Heaven Dou Empire

"Brother Danzo, we're about to enter the Heaven Dou Empire," a young merchant association guard said warmly, reminding Huo Yuhao beside him.

Huo Yuhao rode a tall White Scale Horse. A simple balancing Soul Tool had been installed on its back, allowing even a novice like Huo Yuhao to handle the horse beneath him with ease.

During this time, Huo Yuhao had successfully become familiar with several members of the Dingyi Merchant Association.

These merchant association members often traveled among the former Three Douluo Kingdoms, and some had even been to the Sun Moon Empire.

They knew of most places on the continent, including many locations that had not been described in detail in the original work.

For example, the central region of the Star Luo Empire contained the Tiger Fury Mountain Range, Tiger Might Mountain Range, and Tiger Roar Mountain Range. The three mountain ranges formed a central triangle and were an important gathering ground for Soul Beasts in the Star Luo Empire, mainly tiger-type Soul Beasts.

South of Beiming City, where they were located, lay a vast Disaster Mountain Range formed by the Disaster Mountain and the Cataclysm Mountain Range.

All kinds of natural disasters broke out in those mountains year-round. It was said that a Soul Master had once ventured deep into the range and encountered a peculiar lion-dog Soul Beast.

The Soul Beast was six meters long, covered in brilliant golden fur. It resembled a gigantic lion, but its face was a black dog face like Asura's.

That Soul Master had been a level ninety-six Super Douluo, whose Martial Soul was the Armored Rock Bear. Just from the name, one could tell he was a Titled Douluo who specialized in strength.

Yet, in his perception, that Soul Beast had cultivated for merely thirty thousand years. With his cultivation as a Super Douluo, he should have been able to kill it with ease.

Thus, he had not taken the Soul Beast seriously at first, merely releasing fluctuations of Soul Power in an attempt to drive it away.

Unexpectedly, he had enraged it. The Soul Beast unleashed a unique domain, and within it, it lost all reason and directly clashed with the Super Douluo head-on.

Incredibly, the Super Douluo had been severely injured by it. Half his body had nearly been blasted into pulp by some immense force.

Had he not possessed a Soul Bone skill for long-distance teleportation, he likely would have died there.

After that, practically no high-level Soul Masters dared to explore those mountains.

The merchant association member who told Huo Yuhao this story said it was fine to listen to it as a tale, but the events had happened far too long ago for their authenticity to be verified. Many people did not believe a thirty-thousand-year Soul Beast could defeat a Super Douluo.

Furthermore, the Soul Beast had possessed no draconic traits, proving that it lacked Dragon Clan Bloodline. How could a lion-dog Soul Beast accomplish something even Dragon Clan Soul Beasts found difficult?

However, Huo Yuhao knew the story was likely true.

The moment he heard the description of that Soul Beast, he realized it was the extinct Soul Beast from Legend of the Dragon King—the Golden Mane Lion Mastiff.

The Golden Mane Lion Mastiff was the ancestor of all dog-type Soul Beasts. In the original work, even Tang Wulin, who possessed the Golden Dragon King bloodline at rank ninety, had nearly been solo-killed by a Ten-Thousand-Year Golden Mane Lion Mastiff. That showed just how powerful this species was.

This was precisely why Huo Yuhao had made a point of getting close to these merchant association members: to learn the continent's various secrets and extract useful intelligence from them.

For instance, he now knew that a Golden Mane Lion Mastiff over thirty thousand years old lived in the Disaster Mountain Range. If he ever needed it in the future, he would not have to run all over the place looking for it.

Soon, the caravan passed through the Beiming Canyon ahead. Beyond the canyon lay the territory of the Heaven Dou Empire.

As they crossed the canyon, Huo Yuhao saw many abandoned military fortifications. Judging from the oxidized and damaged metal, they had likely gone unmaintained for a thousand years.

Huo Yuhao turned back and asked the enthusiastic merchant association guard, "Brother Li, logically speaking, this should be a strategic location, since it's the border between Heavenly Soul and Star Luo. Why are these fortifications so rundown?"

"And why isn't there a single army stationed on either side of the canyon?"

Hearing Huo Yuhao's question, Li Fei pointed westward. "Brother Danzo, you don't know this, but nearly all of Star Luo's troops are currently over by the Ming Dou Mountain Range."

"Only a few crucial chokepoints along the border with the Heaven Dou Empire have military camps stationed there."

"The high-level military alert against the Heaven Dou Empire was lifted a thousand years ago. It's said that experts from Shrek Academy stepped forward at the time and persuaded the two great empires to focus their efforts on guarding against the Sun Moon Empire."

Huo Yuhao nodded thoughtfully.

After leaving Beiming Canyon, a vast, lush grassland stretching beyond sight unfolded before them.

Green waves rolled in the wind like the sea. Occasionally, several unknown butterfly-type Soul Beasts fluttered between the rolling leaves, like stars leaping from emerald waves.

Huo Yuhao, who had never seen such a sight in his previous life, could not help but stare. The rich fragrance of soil and fresh grass in the air made him feel as though he were in a dream.

Or rather, even in his dreams in his previous life, he would not have dared imagine such beauty.

Seeing Huo Yuhao's intoxicated expression, Li Fei could not help saying, "Every time I pass through here, I'm stunned too. My hometown is in the eastern desert of the Star Luo Empire. That place has nothing but sand and rocks. Sometimes you can travel hundreds of miles without seeing even a bird!"

