Chapter 301: A Clear Sky Clan Rich in Spoils
Boom!
Eight black and one red ring flared under Qian Xunji's feet, golden soul power converging into a barrier before him, blocking the raging gale sweeping over from the distant explosion.
Qian Renchuan gazed dumbstruck at the rising mushroom cloud, shocked by such a tremendous clash of energies. Even if he employed his Blue Silver True Form, a blast of this magnitude might easily kill him. Evidently, he still had a long way to go to reach the top echelon.
"Clear Sky Clan..."
Tang Yuehua pressed a hand to her lips, tears flowing uncontrollably. "Your Holiness, quickly—let us hurry to the clan!"
With six wings of his Angel Spirit unfurled, Qian Xunji scooped up the group and sped toward the Clear Sky Clan's mountain range. His mouth carried a smile he couldn't conceal.
"So the Clear Sky Clan is destroyed, courtesy of the Killing King... Nicely done, though I missed the show."
He had also missed the destruction of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan and the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan by Bibi Dong. As a man who relished "spectacles," that was a great loss. But there was no helping it.
Now the top three sects were all wiped out. After dealing with Bibi Dong, peace would gradually return, letting him convene a new Seven Great Sects selection and propagate his faith.
At the Clear Sky Clan:
Within a giant crater knelt a blood-hued figure wearing a high-collar, blood-colored coat, white hair draping behind, a pale face tinted half-beast, half-human in appearance. None other than the Killing King or, rather, Tang Chen regaining partial consciousness.
Tang Hao's Nine-Ring Self-Detonation (Nine-Ring Bomb) hammer blow was "nothing too special" in Tang Chen's eyes. A single hundred-thousand-year spirit skill had neutralized it, leaving him unscathed. The deep pit came from Tang Hao's "Pierce" technique of the Clear Sky Nine Absolutes, used to minimize the shockwave's impact on the clan and disciples—like an auger boring into the earth.
Had Tang Chen not used a hundred-thousand-year spirit skill to counter, the colossal mushroom cloud wouldn't have formed. Under that sky-filling cloud, the clan's disciples were mostly crushed to death. The Strength and Defense Clans were annihilated.
The Speed Clan, with higher mobility, preserved a few dozen survivors. The Breaking Clan, under Yang Wushuang's leadership, also saved some. Conceding the battle was unwinnable, Wushuang had avoided the obstinacy of his elder brother Yang Wudi, preventing more pointless deaths. Others who survived were simply lucky clan disciples.
Of five thousand disciples – including over ten thousand people across the clan – and hundreds of Tang relatives wielding the Clear Sky Hammer, fewer than a hundred survived the Killing King's rampage and that Nine-Ring collision. So few remained of the Tang family one could count them on a single hand.
In the crater at the mountaintop, Tang Chen knelt among the battered remains of over a hundred corpses with mutilated limbs—no intact bodies in sight. These were those who had gathered to help power Tang Hao with the Clear Sky Array. Now they all lay blasted to death. Yet with some last bit of array defense, their remains at least stayed in place.
"Haoyue... Yuan... Gu..." Tang Chen choked out, tears of blood coursing in four streaks from his eyes. "I, Tang Chen, failed you all! I deserve death—Blood-Red Nine-Headed Bat King!!"
In his heyday, Tang Chen had been supremely confident, believing he could ascend to godhood while dismissing Qian Daoliu as a mere loser. He had pledged that his descendants train hard until his return, after which the Clear Sky Clan would reign supreme forever, stepping on Spirit Hall. Now he was half a beast, had massacred his entire clan, and nearly all of his own descendants. Though not his intention, it was his hands, his body.
Tang Chen's tears of blood fell in torrents, his hoarse voice echoing. In that instant, his countenance—like that of a thirty-something man—rapidly aged, wrinkles furrowing until he looked over seventy. After all, rank 99 Douluo could use soul power to preserve youth. But his heart was dead, and such heartbreak left him no will to maintain it. He no longer wanted to see even Bo Saixi for the final time. How could he face her after drunken debauchery in the Slaughter City, thousands murdered, the clan in ruins—descendants all slaughtered?
He had no right to live.
Eight black and one red ring emerged from Tang Chen's feet, the first five black rings retaining a pale color – they had not fully recovered after his ring detonation hammering Bibi Dong. He hefted the colossal Clear Sky Hammer.
"What do you intend, Tang Chen?!"
Inside his mind, the Blood-Red Nine-Headed Bat King roared, thrashing to recapture control. Fused in reconstructing Tang Chen's broken body, it was pinned. To kill it was to kill himself.
"What do I intend? I intend to kill you!"
Tang Chen hoisted the Clear Sky Hammer high without hesitation, swinging it at his own skull. His eyes slammed shut. If he connected, his head would burst like a watermelon.
But at the last second, a golden sword shot out of nowhere, knocking the hammer aside and thwarting his suicide.
"That soul power belongs to that old relic Qian Daoliu?"
Tang Chen frowned, suspecting Qian Daoliu might have rescued him just to sneer at him, that old rival. Yet after a subtle sense, it wasn't Qian Daoliu's aura precisely—similar, but not him.
Qian Xunji dropped from the sky, leading his small retinue. At once, Tang Yuehua exclaimed, "Grandfather, is that you?"
Tang Yuehua couldn't recognize this monstrous half-human, half-beast Tang Chen. But from Qian Xunji's remarks, only he, at rank 99 Douluo, could possibly be the Clear Sky Ancestor.
"Yuehua? You're Yuehua?"
When he left, Tang Yuehua was just a little girl. Now she was a fully-grown woman.
"Kneeling in salute: I, Tang San, grandson of Tang Hao, greet you, Great Ancestor!"
"Great-grandfather!"
Tang San, Tang Tian, and Tang Hu hurried over and knelt.
"Good… good… all of you, rise!"
Tang Chen's eyes revealed glimmers of relief—he still had three promising younger kin, each a Spirit Emperor or Spirit Sage, easily Title Douluo material someday. His desire to die wavered. After all, Tang Hao perished, and the clan needed a legacy. He must pass on the Clear Sky Hammer's secrets.
Meanwhile, Qian Xunji's eyes might have appeared on the group, yet his mental power was scanning the fields of corpses all around. So many spirit bones from Tang Xiao's five pieces, Tang Hao's four, the six Elders' ten, a massive haul. Not to mention Tang Chen himself with six, plus the Blood-Red Nine-Headed Bat King's hundred-thousand-year spirit ring and bone. The so-called World's Top Clan was indeed wealthy—far wealthier than Bibi Dong ever was!
Qian Renchuan blinked as he gazed at Tang Chen, moved by an intangible pull from the old man.
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