His son, the son he was so proud of, the one who became a God-King and was revered by countless people... had been cuckolded.
He had been forced to wear a "green hat"—a humiliation so profound that it would turn even a God-King into a laughingstock.
An indescribable surge of monstrous rage, shame, and heartache accumulated in his chest like a volcano, nearly causing his reason to explode. He couldn't even feel his own breathing, and the blood throughout his body seemed to have frozen solid.
In contrast, while A Yin was equally thunderstruck, her feminine intuition allowed her to force back a sliver of clarity after the initial shock.
"Impossible."
She shook her head violently. Her face, usually gentle and elegant, was slightly distorted by indignation, but her eyes remained exceptionally firm.
"This is a trick. Xiao Wu would never betray Xiao San. What is your goal? Why are you using such despicable means to frame her and shake our resolve?!"
A Yin turned around in fury, her blue eyes glaring death at Lu Jingming. For the first time, a biting, cold killing intent erupted from her gaze without concealment. She did not believe Xiao Wu would change her heart; the only explanation was that the man before her was using some incomprehensible method to create an illusion, aiming to crush their mental defenses.
"A trick?"
Lu Jingming looked at her protective posture—like a lioness guarding her cub—and shook his head, his smile remaining gentle.
"Madam A Yin, you should be well aware that ordinary illusions cannot deceive a god's perception. This is no hallucination; it is simply that you... are unwilling to accept the truth."
He spread his hands and said, "I am not lying."
Indeed, he wasn't. This was an authentic image extracted by Hatsune Miku from the spatial information of Huo Yuhao's residence. As the Star Soul of this planet, Hatsune Miku could replicate anything that had ever happened on Douluo Star because she recorded all of the planet's "memories."
If he wanted to, he could even have Hatsune Miku play images of much more intimate—even negative-distance—contact between Huo Yuhao and Xiao Wu. However, he still had some shred of a bottom line and wasn't that malicious. Though he loved watching drama, he hadn't reached that level of excess.
"No more words are needed."
A Yin's voice was ice-cold. She knew she couldn't allow Lu Jingming to dictate the rhythm any longer, or their spirits would be utterly destroyed.
"We will find out the truth for ourselves. But for you, to insult my daughter-in-law with such methods is unforgivable."
Before the words fully landed, A Yin struck. Her long blue hair fluttered without wind, and the divine power belonging to the Blue Silver Empress erupted without reservation. In an instant, countless vines shimmering with brilliant blue-gold light grew out of the void behind her. Each vine was like an awakening giant dragon, carrying a powerful life aura as they swept toward Lu Jingming like a tsunami.
"Heh, a clever woman indeed."
Lu Jingming watched the blue silver vines that blotted out the sun and chuckled softly. He could tell that A Yin's strike wasn't just a vent for her anger; she was using actual combat to forcibly interrupt the mental collapse of Tang Hao and the others, pulling them out of the emotional quagmire.
She was indeed smart. But once a smart woman becomes "love-brained," she will do foolish things.
Lu Jingming recalled A Yin's own past. Back then, she had transformed into a human and thrown herself recklessly into love, falling for Tang Hao. Ultimately, she was discovered by the Spirit Hall and ended up being forced to sacrifice herself. If not for her son, Tang San, being capable enough to defy fate and change her destiny, where would she be now? In the end, she was also someone who had been blinded by love.
"Brother Hao, do not believe him. Regarding Xiao Wu, we will confirm it ourselves after we rescue Mubai and Zhuqing."
As A Yin launched her full-scale attack, she used her divine sense to sharply wake Tang Hao, who was still on the brink of shock and fury. This shout acted like a clear spring, startling the three dazed individuals back to their senses.
Tang Hao's blood-red eyes twitched, and his focus returned. Ning Rongrong and Oscar also snapped out of it at the same time, their faces showing a mixture of guilt and lingering fear. Just now, for a split second, they had actually doubted Xiao Wu and thought she had betrayed Tang San.
But once they calmed down and thought about it, knowing Xiao Wu as they did, it was impossible. She would rather commit suicide than betray Tang San—unless she wasn't acting of her own free will, was being controlled, or had lost her memories.
Thinking of this, their anger toward Lu Jingming instantly overwhelmed all shock and doubt.
