Douluo: Expelled From Shrek, I Awakened The Double Pupils! — Chapter 207

Chapter 207: Ma Xiaotao Taken Away? Yan Shaozhe Breaks Down

At this moment, the heavy silence of the river valley was broken only by the steady patter of rain.

Liu Yuan leaned down, his gaze dropping to Huo Yuhao, who lay slumped and unmoving in the thick mud. After a brief, indifferent glance, he straightened his posture and shifted his attention toward the shadows nearby.

Ju Zi and Ke Ke stood frozen a short distance away. The two girls were deathly pale, their shoulders trembling slightly under the biting chill of the night air. The sheer terror in their eyes was unmistakable as they looked at Liu Yuan. The utterly one-sided suppression they had just witnessed had completely shattered their understanding of high-level Soul Master combat.

“Are you two with him?” Liu Yuan’s voice was perfectly calm, lacking any trace of hostility, yet it carried an invisible weight.

Ju Zi swallowed hard, the sound loud in her own ears, and nodded subconsciously. Her fingers remained clamped around the soul tool used for recording data, her knuckles completely white from the death grip.

“Take him back.” Liu Yuan gestured casually toward Huo Yuhao’s unconscious form on the ground. “And when he wakes up, tell him to start thinking for himself. Tell him to stop letting his mind be washed clean by those hypocrites at Shrek Academy and learn some basic independent critical thinking.”

Ke Ke parted her lips, instinctively wanting to ask a question or perhaps offer a weak rebuttal. But the moment her eyes met the eerie, deep depths of Liu Yuan’s Double Pupils, the words died in her throat. She couldn’t muster a single thought of resistance. It was an overwhelming sense of oppression—not merely a vast gap in soul power ranks, but an absolute confidence that crushed her on a fundamental, cognitive level.

Ju Zi felt the exact same way. As a top-tier student of the Sun Moon Empire, she had always prided herself on her absolute rationality and calm analysis. Yet right now, under Liu Yuan’s casual command, an involuntary urge to comply completely hijacked her instincts.

“Understood,” Ju Zi managed to whisper. She quickly stepped forward, pulling Ke Ke along by the sleeve, and the two of them hurried to haul the unconscious Huo Yuhao out of the mud.

From the dense shadows of the surrounding trees, Du Busi and Long Aotian slowly stepped into the clearing, having witnessed the entire exchange.

“Well done.” Du Busi glanced down at the unconscious, corrupted form of the Evil Soul Master, Ma Xiaotao, before shifting his gaze to the retreating backs of Ju Zi and the others. A rare hint of genuine approval colored the old man’s gruff tone.

Long Aotian strode up to Liu Yuan’s side, watching the girls drag Huo Yuhao away into the distance. “Junior Brother, what exactly is your play here? Are you really going to kill Ma Xiaotao? If that energy sphere had actually made contact just now, there wouldn’t even be ashes left of her.”

Liu Yuan watched the dark tree line where the Sun Moon students had vanished, his expression entirely placid.

“I originally intended to kill her. But on second thought, simply erasing her would be a bit of a waste,” Liu Yuan replied, his tone dry and pragmatic. “Doesn’t Shrek Academy always parade around, loudly priding itself on slaying demons and upholding absolute righteousness? Don’t they claim to love executing Evil Soul Masters more than anything else? Then let’s hand the problem back to them. Let them handle Ma Xiaotao themselves. I want to see exactly what choice those hypocrites make when their precious, core genius falls from grace and becomes the very thing they swore to destroy.”

Hearing this, Long Aotian’s gaze toward his junior brother shifted, growing deeply complex. Even though Long Aotian was the Chief Disciple of the Body Sect—an organization notorious for its overbearing and domineering style—he couldn’t help but feel that his junior brother’s methods were far colder and more calculating than his own.

“Junior Brother, you really are ruthless,” Long Aotian said, shaking his head with a faint, wry smile. “Applying this kind of psychological torture to Shrek is much heavier than just killing her outright.”

Liu Yuan didn’t bother responding to the compliment. He simply turned his back to the wind and looked at Du Busi. “Let’s go, Master, Senior Brother. We’ll take Ma Xiaotao back with us first. We can iron out the specific arrangements once we return to the sect.”

Du Busi nodded without a second of hesitation.

In the next instant, the three figures shot into the sky, tearing through the rain-soaked canopy, and vanished completely into the dark night.

An unknown amount of time passed in the deep, desolate stretches of the river valley.

Huo Yuhao was jolted awake by a biting, freezing wind that cut right through his soaked clothes. A sharp, agonizing spike of pain immediately radiated through his skull—the lingering, brutal aftermath of the mental backlash he had suffered earlier.

His eyes snapped open. His combat instincts screamed at him to spring to his feet, but his limbs felt like lead, and he collapsed back onto the ground with a heavy thud.

“Ma Xiaotao…” he rasped, his breathing ragged and shallow. He forced his heavy eyelids open and frantically scanned his surroundings.

