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

"Don't get too excited yet, we don't know what's ahead," Lin Xue said, pouring cold water on our hopes.

The two continued climbing for about ten more minutes until they finally reached the end of the pipe. At the end of the pipe was a ventilation shaft, through which they could see what was below.

The base was much larger than they had imagined. The vast space was divided into several levels, each with a different function. Their ventilation shaft was on the second basement level, below which was a long corridor lined with laboratories on both sides. The walls of the laboratories were transparent, allowing them to see inside.

Chen Hao witnessed a scene that infuriated him.

Inside the laboratory, a man in black robes was pinning a commoner-looking man to a stone platform covered in eerie runes. The man held a black dagger, shrouded in black mist. He chanted some kind of incantation before plunging the dagger into the man's chest.

The man screamed, his body trembling violently. A gray light emanated from his body and was absorbed by the dagger. His face quickly turned ashen, his hair white, and his skin shrank, like a withered tree drained of its life force. A few seconds later, the man was a dried-up corpse, casually tossed aside by the man in black robes.

Chen Hao clenched his fist, and the blade of the Sword of Light trembled slightly, as if sensing its master's anger.

"Calm down." Lin Xue held Chen Hao's hand. "Our mission is to disrupt core research, not to save people."

Chen Hao took a deep breath and nodded. He knew Lin Xue was right; rushing out to rescue them now would only alert the enemy and cause the mission to fail. But the anger in his heart was erupting like a volcano; he wished he could jump down immediately and tear that man in black robes to pieces.

Lin Xue unleashed her Shadow Cat Martial Soul, her body merging with the shadows, becoming almost invisible. She gently pushed open the ventilation shaft's gate and silently leaped down, landing in the shadows of the corridor. Chen Hao followed closely behind, the Sword of Light gripped tightly in his hand, his eyes scanning the surroundings.

At the end of the corridor stood a massive metal door, its surface engraved with intricate runes swirling with black mist. A powerful energy fluctuation emanated from behind the door, a fluctuation that sent a chill down Chen Hao's spine, as if something terrifying lurked within.

"The core area," Lin Xue's voice came from the shadows. "Behind that door is the core research area."

"How do we get in?" Chen Hao asked.

Lin Xue examined the door closely and noticed a groove on it, shaped like some kind of token. She thought for a moment, then took out a black stone from her bosom—the one they had found on a man in black robes on the battlefield, whose purpose they hadn't yet figured out.

The black stone was placed inside, and it was the perfect size.

With a click, the runes on the door lit up, and then the door slowly opened.

The scene behind the door left Chen Hao and Lin Xue stunned.

It was a huge circular hall, at least two hundred meters in diameter and over fifty meters high. In the center of the hall was a huge black sphere, suspended in mid-air, constantly rotating.

The black sphere was covered in cracks, from which a dark red light emanated, like a heart about to shatter. Dozens of black-robed figures surrounded the sphere, sitting cross-legged with their hands in mudras and chanting some kind of incantation.

Each pulsation of the black sphere caused the air in the hall to tremble—not a physical vibration, but a resonance at the level of the soul. Chen Hao felt as if his consciousness was being gripped by an invisible hand, pulled towards the black sphere, as if it were a giant vortex threatening to swallow everything around it.

"Don't look at that ball." Lin Xue's voice rang in Chen Hao's ear, trembling with suppressed emotion. "It's affecting your mind."

Chen Hao bit his tongue sharply, the sharp pain jolting him back to reality. He shifted his gaze, fixing it on the walls surrounding the hall. The walls were covered with densely packed runes, different from any he had seen before—more complex, more ancient. Each rune seemed alive, slowly writhing on the wall, emitting a nauseating black mist.

"This is what they're researching," Chen Hao said in a low voice. "That black sphere... what exactly is it?"

Lin Xue didn't speak, but she took out a recording soul tool from her bosom and began to quietly record everything in the hall. This was one of the tasks Su Chen had given her before they set off—to collect as much research data on the Void Cult as possible, bring it back to the Heaven Dou Empire, and hand it over to the military and scholars for analysis.

In the center of the hall, beneath the black sphere, stood a person.

The man wore a robe unlike the others in black robes; it was a deep purple with silver runes embroidered along the edges, the runes shimmering with an eerie silver light. He was tall but extremely thin, like a bamboo pole wrapped in a robe. His face was mostly covered by a hood, revealing only a pointed chin and a pair of chapped lips.

The man looked up, and Chen Hao finally saw his face clearly.

It was a face that was unforgettable. The skin was so pale it was almost transparent, and the blue veins beneath were clearly visible. The eyes were sunken deep in their sockets, with purple pupils and no whites; the entire eyeball was purple, like two purple gems, but these gems held no emotion, only endless indifference and madness.

“The High Priest of the Void.” Lin Xue’s voice carried a hint of tension. “According to intelligence, the Void Cult has twelve High Priests, each of whom is a Title Douluo-level powerhouse. This person… should be the one in charge of the base in the far north.”

Chen Hao's palms were sweating. A Title Douluo was the pinnacle of the Soul Master world, with only a handful on the entire continent. He was merely a four-ring Soul Master; facing a Title Douluo was like an ant facing a dragon—they were simply not in the same league.

“Our mission is not to fight him.” Lin Xue seemed to have seen through Chen Hao’s thoughts. “We just need to disrupt the core research. According to Lord Su Chen’s analysis, that black sphere should be the central hub of the entire research. As long as we destroy it, the base’s research will be paralyzed.”

"How do you want to sabotage it?" Chen Hao asked.

Lin Xue took out a small jade bottle from her bosom. Inside the bottle was a silvery-white liquid that flowed slowly, emitting a faint glow. It was a special potion developed by the alchemists of the Heavenly Dou Empire, capable of neutralizing the power of nothingness and destroying the structure of the nothingness runes. Simply sprinkling the potion on that black sphere would destroy the entire core research project.

"I'll do it." Chen Hao extended his hand. (End of Chapter)