"Shura, you stand right there and explain yourself before you leave! This is clearly unfair. I'm not afraid of going to the Divine Realm Council either. Your method of selecting successors was never legitimate to begin with—casting a wide net and cultivating them one by one. I've been devoting myself entirely to nurturing just this one."
Though the Sea God's words remained harsh, there was already a hint of bluster masking weakness in his tone.
The Shura God stopped in his tracks and spoke without turning back: "One more thing. I heard what you said to Tang San when you were helping him clear his thoughts. You want to pair your spokesperson Bo Saixi with the one I once chose, and it seems you haven't bothered to ask whether I agree. Tang San's great-grandfather Tang Chen, though he achieved a divine soul, suffered severe damage. I haven't yet decided whether to expend my own divine soul energy to repair him."
Having said this, the Shura God took a single step forward and vanished at the entrance of the Sea God's Temple.
"You can't threaten people like that!" the Sea God roared with indignation. "Shura God, you're my brother—let's talk this out! Wait for me!"
The Shura God's cold voice drifted through the air: "Everything can wait until Tang San's inheritance is complete. Even if I want him to become a Divine Realm Enforcer, that won't be for another ten thousand years."
The Sea God also rushed out of the temple, shouting, "Everything is open to negotiation! You're one of the three Divine Realm Enforcers who hold equal status to the two God Kings—you can't just say whatever you please in front of the Divine Realm Council!"
Divine Realm Enforcers held exceedingly lofty status within the Divine Realm. They possessed authority over all matters, the power to oversee even Main Gods and God Kings, and under certain circumstances could even descend to the mortal world to enforce divine law through special methods. The Divine Realm Council was composed of the two God Kings and the three Divine Realm Enforcers. When matters of great import arose, all five council members would vote. Each of the two God Kings held two votes; each Divine Realm Enforcer held one. However, if the three Enforcers were in agreement, their three votes could override the decisions of the two God Kings. These five were collectively known as the Five Supreme Beings of the Divine Realm. Though the Sea God was not among them, he was the next rank below—a Main God of formidable strength—and so he was not particularly afraid of the Shura God.
The golden light left Tang San feeling somewhat lost. It seemed as though a colossal golden vortex was swirling around him, and beyond the gold, everything else had faded away.
Suddenly, the feeling of disorientation vanished in an instant, and the vortex of golden light disappeared with it. Tang San found himself standing upon a circular platform.
The platform was golden, radiating a gentle warmth from beneath his feet. Surrounding it was an endless ocean, but what stunned Tang San was that the water was entirely golden. A golden ocean—what a wondrous sight! Even the sky above was golden. This place seemed to possess only this single hue, with distinctions drawn only by variations in brightness and shade.
How could Tang San fail to be perceptive? Once he steadied his mind, the first thing he recalled was the Sea God's final change of expression. There was no doubt—his guess had been correct. The Sea God must have had some reason he could not reveal directly to Tang San, which was why he had sent him straight into the inheritance process. As for this place, it should be a special domain specifically designed for the Sea God's divine inheritance. That was everything Tang San could currently discern through his perception.
Around the circular platform, floating at an angle above it, were eight smaller circular platforms. Each appeared to be roughly two meters in diameter, arranged with Tang San's platform at their center. Eight smaller platforms? The Sea God had said earlier that to complete the Sea God's inheritance, he would need to pass through eight trials. It seemed these must be related to the eight circular platforms.
Just as Tang San was pondering this, layers of wave-like golden light surged across the platform beneath his feet, all surging toward his body. In an instant, Tang San felt his body frozen by this energy, completely unable to resist.
Gradually, the wave-like golden energy enveloped his body entirely. What made Tang San want to laugh and cry at the same time was that even his breathing had been sealed—aside from his eyes still being able to see, he could no longer perform any action. The flow of his Mysterious Heaven Skill's internal energy had noticeably slowed, pulsing sluggishly. He tried to use his spiritual power to mobilize his internal energy, but both his spiritual power and his internal energy were suppressed by an unknown force.
Then, without any warning, an intense searing sensation erupted from his back. Before Tang San could even react, a violent tearing feeling transformed into searing agony so intense that his vision went black. It felt as though his body were being torn open. A harsh, grating sound rang out from behind. Though his spiritual power was sealed, his sense of feeling had become extraordinarily sharp. But the sharper the sensation, the more pronounced the pain.
