CHAPTER 254: CHAPTER 254: WITHDRAWAL, THE DESPAIRING TANG SAN, THE SHOCKED ASURA GOD

"Crack... crack... crack..."

The entire set of Eight Spider Lances was slowly being peeled away by an invisible force. Tang San’s agonizing screams echoed through the empty room, his eyes wide with terror and unwillingness.

Every painful groan was like a wail from the depths of his soul. The departure of the Eight Spider Lances made his body and spirit feel as if they were being sliced by a thousand sharp blades; the pain was so intense it nearly made him faint.

"No! Don’t! Give them back! They’re mine!" Tang San roared in his heart, but it was all in vain. The force was cold and merciless, pulling his external soul bone from his body, bit by bit.

"AHH—!" Tang San let out another shrill scream. His voice was already hoarse, barely recognizable as human, sounding more like the screeching of a vengeful ghost from hell. At this moment, he felt an unprecedented despair and fear, as if his entire world was collapsing.

The Eight Spider Lances were his greatest asset. If he lost them, he wouldn’t be able to survive in the City of Slaughter. The fallen soul masters he had tormented and oppressed in the past would swarm him and tear him to shreds. Tang San’s consciousness began to blur, the intense physical pain and mental despair intertwining.

"Who... who the hell are you?!!!"

"I told you, I am your father!"

(Damn it, this guy never passes up an opportunity to take advantage of someone. Whose father are you?)

As Tang San’s final wail sounded, the Eight Spider Lances finally detached completely from his body. They floated in mid-air, shimmering with a strange red light. The thorns and barbs covering them made them look more like a terrifying instrument of torture.

As for Tang San, his back was now a bloody, mangled mess, as if he had been subjected to a thousand cuts. It felt as if most of his life force had been drained away in that instant. He was completely listless, barely having the strength to breathe.

Lin Feng looked at the Eight Spider Lances thoughtfully. With a slight movement of his fingers, the floating lances were pulled by an invisible string and slowly flew towards him.

The evil and bloody aura clinging to them made him frown. "It seems you’ve been quite indiscriminate in your feeding these days. It’s better to just obliterate this thing now!"

As he spoke, Lin Feng gently waved his palm. Golden True Qi surged from it, instantly enveloping the Eight Spider Lances. The lances, which had been glowing with a strange red light, began to tremble violently under the flush of this energy. The thorns and barbs on them, as if encountering their natural enemy, quickly withered and dissipated.

"Bang—"

The Eight Spider Lances suddenly exploded. To the current Lin Feng, they weren’t even worthy of a second glance.

Hearing the sound from the air, the last shred of hope in Tang San’s heart shattered. He watched helplessly as his external soul bone turned into nothingness. The feeling of powerlessness and despair was suffocating.

To him, nothing was more important than power. His entire future depended on it; otherwise, everything in his memory would be nothing but an illusion.

"Why... Why is this happening?" Tang San murmured in a low voice, filled with bitterness and pain.

He was supposed to be a God-King. Even if he had to walk the path again and missed a few opportunities, he should still be the Son of Destiny. So why had he fallen to such a state?

"Tang San, do you know there’s a type of person in this world? They think very highly of themselves, always believing they are the center of the universe. Yet, when a true crisis arrives, they are the first to collapse."

"You... Who are you? How do you know those things? Huo Yuhao, is that you!" Tang San managed to speak, his voice hoarse, enunciating each word with difficulty.

Lin Feng glanced at Tang San indifferently. "Just think of it as retribution, Tang San. The feeling of having your destiny arranged by someone else can’t be pleasant, can it? Let me see how you struggle, whether you can walk out of this City of Slaughter alive. Just when you think you’ve overcome one hurdle, you’ll find that your entire destiny has already been arranged.

"Xiao Wu won’t accept your love; those who get close to you will bring betrayal; what you pursue, you will not obtain; and what you cherish will be stripped away one by one."

Lin Feng’s voice echoed in the empty room, each word a sharp knife, precisely stabbing into Tang San’s heart.

"You think you are the protagonist, the favorite of fate. But in reality, you are just a chess piece, a piece manipulated by a higher existence, just like what you did to him," Lin Feng continued, his tone not mocking, but a cold statement of fact. Yet this coldness was more piercing than any taunt.

