Chapter 188: Elder Xuan Breaks Down! Is All of This Real?
Inside the Sea God Pavilion, the aura of life emanating from the Golden Tree remained thick and heavy, washing over the ancient wooden walls in gentle, glowing waves.
Yet, at this very moment, that soothing, ancient energy was entirely incapable of quelling the violent irritability boiling within Elder Xuan's chest.
He slouched in the high-backed main seat of the pavilion. A half-eaten chicken leg lay discarded at his feet, its grease slowly seeping into the priceless woven carpet, leaving an ugly, dark stain. Elder Xuan stared down at the academy staff member kneeling before him. The man's body trembled like a leaf caught in a hurricane. Xuan's mood, already thoroughly soured from a recent, agonizingly failed breakthrough attempt, had now plummeted into an abyss of pure foulness.
He could not stand seeing Shrek Academy's personnel looking so spineless and pathetic in his presence.
"What are you crying for? Pull yourself together and wipe those tears away!"
Elder Xuan slammed his fist against the heavy wooden armrest. His voice rolled and crashed like muffled thunder within the enclosed office, rattling the teacups on the side table.
"Shaozhe took Elder Song and Xian Lin'er with him," Xuan growled, his chest heaving. "Three Super Douluo. That is a vanguard formidable enough to demand state honors from the emperor of any capital on this continent!"
He leaned forward, his messy hair casting dark shadows over his eyes. "They only went to retrieve a single vice dean. What could possibly go wrong? Could the Heavenly Soul Empire really turn the world upside down over one man?"
The kneeling staff member swallowed hard, the sound loud in the tense silence. Driven by extreme, suffocating nervousness, his voice squeezed out in a shrill, panicked pitch: "Elder Xuan, something major... something catastrophic really has happened..."
"Spit it out!"
"The official royal decree just broadcasted by the Heavenly Soul Empire states that Dean Yan, Elder Song, and Vice Dean Xian... they ambushed Fan Yu in the capital's side courtyard. But... but they encountered the Body Douluo, Du Busi."
The staff member squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for impact. "A fierce battle broke out. All three elders—including Dean Yan—were severely injured. Finally... finally, Dean Yan was forced to publicly hand over three hundred-thousand-year soul bones as compensation before Du Busi would allow them to leave with their lives."
"What did you say?"
Elder Xuan's pupils shrank to pinpricks. The murky whites of his eyes instantly flooded with jagged, bloodshot veins.
He shot up from his seat. A violent shockwave of spirit power erupted from his body, blasting the kneeling staff member off the floor and pinning him brutally against the far wall.
"Du Busi? No matter how formidable that old monster is, how could he possibly defeat two Rank 97s and one Rank 96 in a one-on-three clash? And extort three hundred-thousand-year soul bones? This is utterly preposterous!"
Xuan closed the distance in a flash, grabbing the gasping staff member by the collar. He lifted the man entirely off the ground, his face twisting into a mask of distorted fury.
"Where did this intelligence come from? Who gave you the nerve to fabricate such malicious lies that disgrace this academy's sacred reputation?"
The staff member's face rapidly turned a bruised, choking purple. He struggled weakly, patting Xuan's iron-grip hand. "It... it came directly from the Heavenly Soul Empire's official announcement... Right now... all the spirit tool communication stations and underground black markets across the entire continent are going crazy over it."
Tears of pain leaked from the man's eyes. "They even described the exact details of Elder Song's limbs being crushed beneath Du Busi's feet... Dean Yan and the others haven't returned yet!"
As if all the strength had been abruptly drained from his bones, Elder Xuan loosened his grip. The staff member crumpled to the floor, coughing violently.
"Impossible... absolutely impossible."
Xuan began to pace back and forth across the office, his breathing growing extremely heavy and ragged. His boots stamped over the grease stain, uncaring.
"While Du Busi is overbearing and arrogant, unless he has completely lost his mind, he would never dare to humiliate Shrek Academy like this."
He muttered to himself, his hands trembling slightly. "If it's true... hasn't Shrek's unblemished reputation of ten thousand years been completely thrown into the gutter by those three useless fools in a single night?"
Although his mouth continuously repeated the word impossible, Elder Xuan's heart had already sunk to rock bottom.
He knew the political landscape very well. The Heavenly Soul Empire would never dare release a public announcement capable of sparking an all-out continental war unless they had absolute, obvious proof of their victory.
He whirled around and roared toward the heavy wooden doors: "Someone, get in here! Investigate! Mobilize all the academy's Shadow Guards hidden within the Heavenly Soul Empire. I want to see the absolute truth of the scene within an hour!"
His voice cracked with desperation. "Also, send guards to the west city gate. The moment Yan Shaozhe and the others return, bring them to the Sea God Pavilion immediately. Do not alert anyone else!"
The next twenty-four hours dragged on like agonizing years for Elder Xuan.
He had already assumed the supreme position of the Master of the Sea God Pavilion. That meant the entire honor, glory, and disgrace of Shrek rested squarely upon his aging shoulders.
He valued the gold-lettered brand of "Shrek" even more desperately than when Elder Mu was alive. Xuan knew his own limitations; he knew he could not suppress an entire era with sheer, overwhelming martial force the way the Dragon God Douluo once did. Thus, his only option was to desperately, frantically maintain the pristine purity of this brand through reputation and fear.
