Since the three of them had already learned from Zhao Yun what had happened and confirmed the danger was over,
they immediately turned around, quickly dispersed the faculty and staff who had gathered to investigate, and sealed off the information.
...
Meanwhile, just a few minutes earlier.
When Tang Hao swung that hammer, a sliver of hope still lingered in his heart.
He thought that by forcibly using Ring Explosion and the Great Sumeru Hammer, disregarding his hidden injuries, he could perfectly restrict Zhao Yun's movements and force him to defend.
This would buy him some precious time to escape calmly.
However, he never imagined that the Foundation of Zhao Yun, a super Douluo, would be so terrifying!
While withstanding the Great Sumeru Hammer head-on, Zhao Yun was actually capable of dividing his attention!
He separated a strand of incredibly condensed Thunderous Spear Shadow to launch a long-range, lethal attack against him!
Even though Tang Hao sensed the danger while fleeing and hastily turned to block it,
his proud Protective Aura was like paper before that spear shadow!
His right shoulder was ruthlessly pierced through by that silver spear shadow!
Blood gushed wildly as his entire right arm, fused with the Spirit Bone, was severed cleanly at the root and fell to the ground!
Excruciating pain pierced his heart!
But Tang Hao had no time to retrieve his severed arm; he dared not even pause for an instant!
Because he understood clearly:
If Zhao Yun could launch such a precise and terrifying attack from such a distance,
then it meant Zhao Yun must have easily blocked his Great Sumeru Hammer attack and remained unscathed.
If he dared to stop and pick up his arm, Zhao Yun's spear tip would pierce not his arm, but his throat in the next second!
He had to flee at his fastest speed; it was his only chance to survive!
Losing a right arm fused with a Spirit Bone was an extremely heavy price.
Tang Hao could clearly feel his overall spirit power limit plummeting precipitously!
It had dropped a full ten levels!
He had fallen from a ninety-fifth level Titled Douluo directly to the eighty-fifth level Spirit Douluo Realm!
But because he had just lost the arm, his body's instincts and remaining spirit power were still active.
So his escape speed did not immediately slow down, barely maintaining a speed above that of a Titled Douluo for a short time.
During this golden time of escape, Tang Hao, like a stray dog, frantically overdrew and consumed his spirit power.
He recklessly accelerated his flight until his spirit power and physical strength were nearly depleted.
Only then did he finally dare to stop and rest in a relatively hidden, deserted, and Dilapidated Temple.
The moment he stopped, Tang Hao couldn't help but vomit a large mouthful of black blood mixed with fragments of internal organs.
Tang Hao's condition at this moment was far from good; one could even say it was pitiful.
With his only remaining left hand, he calmly applied every usable healing medicine from his spirit tool onto the wound of his severed arm.
Those precious oral healing medicines were swallowed one after another as if they cost nothing.
Only after the medicinal effects took hold did he barely manage to suppress the hidden injuries within his body, which were on the verge of erupting completely due to the forced Ring Explosion.
Leaning against the cold wall of the broken temple, Tang Hao's face was as pale as paper, looking utterly dreadful.
This time, he had truly tried to steal a chicken only to lose the rice, suffering a double loss!
He originally thought that with the long-inherited secret technique of Ring Explosion from the Clear Sky Sect, combined with the overbearing power of the Great Sumeru Hammer,
even if he couldn't be invincible,
he would at least have the power to strike once against a ninety-ninth level super Douluo by catching them off guard, and retreat unscathed.
But now it seemed that he, Tang Hao, had been too narrow-minded and arrogant!
Although his Great Sumeru Hammer this time only exploded the first six rings, not his Peak full power of exploding all nine rings,
from Zhao Yun's effortless attack just now, he could clearly sense that
even if he had risked his life today and exploded all nine rings, Zhao Yun would still have handled his desperate attack with ease, even counter-killing him unscathed.
This was the immense, chasm-like gap between a super Douluo and an ordinary Titled Douluo!
At this moment, having experienced a brush with death and a crushing defeat, a sudden clarity dawned upon Tang Hao.
He could also somewhat understand why, back when the Clear Sky Sect was at its Peak, facing the Spirit Hall's forceful coercion,
the Sect Elders chose without hesitation to back down, seal the Sect, and retreat from the world.
And why his father, the former Clear Sky Sect Master, ultimately died depressed and regretful from illness.
It was because the Spirit Hall was truly far too powerful!
This power wasn't about the sheer number of low-level Spirit Masters, but the absolute crushing superiority of top-tier combat strength!
Not to mention the Titled Douluos the Spirit Hall had on the surface.
Just the High Priest of the Hall of Worship alone, the ninety-ninth level super Douluo Qian Daoliu!
He alone could probably have razed the entire Clear Sky Sect of that era to the ground.
The dignity of a super Douluo brooks no provocation!
"Cough... cough..."
Tang Hao coughed up another mouthful of blood and looked down at his empty right shoulder.
Now, having lost his right arm and permanently damaged his strength, falling to the Spirit Douluo level, he clearly could no longer protect Tang San from the shadows as effectively as before.
"Perhaps... I should return to the Sect."
A flicker of complexity and resolve passed through Tang Hao's turbid eyes. "To plead guilty to the Sect, and then inform the Sect's higher-ups of Little San's existence."
Tang Hao pondered.
The Sect had always yearned to return to its Peak. If they knew Little San possessed the one-in-ten-million twin spirits and the talent of Innate Full Spirit Power,
then, for the sake of this talent that could lead the Clear Sky Sect to revival, even if the Elders hated him and refused to forgive the grave wrongs he committed against the Sect back then,
perhaps, for the future of the Sect, they might accept Little San's return to his ancestral roots.
Actually, if possible,
Tang Hao originally planned to wait until Tang San's cultivation was higher, at least reaching the Spirit King or Spirit Emperor Realm.
When he had the ability to protect himself and demonstrated sufficient value, then he would bring his son back to the Clear Sky Sect.
Letting his son use his own strength to atone for his father's sins to the Sect and wash away the shame.
But plans could not keep up with changes.
With his current crippled body and his mere eighty-fifth level cultivation,
coupled with losing a top-quality Right Arm Bone fused for many years, around Eighty Thousand Years old, his physical Foundation was severely damaged.
His physical constitution could no longer withstand the backlash from Ring Explosion at all.
Now, even if he risked his life to perform Ring Explosion, he estimated he could at most explode the first four rings—those lower-tier Hundred-Year and Thousand-Year spirit rings.
Exploding such low-level spirit rings wouldn't significantly boost his combat power; at best, it would barely push him to the threshold of a Titled Douluo.
Yet the side effects would be enormous. This approach offered more disadvantages than benefits, a losing proposition.