Though Wu Ming and the others had braced for the worst from City Lord Shi Xing's final instructions, when this ultimate cruelty was laid bare before their eyes, the impact still shattered their defenses.
After Time Douluo Shi Xing sacrificed his life to perform a spatial transmission and let them barely escape, they had fallen into despair, intent only on obeying his last command to seek out Elder Xuan and the Sea God Pavilion elders.
On the way, however, they encountered the Star Luo Empire's Third Soul Master Legion rushing at full speed to support Shrek.
Learning they were reinforcements rekindled a faint spark of hope within their despair. They immediately decided to return to Shrek City with the legion.
They fantasized that perhaps
there was still a chance, perhaps their teachers were still fighting, perhaps…
But every "perhaps" was shattered, here and now, by the boundless abyss of nothingness before them.
"Miss Wu Ming, my condolences."
With a slight motion, Skyhawk Douluo soundlessly appeared before the kneeling, soul-scattered Wu Ming.
He did not presume to lift her, only spoke in a deep voice laced with subtle gravity and comfort.
A gentle field formed as his powerful soul power rippled, pulling Wu Ming back—if only for a moment—from grief that was almost tearing her soul apart, preventing the prodigy of Shrek from completely collapsing under the shock.
The other Titled Douluo from the three empires quickly and silently gathered round. Their complex gazes swept over the survivors.
Wu Ming, Chu Qingtian, Hua Yao, Mo Xuan, Ye Liu… Their paper-white faces, academy uniforms torn and bloodstained, and the chaotic, potent energy lingering around them—all told of how fierce and hopeless the battle they had just endured had been.
"Senior Wu Ming, pull yourself together."
Suppressing the lump in his throat and the grief roiling in his chest, Chu Qingtian stepped forward. His voice was hoarse, yet firm.
"City Lord Shi Xing… and Dean Yan, Elder Lin, Dean Xian… they spent everything to get us out—not so we could collapse here in despair. We still carry their hopes… and the mission to rebuild Shrek."
Hua Yao, Mo Xuan, Ye Liu, and the others also bit back their tears and straightened their spines, gathering around Wu Ming.
Though grief burned in their eyes, an even deeper conviction—lit by their teachers' lives—was struggling to overshadow the pain.
They could not fall. Yan Shaozhe and the others had given up escape to send them away—they could not betray that sacrifice.
Seeing this, Sunward Douluo immediately stepped forward, his tone urgent and solemn: "Wu Ming, you were the last witnesses. Tell us quickly—what exactly befell Shrek City? What kind of power created… this? Where are Yan Shaozhe, Elder Lin, Xian Lin'er and the others?"
His questions were exactly what every Titled Douluo present most urgently wished to know.
Wu Ming jerked her head up, tears surging. She bit her lip until she tasted blood, using sharp pain to force herself out of grief.
She looked around. The Titled Douluo from Star Luo, Heavenly Soul, and Dou Ling stood silent, holding their breath, eyes burning into her, waiting for her answer.
She drew in a breath of cold air thick with the dust of destruction, and began to recount—in a voice edged with sobs yet eerily clear, each word soaked in blood and tears—that brief, eternal nightmare.
She spoke of the beast tide erupting without warning from the Star Dou Forest—of its unprecedented scale, of the near full mobilization of the Ten Great Savage Beasts.
Of City Lord Shi Xing holding firm amid chaos, direction of the city's defenses and the soul engineer corps, and of the deans and elders leading from the front, fighting the savage beasts to the death.
Of that terrifying arrow that froze all—falling from the sky and turning the arrogant Beast God Di Tian into ice in an instant.
Of the sudden upheaval within the Golden Tree, where two powers so mighty the world paled clashed—whose mere aftershocks shattered their soul power.
Of Dean Yan Shaozhe, Vice Dean Cai Mei'er, Elder Lin, Elder Zhuang, Dean Xian Lin'er, Senior Gong Changlong—
How, to slow the descent of a pitch-black heavenly star that seemed poised to destroy the world, they each, without hesitation, ignited their soul cores and self-detonated in the most brilliant, most tragic of ways, buying a sliver of time for the disciples' escape with their lives.
And finally, of Time Douluo Shi Xing, who burned all of his life and soul to drive the Space-Time Silver Disk and barely send the inner court disciples out of that absolute death zone.
Her account was broken, often interrupted by wrenching sobs and uncontrollable grief.
