
...
A blood-colored stream of light flashed rapidly past the cave entrance. Wherever it passed, a body was bound to fall.
It was Chen Zifeng. The Blood Sword truly lived up to its reputation—every strike was fatal, sealing the throat with a single sword, with almost no blood seen.
As if he hadn't killed to his heart's content, Chen Zifeng stepped lightly, the Blood Sword in his hand dancing vertically and horizontally as he charged toward the bandits gathered deeper inside.
Yao Haoxuan, who had transformed into a giant, slammed his fists against his chest repeatedly. Every time a pair of giant palms smashed down, a bandit was inevitably crushed into fresh meat paste.
The dark yellow lightning that Xixi had transformed into flickered constantly. Even the Tang Sect disciples using the Purple Demon Eye couldn't see her movements clearly. All they knew was that every time she flashed past a location, a series of bodies with hideous expressions remained.
As the Power Attack System captain with a fiery temper, Ma Xiaotao unexpectedly did not charge at the very front. Instead, she stood at the rear with the Control System's Ling Luochen and the Auxiliary System's Gongyang Mo, releasing long-range Phoenix Fire Lines or Phoenix Meteor Showers to incinerate the bandits.
Seeing that the captain Ma Xiaotao was actually so "cowardly," the Blood Soul Sword Soul King, Chen Zifeng, felt extreme disdain. The fifth soul ring on his body shone; after a black light ascended, it turned into a bloody flash and vanished. One of the three Soul Kings of the bandit group was split right down the middle by Chen Zifeng while still alive.
Shrek Inner Court disciples—truly terrifying...
Chen Zifeng felt proud. Dai Yueheng was expelled, and Ma Xiaotao was all brawn and no brains; the Shrek Team still had to rely on him...
Under their precise strikes, more than half of the bandit group members were already dead or injured. The occasional resistors could not escape the attacks of the following preparatory team members.
Lan Xuanyu naturally despised these evil soul masters. The three elements of water, fire, and earth erupted frequently from his hands, harvesting the remnants left behind by the inner court disciples.
Those buried alive by earth, those turned into "cooked meat" by the pincer attack of water and fire... these three elements were displayed with vivid versatility in Lan Xuanyu's hands.
Wang Dong was somewhat surprised, wondering why Lan Xuanyu had no psychological burden regarding killing.
Nonsense—Lan Xuanyu had once blown up an entire planet's worth of creatures; what did this handful of people matter?
Beibei and Xu Sanshi were not to be outdone. Xu Sanshi's fourth soul ring flickered, and Mystic Underworld Displacement swapped a Soul Elder level bandit to Beibei's side, followed by a Mystic Underworld Shock.
Xu Sanshi shed his previous image of constantly being rebuffed by Jiang Nannan, transforming into a god of war as he went on a killing spree. The hundred-year soul skill Mystic Underworld Shock could act as a deterrent or stun even against Soul Elders or Soul Ancestors, let alone this bandit group consisting mostly of ordinary people.
The effect on these ordinary people wasn't a stun—it shook them to death...
The cooperation between Beibei and Xu Sanshi was incredibly tacit. Beibei's fourth soul ring flashed, and amidst the roar of lightning, that three-ring Soul Elder was turned to charcoal...
"Hmph!" Beibei coolly wiped the corner of his mouth and spoke to the pale-faced preparatory team members: "Evil must be eradicated. Everyone, finish this quickly! Killing one is saving dozens. Move!"
With Huo Yuhao absent, the highest-cultivated Beibei naturally acted as captain. Except for the auxiliary Ning Tian, the timid Xiao Xiao, and Wu Feng who had to protect Ning Tian, even Jiang Nannan charged forward.
The Shrek battle line pushed forward extremely fast, nearly reaching the deepest part of the cave.
...
"Kill, kill away... you bunch of green-haired fools! My art is already prepared..."
In the deepest part of the cave, a person draped in a black robe with an eerie aura sat on a platform, admiring the gradual collapse of his bandit group's defensive line. Finally, one after another, members couldn't withstand the powerful offensive of the Shrek Inspection Corps elites and retreated toward him.
"Hahaha... Art is..."
The eerie person stood up, raising both hands high. The fourth soul ring among his five—three yellow and two purple—emitted a terrifying purple light. He shouted:
"AN EXPLOSION!!!"
Hearing this voice, the remaining bandits felt no excitement; instead, despair welled up in every one of their eyes.
In the blink of an eye, the corpses lying on the ground began to swell at a speed almost impossible to observe, enveloped in a foul red light.
Wang Yan was the first to react, shouting with almost the greatest strength of his life:
"GET AWAY!"
Like being covered by a soul tool cannon battery, accompanied by a deafening sound that flooded the eardrums, the entire cave shook violently under that terrifying explosion. Corpses containing corpse poison flew in pieces within the narrow cave, then exploded again.
The entire process lasted a full twenty seconds before gradually subsiding.
An arrogant and grating voice echoed in the cave, "Hahaha... Hahahaha... How is my, the Death God Envoy's, Corpse Explosion Technique?!"
Outside the cave, Xuan Zi, who was eating a chicken leg and drinking wine, froze. Then, he erupted in rage, his face contorting as he turned into a stream of light and flew into the cave.
When the furious Xuan Zi arrived at the site of the corpse explosion, he dazed for a moment. The mangled scene of flesh and blood caused this two-hundred-year-old man to sit right down on the blood-stained ground.
All is lost! All is lost!
