Douluo Dalu
Page 196Chapter 195
Six pieces of Spirit Bone, Divine Angelic Armament
(TL by PiggyBottle)
Seeing such an expression on his face, Qian Renxue’s originally calm expression immediately became cold as ice. But, at this time she was not willing to put the blame on the Snake Lance Douluo rather, she hurriedly said: “Uncle She, hurry, forget about me, just gather all our people and blockade the palace, don’t let them escape with emperor Xue Ye. “
Snake Lance Douluo hesitatingly asked: “Then what about the thing with the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan?”
Qian Renxue flatly replied: “Don’t bother with so much, once we can get out hands on emperor Xue Ye or confirm his death, then we will have our chance. Xue Qinghe must inherit the throne or else we would have failed.”
The Spirit Hall still had two other Title Douluo stationed in the palace, as long as they took control of the large number of spirit masters to blockade the palace, it would be impossible for Tang San to escape the palace grounds. The only thing that the Snake Lance Douluo didn’t dare tell Qian Renxue was how much time had passed since she passed out.
Snake Lance Douluo nodded his head and flew away in the blink of an eye, leaving Qian Renxue behind. Seeing his disappearing figure, Qian Renxue collapsed on the floor as if having lost all of her strength, murmuring: “I hope we can still make it. Tang San ah Tang San, are you really going to be the bane of my existence? When victory is already in the grasp of my hands you still managed to cause me so much trouble.”
After resting for awhile, colours gradually returned to Qian Renxue’s face. Seeing the Porcupinefish Douluo dyed red by blood lying beside her, she barely got herself together and once again put on the mask of Xue Qinghe. Gathering up her remaining angelic spirit force, she focused it on the Porcupine fish Douluo and herself, slowly trying to treat their injuries.
After an hour, under the effects of her Angel spirit Qian Renxue, she had already recovered by more than fifty percent and the Porcupine fish Douluo had also woken up. Just as she wanted to go back to the imperial chambers, Snake Lance Douluo returned.
“Uncle She, how was it?” Qian Renxue anxiously asked.
She Long replied with an ashen expression: “Tang San managed to escape with emperor Xue Ye. But, we have controlled the situation in the palace, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan still has not noticed our movements and are still trapped within their compounds and have not escaped.”
Qian Renxue staggered a moment, the glow in her eyes fading. “It’s over, it’s all over, just one loss and we lost everything.”
Snake Lance Douluo could not hold back and said: “Young master, the palace is still within our grasp, and what’s more, Xue Ye is already certainly going to die of the poison. As long as we publicly declare the passing of the emperor and succeed the throne it is still not too late! “
Qian Renxue bitterly smiled: “You underestimate Tang San too much, how would he possibly give me the chance? Tang San and Dugu Bo are both people well versed in the use of poison, especially the Title Douluo Dugu Bo, after all he already managed to save Xue Ye’s life several times from the poison so far. Even if they really could not cure him, they will certainly at least be able to sober him up and get him to alert the masses. The fact that they brought Xue Ye away proves exactly that, they are probably confident of being able to cure Xue Ye. Don’t forget, inside Shrek Academy, there are still about a thousand students and two thousand spirit masters from the royal family. With these three thousand people and Xue Ye Qing, when they once again march to take over the palace, what do you think the spirit masters affiliated to them in the palace would do? The will obviously immediately turn on us, although the amount of people we brought from the Spirit Hall is not few but, we definitely cannot take a fight within the Heaven Dou Empire grounds for both sides would certainly take a huge loss, what’s more the final victor might not even be us.”
She Long ground his teeth before saying: “Young master, why not let the few of us old people go test out the waters. No bloodletting. After all, we still have three Title Douluo level fighters, we just need to see if we can pick off Xue Ye which would give us complete control over the situation here.”
Qian Renxue shook her head: “Uncle She, it’s already too late, during normal times this would not be much of a problem. But now after Tang San has rescued Xue Ye, don’t you reckon that he would be well protected? Go spread my orders, mobilise all the people from the Spirit Hall and the two thousand Spirit Masters in the palace, tonight we shall move against the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan. Even though we may have lost today, let's just use the two thousand spirit masters as cannon fodder and annihilate them. We can’t let them live as they will certainly be like nurturing a tiger, even more trouble in the future.”
