Chapter 132: Elder Xuan Suffers a Brutal Beating, Liu Yuan Breaks Through to Level 50
Inside the Sea God Pavilion, the ambient light dimmed, forcibly suppressed by an invisible formation. The Golden Tree's usually warm, nurturing vitality twisted into something abnormally cold and stern.
Elder Mu extended a withered, trembling palm and lightly grasped at the empty air.
Above them, several dark golden chains that had been quietly circling the pavilion's vaulted ceiling suddenly came alive. They slithered downward like venomous vipers, instantly snapping around Elder Xuan's limbs and throat.
The metal links tightened with a sickening crunch. Before the Level 98 Super Douluo could even react, he was hoisted violently off the ground, left suspended in the dead center of the grand conference hall.
These were no ordinary restraints. The moment the cold metal bit into his flesh, Elder Xuan's vast soul power was completely sealed. His typically impenetrable defensive aura vanished, unable to leak a single drop of energy outside his body.
Suspended there, stripped of his heaven-defying strength, he was reduced to an ordinary, defenseless old man awaiting execution.
Elder Mu's face remained as heavy and still as stagnant water. He slowly traced his right hand through the air.
Dense soul power compressed rapidly, the sheer friction of the energy sparking with raw lightning. A long whip materialized in his grasp, shimmering with a violent, crackling luster. The weapon was completely transparent, yet it radiated a crushing, substantial pressure from its core. This was the Whip of Discipline, the absolute most severe punishment dictated by the Sea God Pavilion's ancient regulations.
Elder Mu swung his arm.
The transparent whip tore through the air with an ear-piercing shriek, landing heavily across Elder Xuan's back.
Elder Xuan's body convulsed violently. His worn-out outer robe exploded into shredded fabric. Wherever the crackling energy passed, it left a gruesome, charred trench deep enough to expose the white bone beneath.
This punishment did not merely flay the flesh; it directly assaulted the soul. Because his soul power was entirely locked away, Elder Xuan could not use even a fraction of his perception to numb the excruciating agony.
A shrill, blood-curdling scream erupted from his throat, echoing endlessly through the cavernous Sea God Pavilion.
The surrounding pavilion elders, all masters in their own right, lowered their heads in unison. None could bear to watch the grisly spectacle. They understood the gravity of the situation. Elder Mu was truly, thoroughly enraged, his fury manifesting as a thunderous storm.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
Elder Mu did not pause. The transparent whip fell again and again in a merciless rhythm.
The force behind each lash was controlled with terrifying precision. Elder Mu ensured that Elder Xuan felt the absolute maximum threshold of pain without permanently destroying his cultivation foundation.
As the brutal whipping continued, Elder Xuan's body became a canvas of mangled flesh. His famously thick skin was flayed to ribbons. Bright red blood dripped down the dark golden chains, pooling onto the pristine mahogany floorboards below.
His frantic screams gradually deteriorated from shrill shrieks to a hoarse, wet rasp, eventually fading into weak, pathetic groans.
As a Level 98 Super Douluo, when had Elder Xuan ever suffered such degrading, agonizing treatment? Yet, facing the ironclad regulations of the Pavilion and the heaven-defying disaster he had caused, he had no choice but to endure the torment raw.
Finally, after delivering the exact stipulated number of lashes, Elder Mu slowly withdrew his soul power.
The crackling whip dissipated into sparks of light, and the dark golden chains loosened their death grip.
Elder Xuan crashed onto the floorboards like a sack of wet mud. His body was covered in a crisscrossing network of gruesome, bloody trenches. Severely injured and gasping for breath, his once-powerful aura had weakened to the absolute extreme.
Elder Mu stared down at the broken man on the floor. The cold fury in his ancient eyes had not fully dissipated. He spoke, his voice carrying the weight of an absolute decree.
"Remember this well, Elder Xuan. This is your final chance."
Elder Mu paused, letting the heavy silence stretch before continuing. "In the coming years, you must cultivate the next generation of the Shrek Seven Monsters into true talents. If you cannot bring back the glory Shrek lost in the next Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Tournament, and if you cannot personally retrieve that championship trophy... what you will pay will not just be another whipping. You will forfeit your entire cultivation base, and every trace of your existence within Shrek Academy will be erased."
Elder Xuan lay paralyzed on the mahogany floor, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. Sweat and blood mixed together, stinging his open wounds like acid.
He struggled violently just to prop up his upper body. Lowering his head toward Elder Mu's boots, he forced out a hoarse, seemingly honest promise. "Elder Xuan... remembers. There will never... be a next time."
