Tang Hao stood in the shadows of the forest, watching his son. Tang San was a hollow shell, sitting by a cold campfire, staring into flames that were no longer there. His eyes were dead. He hadn't spoken in days, not since they had returned from that humiliating, soul-crushing battle. He was drowning in his own failure.
'Xiao San is broken,' Tang Hao thought, his own heart a cold, hard stone in his chest. 'His spirit is crushed. I trained him, pushed him to his limits, made him a man of iron... and for what? To be humiliated by that arrogant brat. To watch his woman be stolen and his friend be mutilated.'
He felt a surge of his own rage. 'I failed him. I let this happen.'
He looked at his son, at the boy's clenched, trembling fists. He needed to be rebuilt. But how?
'His Purple Spirit Grass... it's useless against a true elemental master. His hidden weapons... that Zhang Tian mocked them, broke them like toys. The pride of the Tang Sect... another failure.'
The only path forward... was the hammer.
'But the hammer is flawed,' his mind snarled, the old shame burning him. 'Crippled. Those three white rings. A joke. A stain on our clan. It's that useless Grandmaster's fault. His idiotic theories...'
His mind replayed the scene. Yu Xiaogang's desperate, babbling words in the face of their defeat...
'Hundred-thousand-year-old spirit rings... that is the only way...'
The idea, which he had dismissed as the ramblings of a fool, now took root. A hundred-thousand-year-old ring. A red ring. That would wash away the shame of the white ones. A red ring would make the hammer a weapon of true power.
'But how?' he thought, his brow furrowed. 'He can't absorb one. He's only a Spirit Ancestor. The backlash would kill him. It would tear his body apart.'
He paced in the darkness, a restless, caged beast.
'Unless… unless the beast gives it to him. Willingly.'
He stopped. The ancient, forgotten texts of the Clear Sky Sect flashed in his mind. A willing sacrifice. A beast of a hundred thousand years that gives its life freely. The spirit ring has no backlash. The absorption is peaceful. And the consciousness, the soul of the beast, can live on within its spirit bone.
A sacrifice. But where could he find such a beast? A beast of that power, willing to die for his son?
His mind flashed back to the Star Dou Great Forest. To the Lake of Life. To the two colossal, terrifying figures who had stood at Xiao Wu's side. The ones she called her brothers.
'The Titan Giant Ape. The Sky Azure Bull Python.'
His heart began to pound. Two of them. Two hundred-thousand-year-old spirit beasts. They were perfect.
'But Xiao San would never agree,' his mind immediately countered. 'He loves that girl. He would never harm her "brothers". He would see it as a betrayal.'
He looked at his son's dead-eyed stare.
'But Xiao Wu isn't here, is she?' a new, cold, and calculating thought slithered into his mind. 'She was taken. Abducted by the very man who has caused all this pain. His heart is not full of love right now. It is full of hate. It is full of weakness. He is desperate.'
He thought back to that day at the lake, when he had brought a near-dead Tang San to be healed. 'He was unconscious. He never heard me speak to them. He doesn't know their names. He doesn't know their connection to her. He only knows of the Lake of Life as a place of healing.'
This was it. This was the path. It was a perfect, terrible opportunity.
'If I present them to him... not as her brothers, but as the only beasts in the world strong enough to give him the power he needs to save her... would he refuse?'
A grim, determined look settled on Tang Hao's face.
'It is a necessary sacrifice,' he told himself, his resolve hardening into steel. 'What is the life of two spirit beasts? They are just... beasts. My son's future, his destiny to crush the Spirit Hall, to avenge Ah Yin... that is what matters. This is a small price to pay.'
His plan formed, clear and cold.
'I will convince them. I will use Xiao Wu. I will tell them her life is in danger. I will tell them that this human, Zhang Tian, is a monster who has her captive. I will tell them that my son is the only one who can save her, but only if he has their power. They love her. They will do it. They will sacrifice themselves for her. And my son... he will get the power he needs, without the risk, and without the guilt. He never has to know the truth.'
He stepped out of the shadows.
"Xiao San."
Tang San looked up, his eyes as hollow and as dead as the ashes of the campfire.
