Chapter 49: Elder Xuan's Ecstasy and Despair
"Junior will take her leave."
Ling Luochen bowed to Elder Chen one final time. Her voice remained as cold and distant as ever, yet the slight hesitation in her posture betrayed a deep, reluctant decisiveness.
She turned, her gaze lingering on Liu Yuan for a long, heavy second, before she pulled her mask back over her face. The temperature around her plummeted. Her figure dissolved into a streak of piercing ice-blue light, darting into the dense, shadowed canopy of the forest and vanishing from sight.
She had absolutely no reason to remain.
Internally, Ling Luochen was screaming with the desperate urge to drag this monstrous prodigy—a youth capable of utterly crushing an Evil Soul Master across entire cultivation ranks—back to Shrek Academy. But the reality of the situation was brutally clear.
The boy was not just a passing rogue cultivator. He held a core, untouchable status within the Body Sect. Worse, he was personally guarded by an unfathomable Sect Elder acting as his Dao protector.
Under these suffocating circumstances, any verbal attempt to recruit him would sound utterly pathetic. Pushing the issue might even ignite a blood feud between two of the continent's apex factions.
Her only viable option was to retreat. She needed to return to the academy at maximum speed and report everything to Elder Xuan—the boy's identity, his terrifying combat prowess, and the extreme protective measures the Body Sect had placed over him. She could not afford to omit a single detail.
Thus, Ling Luochen fled without looking back.
Only when the last traces of Ling Luochen's freezing aura completely faded from their perception did the surrounding Body Sect disciples finally exhale.
"Finally gone." Chen Lu wiped a layer of cold sweat from his forehead, glaring into the dark woods with open irritation. "Those Shrek Academy hypocrites are absolutely shameless. Daring to openly poach someone right in front of our faces?"
Vina stepped closer to Liu Yuan, her shoulder brushing his. Her eyes flashed with a similar possessive defiance. Whether weighing the strategic interests of the Body Sect or the future of the Heavenly Soul Empire's royal family, keeping Liu Yuan firmly on their side was infinitely better than letting him fall into Shrek's greedy hands.
Long Aotian turned his attention away from the treeline. He looked at Elder Chen, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion. "Elder Chen, why are you here? Didn't the Sect Master explicitly state that this mission was a test for us to complete independently?"
Elder Chen's imposing, stern demeanor—the one that had just forced Ling Luochen into retreat—melted away. A warm, grandfatherly smile creased his weathered face. "The Sect Master certainly intended for this to be a trial to temper your skills."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the young, battle-worn faces of the disciples. "But you must understand, the methods of a five-ringed Evil Soul Master are exceptionally vile and unpredictable. While the Sect Master possesses absolute faith in your potential, he would never, ever gamble with your lives."
"Therefore, he specifically ordered me to trail you from the shadows. I was solely here to guarantee your survival."
Elder Chen's smile faded into a look of deep solemnity. "The Sect Master's philosophy is clear. If you can resolve the crisis with your own strength, that serves as the perfect crucible for your growth. In that scenario, I remain a ghost. I do not interfere."
"But if a true, lethal threat arises—one beyond your current limits—the Body Sect will always step out from the dark. We are your absolute, unbreakable shield."
Hearing those words, a deep, grounding warmth spread through Long Aotian, Wang Yanfeng, and the others. The tension in their muscles finally unwound.
This was the difference. Knowing that their Sect Elders watched over them, valuing their lives over a twisted sense of sink-or-swim glory, violently reinforced their absolute loyalty to the Body Sect.
"Alright, enough standing around. Your performance today was spectacular. Especially you, Liu Yuan. That tactic to lure the enemy deep into a false sense of security was executed flawlessly." Elder Chen nodded, his eyes gleaming with intense approval.
"The mission is a total success. The Evil Soul Master has been eradicated down to the last ash."
"We return to the Sect immediately. I will report your achievements to the Sect Master without a single embellishment, though I am certain he will open the vaults to reward you all generously."
With a sweeping gesture of his hand, Elder Chen led the group out of the ruined clearing, setting their course back toward the Body Sect.
On the journey back, Elder Chen walked at the front of the formation, projecting an aura of absolute calm. But beneath that exterior, a storm of anxiety raged.
Ling Luochen's desperate, hungry gaze as she tried to invite Liu Yuan kept replaying in his mind like a lingering curse.
As a high-ranking pillar of the Sect, Elder Chen understood exactly what a monster like Liu Yuan represented. This boy was the absolute foundation for the Body Sect's supremacy over the next century. He was a peerless treasure. A single scratch on him was unacceptable; losing him to a rival faction was unthinkable!
Even though Liu Yuan had dismissed the Shrek girl with chilling indifference, Elder Chen's paranoia refused to settle.
Throughout the trek, he walked closely beside Liu Yuan. He never outright demanded the boy swear a blood oath to the Sect, but his words dripped with relentless, heavy-handed hints.
