Star Dou (Combined 4.5k)

The swallow flapped its wings and flew into the sky.

Its delicate wings beat at a speed too fast for human eyes to catch, leaving behind a dark silver streak across the azure sky.

Swift-tailed Swallows had neither sharp beaks nor claws, nor could they fire wind blades or light cannons. These weak Soul Beasts, with virtually no special abilities, were so unremarkable that they were almost no different from ordinary birds.

Yet they had still found a way to survive in the perilous Star Dou Great Forest, avoiding extinction at the jaws of the forest's predators.

—The key was speed.

Generation after generation, Swift-tailed Swallows had evolved more delicate skeletons, lighter feathers, stronger wings, forms more favored by the wind... and greater limits of speed over the long ages.

After hundreds of thousands of years, Swift-tailed Swallows had become one of the fastest-flying Soul Beasts on the continent.

Legend had it that ten thousand years ago, Soul Masters with Swift-tailed Swallows as their martial souls had also been the fastest humans. Among their strongest members, one had even set the terrifying record of crossing the entire continent in two days.

But by now, the inheritance of the Swift-tailed Swallow martial soul had long since been lost, and the legend could no longer be verified.

And yet, this swallow was flying who knew how many times faster than that legendary expert!

In less than an hour, it flew from the Duke's Mansion at the center of Star Luo to a place near the northern border of the Star Luo Empire, crossing nearly a third of the empire's territory.

What terrifying speed!

The swallow continued north. Along the way, the distances between towns grew greater, human homes became increasingly sparse, and the orderly farmland gradually vanished, replaced by ever more luxuriant wild vegetation.

The roads built by humans slowly stretched into the forest, soon swallowed by dense woods and finally disappearing altogether, leaving behind nothing but endless shadows of trees.

It had arrived at the Star Dou Great Forest.

The swallow skimmed over the treetops. Ruined houses could faintly be seen amid the forest—villages that had once belonged to humans, now drowned beneath greenery.

Over the past fifteen thousand years, Star Dou Forest had steadily expanded outward. By now, it covered more than twice the area it had once occupied.

Yet humanity had not reacted much to this.

That was hardly surprising.

Humans were a short-lived race. What did fifteen thousand years even mean to them?

For ordinary people, one generation lasted twenty years. Even the world's most powerful Soul Masters lived for barely more than two hundred years.

How many generations could humanity have multiplied through in fifteen thousand years?

Regimes changed, dynasties fell, families rose and declined, inheritances appeared and vanished... who knew how much information recorded on paper had been lost.

Who could clearly remember how vast Star Dou had been ten thousand years ago?

And among human Soul Masters, strength reigned supreme. The ruling classes devoted vast amounts of effort to cultivation, but how many humans possessed both exceptional cultivation talent and political talent?

Ruling a nation through force was bound to leave behind one muddled account after another. Who would care if the plants in this forest had grown another ten meters outward this year?

Besides, to human nations, Star Dou Forest was still part of their own territory.

The forest might expand, but the nation's land would not decrease. Villages inhabited by commoners merely became forest... it was hardly a major problem.

As for whether the commoners' fields were being swallowed by Star Dou Forest?

Soul Masters did not farm. Who would care?

What Soul Beasts lacked most was time, and what they lacked least was also time.

By now, Star Dou Great Forest had become the most terrifying forbidden zone for humans on the entire Douluo Continent. Even in its outer regions, people had spotted Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts.

Without the protection of a Titled Douluo-level existence, let alone venturing deep into Star Dou Great Forest, even entering the forest's outskirts could bring mortal danger.

The swallow continued flying deeper into the forest.

The deepest part of Star Dou Forest was the legendary Forbidden Land. There lay a lake that gathered the vitality of all Star Dou, guarded by numerous terrifying beings whose cultivation surpassed a Hundred Thousand Years.

Yet not far from Lake of Life stood a fairly large cluster of buildings.

It was a small town built at the heart of Star Dou Great Forest.

Most of the houses here were built from brown or deep bluish-green stone. They looked quite rough... even sloppy.

Yet the place was filled with the atmosphere of daily life. Some houses had decorative graffiti painted on their outer walls, some had clothes drying outside their windows, and some had small fenced gardens growing vegetables by their doors.

Ignoring its location, this place looked like nothing more than an ordinary, peaceful little town.

A five- or six-year-old child pushed open his window and looked up at the narrow patch of sky between the canopies.

A dark silver streak flashed before his eyes.

In almost the blink of an eye, the Swift-tailed Swallow arrived at the center of town.

There was a relatively flat clearing there. The ground was packed dark-brown earth, making it look like a plaza.

At the center of the clearing stood a thick, bizarre dead tree that had clearly undergone artificial—or beast-made—alterations.

The dead tree's extensive roots plunged deep into the earth. Complex interconnected patterns were carved into both the exposed roots and its charred-black trunk.

Its dense branches had long since died, yet they still stubbornly reached for the sky. Pale green, translucent spheres of light hung from the tips of the withered branches.