Anger flashed in Tang San’s eyes, but it was overshadowed by despair and unwillingness. He couldn’t accept that he was just a piece on someone else’s chessboard, couldn’t accept his destiny being manipulated at will.

Even if this guy wasn’t Huo Yuhao, he must know him. What was this, getting justice for Huo Yuhao? He had arranged Huo Yuhao’s destiny, and in this life, Huo Yuhao was arranging his.

In a fit of extreme rage, he thought back on everything that had happened since he came to this world. Tang San, so weak he could only move his lips, suddenly began to tremble violently.

He already had the answer in his heart. The person before him had to be Lin Feng, without a doubt. The only variable in this world, it had to be him!

Hateful! How could his world-shocking wisdom have failed to discover this problem sooner? Yes, it’s definitely him, absolutely him!

Lin Feng snatched Tang San’s "Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridges" and took all the hidden weapon components from the coffee table. "Tang San, if you can survive without these, maybe I’ll give you a chance to know the truth. Of course, you will still die. Isn’t that right, Evil Soul Master—Tang San!"

Lin Feng left without hesitation, leaving only the half-dead Tang San and the two corpses in the sealed room.

He didn’t kill Tang San directly, but he had planted a hidden technique in his heart meridians. He had destroyed his Eight Spider Lances and taken his hidden weapons. If he died, so be it.

If he could still come out alive, then the Asura God must have intervened. Otherwise, relying on Tang San’s own recovery ability, he would be eaten clean by the fallen soul masters outside before he could even heal.

And if the Asura God intervened directly to heal Tang San, then Qing Xuan would have leverage. Without having obtained the Deathgod Domain, it would be unreasonable for the Asura God to help him.

Choosing to interfere with the lower realm, for the current Qing Xuan, could be a major or minor issue. Creating some friction with the Asura God was always a good thing.

An unknown amount of time passed.

After Lin Feng left, the room fell into a deathly silence. Tang San lay on the floor, blood seeping continuously from the wounds on his back, staining the entire ground red. His consciousness was fading, but the unwillingness and anger in his heart burned like a raging fire.

"I... I can’t die like this..." Tang San’s lips moved with difficulty, his voice weak but firm. He knew that if he gave up now, he would have truly lost, lost to that mysterious Lin Feng.

He was the Asura God, the Sea God!

He endured the excruciating pain and tried to mobilize the soul power in his body to heal his injuries. However, without the Eight Spider Lances, his strength was greatly reduced, making even the most basic self-healing extremely difficult. But he didn’t give up, trying again and again, even if it was just to heal his wounds by a tiny fraction.

Time seemed to freeze. Tang San didn’t know how long he had been trying. Finally, just as he was about to exhaust his last ounce of strength, his wounds began to heal slowly. Although the speed was extremely slow, it was at least a turning point.

"Thud—"

Tang San fainted completely. The healing seemed to have exhausted his last bit of strength, causing him to fall into a deep slumber.

Outside the Town of Slaughter, space rippled as Lin Feng’s figure slowly emerged, his eyes thoughtful.

"I wonder if the Asura God will react," he murmured to himself, a playful tone in his voice. His divine sense swept the surroundings, and Lin Feng found the tavern and entered it once more.

The tavern waiter saw Lin Feng enter from the main door again and felt his brain short-circuit. Hadn’t this master just gone in not long ago? How was he entering from the outside again? Was it teleportation? But even teleportation didn’t make sense. Anyone who entered the City of Slaughter could not leave unless they passed through the Hell Road. This was a well-known, unbreakable rule. But this person...

The waiter’s eyes widened, but he didn’t dare ask questions, merely staring blankly as Lin Feng walked back to his previous seat.

Looking at the empty tavern, Lin Feng asked with some surprise, "Where is everyone?"

The waiter’s mouth twitched. You killed them all, how could anyone dare to come! But he didn’t dare say this out loud, only stammering, "M-Maybe... they’re all busy..."

Lin Feng chuckled lightly and didn’t press further. He took out a teacup from his soul tool, poured a cup of tea, and began to sip it leisurely.

He had an agreement with Qing Xuan to wait here for one day. After a day, they would meet here and leave. If she didn’t arrive, Lin Feng could leave on his own without waiting any longer.

Right now, it was still early before the appointed time.