"But you can only see this scenery along this stretch of road. After that, it's all mountainous terrain."

Huo Yuhao did not continue talking with him. Sitting atop his horse, he slightly spread out his spiritual power and carefully sensed the wisps of breeze flowing past him.

This was the first time Huo Yuhao truly felt that he was living in a completely new world, a world brimming with vitality. It made him realize that this world was not merely rigid ink upon paper like in his previous life.

An unseen transformation occurred deep within Huo Yuhao's mind. If he opened his panel now, he would discover that his original 800 points of spiritual power were slowly increasing.

His control over the Authority of [Understanding] had also reached 3%.

After traveling for an entire day, they were still nine hundred li away from their destination, Xuanfeng City. They would arrive tomorrow afternoon.

The Heaven Dou Empire was not as safe at night as the Star Luo Empire. The caravan did not dare travel recklessly and could only spend the night in a valley.

In a secluded corner of the valley, Huo Yuhao and Xiao Xiao sat beside a campfire, grilling food.

Li Fei, who had just finished setting up a tent in the distance, walked over. Huo Yuhao picked up a grilled fish from beside the fire and handed it to him.

Li Fei wiped away his sweat, sat across from the campfire, took a bite of the fish, and began chewing.

Then his eyes lit up. "Brother Danzo, your grilled fish is absolutely incredible. I've traveled far and wide, but I've never tasted anything this delicious."

Xiao Xiao nodded in strong agreement. Even within the merchant association, she had never eaten grilled fish this good.

"I agree too! It's even better than the grilled fish at the God of Cookery Restaurant in Heaven Dou City!" She shook her little head as she spoke indistinctly through a mouthful of fish.

Huo Yuhao gently shook his head, indicating that they were exaggerating. Then, seemingly recalling something, he looked at Li Fei and asked,

"By the way, are there no cities around here? We've traveled for so long, yet we haven't seen a single city."

It was not only Huo Yuhao who found this strange. Xiao Xiao also stared at Li Fei with her sparkling eyes, clearly curious.

Although Xiao Xiao was the merchant association's young lady, she had rarely left home for various reasons. She was also curious about the situation in the Heaven Dou Empire.

Li Fei looked helplessly at the campfire before him and said,

"The Heaven Dou Empire and the Dou Ling Empire used to be one country, called the Heaven Dou Empire."

"When they split apart, the two empires fought for hundreds of years, causing their national strength to decline. After the war ended, the two great empires had barely begun to recuperate when the Sun Moon Empire arrived."

"That war, which swept across the continent, thoroughly destroyed the economies of the Heaven Dou and Dou Ling Empires at the time."

"Prices in the Heaven Dou Empire skyrocketed, refugees filled every city, and there were even cases of people eating people. Thus, large numbers of residents fled the cities and headed to the more fertile Heaven Dou Plain, where Shrek Academy stood guard, to survive."

"This resulted in virtually no cities along the Heaven Dou Empire's borders. Most cities were concentrated on the Heaven Dou Plain, and the cheap civilian labor even allowed Shrek City to become one of the continent's most prosperous cities in one leap!"

After explaining the reason to them, Li Fei quickly finished the grilled fish in two or three bites. Without even wiping the crumbs from his mouth, he stood and said to Huo Yuhao,

"Alright, brother. I'm going to stand watch on the outer perimeter. Leave the inner ring to you two."

After Li Fei slipped into the darkness, Huo Yuhao shooed the somewhat unwilling Xiao Xiao, who wanted to stand watch with him, into the tent as though driving a chick away.

"Tch, Uncle really has no human warmth."

After making a face at Huo Yuhao, Xiao Xiao pulled the tent shut and extinguished the Soul Tool lamp inside.

Huo Yuhao sat cross-legged beside the tent and entered a meditative state. At the same time, he slightly drew upon his spiritual power, using it together with Soul Power to vibrate the surrounding air and send out silent, peculiar waves.

He then received the reflected waves to investigate the surrounding situation.

This was a move Huo Yuhao had recently developed. In his previous life, he had at least been a Planetary Engine maintenance worker, so the principles and methods of producing ultrasonic waves came readily to him.

By using the resonant vibrations of spiritual power and Soul Power to simulate ultrasonic waves, he could receive the reflected waves with spiritual power and transmit them to his brain for analysis. Although this method was not as convenient as the Spiritual Detection from the original work, it consumed very little Soul Power and had a wide detection range.

Its drawback was that the brain needed to precisely and rapidly process the vast amount of information returned by the sound waves.

Only because Huo Yuhao's Martial Soul was the Spiritual Eye, and because it had evolved into the Mangekyo, could he control his spiritual power with such precision. An ordinary person would probably need ten years of training to master this move.

In the latter half of the night, the moon was obscured by Wu Yun at some unknown point. The campfire had long since burned out, leaving only the dim crimson glow of scattered embers in the valley.

Huo Yuhao's spiritual power suddenly stirred. His Spiritual Detection Sound Wave sensed something rapidly approaching from the eastern side of the valley.

"One, two, three..."

Huo Yuhao abruptly opened his eyes and looked toward the east of the valley. In the pitch-black night, he could faintly see startled birds taking flight.

Without the slightest hesitation, Huo Yuhao shouted loudly to everyone in the valley,

"Everyone, be alert! Something is happening east of the valley!!!"