Countless pale green specks flowed upward along those patterns like a chaotic curtain of rain flowing against the current, eventually gathering into the spheres of light among the branches.

The spheres seemed to still be breathing, brightening and dimming in accordance with some unknown rhythm.

Beneath the tree stood a white jade circular platform about one meter high and three meters wide. Golden vertical lines ran across its surface, and the air around it seemed to carry a faint chill.

A boy in fitted black-and-gold clothing sat cross-legged atop it.

He looked eleven or twelve years old. His messy short fiery-red hair was strikingly flamboyant, yet his brows and eyes carried a faintly scholarly air, lending him a somewhat gentle appearance.

The Swift-tailed Swallow landed before the white jade platform and let out a string of melodious chirps from its pointed beak. "Auspicious Beast, Auspicious Beast, the human child you asked me to watch has left the White Tiger Duke Estate~"

A vertical slit opened at the center of the boy's forehead, revealing a blood-red pupil. That somewhat frightening crimson eyeball turned slightly in its socket before the third eye on his forehead closed.

"I know." The Three-Eyed Golden Lion in human form spoke softly. A tiny golden glimmer drifted onto the Swift-tailed Swallow. "You've worked hard. Go to your clan chief and collect your reward."

The chief of the Swift-tailed Swallow clan was a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast.

For such a weak species to cultivate to a hundred thousand years was almost impossible, yet such a miracle had indeed appeared in Star Dou Forest.

The swallow let out an excited series of cries. "Thank you, Auspicious Beast!" It then flapped its wings and flew toward the Swift-tailed Swallow clan's territory.

The clan chief's reward was not all that important. What mattered was the fortune the Auspicious Beast had just bestowed upon it. With that tiny bit of fortune, this Swift-tailed Swallow would enjoy exceptional luck for a long time to come.

Wang Rui sat there blankly, gazing south toward Star Dou Great Forest. After a long while, he let out a long breath as though he had finally made some decision.

He raised a hand and patted the white jade platform beneath him. "Tian Meng, wake up. The human suitable to become your host has already set out."

There was no response.

"Tian Meng? Tian Meng?" He patted it a few more times.

A vein bulged on Wang Rui's forehead.

"Ah, the weather in late summer really is hot... This Ice Silkworm just won't wake up. It must have suffered heatstroke. Everyone knows Ice Silkworms with heatstroke can't be saved and can only wait to die. Why don't we eat it?" he muttered to himself.

"An ice-attributed Ice Silkworm is just right for this season. It can increase cultivation and cool us off. If we cut off the head of this big, plump white worm, there'll be ten sections left. We can divide them evenly among everyone: one for Di Tian, one for me, one for Zi Ji, one for me, one for Wenwen, one for me..."

"Don't, don't, don't! I'm awake, I'm awake!" Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's panicked voice rang out.

"Whose brother are you?" Wang Rui asked with a smile.

"You're my brother! You're my brother!" The white jade platform trembled, then actually unfurled. A huge, chubby, round head rose from its center.

The pair of tiny golden eyes on that head looked hilariously shameless. The entire worm somehow looked rather punchable.

"That's more like it." Wang Rui snorted. "Your lifespan is clearly running out, and you need to find a host, but you're not even taking it seriously. All you do is sleep."

"Oh, come on. Who told you to be my best friend, the all-powerful Imperial Auspicious Beast of Star Dou Great Forest?" Sky Dream Ice Silkworm chuckled shamelessly.

Wang Rui did not respond. He lowered his gaze and spoke flatly. "That human child has already set out for Star Dou. He possesses the finest spiritual-type martial soul among humans—his eyes and brain—though his physical condition is somewhat weak. But that should not affect your plan, right?"

"His body is somewhat weak..." Sky Dream Ice Silkworm muttered reluctantly.

"Stop being so picky." Wang Rui rolled his eyes. "Do you know how rare humans with purely spiritual abilities are? Or can your little remaining lifespan afford to keep waiting? That human is the Child of Destiny of the Douluo World. You can't go wrong choosing him as your host."

"How do you know?" Tian Meng asked foolishly.

"I'm the omnipotent Imperial Auspicious Beast. I know everything." The boy snorted.

Eleven years earlier, when Huo Yuhao had just settled into his mother's womb, humanity's fortune had undergone an extremely violent fluctuation.

In the world observed through Wang Rui's Eye of Destiny, a terrifying funnel-shaped vortex had appeared in the south, and immense fortune had gathered above the capital of the Star Luo Empire.

Like storm clouds pressing down upon a city, or mountain rain about to pour, the sight was terrifying in Wang Rui's eyes, which could observe the fortune of heaven and earth—as though it heralded some natural disaster.

After all, he was the second protagonist of the Douluo series, a darling of the world born only once every ten thousand years—Huo Yuhao. Though his ending was somewhat regretful, he was still the Child of Destiny, the protagonist standing at the very center of an era's stage.

Even before Huo Yuhao's birth, the Douluo World had produced such a violent fluctuation in fortune. That was why Tang San, the God King far away in the Divine Realm, had been able to sense that a new Child of Destiny had been born in the Douluo World and precisely send his daughter down to "win him over."