The excruciating agony was as though someone were sawing through his back. After slicing through skin, muscle, and meridians, the blade moved on to his ribs, targeting the gaps between the bones. With a sharp crack, it seemed a bone had been forcibly torn from Tang San's body.
Breaking through flesh, prying apart bone—with his sense of pain amplified to such a degree, anyone else might have died from the sheer agony. And even for Tang San, whose willpower was extraordinary, every meridian in his body was spasming under the onslaught. The unprecedented suffering sent every nerve trembling violently.
At the same moment, one of the eight small platforms surrounding the one beneath Tang San's feet flew forward, hovering one meter before him. The platform shimmered with elegant wave-patterned golden lines, but in his current state of torment, Tang San had no mind for admiring them.
A beam of golden light traveled from Tang San's back to his front, landing directly above the small circular platform without impact, hovering about fifty centimeters above its surface. It was unmistakably a rib—one of Tang San's ribs. His earlier sensation had been exactly right; his bone had been forcibly removed.
Had Tang San still possessed the Sea God's Heart, the Sea God's Trident—though the bone removal was an unavoidable part of the inheritance—would have caused far less pain. The Sea God's Heart would have used the Sea God's power to protect his senses and minimize the agony as much as possible. But without the Sea God's Heart, it was like a patient undergoing surgery without anesthesia—flesh torn open and bones pried apart with nothing to dull the pain.
A rib. A golden rib. Tang San forcefully suppressed a flicker of fear in his heart. Even in such agony, he kept telling himself: stay calm. The rib that had been removed seemed to be one of the eight ribs to which his Eight Spider Lances were attached. His Eight Spider Lances had already achieved the level of divine artifacts—and yet they were still being torn away. Just how powerful was this restraining energy?
As if to verify Tang San's deduction, the moment the rib settled on the small platform, it blazed with brilliant light, rapidly expanding into a spider leg three meters long—exactly the form of one of the Eight Spider Lances when deployed.
The pain came in waves, and with another sickening crack, Tang San felt his entire body go limp as a second rib was forcibly torn free. His Mysterious Heaven Skill's internal energy was completely suppressed, unable to serve any analgesic function. The pain Tang San was enduring at this moment was beyond imagining.
Just then, the cold voice he had heard before entering the Sea God's Temple suddenly rang out: "The restraints shall be lifted. If you obstruct the Soul Bone extraction, the trial will be forcibly terminated. The consequences of termination range up to and including annihilation. You must not leave the central two-meter radius of the platform. You must not alter the primary body position of the Soul Bone being extracted. Failure to comply will be considered an abandonment of the inheritance."
The moment the voice fell, all restraints vanished, and Tang San regained his mobility. He immediately drew a deep breath and desperately drove his Mysterious Heaven Skill's internal energy—not toward his back, but straight into his chest cavity, using the Mysterious Heaven Skill to form a layer of sensation that would attempt to sever his pain nerves as much as possible.
But his sense of pain had been amplified at least fivefold. How could such extreme agony be easily blocked? In the midst of that intense suffering, a second beam of golden light appeared, and another spider leg materialized on the circular platform before Tang San. Of the eight ribs to which the Eight Spider Lances were attached, two had now been forcibly removed.
At this moment, Tang San suddenly realized that regaining his mobility might actually be worse than being completely sealed. When his body was sealed, at least he could devote his entire mental focus to enduring the pain. But now that he could move, in the midst of such excruciating agony, his instinct was to lunge away or to launch an attack at his back. Yet doing either would immediately terminate his Sea God inheritance. He had to devote himself entirely to controlling his body, maintaining his current posture and remaining absolutely still. Even as his muscles spasmed so violently that his skin distorted, he had to hold firm and not budge. This was even more painful than before—from passively enduring pain to actively enduring it.
This was only just the beginning! If he couldn't endure this much, how could the rest of the inheritance proceed? A surge of grim determination welled up in Tang San's heart. He clenched his teeth and held his ground. The trembling of his muscles and nerves was beyond his control, but he stood there like a nail driven into the earth, his torso maintaining its original position amid the spasms.