From Qian Renxue’s words, She Long noticed with dismay that she was going to give up her plan after so many years, “Young master, you have already laid low in the Heaven Dou Empire palace for so many years, are you really just going to give it all up like this?”
Qian Renxue drew a deep breath, she had been hiding for twenty years! Although she had maintained herself well, her age was not far off from Xue Qinghe. A maiden’s best ten years were all wasted while undercover, she had to use a special transformation technique every day to transform her physique to appear as a male. Failing just like this, how could she possibly resign to this fact like this? However, although Qian Renxue was a female, she was filled with dignity and pride, she knew clearly the current situation. As much as she did not want to admit to it, but this time it was her loss, her loss to Tang San.
“When there is a problem, we need to make decisions swiftly and decisively. Uncle She just go and relay my orders. After we crush the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan, we will immediately leave the city. We will still have many opportunities after today.” Clenching her teeth, Qian Renxue glanced in the direction of Shrek Academy, deeply sucking in this air that was not at all clean, her mind filled with thoughts of that handsome lifelong rival.
……
After leaving the palace, Tang San suddenly realised something before turning to ask Flender behind him: “Headmaster Flender, how many people are standing guard outside the academy? Are they people from the Heaven Dou imperial family? Or are they from the Spirit Hall?”
Flender replied: “They shouldn’t be Heaven Dou imperial family’s people. We specially had those imperial family Spirit Masters training at the Academy verify them. It’s not their people. About a thousand or so.”
Actually, Yang Wudi alone was enough to bring Emperor Xue Ye back to the Tang Sect. However, Emperor Xue Ye was just too important a person that he wanted Dugu Bo around, so that unless they ran into more than two Title Douluo they should be fine.
Flender tightened his brows and said: “Tang San, is this not too risky? The students in the academy are not all very strong, adding the people from the four element schools and the teachers, we barely have about five hundred people.”
Tang San replied: “Qian Renxue had previously said, this time they brought a total of about three thousand people from spirit hall. Two thousand of them along with another two thousand from the imperial family are controlling the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan. The Title Douluo that they brought over other than the two we already dealt with are also both stationed there. In other words, the thousand or so spirit masters near our academy should have no one at the level of a Title Douluo, so this is actually a very good opportunity for us, the Tang Sect has about a thousand Spirit Masters led by the four Single Attribute Clans, although each of the Single Attribute Clans has their own flaws, they complement each other well. What’s more, with three Spirit Doulos to lead them, our fighting strength will definitely not be inferior to theirs. We also have the strong teachers from the academy and you all who have fighting capabilities not any lower than a Title Douluo, defeating them is definitely not going to be a problem.”
Flender said: “Then why not just bring Emperor Xue Ye over as well. With him around, I am sure we will be able to convince those Spirit Masters from the imperial family’s side.”
Without waiting for Tang San to speak, Grandmaster already rebutted Flender’s idea, “That would be impossible, look at emperor’s condition right now, seeing him poisoned like this would most likely give them the wrong idea.”
Tang San eyes flashed with hesitation and after a pause he sighed, “Forget it, let’s just let them go. We should just head back to the academy together. Getting those spirit masters out of there should be enough, after all we still need to consider the damage the Tang Sect members will sustain, its too bad our hidden weapons are not ready yet.”
Hearing his words, the group all lightly nodded, with the exception of Yang Wudi, but even so, in his eyes there was a little something extra when he looked at Tang San.
However, some things are just destined. When they arrived at the Shrek Academy, the place had already become a battlefield, and the shocking thing was that there were over three thousand Spirit Masters there of which none were the students from Shrek academy.
Brilliant strands of light permeated the battlefield going through both parties, one side was suffering utter defeat with barely a hundred spirit masters left standing while being attacked by the other party whose ranks were still filled with about two thousand spirit masters.
The party with barely a hundred spirit masters remaining was the Spirit Hall side. In the middle of the battlefield leading the charge on the other side were two large built spirit masters with eight spirit rings shining brightly from their bodies, mowing through the Spirit Hall group like a bulldozer.
