Douluo: Martial Soul White Tiger, I am the White Emperor of Heaven

“That’s right.” A cold glint flashed in Mo Yuan’s eyes. “My senior brother cultivated for a hundred years and was just one step away from breaking through the limit and achieving godhood. You destroyed everything for him and caused him to die before dawn. Today, I will make you pay the price.”

Su Chen said calmly, "Don't you deserve to die for what your senior brother did? Don't you know how many people he killed?"

"Those people?" Mo Yuan sneered. "Their existence is meaningless; their deaths are sacrifices to nothingness. My senior brother is helping them escape the cycle of suffering, allowing them to return to the embrace of nothingness. You mortals simply don't understand what true redemption is."

“Redemption?” Su Chen laughed, his smile full of sarcasm. “Your redemption is turning everyone into walking corpses? Making everyone lose their emotions and their sense of self? That’s not redemption, that’s destruction.”

"Destruction is rebirth." A black-robed figure behind Mo Yuan spoke, his voice shrill and piercing. "Only through complete destruction can we usher in true nothingness. In nothingness there is no pain, no sorrow, no despair, only eternal tranquility."

Su Chen shook his head: "You are beyond saving."

"What's the point of talking nonsense?" another black-robed man behind Mo Yuan spoke, his voice hoarse like a broken gong. "Let's do it, Protector."

Mo Yuan nodded. His black robes fluttered without wind, and black mist surged from his body, enveloping him completely. His martial spirit was released—a gigantic black python, its body covered in eerie silver patterns, its two eyes blood-red, radiating an evil light. Mo Yuan's spirit rings appeared—two yellow, two purple, and five black, nine spirit rings in total. Moreover, a faint golden pattern was visible on the last two black spirit rings, a characteristic only found on the spirit rings of a 100,000-year-old spirit beast.

"A 100,000-year-old spirit ring?" Su Chen frowned slightly. "You hunted a 100,000-year-old spirit beast?"

“It wasn’t hunting, it was sacrifice,” Mo Yuan said. “That 100,000-year-old frost python willingly gave up its life because it knew that only through death could it return to nothingness.”

"Nonsense." Su Chen sneered, "Soul beasts cherish life the most, how could they willingly sacrifice themselves? You must have used some evil means."

Mo Yuan didn't speak again, but his body suddenly moved.

The black python martial spirit transformed into a bolt of black lightning, lunging towards Su Chen. The python opened its blood-red maw, spewing out a thick black mist that distorted the air and instantly corroded a large crater in the ice and snow on the ground.

Su Chen remained calm and unhurried, releasing his martial soul—a gigantic silver fox with nine tails swaying behind it, each tail bearing a phantom spirit ring. Su Chen's martial soul was the Nine-Tailed Silver Fox, an extremely rare intelligent martial soul, skilled in mental and spatial powers. His spirit ring configuration was two yellow, two purple, and five black, also a configuration at the Title Douluo level, and his spirit power level had reached ninety-seven, two levels higher than Mo Yuan's.

"Nine-Tailed Silver Fox's First Soul Skill - Spatial Barrier!"

A transparent barrier appeared out of thin air in front of Su Chen. The black mist crashed into the barrier, twisted, folded, and swallowed by the power of space, eventually disappearing without a trace. At the same time, Su Chen activated his second soul skill—Spatial Cut—and an invisible spatial blade flew out from the barrier, slicing towards Mo Yuan's neck.

Mo Yuan reacted quickly, leaning back to avoid the fatal blow of the spatial blade, but a gash was still slashed across his left shoulder, from which blood gushed out. However, his blood wasn't red; it was black and reeked of decay. "Your blood…" Su Chen frowned, "You've been corrupted by the power of nothingness to this extent?"

“This is not erosion, it is evolution.” Mo Yuan licked the black blood from the corner of his mouth, his eyes filled with even more madness. “The power of nothingness has allowed me to surpass the limits of humanity, bringing me one step closer to nothingness. One day, I will become a part of nothingness and gain eternal peace.”

“You’ve gone mad,” Su Chen said.

"Mad?" Mo Yuan laughed. "You people who cling to old ideas are the madmen. You are obsessed with life, obsessed with emotions, obsessed with those meaningless things, but you don't know that these are all illusions. Only nothingness is real, only death is eternal!"

He charged again, this time with two more men in black robes. The three formed a triangular formation, surrounding Su Chen in the center. The other two men in black robes also released their martial souls—one a black raven, the other a black spider. The raven martial soul excelled in mental attacks, while the spider martial soul excelled in binding and control. Combined with Mo Yuan's python martial soul's frontal attacks, they formed an almost impenetrable battle formation.

Su Chen felt the pressure. Although his soul power level was higher, he was facing an attack from three powerful individuals. Moreover, all three had the same martial soul attribute—darkness and nothingness—and their coordination was seamless, which made it difficult for him to use his full strength.

The black crow's mental attacks were like invisible arrows, piercing Su Chen's mental sea wave after wave. Although Su Chen's Nine-Tailed Silver Fox was skilled in mental power, the crow's martial soul's attacks carried the power of nothingness, which could erode mental power, causing Su Chen to feel dizzy.

Black spider silk flew in from all directions, covered in black mist. Once entangled, one would be corroded by the power of nothingness. Su Chen used spatial cutting to continuously sever the spider silk, but the spider silk seemed endless. For every silk he cut, ten more would appear, leaving him exhausted.

Mo Yuan's python martial soul is even more ferocious, with each attack carrying the power of thunder. Moreover, the python's body can switch between reality and illusion. Although Su Chen's spatial cutting can hurt it, it cannot cause fatal damage.

"As expected of Qian Renxue's strategist, you're quite capable," Mo Yuan said while attacking. "But how long can you hold out? Your students are almost at their limit."

Su Chen's heart tightened, and his senses rapidly expanded, revealing the battle situation on Ares's side. Ares was indeed valiant, having already killed over thirty enemies, but the situation on the students' side was far from optimistic. Five students had already been injured, two of them seriously wounded, and were being protected by medics and other students. The remaining students were still fighting, but their stamina was greatly depleted, and their movements had noticeably slowed down.

Even more worryingly, it seemed that there were more than three patrol teams from the Void Cult. Su Chen sensed that even more soul power fluctuations were approaching from afar, with at least forty or fifty more people on their way.

"We must finish this quickly," Su Chen decided.

He took a deep breath, channeling his soul power to its fullest extent. All nine soul rings lit up simultaneously, their silver light dispelling the surrounding darkness. (End of Chapter)