Chapter 79: Elder Mu's Fury! Brutally Whipping Elder Xuan!
Inside the Sea God Pavilion, the air had frozen solid.
Elder Mu sat sunken into his wooden recliner, his cloudy eyes locked onto the man standing before him. Elder Xuan kept his head bowed, his greasy fingers anxiously twisting the fabric of his sleeves, rubbing the coarse material until his knuckles turned white.
Elder Mu knew this man far too well. They had fought alongside each other for decades; not a single twitch of a muscle or shift in posture could escape the Dragon God Douluo's gaze. Usually, if Elder Xuan had returned with good news or a completed mission, he would have kicked the doors open, loudly boasting of his exploits while uncorking a gourd of cheap wine to celebrate.
But now? Elder Xuan's face was ashen. His bloodshot eyes darted restlessly across the floorboards, completely lacking the courage to meet Elder Mu's gaze.
This suffocating silence, this pathetic, trembling nervousness, meant only one thing.
His absolute worst premonition had just become reality.
The gentle, grandfatherly aura that usually surrounded Elder Mu vanished. In its place, a terrifying, absolute chill descended, causing the ancient wood of the entire Sea God Pavilion to groan and tremble. He gripped the armrests of his recliner, knuckles popping as he leaned forward. The cloudiness in his eyes burned away, replaced by a sharp, piercing glint that felt like a blade against the throat.
"Elder Xuan. I will ask you one last time." Elder Mu's voice was a low, glacial rasp, entirely devoid of warmth. "That peerless genius with the Double Pupils. The one who slaughtered Evil Soul Masters at the Star Luo border. The one who just became engaged to Princess Vina in the Heavenly Soul Imperial City... Is he truly the Liu Yuan you drove out of our Shrek Academy?"
Elder Xuan's body jerked violently. His chapped lips parted, trembling as he tried to form a sentence, but his throat seized. Finally, as if his spine had been completely removed, he squeezed out a single, pathetic sound. A sound so quiet, yet heavy enough to crush mountains.
"Yes..."
The sheer weight of his own guilt and terror seemed to cave his chest in. Elder Xuan slumped forward, looking utterly defeated.
Hearing that final confirmation, Elder Mu's chest heaved. A sharp, violent ringing pierced his ears, and his vision swam with black spots. The sheer magnitude of the loss—a catastrophic mixture of extreme fury and agonizing regret—threatened to tear his mind apart.
"FOOL!"
Elder Mu roared. The terrifying soul power contained within that single syllable erupted outward, instantly reducing the sturdy, centuries-old solid wood table in the center of the pavilion into a cloud of fine sawdust.
"KNEEL!"
The command struck like descending thunder, smashing directly into Elder Xuan's Spiritual Sea. Even as a Rank 98 Super Douluo, the Taotie Douluo couldn't muster a single thought of resistance against an enraged Limit Douluo. His knees buckled instantly, slamming into the hard wooden floorboards with a heavy thud.
Elder Mu's normally withered, hunched body straightened. He rose from his chair, towering over the kneeling Elder Xuan. His voice shook uncontrollably, thick with venom. "Elder Xuan... do you know your crime? Do you have any idea what you have done?"
Elder Xuan kept his forehead pressed toward the floor. Cold sweat beaded at his temples and dripped onto the wood. He could only nod, a bitter, broken gesture.
"I know my crime... I am guilty..."
"Know your crime?" Elder Mu completely lost his composure, his face twisting in rage. "Can your pathetic admission of guilt restore Shrek's ten-thousand-year glory?! Can it give us back a future Limit Douluo?!"
He pointed a trembling finger directly at Elder Xuan's face. "As an elder of the Sea God Pavilion, your disregard for the rules was one thing, but your sheer, blinding arrogance has doomed us!"
"Liu Yuan is not just a peerless genius! He is the orphaned son of martyrs from the Shrek Inspector Corps! His parents drained their last drops of blood for this Academy! We owed them a debt of life! Not only did you fail to protect and nurture him according to our sacred vow, but you couldn't even tolerate a grieving child for a mere six years!"
"You personally took a blade and severed all ties between Shrek and the bloodline of its heroes! You took a child who should have been the ultimate pillar of Shrek Academy, and you shoved him directly into the waiting arms of the Body Sect!"
"I always thought you were just lazy and undisciplined. I never imagined you were this utterly, unforgivably stupid!"
Elder Xuan opened his mouth. He desperately wanted to defend himself, to argue that Liu Yuan's Martial Soul had appeared completely crippled and useless at the time. But meeting Elder Mu's murderous, bloodshot eyes—eyes that looked ready to flay him alive—he swallowed the pathetic excuse. He knew all too well that in the face of absolute reality, any justification was just empty air.
Seeing Elder Xuan kneeling there like a lifeless, pathetic dog did nothing to extinguish the raging inferno in Elder Mu's heart. Instead, it poured oil on the flames.
"Get outside!"
Golden soul power erupted from Elder Mu's body like a volcanic geyser. He lunged forward, his withered hand clamping onto the back of Elder Xuan's collar with a vice-like grip. In a blinding flash of golden light, the two vanished from the room, reappearing instantly on the open, manicured grounds outside the Sea God Pavilion.
This was the most sacred core of Shrek Academy, a place of absolute reverence and tranquility. But today, Elder Mu had zero intention of maintaining his dignified demeanor.