The spirit master on the left did not bother at all about defence and let all the opponent's attack hit him, while his partner similarly let out wave after wave of attacks, amongst the several hundred spirit masters, only five or six were barely able to resist them.
Yet, the spirit masters on this side formed a near-perfect formation with groups of four. Of which one would dart in and out disrupting enemy formations while another focuses entirely on defense and the remaining two would attack forcing the enemy to retreat while leaving many corpses behind. The enemy had just no chance to hurt them due to the extremely strong defence put up by the one focused on defence, as long as they were not more than ten grades higher, the enemy had no chance of even harming them.
These constantly advancing spirit masters all come from the Tang Sect, and were the people from the four Single Attribute clans. They had come here under Bai He’s orders. Once they arrived they ran into the thousand or so spirit masters from Spirit Hall and while they were deliberating whether to attack all of a sudden two thousand or so spirit masters appeared on the other side. Once Tai Tan saw the spirit abilities they used, he immediately gave to order to attack because, the other people who were concurrently attacking the spirit masters from the Spirit Halls were emitting a dazzling rainbow of lights which belonged to the one and only strongest auxiliary support tool spirit clan, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan.
Although they did not understand why there were so many Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan spirit masters here, seeing this Tang San could not give up the opportunity in front of his eyes, without saying anything else, Grandmaster, Flender and Liu Er Long flew into the fray, while Yang Wudi returned back into the Tang Sect camp and commanded his Breaking Clan members, leaving Dugu Bo to protect Tang San and Emperor Xue Ye who was barely holding on.
The transformed San Pao once again appeared, under the support of twenty spirit rings he released a never-before seen skill and completely tore apart the last defensive line of the Spirit Hall camp.
With his golden scales releasing a dazzling brilliance similar to the sun, Luo San Pao opened his jaws and sucked as if he was a huge whale greedily devouring the air around him causing his abdomen to suddenly swell up. In just an instant he had expanded just like the Porcupine Fish Douluo and became a giant ball, if he was here, even he would pale in comparison to San Pao.
Although it had transformed into a ball, it did not look at all stupid as it flew in a arc in the air, aligning its huge butt with the remaining spirit masters from the Spirit Hall side.
BOOM!
Tang San stared with his mouth agape at the huge noxious golden yellow mist which suddenly erupted forth from Luo San Pao’s butt. The air vibrated like thunder for three hundred meters from Luo San Pao stunning all the spirit masters caught in the cloud. Wherever the mist went, the spirit masters all collapsed like wheat during harvest.
“This is the true breaking wind like striking thunder, shaking the heavens and splitting the earth Luo San Pao!” Tang San could still deeply remember what Grandmaster Cursed many years ago. The Luo San Pao now resembling a golden dragon could truly release the terrifying might of its fart.
The remaining fight did not have any suspense anymore, the Spirit Hall’s thousand or so spirit masters were utterly defeated. Perhaps because of the pent up resentment from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan after the fight was over, the amount of spirit masters left alive from the Spirit Hall side were less than thirty percent and were all taken as prisoners. While the remaining who had died were treated as returning part of the debt for the massacre at the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan.
At the end of the fight, the four Tang Sect elders returned to Tang San’s side, with a slight bow, “Sect leader.” Regardless of whether it was Yang Wudi who was the last to join it or the other three, there was a hard to conceal exhilaration on their faces.
Tang San smilingly said: “I must thank you elders for your hard work, how are the casualties on our side?”
Tai Tan said with a laugh: “Haha, we have very few casualties, most of which are just small injuries, we barely had any heavy injuries sustained. In all honesty we got it pretty easy. When we got here, the people from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan were just starting their fight with the Spirit Hall people. Without asking we could somewhat guess what was going on, they took the main attacker’s role while we only impeded the Spirit Hall’s people and prevented their escape. In addition we had old Rhino and his people whose skins are hard as a concrete wall, so unless we utterly lost the engagement, our losses would never be too big.”
It was as he said, between the four clans, the Speed Clan played the role of harassing the enemy, while the Defense Clan focused on defense, finally the Strength Clan and the Breaking Clan focused on offense which completed this beautiful formation. In addition, the four Single Attribute Clan patriarchs were already experienced fighters, seeing the resentful Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan going all out to kill, they also had ordered their men to focus on protecting themselves more than trying to kill the enemy. As such, it was natural that the losses sustained were lower.