In this blood-and-flesh-strewn cave, the surviving Shrek students were either wailing on the ground or twitching like fish out of water.
The giant-sized Yao Haoxuan, who unfortunately had the Soul King corpse Chen Zifeng had cut in half right next to him and wasn't wearing a defensive soul tool, was gone... even the heat-resistant storage soul tool on his body had been annihilated by the explosion from that Soul King corpse.
Actually, that's not quite right—he was actually everywhere in the cave. If you looked carefully, you could still scrape some of him out...
As for that student Chen Zifeng, who had charged at the very front...
How could a mere set of leather armor and a Blood Soul Sword that prioritized offense over defense withstand an explosion equivalent to a full-power strike from a Soul Saint?
However, he was relatively lucky. Compared to Yao Haoxuan, of whom not even a scrap could be found, Chen Zifeng didn't have as many high-level soul master corpses near him at the front—only a few Soul Ancestors, and they weren't as tall as Yao Haoxuan.
An oval object smelling of blood and smoke was tossed in front of Xuan Zi by the blast wave, rolling in circles.
...Regardless, at least there's a head, isn't there?
The Lightning Leopard Soul King, Xixi, relied on her speed advantage. Even in the middle of the explosion, she didn't give up, desperately dodging and weaving. After paying the price of both legs and her right hand, she finally managed to survive, crawling on the ground wailing in pain amidst the toxic erosion.
There was still some good news. Ma Xiaotao, Gongyang Mo, and Ling Luochen had taken the soul tool barriers provided by Huo Yuhao. Additionally, they were more cautious and hadn't charged at the very front. They poured soul power into the soul tool barriers as if it cost nothing. The impact of the explosion and the foul poisonous blood were kept outside; the humans were only slightly injured in the flesh by the shockwave.
Of the six official members: two dead, one severely injured.
Looking at the relatively intact Ma Xiaotao and the other two, a thought actually budded in Xuan Zi's mind: There are still three people left.
Wang Yan, who had been swept toward Xuan Zi by the air current, saw Xuan Zi as if grasping a life-saving straw. After coughing up several mouthfuls of blood, he shrieked with a voice like weeping blood: "Elder Xuan, what are you dazing for?! Kill him, quickly!"
Xuan Zi remained deaf to Wang Yan's screams, turning his head as stiffly as a machine to look toward the preparatory team.
What about the preparatory team?
Compared to the six official members, some members of the preparatory team were indeed much luckier.
Xiao Xiao and Ning Tian, being auxiliary types, had stayed on the periphery of the battle circle. Plus, being girls, they were timid and didn't dare get close to the corpses, so they didn't take a corpse explosion to the face. As for the shockwave and poison, most of it was blocked by Xiao Xiao's Thrice-Born Soul-Sunder Cauldron.
However, Xiao Xiao's cultivation was only that of a two-ring Soul Grandmaster. In this gale-like explosion, her three great cauldrons were forcefully blown to pieces...
Ning Tian and Wu Feng carried soul tool barriers and were standing quite far away, so they were essentially unharmed.
Jiang Nannan had her own Invincible Golden Body soul skill, along with teleportation and other life-saving techniques. After fleeing repeatedly, she only suffered a non-fatal aftershock.
Although Beibei had charged forward, he was a steady person. He immediately released a large amount of lightning to protect his body and dove sideways. Extremely luckily, he was only blown away by the shockwave. Even so, he coughed up blood containing bits of organs upon landing and fell unconscious.
Xu Sanshi was a Defense System master; his ability to take a beating was naturally the strongest in the preparatory team. Mystic Underworld Shock... Mystic Underworld Power... Mystic Underworld Shield Array... he desperately used these soul skills as if they were free. Under the crisis of life and death, he even stimulated his Xuanwu bloodline, showing faint signs of his first three soul rings merging.
Fortunately, there were only allies around him; otherwise, Xu Sanshi would have surely found someone to swap places with using Mystic Underworld Displacement...
But even so, the Soul Elder corpse left behind by Chen Zifeng near him shattered the shield in his hand. He flew through the air for a distance before slamming into the ground. As luck would have it, there was a rock where Xu Sanshi landed, which struck his leg.
Snap—
"Aaaargh..."
Xu Sanshi did not pass out, because the abnormal ninety-degree bend of his right leg made it impossible for his body to deceive his brain with unconsciousness. He rolled around clutching his right leg, wailing.
Where some are unfortunate, some are lucky.
As a soul tool system disciple, He Caitou naturally carried enough defensive soul tools. One couldn't say he was fine in this explosion, but at least not a hair on him was harmed.
Wang Dong's Goddess of Light Butterfly martial soul could fly. At the first moment of the explosion, he naturally flew away from the scene. But currently, he had no Sea God consciousness protecting his body. He could only endure such a scene himself and was blown out of the sky.
It was also thanks to being the descendant of a deity and being raised on heavenly treasures since childhood; his physical constitution was excellent, so he didn't faint. However, he was inevitably covered in flesh and blood from the exploding corpses. His white lavish robes turned blood-red, and the foul stench almost made the hygiene-obsessed boy vomit on the spot.
After vomiting, Wang Dong reacted and looked around.
Where is Xuanyu?
Before Wang Dong could see Lan Xuanyu's figure, a sky-shaking roar erupted in his ears. Wang Dong's vision went black, and he collapsed, unconscious.
"ROAR!"
The rocks in the cave crumbled and collapsed under the intense soul power. Martial soul true body—Taotie Divine Bull!