Elder Mu reached out, his right hand grasping at the empty air. The golden soul power swirling around him violently twisted and compressed, instantly solidifying into a thick, heavy whip several meters long. Crackling, thunder-like golden patterns crawled across its surface, radiating a heart-palpitating aura of absolute suppression.
"If I do not discipline you today, I will have no face to meet the ancestors of the Sea God Pavilion in the afterlife! And I will have even less face to look upon Liu Yuan's parents, who died protecting your miserable life!"
Before the last word even left his lips, Elder Mu swung his right arm with terrifying force.
CRACK!
A deafening sonic boom exploded through the tranquil courtyard.
The whip, forged from ultimate soul power, dragged a brilliant golden afterimage through the air and lashed viciously across Elder Xuan's back.
Elder Xuan possessed a monstrously powerful physique, one capable of shrugging off attacks from other Super Douluos. But under Elder Mu's strike of pure, unadulterated hatred, that defense was shredded like wet paper.
The heavy fabric of Elder Xuan's robes exploded into confetti. A gruesome trench, deep enough to expose the gleaming white of his spine, was carved diagonally across his entire back. The flesh violently peeled open. Before the bright red blood could even hit the grass, the searing heat radiating from the golden whip vaporized it into a sickening crimson mist.
"AGH—!"
Elder Xuan threw his head back and unleashed a heart-wrenching, agonizing scream. The sheer kinetic force of the blow slammed him face-first into the ground, his body plowing a deep, muddy trench through the pristine lawn.
Elder Mu didn't pause for a fraction of a second. His face was a mask of terrifying, gloomy wrath. He raised his arm, and the soul power whip shrieked through the air once more.
"This strike is for Liu Yuan's parents! For your sickening ingratitude!"
CRACK!
The golden lash wrapped brutally around Elder Xuan's torso, biting deep into his ribs. Muscle and tissue instantly ruptured, exposing the splintered, fractured bones underneath.
"This strike is for Shrek's ten-thousand-year foundation! For your catastrophic shortsightedness!"
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Elder Mu struck like a man possessed. The golden whip blurred into an airtight cage of shadows, raining down without mercy. Every single lash carried the crushing weight of his disappointment in the Taotie Douluo, and his agonizing, bleeding remorse for Liu Yuan.
Elder Xuan lay curled in the dirt, his massive frame twitching violently with every impact. His exquisite elder's cloak had been reduced to bloody rags. He was being beaten into a pulp. His back, his arms, his thighs—every inch of him was covered in mangled, split flesh. A rapidly expanding pool of dark blood soaked into the sacred turf of the Sea God Pavilion.
He rolled wildly in the mud, clutching his head as bursts of pathetic, pleading wails tore from his throat. Elder Mu had injected a specialized mental shock into the whip; the agony didn't just tear at physical flesh, it bypassed his defenses and struck directly at his nerves and the very depths of his soul. It was a torturous pain that even a Rank 98 Super Douluo could not endure.
Yet, Elder Mu's expression remained as cold as a glacier. The speed of his whipping didn't slow in the slightest. Every strike landed with a sickening, wet thud of tearing flesh and shattering bone, a sound that would grind against the teeth of anyone listening.
This brutal, tragic punishment lasted for several agonizing minutes. Finally, the sheer violence of the commotion alarmed the other experts residing in the inner courtyard. Elder Xuan's screams were simply too shrill, too desperate, and the violent soul power fluctuations radiating from Elder Mu felt as though someone were trying to uproot the Golden Tree itself.
Elders who had been in deep seclusion or handling academy affairs snapped their eyes open in horror. One after another, they transformed into streaks of brilliant light, rushing frantically toward the Sea God Pavilion.
Yan Shaozhe, Xian Lin'er, Elder Song... these legendary experts, figures whose names commanded respect across the entire continent, landed in the courtyard.
And instantly, they froze.
They couldn't process what they were seeing.
Elder Mu—the man who was always so gentle, so kind, even appearing a bit senile in his old age—was standing over a body, frantically and viciously lashing it with a whip of pure golden light.
And the victim? Elder Xuan. The eccentric, arrogant, gluttonous Taotie Douluo was lying in a massive pool of his own blood, beaten so severely he was almost beyond recognition. His hoarse screams echoed endlessly throughout the inner courtyard.
"Elder Mu! What are you doing?!" Yan Shaozhe was the first to snap out of his daze. Seeing the mangled, bloody ruin of Elder Xuan's back, his eyes reddened. He immediately stepped forward, intending to intervene, but a terrifying shockwave of golden air blasted outward from Elder Mu, forcefully shoving the Dean of the Martial Soul Department back.
"Elder Mu, please, let's talk this through!" Xian Lin'er shouted hurriedly, her voice laced with deep anxiety. "Whatever mistake Elder Xuan made, surely it doesn't warrant this!"
"SHUT UP!"
Elder Mu whipped his head around. His eyes were completely bloodshot, glowing with a crimson, manic light as he glared at the assembled elders. His voice was hoarse, ragged, and utterly unhinged.
"You ask what he did?! Why don't you ask him?! Ask him how he personally took a blade and butchered Shrek Academy's entire future!"
The golden whip in Elder Mu's hand crashed down heavily once more, the brutal impact completely draining the very last ounce of strength from Elder Xuan's broken body.
The newly arrived elders stared at the absolute, murderous conviction burning in Elder Mu's eyes, and then down at the Rank 98 Super Douluo wailing pitifully in the mud.
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the courtyard.
For a long moment, not a single person dared to take another step forward.
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