Bai He slightly ashamed said: “Sect Leader we await your punishment, this time we did not manage to preemptively predict the Spirit Hall, it was our mistake.”
Tang San shook his head with a smile: “Uncle, how can I blame you all? You all had just barely entered this Heaven Dou Empire, and if I am not wrong, these spirit masters from the Spirit Hall came through secret channels and were probably here even before you all arrived in Heaven Dou Empire.”
Bai He nodded and said: “This kind of mistake will never happen again.” His voice filled with determination.
At this moment, there was also five people who were heading their way, leading them was the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan leader Ning Fengzhi, behind him was the Bone Douluo Gu Rong and the Sword Douluo Chen Xin who had lost his right arm and some of his fighting powers, finally behind them was Oscar and Ning Rongrong.
In this fight, the losses suffered by the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan was also not very big, with the presence of Ning Fengzhi and the two Title Douluo, how could that rag-tag group of spirit masters contend with the number two clan in the continent?
“Uncle Ning” Tang San who had already somewhat recovered quickly went up to greet Ning Fengzhi.
Ning Fengzhi smiled and said: “Tang Sect Leader, many thanks for your assistance which allowed us to easily destroy them.” Although it was a simple statement, this showed that the Tang Sect and Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan were seen as equals. This simple act not only showed his attitude but also told the elders of Tang Sect and the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan their relationship of which neither were dominating the other.
At this time Ning Rongrong had also dragged Oscar to the front: “Haha, Third Brother, you didn’t see this coming right?”
Tang San replied: “I certainly didn’t, I heard from the Qian Renxue disguised as Xue Qinghe that you all were trapped in the palace by two thousand spirit masters from the imperial family and another two thousand by the Spirit Hall. How did… ...”
Ning Fengzhi said with a sigh: “We learnt our lesson from the previous incident, how can we still be careless, a wily hare needs three burrows. After establishing our clan in the palace, we had secretly created an escape route which only his majesty knew about. Once we found out we were being cornered, we only left a few disciples to distract them while we made our immediate escape. While we were preparing to head to Shrek Academy we ran into these Spirit Hall people so we took action against them.”
When the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan was first destroyed, the large number of disciple’s lives being lost was Ning Fengzhi’s greatest regret, so being as wise as he was, how could he let the tragedy repeat itself?
“Tang Sect Leader, you mentioned earlier that Qian Renxue is disguised as Xue Qinghe? How on earth did that happen? I could guess that this incident was related to Xue Qinghe, but I do not know the details.”
Tang San told everyone here the whole incident of how Yang Wudi, Dugu Bo and himself entered the palace to try and treat the emperor but ended up encountering Qian Renxue and the two Title Douluo.
After hearing his words, Ning Fengzhi’s face was covered with shock, “Xue Qinghe was an imposter? No wonder he was able to take action against the emperor. What’s more she was actually a girl? This Qian Renxue’s disguise was very deep. As her teacher for so many years, I did not once find out. The Spirit Hall really put in a lot of effort this time.”
Tang San said: “Uncle Ning, let us first head into the academy. Treating the emperor is more important, as long as we can treat him then we will be able to talk over of the two thousand spirit masters in the academy, if we add the spirit masters from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan and the Tang Sect, we would be able to fight against Spirit Hall. So for now we just need to take control of the situation.”
Ning Fengzhi nodded in agreement. Without wasting anymore time, they lead the spirit masters taken captive back to Shrek Academy.
Dugu Bo and Yang Wudi together worked to dispel the poison within emperor Xue Ye. Ning Fengzhi, Flender and Grandmaster discussed their counter attack plans while Tang San went to find a quiet place to recuperate. Within the whole Shrek Academy grounds including all the students from the two great schools already had a total exceeding six thousand spirit masters. But even now they couldn’t openly take action, if they were to counter attack now it they would have to face the imperial army and would only create even more chaos. As long as emperor Xue Ye did not die everything would be fine. That was why all they could do now was to wait.