"My apologies, A Yin..."
Tang Hao spoke hoarsely. He shook his head as if to toss out the stinging image from his mind. He raised the Clear Sky Hammer in his hand, his blood-red eyes locking onto Lu Jingming. All the humiliation and anger were converted into pure, destructive killing intent.
"Brat, whatever scheme you have, you'll have to get past my hammer first."
With a roar, he transformed into a streak of dark-red light. Following closely behind A Yin's vines, the Clear Sky Hammer bloomed with an unprecedentedly ferocious light as he swung it at Lu Jingming.
"Nine Treasures Turn, the Glazed Light Appears."
Ning Rongrong shouted as the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Pagoda spiraled out of her palm. Nine brilliant rays of nine-colored divine light shot out, landing on A Yin's vines and Tang Hao.
"Nine Treasures Divine Light: Strength Amplification, Divine Power Amplification."
With the support of a god-level auxiliary, A Yin's vines became tougher and thicker, their strangling force doubling. On Tang Hao's Clear Sky Hammer, a terrifying divine power fluctuation capable of tearing space erupted.
Facing the combined thunderous strike of these three gods, Lu Jingming merely shook his head helplessly.
"Sigh, this is my territory, you know."
His tone carried a hint of regret, as if he were lamenting whether they underestimated the power of the Sea Abyss City too much.
As his voice fell, a cold, bright moonlight cascaded down from the high heavens without warning. That moonlight carried an absolute law of stillness. Everywhere the silver moonlight shone, space seemed to freeze instantly.
The vast, aggressive blue silver vines came to a dead halt the moment they touched the moonlight. Countless vines were covered in a layer of crystalline silver frost, hanging stiffly in mid-air and forming a magnificent yet eerie still-life portrait.
An exquisite figure wearing a moon-white dress, with black hair flying like a waterfall, quietly appeared before Lu Jingming. She was surrounded by a cold lunar glow, her expression indifferent, like a goddess presiding over the cold night.
It was Zhang Lexuan.
After experiencing the Holy Grail War and obtaining the Moon Goddess divinity condensed by the Grail, she had begun her secluded cultivation in Sea Abyss City. Furthermore, Lu Jingming had given her a portion of the incredibly precious Chaos Qi that Herta had extracted from the black hole.
Chaos Qi was the supreme energy born at the dawn of the universe, containing the most primal laws of creation and destruction. For a god, its value exceeded that of most divine artifacts; it was a treasure that even a God-King would covet.
With the Moon Goddess divinity as her foundation and the Chaos Qi as a catalyst and energy source, Zhang Lexuan's cultivation progressed by leaps and bounds. She didn't need to spend long periods accumulating faith or contemplating laws like traditional gods. The Chaos Qi directly filled all her shortcomings, allowing her to fully fuse with her divinity in an extremely short time, opening her own Stigma Space and becoming a true god with a divine throne.
Lu Jingming himself did not use the Chaos Qi. This was because ladies like Zhang Lexuan, Xu Jiujiu, and Meng Hongchen—whose innate potential was slightly lower than that of Firefly or Xiadie—needed this external force to break through their shackles and catch up with the first-tier group. Now, Zhang Lexuan's appearance announced to the world that Sea Abyss City had gained another true god.
Just as the Moon Goddess Zhang Lexuan used her cold lunar power to freeze A Yin's vines, Tang Hao's Clear Sky Hammer, carrying his monstrous rage, was already closing in on Lu Jingming. However, the collision he anticipated did not occur.
A brilliant and overbearing blue-gold divine light, like the first ray of dawn tearing through the darkness, pierced the void without warning and appeared precisely in the path of the Clear Sky Hammer.
Clang—!!!!
A deafening sound of clashing metal, loud enough to tear a divine soul, exploded outward. It was a long spear, entirely brilliant gold in color. Life-like dragon carvings coiled around the shaft, and the spear tip was peerlessly sharp, as if it condensed all the world's sharpness and piercing power.
The tip of the spear struck with absolute precision at the center of the Clear Sky Hammer's massive, mountain-like face.
Time seemed to freeze for an instant.