Crack—another rib was torn away. The blinding pain plunged Tang San's vision into darkness, yet his mind remained remarkably clear, even capable of breaking down the process of pain into stages. Tang San's heart was beating at more than three times its normal rate. He even worried whether his heart could bear the strain under such extreme agony. Even stranger, though his ribs were being removed, not a single drop of blood fell to the ground. Moreover, after each rib was torn away, only the area where it had been removed went limp—aside from the searing pain, there was no sense that his chest's structural support had been compromised.
Soon, Tang San understood: it wasn't actually his ribs being removed. What was being extracted were the Eight Spider Lances soul bones, while his real ribs remained in place. The unknown energy at his back was forcibly separating his soul bones from his body.
It should be noted that Tang San had done something like this before, but in that instance, he had merely severed his own arm to forcibly extract a soul bone. He had not separated the soul bone from his skeletal structure—his Blue Silver Emperor Right Leg Bone could regenerate his severed limb regardless. Moreover, voluntarily removing a soul bone would cost even a Titled Douluo a full ten levels of Soul Power. Both he and his father Tang Hao had experienced that feeling. But in this process of separating the soul bone from actual bone, though the pain was immense, Tang San's Soul Power remained entirely unaffected. This was the power of a god—what force other than divine power could accomplish such a thing?
With this realization, the pain at his back seemed somewhat less intense. Truly understanding that this was divine power at work—and such miraculous divine power at that—allowed him to accept the pain on a psychological level. Tang San's willpower was already extraordinarily powerful, even surpassing his god-tier physical body in resilience. Combined with his intelligence, which had allowed him to comprehend the principle behind the agony, his mind grew all the more steadfast in enduring it.
Of course, such extreme agony consumed his body enormously. Sweat poured from him like water, large drops constantly cascading to the ground. Tang San did not pant heavily—that would only accelerate his physical exhaustion. He knew that in a god's inheritance, no external force would be of any use, so he did not attempt to eat the sausages Oscar had prepared for him. His mind simply repeated one thought: with every pain endured, his strength would grow. Under this powerful psychological conviction, Tang San ground through the ordeal.
Crack, crack—with each teeth-grinding sound, another rib flew to the circular platform before Tang San and transformed into one of the Eight Spider Lances.
Finally, when the last rib belonging to the Eight Spider Lances emitted that same excruciating cracking sound, the intense pain ceased at last. Tang San let out an enormous sigh of relief.
A person in a normal state never truly appreciates how fortunate they are. But when someone emerges from extreme agony and gradually returns to normalcy, it brings an overwhelming sense of happiness. Tang San was savoring precisely this feeling of bliss. At the same time, this sense of well-being was inducing some wondrous changes within his body.
The eight spider legs were connected at their bases, forming the complete shape of the Eight Spider Lances. Brilliant golden light flowed across their surface, and one could even see the Devouring Golden Threads pulsing in and out. This extra-attached soul bone that had followed Tang San for over a decade had been stripped away. Though the physical pain had vanished, a profound sense of loss arose in his heart.
At that moment, the Eight Spider Lances before Tang San began to change.
From the golden ocean, eight columns of water rose, each one the same thickness as the Eight Spider Lances, and they struck the spider legs simultaneously. The golden seawater completely enveloped the Eight Spider Lances before being absorbed drop by drop.
The physical pain had subsided. With that feeling of bliss still lingering alongside the loss of his Eight Spider Lances, Tang San watched the scene before him with focused attention. He would not miss a divine inheritance process that he could witness only once in his lifetime.
Layer upon layer of wave-like golden patterns began to emerge from the base of the Eight Spider Lances, gradually spreading to every corner. The patterns were bold and elegant—a perfect fusion of power and beauty—rendering the already dazzling Eight Spider Lances even more magnificent. And Tang San vaguely sensed that after this infusion of seawater, the Eight Spider Lances before him seemed to have swollen. Not in length, but in thickness, and as they changed, the wave-cloud patterns upon them grew correspondingly larger.
A strange, intuitive understanding arose in Tang San's heart. Faintly, he seemed to sense a wisp of reluctance emanating from his Eight Spider Lances. Could a soul bone transmit emotions? Could it be that the Eight Spider Lances had already developed a soul of their own?