What met his eyes was a hastily assembled temporary camp. A soul tool campfire burned steadily in the center, casting flickering orange light against the darkness. Ke Ke and Ju Zi sat huddled by the artificial flames, their voices hushed and laced with serious tension as they discussed something.

“Where… where is Ma Xiaotao?” Huo Yuhao gritted his teeth and forced himself into a sitting position, his throat so dry it felt like he was swallowing sand.

Ke Ke, who was in the middle of debugging a damaged soul tool, paused and looked up at the sound of his raspy voice.

“That Evil Soul Master?” Ke Ke set the metallic core array down on her lap, her brow furrowing in confusion. “You mean the red-haired woman? She was taken away.”

Huo Yuhao’s heart plummeted into his stomach. He violently threw off the thermal blanket covering him. Ignoring the splitting, blinding pain behind his Spirit Eyes, he staggered to his feet, swaying dangerously as he rushed toward the heavy metal cage nearby.

The cage was completely empty. The only evidence that anyone had ever been inside was a few charred, black feathers scattered across the cold iron floor.

“Taken away?” Huo Yuhao whipped his head around to glare at Ke Ke and Ju Zi, his eyes wide with rising panic. “How could you just let her be taken?! Did you notify the academy? She’s a student from Shrek!”

Ju Zi remained silent for a long moment, the flickering firelight casting long shadows over her face. Finally, she spoke, her voice measured and quiet. “Yuhao, you need to calm down. That person from earlier took her, and there was absolutely nothing we could do to stop him. We couldn’t even breathe properly under his pressure. Besides, if we hadn’t dragged you out of there, you would still be lying face-down in the mud of that river valley right now.”

Huo Yuhao’s hands curled into tight fists, his fingernails biting into his palms.

Logically, he knew she was right. Given the terrifying situation and the sheer power Liu Yuan possessed, even if Ju Zi and Ke Ke had thrown their lives away trying to stop him, it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

But he still couldn’t accept it. If Ma Xiaotao fell into Liu Yuan’s hands—or the hands of whatever faction backed him—her fate would become entirely unpredictable.

Without another word, Huo Yuhao stumbled over to the camp’s long-distance soul tool communicator.

He had to notify Shrek Academy immediately. Regardless of Ma Xiaotao’s corrupted state, she was still a Shrek student. The academy had a strict obligation to retrieve her or, at the very least, handle her internally. They could not let an outsider dictate her life and death.

With badly trembling fingers, he calibrated the frequency and dialed the emergency communication channel.

The soul tool signal pulsed outward, weaving through the complex, heavily forested terrain of the Sun Moon Empire, bouncing across several relay stations before finally connecting directly to Shrek Academy’s high-priority emergency contact desk.

“Hello?”

A familiar, authoritative voice crackled through the receiver.

It was Yan Shaozhe.

Huo Yuhao sucked in a sharp breath, steadying his racing heart, and began to recount everything that had transpired in the river valley. He detailed Liu Yuan’s sudden appearance, the horrifying exposure of Ma Xiaotao’s true identity, and the grim reality of her being taken away. He hid absolutely nothing.

He forced himself to speak slowly, enunciating every single word to ensure the Dean heard every brutal detail clearly over the static.

On the other end of the line, after the keywords ‘Ma Xiaotao’, ‘Evil Soul Master’, and ‘taken away’ were spoken, a dead, suffocating silence fell over the connection.

The silence stretched on, so heavy and oppressive that Huo Yuhao found it hard to breathe even miles away.

After what felt like an eternity—perhaps ten seconds—Yan Shaozhe’s voice finally returned.

But it didn’t sound like him. The voice sounded as if it were being violently forced through a constricted throat. All of the Dean’s usual warmth and unshakeable steadiness had vanished entirely, replaced by an extreme, bone-chilling coldness.

“You said… Liu Yuan took her?”

“Yes, Teacher,” Huo Yuhao replied softly.

The communicator fell dead silent once more.

A moment later, the line was abruptly cut.

Despite the vast distance separating them, Huo Yuhao felt as though he could perfectly visualize Yan Shaozhe’s expression at that exact moment.

Far away, inside the highest office of Shrek Academy, Yan Shaozhe slowly lowered the soul tool receiver. He placed his hand flat against his massive desk. Beneath his palm, the incredibly dense, reinforced mahogany surface let out a series of sharp, agonizing cracks, splintering under the sheer, uncontrolled force of his grip.

Yan Shaozhe slowly lifted his head. The face that usually wore a gentle, approachable smile was now twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury, as dark and volatile as the sky right before a catastrophic hurricane.

“Liu Yuan…”

He spat the two syllables out like venom.

The air pressure inside the spacious office instantly plummeted, growing incredibly heavy and suffocating as Yan Shaozhe’s terrifying soul power violently fluctuated out of control.

Ma Xiaotao was the ultimate talent, the very future that Shrek Academy relied upon the most. Yet at this moment, she had been ruthlessly swept into a chaotic vortex that they could no longer control.