"Liu Yuan, you must understand something," Elder Chen began, his tone dripping with absolute conviction. "The Douluo Continent is vast, yes. But the only people who can truly unlock the ultimate mysteries of a Body Martial Soul are right here in the Body Sect."
"I do not care how much prestige other academies parade around. They are blind. They do not comprehend the true essence of a Body Secondary Awakening."
"To those outsiders, the human body is nothing more than a fragile flesh vessel meant to carry a Soul. But to us? The body itself is the ultimate miracle. It is the weapon, the shield, and the divine path all in one."
As they walked, Elder Chen launched into an endless, passionate lecture detailing the bloody, glorious history of the Body Sect, listing generation after generation of apex predators they had unleashed upon the world.
Walking beside the rambling elder, Liu Yuan found the corners of his mouth twitching upward in dry amusement.
He could practically hear Elder Chen's nerves fraying. The elder's sheer desperation to keep him happy was as obvious as a blazing bonfire.
Liu Yuan turned his head. He looked at Elder Chen's tense, sweating profile and spoke. His voice was calm, yet it carried the immovable weight of a mountain.
"Elder, you can relax."
Elder Chen blinked, his rambling grinding to a halt.
"Shrek Academy might have its reputation," Liu Yuan continued, his eyes cold and pragmatic. "But I have never once considered stepping through their doors. Since I am already a disciple of the Body Sect, I will never go to Shrek."
Elder Chen froze mid-step. He stared at the youth for a long second before his rigid shoulders finally slumped, the crushing tension leaving his body in a heavy exhale. He nodded repeatedly, a massive, genuine grin splitting his face.
"Good! Good! With those words from your mouth, this old man can finally rest easy."
"You are a brilliant child, Liu Yuan. You see through the fog. You know exactly where the most suitable place for you is."
Despite securing Liu Yuan's verbal guarantee, Elder Chen's internal gears continued to grind. The moment he stepped foot in the Sect, he was going to march straight to Poison Undying's chambers. He had to warn the Sect Master about Shrek's blatant poaching attempt.
They needed to lock this boy down. Throw open the resource vaults. Elevate his status to the absolute peak. Forge unbreakable emotional ties. Tie Liu Yuan to the Body Sect's war chariot with chains of pure adamantine.
If they didn't, who knew what Shrek might try next? What if they offered some heaven-defying conditions? What if they sent an even prettier girl to trick him? If that day came and the boy was swayed, the entire Body Sect would have nowhere to cry.
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, the atmosphere within Shrek Academy was entirely different.
Driven by a frantic, burning urgency, Ling Luochen had pushed her cultivation to the absolute limit, traveling day and night without rest to reach the academy.
The moment she breached the academy gates, she bypassed her Inner Court dormitory entirely. She didn't stop to wash the grime from her face or change her travel-stained clothes. She shot straight toward the sacred grounds of the Sea God Pavilion.
Inside the grand, quiet hall, she found Elder Xuan sprawled in a chair, entirely unbothered by the world as he leisurely gnawed the meat off a massive roasted chicken leg.
Hearing her enter, Elder Xuan assumed this was merely a routine debriefing. He didn't even bother to lift his heavy eyelids.
"How did the mission go?" he mumbled around a mouthful of meat, his tone dripping with casual indifference. "Was that Evil Soul Master killed?"
"Elder Xuan." Ling Luochen stopped in the center of the room. She took a deep, ragged breath, forcing her violently heaving chest to still. "The mission target has been killed. But it wasn't killed by me."
Elder Xuan's jaw stopped moving. He slowly lowered the half-eaten chicken leg, finally raising his turbid eyes to look at her. A flicker of confusion crossed his greasy face. "Not killed by you? Did some other Soul Master from the Heavenly Soul Empire intervene?"
Ling Luochen shook her head slowly. Her next words struck the Sea God Pavilion like a thunderbolt.
"Elder Xuan, I ran into him again. That genius you asked me to look for before. He was the one who killed him."
The chicken leg slipped from Elder Xuan's greasy fingers, hitting the pristine floor with a wet slap.
His dull, turbid eyes suddenly ignited, erupting with two terrifying beams of blinding light. He shot out of his chair as if struck by lightning, his immense aura flaring uncontrollably. His voice trembled with raw, unadulterated ecstasy.
"You ran into him again?! In Yaluo City?!"
Elder Xuan crossed the massive room in a single step, appearing directly in front of Ling Luochen. His large, heavy hands clamped down onto her shoulders, his grip tight enough to bruise.
"Speak quickly! How is the situation?!" he demanded, his breath coming fast and eager.
"Did you follow my instructions this time and formally invite him to join our Shrek Academy? Did you bring him back?!"
In that split second, Elder Xuan's mind was already racing with glorious visions. He could see it perfectly—that monstrous youth wearing the Shrek uniform, standing at the absolute pinnacle of the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Elite Tournament, crushing all opposition and bringing eternal glory to Shrek's name.
But as he stared into Ling Luochen's eyes, the fantasy shattered.
The bitter, defeated expression on the ice-attribute girl's face doused Elder Xuan's blazing excitement faster than a torrential downpour of freezing water.
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