His body frozen midair, the Blue Silver Emperor's Spider Web — now reinforced to more than double its original strength — bound Tang Hu so tightly he looked like a zipped dumpling. The sixth soul skill's activation was forcibly interrupted, and the lethal poison clinging to the web had already surged through the open wounds on Tang Hu's body the instant they made contact.
This time, it wasn't just the searing neurological pain — it came with a far more intense stimulation. The agony caused Tang Hu's nerves to seize with a momentary paralysis, and what was even more terrifying was that two types of poison, cold and heat, invaded his body simultaneously, rapidly tearing apart his meridians from within.
Being bound by the spider web while already wounded was, without question, Tang Hu's greatest misfortune. He tried to summon his strength, only to discover that the power he could gather was dwindling by the second, while the Blue Silver Emperor's Spider Web wrapped ever tighter around him.
With a thud, Tang Hu crashed to the ground. Though he could barely keep himself standing, his capacity for resistance had grown weaker and weaker as the venom spread.
Tang San's right hand, shimmering with golden light, remained aimed at Tang Hu, tracking the other man's position. By now, the golden radiance along his arm had extended three full meters, resembling a resplendent golden spear. Without question, his fifth soul skill could absolutely be directed at Tang Hu.
"Don't hurt my daddy!"
At that moment, a child's panicked voice rang out, and a tiny figure burst from the crowd, sprinting toward Tang Hu.
Tang San's heart lurched. His fifth soul skill was maintaining constant pressure on Tang Hu — others might not feel it, but the oppressive force radiating from the golden spear alone was enough to pierce straight through an ordinary person's body.
The girl who had charged from the crowd was none other than Tiantian, the little one who had brought Tang San his dinner the night before. Seeing her about to run straight into the golden spear's range, Tang San quickly pivoted, redirecting the spear toward the distance. The soul skill fired at last.
A flash of golden light, and it instantly condensed into a single luminous point that vanished far away. The entire golden spear — formed from condensed Blue Silver Emperor energy — disappeared with a ripple of warped light waves.
Under the circumstances of complete suppression, Tang San had never intended to destroy his opponent with the fifth soul skill. Otherwise, he could have unleashed it the moment the spider web had trapped Tang Hu. That golden spear, radiating an aura of sheer terror, was called the Blue Silver Overlord Spear.
As a soul skill born from the self-condensation of Blue Silver Grass, the Blue Silver King had thoroughly considered the gaps in Tang San's skill set before bestowing this single-target offensive technique upon him.
Under the effects of the Blue Silver Domain, the Blue Silver Overlord Spear's actual destructive power was absolutely terrifying — even exceeding the full-force spiritual bombardment of Tang San's Purple Extreme Demon Eye.
Silence. The front courtyard of the Clear Sky School had fallen into a deathly hush.
The exchange between Tang San and Tang Hu had lasted only moments. From start to finish, it was nothing more than a handful of soul skill activations. Yet that brief encounter had been more than enough to shock everyone present.
As a Soul King, Tang San had used nothing but his five soul skills to utterly overwhelm Tang Hu, a Soul Emperor, to the point where Tang Hu hadn't even managed to execute his sixth soul skill before suffering a complete defeat. It was clear to everyone now — he had no capacity to fight back whatsoever.
Of course, Tang San was a Control Type Soul Master. In a one-on-one matchup, a Control Type naturally held the advantage against an Assault Type. But one must not forget — Tang Hu's Martial Soul was the Clear Sky Hammer, the guardian Martial Soul of what had once been the greatest sect under heaven.
And all Tang San had used was a Martial Soul they had never even seen before.
A textbook victory of the weak over the strong — and not just any victory, but one that had left his opponent utterly powerless to resist. Tang San had demonstrated not only raw strength, but also his vast combat experience and his razor-sharp tactical calculation.
Tang San stepped forward, walking toward the little girl, Tang Tiantian. By now, her small face was flushed with rage.
"You're bad! You're hurting daddy!" Tiantian's eyes were full of hostility.
Tang San sighed inwardly. Children raised within the sect really were vastly different from the person he had once been.
When he had first met the others who would become the Shrek Seven Devils, aside from Ning Rongrong who still carried a hint of youthful innocence, the rest of them — at twelve or thirteen — had already possessed remarkably mature minds.
"Tiantian, I'm sorry. Please step aside so I can heal your daddy, alright? If I wait too long, he's going to be in a lot of pain."
"I don't believe you!" Tiantian spread her arms wide, still blocking her father's body.
"Tiantian, move aside." Suppressing the agony coursing through his body, Tang Hu's voice came out low and strained. Losing the fight was one thing, but what he found truly unbearable was his own daughter stepping in to protect him. A proud powerhouse of the third generation — reduced to needing his daughter's shield? His pride simply could not stomach it.
Tiantian turned to look at her father. Meeting his fierce, unyielding gaze, she reluctantly stepped aside.
Tang San flicked his right hand, withdrawing the spider web. His gaze did not linger on Tang Hu. As he retracted the web, his extraordinary control allowed him to siphon back the venom that had been at work inside Tang Hu's body in one smooth motion.