The entire underground base shook, as if an earthquake was happening.
Which completely shocked Ye Guyi and many others who were knowledgeable about the base's infrastructure. It was made from strong ores that wouldn't even be affected by a bombardment of class 8 stationary soul cannon shells.
This could only mean...
"A Titled Douluo is attacking us? Why has no one sounded the alarm?! What are the security teams doing?" Ye Guyi angrily took out out a rectangular object; a low-class soul tool with its primary functions to access the base's surveillance and contact Akatsuki members within the HQ's proximity.
"Monkey team, report!"
ZZzzzzz—
"Dog team, report!"
Zzzzzzz—
Nothing. After trying to contact a few more security teams, and failing to get a single response, a deathly silence settled in for them all.
It was only when the room stopped shaking that Ye Guyi and the others snapped out of their daze. Though young, they weren't greenhorns and had many experiences of accepting many missions that required them to hunt down powerful evil soul masters. The horrors and sickness they saw, and came back from, couldn't measure to the current situation.
"Tsk! They're all dead." Ye Guyi pulled out a dark-red circular object, resembling the Sharingan, and crushed it.
"Activate the labyrinth protocol!"
In an instant the entire base started glowing with a crimson hue and her voice sounded out.
The command echoed through every corridor, every chamber, every sealed level of the underground base.
The solid metal floors beneath their feet suddenly lurched. Walls that had been fixed for years began to slide, rotate, and fold into themselves with heavy grinding sounds. Entire sections of the base detached and shifted like massive puzzle pieces. Staircases inverted, doorways sealed and reopened in completely different directions, and long hallways stretched, contracted, or twisted at sharp angles.
"W-Whoa, this is..." Xu Sanshi looked around wide and starry-eyed. "So freaking awesome!!"
"I gotta say," Zhang Lexuan glanced out through a window, raising an eyebrow as the hallways changed like a puzzle cube. "when I read the emergency protocol, the Labyrinth protocol? I honestly didn't think it'd work. Even Shrek Academy doesn't have something like this."
Bei Bei chuckled and wrapped an arm around her. "Welcome to the future. Juni...sect master really outdid himself. Besides the Sun Moon Empire, no other sect or organization in the three empires could ever compare with a secret base like this."
Zhang Lexuan hummed. "Maybe the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan?"
Bei Bei blinked. "Huh. Maybe you're right."
They were known to be the most the wealthiest sect and just second behind the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy. Besides, they have more than 10,000 years of founding. Since they were once destroyed by Spirit Hall, who's to say they didn't renovate it with the application of Soul Tools?
Ye Guyi turned to them and said, "Heavenly Demons and sister Zhang Lexuan, I ask you to lead the members out of HQ safely."
"What about you?" Xiao Xiao worriedly asked.
She kindly smiled at them. "As the Acting Sect Master of the Akatsuki, I have a duty to uphold for our members and the sect master.
Until you all leave safely, I shall try to hold down the fort as much as possible!"
Everyone's expressions softened as they looked at her.
When they first heard of and met her, most of them had complicated feelings. Not just because of meeting someone new, but for her origins.
Ye Guyi was the soul master of the Holy Angel, the descendant of the infamous Spirit Hall and possibly even from the Qian Family. Such names were synonyms to Qian Renxue; the Angel God and her mother Bibi Dong; the Rakshasa God.
Everyone in the Douluo Continent had grown up learning about the legend of Tang San.
Knowing of a girl with ties to the antagonists of the legendary Thousand Hand Douluo's, it would make naturally anyone regard her with an air of suspicion. Especially those that descended from the people who had a hand in the fall of the Angel God and Rakshasa God.
Even though she possesses the most holiest martial soul in the world, since the Seraphim is likely to be nonexistent now with the disappearance of the Angel God, she was the bane of all evil soul masters and yet...
Most people would always have a shred of doubt about her. But Ye Guyi never needed or wanted the approval of others.
All she wanted to do was to fulfill her duty as the soul master of the Holy Angel—to banish evil and correct injustice!
"Everyone, prepare necessary weapons and supplies. Head to your respective evacuation spots as quickly as you can!" Ye Guyi fiddled with the soul tool in her hands, causing several secret chambers to open in certain areas in the base.
"Remember! A house can be reconstructed any time and anywhere, but the people are irreplaceable! Follow the protocols for where to go next and do not trust anyone else besides ourselves!"
"Yes, acting sect master!"
Everyone's voices, including the Heavenly Demons and Zhang Lexuan, resounded simultaneously.
Without further delay, they scattered. Bei Bei, Xu Sanshi, Jiang Nannan, Xiao Xiao, Ling Luochen, and Zhang Lexuan each took charge of different groups, guiding the remaining members through the shifting corridors of the base.
The base continued to rearrange itself with heavy metallic groans with the hallways twisting, platforms rising and falling, entire sections locking into new configurations designed to delay and confuse any invaders.
Ye Guyi remained standing in the command room, her golden hair faintly glowing under the crimson emergency lights. She watched the holographic map as the evacuation routes lit up one by one, tracking the progress of her comrades as they moved toward the hidden exits.
Her soft-purple eyes narrowed slightly.
"Master....I will buy them as much time as possible."
She raised her hand, and pure golden light flared around her body. Six soul rings rose—yellow, purple, purple, black, black, and black—all shining with holy power. The Holy Angel Martial Soul fully manifested behind her, six radiant angel wings unfurling with a soft, sacred hum.
She looked down at the soul tool in hand and enlarged the surveillance monitor of the inside of the manor, the main entrance of the base.
Making a single and obvious entrance into the base was a deliberate strategy by Huo Yuhao to make it easy for any invaders to activate the hundreds of traps that could threaten the lives of even Titled Douluos if they weren't careful.
As for digging into the base? Impossible. The underground structure was created not so straightforwardly for a reason. Whether through by hand or soul tools, Huo Yuhao made sure that it wouldn't be easy. At the very least, it would take a Transcendent Douluo a few days straight of digging to get into the base.
"To cause a quaking in the base though...this isn't the doing of an ordinary Titled Douluo. Could they be a Transcendent Douluo?" Ye Guyi solemnly clenched her fists tight, inwardly groaning on who the heck Huo Yuhao had pissed off this time.
She glanced at the condition of the Akatsuki members for a moment, almost breathing out a sigh of relief, but she sharply turned her gaze back to the manor.
A dozen or so people entered the manor....by breaking apart half the building into pieces.
All of them wore black robes, each radiating intense soul power that it was visible through the surveillance soul tools that had survived the destruction. The weakest amongst them was six rings and the two people leading them, one man and one woman, was the most powerful with nine soul rings.
However, the two red soul rings the Titled Douluos each had wasn't the most terrifying part in Ye Guyi's eyes.
It was what they wielded.
"Clear Sky Hammer... The Clear Sky Clan is attacking us?!"
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
AN: We're nearing the endgame now bois.