Chu Qingtian, Hua Yao, and the others red-eyed, filled in details and affirmed each heartbreaking fact.
Fragmented and blood-tinged though it was, the testimony painted—like a brush dipped in fresh blood—a series of scenes in the minds of every Titled Douluo: unimaginably fierce, awe-inspiring, and utterly despairing.
As she spoke, the faces of Skyhawk Douluo, Sunward Douluo, and the others shifted from grave to shocked, and finally to a disbelief bordering on absurdity.
Self-detonated soul cores?!
Nearly all of Shrek Academy's top powerhouses—several Super Douluo and many Titled Douluo—self-detonating in succession just to delay a single strike?!
Freezing Di Tian? What kind of existence could do that?
A mysterious, god-level battle within the Golden Tree?
And that… doomsday star summoned and controlled by someone?!
It all sounded like sheer fantasy.
If not for the vast, death-breathing abyss before them.
If not for the fact that the narrators were Shrek's core inner court disciples, corroborating one another, they would have dismissed this as the shared hallucination of minds broken by trauma.
"You—you're saying the one who destroyed Shrek City and caused the fall of so many Titled Douluo was a… a mysterious being who could summon a meteor from nothing, control it, and ultimately annihilate the entire city?"
Sunward Douluo's voice trembled; a century of convictions reeled under the assault, his worldview upended.
"Y-yes."
Wu Ming squeezed her eyes shut, tears still falling. She nodded hard, as if to carve that horror into her bones.
"Though we were transmitted away, in that final instant we all clearly saw that demon-like figure. She summoned that star of destruction. She destroyed everything."
Wu Ming's voice dripped with searing hatred, but she could not say who the demon was—human or beast? From where? With what aim? All of it was a mystery.
Yet, given the surging beast tide, nearly all of Shrek's survivors instinctively pinned this boundless blood-debt on the soul beasts of the Star Dou Forest.
Hiss—!
Once again, every Titled Douluo present, including the well-traveled Skyhawk and Sunward, drew a collective sharp breath. A chill shot up from the soles of their feet to the crowns of their heads; it was like falling into an ice cellar.
To manipulate a star from beyond, to annihilate a mighty city with a thought—
This lay wholly beyond their understanding of power.
It was, essentially… a god-demon method found only in myth.
"How could such a level of powerhouse arise among the soul beasts? Who is she?!"
Sunward Douluo shook his head in disbelief. Rationally, he could not accept the conclusion—but the beast tide was fact, Shrek's destruction was fact, and he could not fully deny it.
"It's too soon to conclude."
Skyhawk Douluo, steady as ever, forced the storm in his heart down and kept a cool analysis.
"Look around—how many soul beasts died? The carnage may exceed the defenders'. There are too many doubts and contradictions."
Even so, his brow furrowed deeper.
Disbelief aside, the fact that the Star Dou Forest launched a beast tide was ironclad.
Thus, whatever the truth, given Shrek's destruction, humanity would be compelled to mount a hard counterstrike against the soul beasts—a political and public-opinion inevitability.
If this truly was the plot of some unknown existence, then it was a merciless and precise open conspiracy.
They banked on this: after Shrek's fall, the fragile peace between humans and soul beasts would collapse. Hatred would blind all eyes. Even with myriad doubts, the wheels of vengeance would not stop.
One way or another, the fall of Shrek was far more than a city's disappearance.
It meant a critical fulcrum of continental balance, maintained for ten thousand years, had been smashed by an unfathomable, terrifying force.
An existence capable of easily destroying Shrek Academy had appeared—its stance unknown, its purpose unknown—while its power alone was enough to make every powerhouse on the continent tremble.
The sky over the Douluo Continent… was about to change for good.
"Immediately classify everything that happened here as top priority and send it home at once."
Skyhawk Douluo was the first to recover from the shock. He barked orders to the Star Luo legion officers behind him, his tone more severe and urgent than ever.
"Inform His Majesty. Recommend the Empire enter maximum war readiness immediately. Deploy all reconnaissance assets to closely monitor any movement in the Star Dou Forest. Report any anomaly at once."
"Forces of the Heavenly Soul Empire, hear the order: transmit intel home now. Recommend nationwide Level-One war alert."
"Forces of the Dou Ling Empire, same priority—send the intel back immediately. The nation enters a state of emergency."
...
Bonus chapter at 100 PS