"Do you want to save her?" Tang Hao's voice was a low, rough sound. "Do you want the power to crush Zhang Tian? The power to take back what he stole from you, and from your brother Dai Mubai?"
A flicker. A tiny, dangerous spark in the dead ashes of his son's eyes.
"I do," Tang San's voice was a raw, broken whisper. "More than anything."
"Then come with me," Tang Hao said, his voice a low, final command. "Stop weeping here. I know where to find that power."
Tang Hao moved with the speed of a comet. He grabbed his son, his aura flaring, and shot south. He first returned to the Shrek camp. The rest of the team was a pathetic sight. Dai Mubai was in his bed, his eyes open, a single, silent tear tracking down his face. Oscar was in a corner, weeping openly. Ma Hongjun was outside, punching a tree, his knuckles raw and bloody.
"Pathetic," Tang Hao muttered. He couldn't just leave them here to rot. He was a Titled Douluo. He had a reputation.
His power, like a great, invisible hand, swept through the small camp. He gathered them all—the unconscious, the weeping, the broken—and flew them miles away, to a deep, hidden cave, stocked with food and water.
"Stay here. Heal," he commanded to the dazed Oscar and Ma Hongjun. "Your battle is over. His," he said, nodding to Tang San, "is just beginning."
Before they could even reply, he had grabbed his son and vanished once more.
They traveled for a full day, a silent, grim journey. Tang San, his mind still a fog of grief and a new, burning, and desperate hope, finally spoke.
"Father, where are we going? What power is in this forest? Is it another spirit bone?"
"We are going to the heart of the forest," Tang Hao replied, his voice grim. "The place you were healed. There are two... guardians there. Beings of immense power. They are your only hope."
They reached the familiar, poisonous miasma. Tang Hao's Deathgod Domain cut through it like a hot knife through butter, the grey, misty aura pushing back the green fog. They arrived at the edge of the tranquil, sacred lake. The air was thick with a life force that soothed Tang San's weary soul.
"This place..." he breathed. "It's... incredible."
"WHO DARES INTRUDE UPON THIS SACRED GROUND?!"
The roar was not a sound; it was a physical force, a wave of pure, sonic power that shook the forest. The ground trembled. Tang San was thrown back, stumbling, his ears ringing.
Tang Hao stood firm, his tattered black robe not even fluttering. A mountain of black fur and unbridled rage appeared at the edge of the trees, its eyes like blazing, crimson lanterns. The Titan Giant Ape.
Tang Hao instantly enveloped his son in a bubble of his own mental force, shielding him. 'Stay silent, Xiao San. Do not speak. These beings are ancient, and their tempers are... volatile. Let me handle this.'
To Tang San, it just looked like his father was protecting him from the beast's overwhelming pressure.
A new disturbance. The lake itself began to boil. A colossal, serpentine head, larger than a house, its scales the color of the deep, blue-green sky, rose from the water. The Sky Azure Bull Python.
Tang San stared, his heart pounding, a primal fear freezing him in place.
"Tang Hao?" The new beast's voice was not a roar, but a deep, ancient rumble that seemed to echo in his very bones. "You return? And this child... You have brought him again. Why?"
Tang San, shielded by his father's mental barrier, heard only the deafening, guttural roars of the two massive beasts. He saw the ape pounding its chest, its eyes fixed on them. He saw the great bull python glaring, the water of the lake churning around its massive form. He didn't understand.
'Why are they so angry? What is father doing?'
"Father, watch out! They look like they're going to attack!" he yelled.
"Stay back, son!" Tang Hao commanded, his voice sharp. "They are... agitated. I am communicating with them."
His own, silent, mental voice projected outwards, a thread of pure, desperate energy aimed at the two kings.
'Titan Giant Ape. Sky Azure Bull Python,' Tang Hao projected, his mental voice heavy with a false, desperate grief. 'I have come with terrible news. Xiao Wu... she has been taken.'
TAKEN?!
The mental roar from the two beasts was so powerful it almost shattered Tang Hao's psychic shield. Physically, Er Ming slammed his fists into the ground, the impact creating a crater fifty meters wide, sending trees toppling. Da Ming let out a bellow that boiled the lake's surface, a massive wave of water crashing onto the shore.