During this period of waiting, Tang San fully demonstrated his superb recovery speed, his injuries had all been healed by the time he returned thanks to the Blue Silver Emperor Spirit Bone in his Left Leg, all that he need to recover was his spirit power which was recovered fully after four hours of training. Now all that was left is the mental fatigue which remained. The recovery speed of the Seraphim Spirit and Qian Renxue could not even hold a candle to Tang San.
“Still not done yet?” Tang San arrived outside the room Yang Wudi and Dugu Bo were using to treat emperor Xue Ye. At this time, everyone important were also gathered here.
Ning Fengzhi gave Tang San a pat on the shoulder: “Just keep waiting, not having any bad news can also be considered good news. I believe that his majesty will definitely be fine. As long as he is okay, then this time our battle with the Spirit Hall will be our victory, what’s more, we managed to get rid of this tumour Qian Renxue. However, the empire and Spirit Hall’s conflict is gradually surfacing after this, the situation will only get worse. By the way how strong was Qian Renxue?”
Tang San without any hesitation replied: “She is strong, very strong. She had been infiltrating the Heaven Dou Empire for over ten years patiently waiting like a viper who can go long periods of time without eating to stalk a prey, but once it moves it moves with a huge irresistible force. Spirit Hall’s actions this time can be said to have caught us by surprise, the fact that we managed to even save his majesty can already be considered fortunate. She is already so strong furthermore she also acts very decisively, if not for the activation of the hundred thousand year spirit ring Xiao Wu gave me then the one who would have lost is me. Her Six-winged Angel spirit is just too terrifying.”
Ning Fengzhi stared at Tang San with astonishment “Seraphim Spirit?”
Tang San nodded his head: “It is a very strong spirit but, because it is so rare, even Grandmaster did not have much research about it. In addition to that, Qian Renxue’s spirit comes with a domain ability, the Angelic Domain which is able to purify her spirit power and the spirit power of her opponents, reducing their strength while increasing her own. If just the Seraphim Spirit is able to make her this strong, then unless I train my Twin-Spirits to a certain level I would not be able to beat her in the future. On the surface it would seem that she as a Spirit Sage had a higher level of cultivation than me but, I have four pieces of spirit bones of which two are from a hundred thousand year spirit beast and under these conditions i barely won. This really does show just how strong her Spirit is.”
Ning Fengzhi’s expression became serious all of a sudden, “The previous Spirit Hall Supreme Pontiff also had a Seraphim as his spirit and Qian Renxue inherited this spirit of his. But, when I was still tutoring her, her spirit was definitely the Heaven Dou imperial family’s Swan, and what’s more, I could tell for sure that she only had five spirit rings. So what on earth is going on? Could she possibly also be a Twin Spirits user?”
“She used a disguise.” said Grandmaster from the side, “There would not be any Twin Spirits Spirit Master who would so wastefully train their spirits. The Swan and the Angel spirit already share some similarities[1], the difference lies only in the number of wings. If Qian Renxue was able to disguise herself as Xue Qinghe, she would have had prepared herself well with other things as well. Xiao San, when you said she did not have any spirit bones, you were wrong. I estimate that she would have at least one spirit bone and it is one nearly a hundred thousand years old. This spirit bone should be the one that gives her her ability to disguise herself. But because you mentioned that she still needed a mask it would mean that the spirit bone isn’t a hundred thousand year one, if not, she would not need to use a mask like that and would be able to completely manipulate her physique to her wish.”
Ning Fengzhi who was surprised asked: “There is such an ability? If it was used to commit murder, wouldn’t that be quite terrible?”
Grandmaster nodded seriously, “This Qian Renxue is indeed scary, School Leader Ning, does the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School have any information regarding this? If she is a descendant from the previous Supreme Pontiff, you ought to have some records of this right?”
Ning Fengzhi thought for awhile before saying: “To my memory there was one record regarding the previous Pontiff mentioning a daughter who passed away. Based on the time of the record, Qin Renxue can be estimated to be about twenty-nine years old. I guess the prince must have met his demise fairly early since she had been acting as the prince for over ten years. To be able to reach over rank seventy at the age of twenty nine she really is not any less a genius compared to Tang San. Grandmaster, I still don’t understand, how come I have never heard of this special disguising spirit bone you spoke about?”