His tone was the picture of humble submission. Yet, deep within the darkest corners of Elder Xuan's heart, a thick, insidious malice grew like a suffocating weed.
His turbid, bloodshot eyes stared at the floor, but all he saw was Liu Yuan's calm, indifferent face looking down at him from the arena at Star Luo Plaza.
'I must win! Next time, I will personally trample the Body Sect and that little bastard Liu Yuan beneath my feet! I will make the entire continent know that Shrek Academy is still the unshakable number one!'
Elder Xuan roared madly within his own mind. This intense, venomous resentment burned so hot that it temporarily overshadowed the agonizing pain tearing through his flesh.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in the Heavenly Soul Empire, deep within the heavily guarded grounds of the Body Sect.
The underground closed-door cultivation chamber where Liu Yuan currently resided felt like an entirely different world compared to the bleak, blood-stained atmosphere of Shrek Academy.
The stone room was flooded with an extremely rich, intoxicating aura of life. Gray flowing light, emitted by the Life Gold, intertwined beautifully in the air, forming a dense, mist-like ocean of energy. Sitting cross-legged in the very center of this gray tide, Liu Yuan remained in a state of deep, absolute stillness.
Two full months had passed since his triumphant return to the Sect.
During this time, Liu Yuan had completely severed all contact with the outside world. He did not care about the shifting politics of the continent or the seething rage of his enemies. He only cared about power.
Following the ancient teachings of Electrolux, he directed every ounce of his mental strength inward, carefully sorting out the complex soul power nodes hidden deep within his meridians.
He no longer forcefully rammed his energy against the bottleneck as ordinary soul masters did. Instead, with surgical precision, he peeled away the impurities blocking the threshold of Level 50, stripping them down layer by layer like an onion.
At this moment, the soul power surging through Liu Yuan's body pulsed at an extremely regular, hypnotic frequency.
Looking inward at his own spiritual sea, he could clearly observe a tiny, dark golden speck of light slowly taking shape in the dead center of his Level 49 soul power vortex.
That singular point of light was the ultimate product of fusing his Double Pupils origin with his pure soul power. It was the absolute key to his breakthrough.
Liu Yuan's hands moved, his fingers blurring as they formed a strange, ancient seal. It was the Undead Seal passed down directly by Electrolux.
As the final hand sign locked into place, the slumbering Electrolux within his spiritual sea suddenly opened his eyes. A stream of pure, unadulterated divine sense injected straight into Liu Yuan's meridians.
"Now is the time. Return to One."
Electrolux's voice echoed through his mind, heavy and resonant like an evening drum and a morning bell.
Liu Yuan's eyes snapped open beneath his closed lids. He ruthlessly mobilized every drop of his soul power. The vast reserves of energy no longer surged outward into his limbs; instead, they collapsed inward, rushing madly toward that dark golden point in the center of his vortex.
A dull, heavy boom erupted within the confines of the stone chamber.
The originally calm, flowing airflow instantly turned violent. Liu Yuan's long hair whipped wildly around his face. Purple-gold flames erupted from his skin, intertwining with Electrolux's gray death energy to form a massive, rotating ring of power around his seated figure.
Inside his body, the stubborn bottleneck that had troubled him for so long, a barrier as thin as a cicada's wing yet incredibly tough, let out a crisp, shattering crack.
Liu Yuan felt an immediate, overwhelming sense of clarity flood his brain. His meridians, which had previously felt somewhat cramped under the pressure of his dense energy, widened several times over in a fraction of a second. The sheer concentration and purity of the soul power within his body underwent a massive qualitative leap.
Every ounce of discomfort and stagnation was swept away. In their place came a deep sense of absolute fullness, a feeling that he could control the very fabric of the world and peer into the most minute details of existence.
Level 50.
Liu Yuan slowly opened his eyes. A flash of unmatched, cold excitement flickered through his gaze.
Within his eyes, the heavy, overlapping Double Pupils rotated slowly. Deep within those dark golden depths, the terrifying illusion of stars being born and dying seemed to evolve and collapse in an endless cycle.
A brand new soul origin, one that completely transcended ordinary dimensional limits, was slowly awakening within his perception.
"It is done."
Liu Yuan let out a long, slow breath. He clenched his fist, feeling the terrifying, surging power coursing through his veins, and the corners of his mouth curled up into a slight, pragmatic smirk.
He knew exactly what this meant. With his ascension to Level 50, the gap between him and the so-called geniuses of his generation had widened into an uncrossable chasm. He would soon acquire a new soul ring, and in the very near future, the legendary Second Awakening of his Body Martial Soul would finally arrive.
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