To Tang San, it looked like they were going berserk. He drew his hidden weapons, his body tense, ready to fight.
'By whom?!' Da Ming's mental voice was a hiss of pure, cold fury.
Tang Hao wove his tale. He told them of a man named Zhang Tian. A man of monstrous, inhuman power. He told them of the tournament, of the battle, of the abduction.
"She is his prisoner," Tang Hao projected, his voice breaking with a father's (feigned) despair. "Held captive in his den. And my son... he is too weak to save her. The man who took her, Zhang Tian, is a monster of unparalleled power."
The two beasts were silent, their rage turning to a cold, simmering dread.
"I have come to beg," Tang Hao projected, bowing his proud, Titled Douluo head. "My son is her only hope. He is the only one who can get close to her, the only one who can save her. But he needs power. He needs your power."
Da Ming, the wiser of the two, was suspicious. 'Our power? What do you mean, human? You wish for us to fight with you? To storm this man's den?'
'No,' Tang Hao's mental voice was a whisper of pain. 'I need you... to sacrifice.'
'Sacrifice?'
'Sacrifice your rings, your bones, to my son,' Tang Hao explained, the ancient, forbidden ritual falling from his mind. 'A willing sacrifice. Give him the power to defeat Zhang Tian and save Xiao Wu. It is the only way.'
Er Ming roared in pure, unadulterated fury. 'SACRIFICE?!' he bellowed, his mental voice a shockwave. 'You ask us to DIE for your weakling son?! Preposterous! I will go myself! I will crush this Zhang Tian! I will tear him limb from limb!'
To Tang San, the ape was just roaring again, pounding its chest. "Father!"
"Stay back!" Tang Hao commanded. Mentally, he shot back at Er Ming. 'And what then? You are a hundred-thousand-year-old spirit beast! If you attack a human city, the Titled Douluo Elders from the Spirit Hall will descend! You will be surrounded, hunted! You will not save Xiao Wu; you will only bring doom upon yourself and this forest!'
This gave the beasts pause. They knew he was right. The laws of the world were against them.
'But if you sacrifice,' Tang Hao pressed, playing his trump card, 'the old texts of my clan speak of it. A willing sacrifice. Your consciousness, your soul, can live on in your spirit bones. You can be with my son. You can watch him save her. You can be a part of her rescue.'
He let the lie, wrapped in a sliver of truth, sink in. 'It is not death. It is… a different kind of life. A life dedicated to protecting her.'
The two brothers were torn. To die... it was unthinkable. But to save Xiao Wu... to be with her, even as a spirit...
They looked at each other. They saw the agony, the desperation, in each other's eyes.
And then, they looked at Tang San.
They saw the boy, his face pale, his body trembling, his fists clenched so hard they were white. But his eyes... his eyes were not the eyes of a weakling. They were burning. Burning with a hateful, desperate resolve. A resolve that matched their own. They saw a boy who would, truly, do anything to save their sister.
'Er Ming,' Da Ming's voice was heavy. 'The human is right. We cannot leave the forest. And if what he says is true... if Xiao Wu is a captive... this is the only way.'
'To die... for a human...' Er Ming's mental voice was a sound of pure anguish.
'Not for a human,' Da Ming corrected him, his own heart breaking. 'For Xiao Wu.'
The Sky Azure Bull Python turned his massive, serpentine head to Tang Hao.
'We... we accept. For our sister. We will give him our power.'
Tang San just watched as the two terrifying monsters suddenly... calmed down. Their roars ceased. They looked at him, their massive, ancient eyes holding an expression he could not understand. It looked… sad.
He looked at his father, confused. "Father? What... what did you do?"
Tang Hao turned to his son, his face a mask of grim, sorrowful victory. He placed a heavy hand on Tang San's shoulder.
"I have... convinced them, Xiao San," he said, his voice thick with a genuine, if misplaced, emotion. "They see the justice in our cause. They see the evil of the man who took Xiao Wu."
He looked his son in the eyes. "They... they have agreed to help you. To give you the power you need."
~~
A/N: Check out 20 Chapters Ahead for this fanfic on my P.atreon.
Patreon link: https://www.patreon.com/c/evildragon04