Chapter 179: A Terrifying Punishment

Such terrifying Guali is something even an ordinary Title Douluo absolutely cannot handle; the massive, heavy punch even made nearly every Spirit Master present feel a fatal threat, and some blacksmiths even began to run for their lives.

Tai Tan roared, inciting all of his strength and courage, and unleashed his strongest strike against Zhou Heng.

"Thousand-Jun Break!"

The eighth spirit skill, originating from a thirty-thousand-year Thousand-Jun Ant, was triggered; the power on Tai Tan's body condensed into a single point, and the massive, explosive wind from his fist even blew away some of the surrounding Spirit Masters as if they were ragdolls.

Watching this move, Zhou Heng was truly a bit angry and decided to bring out some real skill to teach Tai Tan a lesson.

Green soul power surged around his body, which, while filled with an eerie and ominous quality, also exuded a fantastical aura.

"Ribbit, ribbit!"

"Hiss, hiss, hiss."

Phantasmal shadows of a toad, a snake, and a scorpion emerged from behind Zhou Heng, looking at Tai Tan with malicious eyes; the three figures, containing three different types of virulent poison and will, converged together under Zhou Heng's control.

With spirit and soul power combined, the three types of toxicity fused into one; Zhou Heng raised his seemingly tiny fist, bringing a nearly suffocating threat to Tai Tan.

"Poison Dominates the World!"

With spirit and soul power combined, strange fluctuations condensed within Zhou Heng's fist; the seemingly insignificant little fist collided with Tai Tan's fist, which was nearly the size of Zhou Heng himself, but the result was that Tai Tan's massive fist and body were knocked back.

Even though Tai Tan's soul power was condensed and boiling to its peak, it was still as weak as tofu in the face of Zhou Heng's Poison Dominates the World.

The moment it made contact with Zhou Heng's Battle Technique, Tai Tan's soul power showed signs of actively fleeing, and his entire spirit felt as if it had been struck by a heavy hammer.

The green light invaded Tai Tan's body, rapidly taking root and beginning to spread.

Unlike the Reign Over the World that Mu En left as a shadow in others' hearts ten thousand years later, Zhou Heng's Poison Dominates the World was more overbearing and insidious.

The toxins spread within Tai Tan's body, melting Tai Tan's soul power like sunlight; it not only permanently sealed a portion of Tai Tan's soul power limit, but even his soul power rank began to slowly drop.

From today on, the recovery speed of Tai Tan's soul power will decrease day by day, and every time he uses Martial Soul Avatar, his soul power will regress; the more he uses his soul power, the more extensively and deeply the toxins will spread, and the more he will become a useless person.

The toxins devoured Tai Tan's vitality like parasites and weakened the muscles Tai Tan was so proud of.

From now on, Tai Tan will gradually weaken, his massive muscles will shrink, until the giant who stood like an iron tower becomes a useless person who is nothing but skin and bones, able only to lie on a sickbed and be cared for by others.

From internal organs to flesh and blood to bones, the strength Tai Tan obtained through extreme specialization began to be endlessly eroded under the virulent poison that used his vitality as fuel; every inch of flesh and bone felt the pain of being gnawed on by tens of thousands of insects.

A strange toxin entered Tai Tan's spirit in a way that normal Spirit Masters could not understand; this toxin was the gentlest in its manifestation among the three virulent poisons, but it was also the most overbearing.

Without Tai Tan being able to perceive it, Tai Tan's spiritual power was being gradually worn away; as this attrition increased, Tai Tan would experience a loss of humanity, feel a sense of unreality toward everything, and be unable to continue advancing spiritually.

Furthermore, the primary power of this toxin actually acted upon Tai Tan's martial soul; this toxin was like poking a small hole in Tai Tan's martial soul, and the origin of Tai Tan's martial soul would dissipate endlessly from this small hole.

However, while Tai Tan's martial soul origin and soul power were being worn away, Zhou Heng collected all of these losses and injected them into Tai Tan's Soul Ring, strengthening Tai Tan's Soul Ring.

The reason Zhou Heng did this was not to return evil with kindness, but because this could better torture Tai Tan.

After the Soul Ring was strengthened, whenever Tai Tan used the Soul Ring, Tai Tan would be stimulated by the power he left within the Soul Ring, feeling needle-like pain from his spirit to his flesh; over time, Tai Tan's emotions would become increasingly numb, and he would gradually lose his humanity.

At the same time, the enhanced Soul Ring would also form shackles; Tai Tan, whose physical strength had decreased, would be unable to bear the power of the increasingly strong Soul Ring and would be gradually crushed by it until his body collapsed—this process was not pleasant.

Zhou Heng's Poison Dominates the World did not have the will to kill directly, but if they had a choice, the vast majority of Spirit Masters on the continent would rather die quickly than have this move soak into their bodies and end up in a state where they could neither live nor die.

Moreover, a Spirit Master hit by Poison Dominates the World would turn into a human bomb accumulating a large amount of toxins, which Zhou Heng could sense and detonate at any time within a certain range.

As long as Zhou Heng used his spiritual power to detonate it, the resulting explosive power would be a notch higher than that of ordinary targets.

After taking this hit of Poison Dominates the World, Tai Tan was knocked directly out of his original Spirit Avatar state; his soul power backflowed, blood streamed from his seven orifices, and he collapsed on the ground as if he had lost his bones, with even his originally sturdy muscles showing a visible shrinkage.

Seeing Zhou Heng easily resolve Tai Tan, a Spirit Douluo who had released his Spirit Avatar, many Spirit Masters and blacksmiths who had originally stood on Tai Tan's side immediately knelt on the ground, kowtowing like pounding garlic as they begged for the forgiveness of Zhou Heng and Lou Gao.

One cannot blame these fellows for having soft bones; after all, those with hard bones were currently lying on the ground.

Looking at this bunch of fellows kneeling on the ground, Zhou Heng couldn't be bothered to pay attention to them and walked straight to in front of Lou Gao.

After using his soul power to help Lou Gao and his disciples recover their state, Zhou Heng glanced at Lou Gao and secretly transmitted his voice to Lou Gao using spiritual power.

"Elder Lao, Tai Tan and those high-level Spirit Masters of the Strength Clan have all been beaten by me until they have no ability to resist; these people are the ones causing trouble in your Blacksmith Association, so how to handle them next is up to you, Elder Lao.

If these people are still unconvinced and want to cause trouble, just tell me.

If the Strength Clan is truly obsessed and wants to continue looking for trouble.

Then I can only spare a little time to make the Strength Clan disappear from the Douluo Continent entirely."

As the Hall Master of the Soul Hall, Zhou Heng knew very well that the Soul Hall was currently just a makeshift setup, with a total of six people in the entire organization; besides himself, there were only Lou Gao and his four disciples, and there was absolutely no one for administration, judgment, or anything of the sort.

As the Hall Master, besides providing Lou Gao with some support in terms of insights, Zhou Heng could only support him with his own martial power and connections; other matters still required Lou Gao to handle them himself.

If he couldn't handle it well, he would then step forward to help deal with the aftermath.

After all, one couldn't expect the Hall Master himself to do everything, right?

Lou Gao cupped his hands toward Zhou Heng and nodded, signaling that he understood.

Then Zhou Heng walked back to the fifth floor of the Blacksmith Association alone and stayed in the forging room that originally belonged to Lou Gao.