***

*Divine Realm.*

Inside the Asura God’s Shrine, a divine light flashed, and the Asura God’s figure suddenly materialized.

He had a burly figure, wore dark red, magic-patterned battle armor, and his brow exuded dignity and coldness. He was shrouded in a blood-colored killing aura, and his scarlet eyes gazed quietly at the clouds before him.

A different scene was reflected in his eyes. Not long ago, he had sensed a violent fluctuation from the Asura Demon Sword he had left in the City of Slaughter. This kind of fluctuation would only occur if his chosen successor encountered an extremely powerful enemy or faced a devastating crisis.

The Asura God was alarmed and immediately extended his consciousness into it, using the Asura Demon Sword to project his divine sense and investigate the City of Slaughter. But what he saw was a scene that enraged him—Tang San, his successor, had been tortured to the brink of death, and even his external soul bone, the Eight Spider Lances, had been stripped away.

His strength was less than a tenth of what it was, and his flame of life was so faint it seemed it could be extinguished at any moment.

He sent his divine sense into Tang San’s body to further investigate his condition, and the result made his scalp tingle. In his eyes, the current Tang San’s body was suffering a backlash from all the energy he had devoured during this time.

Chaotic impurities filled his limbs and bones, and evil power had seeped into his mind. What angered the Asura God even more was that Tang San hadn’t been able to resist drinking Bloody Marys, causing his own soul to be shrouded in a haze. His body was a complete sieve, and because of the wounds on his back, his life force was constantly draining away.

Devouring things indiscriminately was damaging his own foundation. Didn’t this Tang San understand such a simple principle?

This was simply outrageous!

"What a useless piece of trash!" the Asura God snorted angrily. His divine sense roamed within Tang San’s body, attempting to sort out the chaotic energies while also considering a countermeasure.

The crisis Tang San faced was far more than just having his Eight Spider Lances stripped away. More importantly, his state of mind had likely been severely damaged. That despair and unwillingness would become a huge obstacle on his future cultivation path.

But as the law enforcer of the Divine Realm, he couldn’t directly intervene in the affairs of the lower realm, much less easily display the power of the Divine Realm. Otherwise, if it attracted the attention of other gods, it could cause unnecessary trouble.

"Ah, forget it!" The Asura God sighed softly and finally decided to give Tang San some help. After all, a soul master with such a paranoid personality was hard to find, and he was a good prospect with twin martial souls. If he really fell here, it would be a considerable loss for him.

The Asura God closed his eyes and focused, beginning to mobilize the residual divine sense and power within the Asura Demon Sword, preparing to give Tang San a sliver of protection. This divine power was extremely subtle; it could help Tang San stabilize his mind and sort out the energy in his body without being detected by other gods.

In the black palace, a red light flashed briefly from the Asura Demon Sword beside the King of Slaughter.

Enveloped by the divine power, Tang San’s nearly extinguished flame of life gradually stabilized, and the impurities and evil power within his body were slowly suppressed.

"Damn it, who was it?!" the Asura God thought angrily, beginning to probe the City of Slaughter with his divine sense.

What he didn’t know was that the moment he drew the divine sense and power from the Asura Demon Sword and sent it into Tang San’s body, Qing Xuan, hidden in the shadows, also detected the fluctuation of this divine power. Her brow furrowed slightly, a trace of surprise flashing in her eyes.

"Giving divine power to a human? Why?"

Qing Xuan frowned. Was he the Asura God’s successor? But the god trials hadn’t started. Was such an act... permissible? But it also seemed to be within reason?

She temporarily made a mental note of this matter and turned her gaze back to the underground of the City of Slaughter.

The structure there was very strange. In her eyes, the underground of the City of Slaughter concealed a path covered in blood-qi and lava, which was probably the Hell Road Lin Feng had mentioned.

But why did the Hell Road, when combined with the City of Slaughter, look more like a giant purgatory formation?

The killing intent, evil thoughts, blood-qi, and even the frenzied power of faith from the City of Slaughter all converged towards the Hell Road. Was this the Asura God’s way of obtaining the power of faith in the mortal realm?

Qing Xuan pondered. It made sense. Apart from a place like this, it was indeed difficult to explain the source of the Asura God’s power of faith on the Douluo Continent.

She thought to herself, did this conform to the rules of the Divine Realm? For a moment, she couldn’t be sure.