That Was a Dark Age

This matter planted a thorn deep in her heart.

After that, Hua Qiang's methods were no longer so ruthless. Instead, she carefully sought out the reasons Evil Soul Masters came into being.

He Hua's words inspired Hua Qiang. At Shrek Academy, she saw how Shrek's rules placed mentors above all else, causing countless mentors, in their excessive pursuit of the word "monster," to use tyrannical methods to expel many students whose strength failed to meet their demands from Shrek Academy.

In the Two Great Empires, she saw nobles annexing land. The land that countless commoners depended upon for survival did not belong to them. Every year, whether it was a bountiful harvest or a year of famine, they had to pay a certain tribute to the local lord.

Spoiled young nobles galloped through busy streets on horseback, trampling countless people to death along the way. Yet in their eyes, they had merely killed a few lowly commoners.

Slave-hunting groups constantly searched the continent for beautiful servants suited to noble tastes—pretty girls, handsome men, or girls who had accidentally awakened Martial Souls and carried certain traits of beast Martial Souls. All became their prey, captured by slave organizations and sold at auction houses.

Originally, she had believed Evil Soul Masters deserved to die. But after witnessing the birth and cultivation of one Evil Soul Master after another, she realized how laughable and naive she had once been!

Did Evil Soul Masters not emerge because of this extreme, distorted, unjust, twisted society?

In a society with rigid class divisions, oppressed by those lofty noble Soul Masters, commoners could barely catch their breath.

A resentment had accumulated in this world, and it was this resentment that endlessly created Evil Soul Masters.

As long as these Evil Soul Masters did not endanger their rule or status, they could tolerate their growth. When necessary, they would harvest a wave of Evil Soul Masters to win popular support, making the people love their rule even more and believe more deeply in the gods revered by the nobles.

Only when Evil Soul Masters truly grew powerful enough to threaten their status would they wield their swords without hesitation or mercy to eradicate them.

By chance, Hua Qiang found an underground ruin of Spirit Hall from the Dark Age. Within it, she saw a description of a segment of past history.

What was the Dark Age?

People regarded the Three Gods War as the dividing point. Before the Three Gods War, Douluo Continent had been subject to Spirit Hall's dark and filthy rule. Through generations of accumulation, the evil Pope of Spirit Hall had sought to swallow the entire Douluo Continent and enslave all living beings.

Their evil scheme was discovered by the kind and great Shrek Seven Devils. The great Sea God Tang San united the Upper Three Sects and the Two Great Empires, founded the Tang Sect, joined forces with all factions, defeated Spirit Hall, and defeated Spirit Hall's two evil gods in the Three Gods War.

In the end, he ushered in an age of peace and prosperity for Douluo Continent.

Thus, the Dark Age came to an end.

In this era, according to the propaganda of Shrek, the major sects, the Two Great Empires, and all other factions, the Dark Age had undoubtedly been a cannibalistic, ugly, evil era. Now, under the radiance of the Sea God, the people lived in peace and prosperity. From top to bottom, Douluo Continent emphasized Virtue, Wisdom, Physique, Aesthetics, and Labor, as well as benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness. It was a harmonious age, with no major problems aside from the occasional outbreak of evil Soul Masters on some day of some year.

Of course, even when those Evil Soul Masters appeared to cause chaos, the merciful Sea God would send Shrek's enforcement squads to help all living beings quell the Evil Soul Master unrest, allowing the people to return to peaceful and prosperous lives.

This was how the people of this era understood the present and the Dark Age.

However, while excavating the underground ruins, Hua Qiang found some records documenting the history of Spirit Hall and the Dark Age.

An Angel Suppressing Evil Diagram represented the origins of Spirit Hall.

Spirit Hall had been established in a chaotic era of conflict between Evil Soul Masters and righteous Soul Masters. A young Angel God Ancestor suppressed all manner of evil, truly bringing light to the entire Douluo Continent and quelling numerous Evil Soul Master uprisings. Because of these great achievements, she ascended to godhood.

Before ascending to the divine realm, she left behind Spirit Hall. Spread across the entire Douluo Continent, Spirit Hall awakened Martial Souls for the people of Douluo Continent free of charge year after year. Under Spirit Hall's balance of power, the Two Great Empires and Spirit Hall each contributed funds to provide Soul Masters with monthly stipends, giving them time to rise and develop.

Eighty or ninety percent of commoner Soul Masters had emerged because of Spirit Hall's existence. Thus, Spirit Hall encompassed sixty or seventy percent of Douluo Continent's Soul Masters.

Spirit Hall suppressed Evil Soul Masters who genuinely committed evil, but those who possessed Evil Martial Souls without doing evil were still treated equally by Spirit Hall.

Although Spirit Hall was hated and feared by the Upper Three Sects and the Two Great Empires of that era, its existence gave the common people, oppressed by the nobility, a chance to catch their breath.

In every village and every city across the continent, countless families eagerly awaited the day their Martial Souls would awaken.

Spirit Hall would send a deacon to help them awaken their Martial Souls. Some villagers possessed hoes as Martial Souls, some had sickles, and some had carrots. Even if these Martial Souls had no Soul Power and could not make them Soul Masters, they could still change their lives. And if someone became a Soul Master, their fate would be transformed.

That was why, in that Dark Age, so many Soul Masters supported and embraced the Spirit Hall of that time.

In that era, Evil Soul Masters did not emerge one after another as they did now, nor were slave-hunting groups as rampant as they were today.

Like a great mountain, Spirit Hall weighed heavily upon the Two Great Empires and the Upper Three Sects. It had established a system more enlightened than the current one, but that system made the nobles who already controlled resources hate and oppose it.

Because Spirit Hall awakened Martial Souls, many commoner Soul Masters and emerging forces would always arise from among the continent's countless commoners, challenging their status. Those people relied upon Spirit Hall, and the old nobles watched in hatred, yet could do nothing.

Yet such an enlightened era in Hua Qiang's eyes came to an end with the Three Gods War.

The Dark Age ended with the fall of two evil gods and the destruction of Spirit Hall. After that came the Sea God Era, under an order established by the Tang Sect, the Clear Sky Sect, Shrek Academy, and the Two Great Empires.