Grandmaster’s expression became even more stiff as he said: “Even this I only know because Bibi Dong told me about it. She mentioned previously to me that within the Spirit Hall was a set of six spirit bones that could only be used by someone with the Seraphim spirit had been passed down for a thousand years. Each piece was a ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine year old spirit bone which was only a slight bit away from a hundred thousand year old spirit bone. If someone was able to use the whole set of six spirit bones, they would release power equivalent to a hundred thousand year old set of spirit bones and become a god-like existence. This six piece set is called the Angelic Armament.”
Since this was never mentioned to the surprised Tang San before, Tang San asked: “Grandmaster, could there be some difficulty in using this set of spirit bones?”
Grandmaster nodded his head saying: “The conditions required to use this set of spirit bones is very high, not only does the spirit master have to posses the Six-winged Angel spirit, he also requires enough talent to be recognised by the spirit bones, based on my judgement the previous Supreme Pontiff who died by your father’s hands faced this problem with his strength. Although he had the Seraphim spirit, when he faced your father he had at most only just became a Title Douluo or was just a Spirit Doulou. What’s more the Angelic domain you spoke of was also neutralised by your father’s Deathgod domain. Also I can confirm that he had no more than three pieces of the spirit bone set, in fact it could very well have only been one or two. In terms of latent talent and guidance, this Qian Renxue is certainly superior to the previous Supreme Pontiff. I can also confirm that when this set of six spirit bones are acquired, it would create a spirit bone armour like the one that appeared on you previously and once that happens the power released will be something we cannot even imagine, she will probably become equal to a god.”
Tang San said: “That Qian Renxue is indeed talented and also perceptive. Once she gets the full set of spirit bones and starts working together with Bibi Dong then won’t we be…”
Grandmaster shook his head, “Wanting to get the full Divine Angelic Armament is not that simple, basically, in order to absorb the last spirit bone, you will need to reach a spirit rank of one hundred.”
Ning Fengzhi once again shocked asked: “Spirit Rank one hundred? That certainly is a strict requirement. This is only something that exists in legends throughout the whole history of spirit masters. After reaching rank ninety going up each additional rank is extremely difficult, the difficulty once again increases steeply after rank ninety-five, I can only imagine how hard it will be to to breakthrough rank ninety-nine.”
“But I know.” The low voice which spoke these three words instantly caught everyone’s attention, these words were spoken by non-other than Chen Xin the one-armed Sword Douluo.
Seeing this Sword Douluo, a feeling of wonder arose in Tang San, Chen Xin seemed to have become more silent than before, it was as if he had disappeared into the shapeless dust in the air which only served to deepen the strange feelings Tang San had. Although it would seem that he had lost his most valuable right hand as a swordsman, Tang San could not feel that his strength had fallen.
When he had first started interacting with the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School, grandmaster had told him that this Sword Doulou was the most frightening person in the whole sect. Even if he did not have Ning Fengzhi’s boosting, his strength was already very frightening and he was the Spirit Master with the strongest attacking power. His unique spirit the Judgement Sword[2] was one of the few which could be compared to the Clear Sky Hammer. What’s more he had already reached rank ninety-six and it can be said that only because he, the Bone Douluo and Ning Fengzhi together stood against four other Title Douluos that the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School could avoid a fate like the Blue Lightning Dragon Clan.
Although Ning Fengzhi could boost up to the horrifying amount of one hundred percent, this was only on paper, realistically even when boosted, a single Title Douluo would still have a very hard time against two Title Douluos. Especially since the opponents could choose to focus on Ning Fengzhi to break the support chain, but even so, Sword Douluo and Bone Douluo managed to defeat four strong Title Douluos, proving that the two of them each had to be significantly stronger than any of the four other Title Douluos.
Thus, when Chen Xin spoke those three words, none who were present doubted him after all, amongst the people present, he was the only one who had surpassed the ninety-fifth rank.
[1] To note, Angel (天使) is written “Heavenly Envoy”, while Swan (天鹅) is written “Heavenly Goose”.
[2] Judgement Sword - (裁决之剑)