On the day Huo Yuhao was born, the Three-Eyed Golden Lion chose to take human form.

As the Imperial Auspicious Beast, Wang Rui differed from other Soul Beasts. He was not bound by the limits of fate or constrained by cultivation. Once in his life, he could take human form. Afterward, even without reaching the level of a Fierce Beast, he could freely switch between human and beast forms.

He had chosen to enter the human world in this era.

If the Soul Beast clan merely cowered in the forest, hoping humans would show mercy and abandon their aggression, that would be completely unrealistic.

And the fortune of the Douluo Plane favored humanity. Bear Lord's daily cries to destroy mankind sounded feasible, but they were not practical.

Soul Beasts had to possess strength far surpassing humanity's, then secure a voice in the human world.

As the Imperial Auspicious Beast, Wang Rui's ambitions extended far beyond preserving the peace of Star Dou's Soul Beasts. Over fifteen thousand years, he had done no small amount.

Over the past ten thousand years, Wang Rui had already brought great changes to the Soul Beast clan.

Soul Beasts of different species had begun to unite, and he had established a force to serve as a springboard for Soul Beasts to intervene in the human world.

And in the era of Peerless Tang Clan, there was Electrolux, the Holy Necromancer from another world; there was the Child of Destiny, who had received the Soul Beasts' favor and could be drawn to their side; Douluo Three Kingdoms and the Sun Moon Empire were still locked in endless war; Destruction and Life were still in the Divine Realm, while Tang San still did not dare openly make his father the master of the Douluo World's plane...

This era would be the finest debut stage for the Soul Beast clan, which had spent fifteen thousand years gathering its strength.

Star Dou Forest's power had already far surpassed that of Star Dou Great Forest during the same period in the original work, but it was still not enough.

Wang Rui needed more help.

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's "God-Creation Plan" was one of the most important parts of the original novel, and Wang Rui had included it in his own plans.

Cultivating a god-level powerhouse who stood with the Soul Beasts and could support their cause was in Star Dou's interests.

The Soul Beasts' predicament could not be solved by a single god alone, and humans who became gods could not directly interfere with the lower realm either. But this was like nuclear weapons: having them and not having them were fundamentally different.

...Did not Tang San alone deter Douluo Three Kingdoms for tens of thousands of years? Without the title of the Sea God's alma mater, how could Douluo Three Kingdoms have tolerated Shrek shitting on their heads, plundering their nations' resources and talent?

Without the deterrence of gods, what ruler with even a little ambition and sense would have allowed Shrek to develop to the extent it had in the original work?

So, Huo Yuhao?

Hand him over.jpg

But Wang Rui did not tell Sky Dream Ice Silkworm any of these considerations.

He patted Tian Meng's chubby body. "Shouldn't you be leaving soon? How many days will it take for a worm as huge as you to crawl to the edge of Star Dou? Don't let that child obtain another soul ring first and leave no place for you. You won't even have anywhere to cry."

"Why do I feel like you're chasing me away?" Tian Meng said resentfully.

"When the time comes, I'll personally act to improve that child's aptitude." Wang Rui ignored him.

Though he himself looked like an eleven-year-old child, he kept calling someone else a child, putting on an old-fashioned air that looked rather comical.

"Wuwu, Auspicious Beast, I knew you loved me most—" Tian Meng whined shamelessly, his pair of golden bean-like eyes turning into golden fried eggs.

"Get lost!" Wang Rui broke out in goosebumps from disgust and kicked Tian Meng directly.

The big worm's snowy-white flesh bounced twice with a boing, boing.

"Auspicious Beast... if you let me go like this, won't Di Tian cause trouble for you?" Sky Dream Ice Silkworm put away his unserious smile, and genuine concern appeared in his tiny golden eyes.

Eight or nine thousand years ago, Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had just fled from the Extreme North Ice Plain to the mainland when he was captured by the Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts of Star Dou Great Forest.

If the Imperial Auspicious Beast had not stopped them then, he might have long since been divided up and eaten by those powerful Soul Beasts until not even scraps remained. Instead, like now, all he had to do was periodically release some of his power for Star Dou's Soul Beasts to absorb.

That was why Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was sincerely grateful to the Auspicious Beast.

But Tian Meng did not know that even if Wang Rui had not stopped the Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts who wanted to eat him, he would still have safely survived until now in the original fate.

"Don't worry. Di Tian won't make things difficult for me." Wang Rui patted Tian Meng's large head.

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm nodded, wriggled in place a few times, then sank into the ground and disappeared.

"I've never understood why you insist on making friends with the main course for dinner." Di Tian walked out from behind the enormous dead tree.

There was even a trace of heartbreaking concern on the Beast God's stern middle-aged face, as though his son had fallen in with bad company.

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm had not noticed at all that the actual ruler of Star Dou Forest had been standing behind the tree eavesdropping the entire time.

The Auspicious Beast's human form was a red-haired little boy. Didn't expect that, did you.jpg

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