Tang Hao felt an unparalleled, highly concentrated piercing divine power flood back from the hammer's face. That power not only contained the vastness and weight of the ocean but also carried a supreme, overbearing draconic will. His full-strength strike, fueled by fury, was actually stopped dead by this single spear, unmoving.
A terrifying energy shockwave radiated from the point of impact, turning into a visible ring of air that tore a massive hole in the clouds above. Tang Hao let out a muffled groan as his brawny body was knocked back dozens of meters before he managed to stabilize himself.
He looked down at his hammer and saw a pinhead-sized, bottomless white dot on the indestructible surface; the surrounding structure of the hammer was slightly distorted under the erosion of that piercing divine power.
He was horrified. He looked up and saw an exquisite woman dressed in magnificent blue-gold Sea God armor, holding the Golden Dragon Spear, floating quietly in front of Lu Jingming. She was tall, with golden hair cascading down like a waterfall, shining brilliantly under the divine light. Her face was beautiful but carried a cold arrogance and majesty that warned others not to approach. Her golden eyes seemed able to see through all falsehoods, filled with imperial nobility and divine indifference.
Back during the Holy Grail War, the Grail had ultimately condensed two new divinities independent of the God Realm system: the Sea God divinity and the Moon Goddess divinity. He had given these to Wang Qiuer and Zhang Lexuan respectively. Now, Zhang Lexuan had broken through to godhood, and Wang Qiuer was naturally no exception.
Like Zhang Lexuan, she had also received the precious Chaos Qi from Lu Jingming. In fact, Wang Qiuer's essence was even stronger than Zhang Lexuan's. She was originally the Imperial Auspicious Beast born with the fortune of the Star Dou Great Forest, naturally able to mobilize the fortune of the entire forest and possessing the most devout faith of countless soul beasts.
Later, with Lu Jingming's help, she completely fused with the soul fragments of Tang Wutong, who possessed the God-King bloodline of Sea God Tang San. This not only filled the final piece of her own soul but also allowed her to inherit that high-level God-King bloodline. With multiple advantages stacked, her potential was far beyond Zhang Lexuan's. Even if her cultivation had been lower than Zhang Lexuan's when she first received the divinity, her speed in refining the Chaos Qi was a step faster.
If Lu Jingming hadn't doted on Zhang Lexuan—frequently using dual cultivation to personally comb her meridians, temper her divine soul, and help her increase her cultivation—Zhang Lexuan might truly have been left far behind by Wang Qiuer.
And now, when Tang Hao and A Yin's gazes landed on that beautiful face that was almost identical to Tang Wutong's, the anger, gravity, and vigilance on their faces were instantly replaced by an indescribable, intense emotion.
"Xiao Qi?!"
Tang Hao cried out, his voice filled with unbelievable shock and a trace of wild joy. A Yin also covered her mouth tightly, tears streaming uncontrollably from her eyes. That face, and that deep biological resonance from the depths of her bloodline, clearly told her that the woman before them was their deceased granddaughter, Tang Wutong.
"Xiao Qi, you... you're not dead? That's wonderful, truly wonderful."
A Yin's voice trembled violently with excitement, and she wanted to rush over regardless of everything. However, she was met by Wang Qiuer's ice-cold eyes, which lacked even a shred of emotion.
"You have the wrong person."
Wang Qiuer's voice was cold and indifferent, like ten-thousand-year-old black ice, instantly freezing A Yin's excitement and joy.
"Tang Wutong is already dead. I killed her."
She looked at the frozen expressions on Tang Hao and A Yin's faces without a ripple in her heart; instead, a trace of disgust arose. What she hated most was being associated with the name Tang Wutong.
Admittedly, to some extent, she could be considered Tang Wutong. But she would never acknowledge that identity. She was, and would only ever be, the Imperial Auspicious Beast of the Star Dou Great Forest, Wang Qiuer. The existence named Tang Wutong had been killed by her own hands the moment she chose to completely fuse with those memories and complete herself.
"What did you say?"
The joy on Tang Hao's face solidified, replaced by bewilderment and... a hint of darkness. But he was a veteran of a hundred battles; forcibly suppressing the turbulent waves in his heart, his gaze locked onto the blue-gold divine armor on Wang Qiuer and the Golden Dragon Spear in her hand.