Lu Xinjin stared blankly at his advisor, who was so flustered he couldn't even speak coherently.
"Hiss, a Marquis's mansion? This thing can stand up?"
"Don't panic, I've been the city lord for decades, I've seen it all."
"You, as my advisor, are so flustered over such a small matter!"
"I'm starting to question the rightness of letting you join the city lord's mansion!"
Lu Xinjin grabbed a coat from the side, draped it over his shoulders, and without even putting on his shoes, went to the watchtower to see what was going on.
He initially thought it was some soul master causing trouble, but the scene before him shocked him.
The head was that of a Marquis's mansion, with blue flames burning inside the two doors, presumably for eyes.
The body was made of jade, specifically white spirit jade, which was extremely expensive and had excellent soul power conduction properties. Many soul masters liked to use this material to carve core magic arrays.
Furthermore, because this jade had a warm and smooth feel in the hand, and its pure white color gave it an elegant feel, it was highly sought after by many nobles.
Lu Xinjin stared wide-eyed at the giant before him, instantly recognizing it as the Marquis's Mansion.
After all, its splendor was unmatched in the entire Xilu City.
The giant before him emanated no aura of a soul beast, nor even any life force; it was merely a pile of moving stones.
"I've lived all these years, and this is the first time I've ever seen anything like it."
Lu Xinjin's gaze fell upon several soul masters already surrounding the bizarre giant.
The strongest was a Soul King, with two yellow and three purple soul rings—top-tier equipment for a self-taught soul master.
Seeing that this Soul King could contend with the giant, Lu Xinjin roughly assessed its strength.
"Strength and defense reach Soul Emperor level, but its speed is too slow."
"Just a show-off!"
"Watch me break it with sheer force!"
"Martial Soul Possession!"
Lu Xinjin threw off his coat, activated his Martial Soul, his muscles bulged, and he instantly grew to two and a half meters tall, his body covered in brown fur.
Two yellow, two purple, and three black spirit rings, the optimal configuration, circled his body.
His martial soul was the Mighty Vajra Bear, the same martial soul as Zhao Wuji ten thousand years ago. Then, his
fifth spirit ring began to shine, instantly binding the strange giant to the spot, rendering it immobile.
The white spirit jade began to emit a teeth-grinding cracking sound. This was his fifth spirit skill, Gravity Compression.
Subsequently, his sixth spirit ring suddenly shone brightly. He began to gather strength in his legs, then leaped into the sky. The powerful impact directly destroyed the entire watchtower.
Countless dust particles drifted towards the city with the westerly wind, while Lu Xinjin transformed into a brownish-yellow meteorite hundreds of meters in the air, slamming it down on the strange giant.
This was his signature spirit skill, Meteor Fall.
No spirit master of the same level dared to take this attack head-on!
The bright yellow meteorite passed directly through the strange giant's head, scattering countless precious timbers and rare jades from the Marquis's mansion throughout the city.
In this attack, even the Marquis's corpse was gone.
The meteorite crashed into the ground, creating a crater hundreds of meters wide and ten meters deep. The entire core area of Xilu City was reduced to ruins, as if it had experienced an 8-magnitude earthquake.
Lu Xinjin shook the dust off his shoulders in the crater, not even turning his head. He was certain that he had destroyed the head and most of the body of the bizarre giant.
If that thing could still move, he would have devoured all the jade stones on the ground on the spot.
However, he didn't know one thing: the bizarre giant was a pseudo-living being created by Huo Yuhao using a spirit-infused soul skill.
What drove it was not its brain, but the spiritual power within its body.
So even with its head and most of its body destroyed, the bizarre giant still did not stop moving.
It slammed its remaining large hand down on Lu Xinjin.
Lu Xinjin's spiritual power went into overdrive, and his pupils contracted sharply. He
hurriedly activated his first soul skill, Immovable King Body.
Golden light shone brightly on his body, and his two palms faced the sky, desperately resisting the bizarre giant's large hand.
Lu Xinjin was now truly enraged, and his second and fourth soul rings lit up one after another.