He sat withered and hunched on the top floor of the Sea God Pavilion. The replacement chicken leg brought by a servant had long since gone cold on the table, the fat congealing into a white paste. He couldn't force himself to swallow a single bite.
"Good news... just bring me some good news..." Xuan kept rubbing his calloused hands together, muttering into the empty, silent room.
He prayed the message from the Shadow Guards would simply read, The Heavenly Soul Empire is spreading malicious rumors. He prayed Shaozhe and the others had successfully brought back Fan Yu. He even prayed it was just an elaborate, tasteless prank targeting Shrek.
However, reality proved to be far crueler than his darkest fears.
At dusk the following day, the Sea God Pavilion's defensive barrier rippled. The faint, erratic auras of Yan Shaozhe and the other two finally appeared within sensing range.
Elder Xuan's figure flickered, instantly tearing through space to appear at the pavilion's grand entrance.
When his eyes registered the sight before him, the very last, fragile sliver of hope he had been clinging to shattered into dust.
Yan Shaozhe's originally pristine, immaculate dean's robes were now tattered rags, heavily stained with dried, blackened blood. Due to excessive, life-threatening spirit power depletion, his handsome face was so pale it appeared almost translucent, like thin paper.
Xian Lin'er was in an even more wretched state. Her armor was cracked, her hair matted with sweat and dirt. She was heavily supporting the semi-conscious body of Elder Song. Song's left arm—the very arm that should have been wielding her weapon with unmatched grace—was now bent at a horrific, unnatural angle, the bone visibly protruding beneath the fabric. It had clearly been stepped on and brutally snapped.
Looking at their utterly destroyed state, there was no need to even ask the question. The humiliating answer was written in the blood and broken bones of three Super Douluo.
"Elder Xuan..."
Seeing the old man standing at the doorway, Yan Shaozhe's once high-spirited, arrogant eyes dulled. They showed nothing but extreme humiliation and total defeat. His knees finally buckled, and he nearly collapsed onto the pristine steps of the pavilion.
Elder Xuan stared intently at Shaozhe, his chest heaving violently. Every word seemed to be squeezed out from between his grinding teeth, dripping with venom and disbelief: "The rumors being spread outside... meeting Du Busi... handing over the hundred-thousand-year soul bones... and Fan Yu... tell me. Is it true?"
Shaozhe remained silent for a long, agonizing moment. Finally, he closed his eyes. Two lines of hot, humiliated tears slid down his pale cheeks, cutting tracks through the grime.
He let out a bitter, broken sigh. His voice was so raspy and damaged it was almost inaudible: "It's true. Du Busi... his physical strength and cultivation are far beyond our imagination. The three of us gave our absolute all... we burned our essence... but we could not win."
He swallowed blood, continuing, "So in the end, to save Elder Song and Lin'er's lives, and to prevent Shrek's reputation from being completely trampled into the dirt by him right at the capital's gates... I could only hand over the soul bones and bring them back alive."
"What did you say? Say it again!"
Elder Xuan's violently suppressed rage finally detonated.
He lunged forward, his hands locking onto Shaozhe's bloodstained collar. Driven mad by anger, his voice became distorted and shrill, echoing across the quiet courtyard. "You really gave three hundred-thousand-year soul bones to that green-haired old ghost?!"
He shook the Dean of the Martial Soul Department like a ragdoll. "You really let him slap Shrek's face in front of the whole damn continent?! What did you even come back alive for?! Why didn't you fight him to the death in the capital!"
Shaozhe offered no resistance. He let Xuan shake him, his head lolling slightly as he spoke in a dead, numb tone: "Not only were we no match for him, but Princess Wei Na had tens of thousands of elite troops encircling the perimeter. High-tier spirit tools were already locked onto our vital points."
He looked up, his hollow eyes meeting Xuan's furious gaze. "If we had fought to the death, not only would we not have come back, but Shrek's divine title as a ten-thousand-year Holy Land would have officially turned into 'failed assassination of a high official in a sovereign nation resulting in death.' Elder Xuan, we couldn't afford that consequence."
"Couldn't afford it? You've thrown Shrek into the mud now—can you afford that?!"
Xuan shoved Shaozhe away with such force that the Dean stumbled and fell hard onto the wooden floorboards. The old man tilted his head back and let out a world-shaking, anguished roar.
Recalling how the entire continent had been eagerly discussing Shrek's incompetence these past few days, and thinking back to his own pathetic, desperate fantasies of it being a lie, his mind completely broke down.
"Useless! You're all a bunch of useless, pathetic fools!" Xuan swung his arm violently. A terrifying wave of golden spirit power erupted, instantly shattering the heavy Golden Tree railing nearby into thousands of splinters.
"Fan Yu defected, and you failed to retrieve him! Instead, you were ground into the dirt by someone else and then forced to pay a king's ransom just to keep your miserable lives? In the ten thousand years since Shrek's founding, when have we ever suffered such a humiliating defeat!"
He trembled from head to toe, his face purple with rage. "Du Busi... what a Du Busi! He is digging up Shrek's very roots! And you three idiots have squandered the absolute last of the foundation left behind by Elder Mu!"
Yan Shaozhe, Xian Lin'er, and the semi-conscious Elder Song all lowered their heads, letting Xuan's furious spittle fly onto their faces without a word of protest.
Inside the once-sacred Sea God Pavilion, an atmosphere thick with the stench of death and defeat settled in. Only Elder Xuan's nearly insane, echoing roars remained to break the suffocating silence.
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