Both of these were amplification soul skills. With extremely high self-amplification, Lu Xinjin directly tore apart the giant's massive hand. Then he watched helplessly as the giant hopped towards the city lord's mansion on its remaining leg.
You'll never believe why I moved to… Karachi
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Watching his city lord's mansion, painstakingly built up over most of his life, crumble into ruins in an instant, Lu Xinjin felt no different from being dead.
Some people die at sixty, but aren't buried until they're one hundred and twenty.
"Ah!!!"
"My herbs, my treasures!!!"
Lu Xinjin knelt on the ground and roared to the sky. His city lord's mansion held the wealth he had accumulated over the years through repeated cultivation of Xilu City.
Many of these were rare living medicinal herbs, as well as rare treasures like whale glue.
Those stored in his soul-guided storage device were probably still intact, but those that couldn't fit were likely all gone.
At this moment, Lu Xinjin felt that most of his life had been wasted; he didn't know how long it would take to recoup these losses from the common people of Xilu City.
Meanwhile, the spiritual energy within the strange giant had been exhausted, turning it back into a pile of lifeless matter.
Huo Yuhao coldly watched all this from a distant high-rise building.
Then, he activated his divine power and arrived behind Lu Xinjin.
Lu Xinjin sensed someone approaching from behind and turned around, roaring angrily,
"Damn it, can't you see I'm furious?!"
Huo Yuhao was too lazy to listen to him.
"Tsukuyomi!"
"Amaterasu!"
Huo Yuhao immediately used Tsukuyomi at zero frames, slicing Lu Xinjin into mincemeat in the spiritual world.
In the real world, Amaterasu ignited his body.
Extremely hot black flames burned on Lu Xinjin's body, his soul power rapidly dissipating, and his martial spirit slowly emerged behind him, emitting a mournful cry.
He was now suffering from both mental and physical torment.
Huo Yuhao deliberately used Kagutsuchi to control Amaterasu to burn his soul power first, rather than his body, to prevent him from dying too quickly.
Lu Xinjin felt like he was in hell—no, hell was heaven compared to this.
He didn't know which pain caused him to scream.
It could be mental or physical.
Soon, he could no longer make a sound, because his soul power was exhausted and he was powerless to resist the burning of Amaterasu, which began to scorch his body.
The extreme heat instantly burned his vocal cords, which then slowly turned into a charred mess.
Huo Yuhao used Kagutsuchi to extinguish Amaterasu, preserving his remains as a deterrent.
Huo Yuhao killed him because this humanoid creature did all sorts of human-like things.
After Passion was established, many merchants actively sought protection, paying large sums of money.
Even some commoners paid money to have Passion protect them.
Passion naturally didn't charge commoners too much, only five silver soul coins per quarter, and then had them handle some miscellaneous tasks for Passion each month, even paying them wages.
Through these merchants and commoners, Huo Yuhao learned that the taxes in Xilu City were so high that even the IRS would have to send people to study them.
The taxes here had been collected for a hundred years, and there were still a bunch of outrageous taxes.
For example, rainwater tax, walking tax, sleeping tax, public toilet tax, etc.
They were constantly finding ways to continuously squeeze the marrow out of the commoners and merchants.
As for resistance, it wasn't that no one had tried, but the result was that Lu Xinjin's gravity compression was extremely cruel.
So whether it's for the sake of their passion to thrive here, or for their own bottom line, this beast cannot be allowed to live.
As for the other three Soul Saints, Huo Yuhao plans to visit them one by one and offer them some warmth.
If they know what's good for them, Huo Yuhao can make them city lords. In Xilu City, the city lord is whoever has the strongest fist; the Heavenly Soul Empire is just a tool for issuing certificates.
Shrek Academy only cares whether the new city lord will continue to pay tribute; if they're willing, they can't be bothered.
Lu Xinjin became the city lord only because he killed the previous one and was willing to pay tribute to Shrek Academy.
If they don't know what's good for them, then Tianzhao is indeed very warm-hearted.
(End of this chapter)
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