The corner of Zhu Lu's mouth twitched as she stood beside Dai Huabin. How had she never realized what an idiot he was?
Dai Huabin had always been so cold and rational. Had the desire to ascend to the Divine Realm blinded him and robbed him of his reason?
But whether Dai Huabin was truly stupid or simply blinded by the desire to ascend no longer mattered.
Until now, Zhu Lu had stayed by his side partly because she still had feelings for him.
Another reason was that, before Dai Huabin had someone assassinate Huo Yuhao in the Heavenly Screen and kill Huo Yun'er, there had still been hope of mending the rift between the White Tiger Duke Mansion and Huo Yuhao.
But now, that hope was gone.
Even if the White Tiger Duke himself stepped in, it would be useless. He would have to either abandon Dai Huabin and the Duchess, making them tools for Huo Yuhao to vent his anger on, or give up on reconciling with Huo Yuhao and protect Dai Huabin and the Duchess.
If Dai Hao chose the latter, there was no need to say more.
Even if Dai Hao chose the former, Huo Yuhao had resented him since childhood for abandoning his mother and leaving her to fend for herself. Seeing Dai Hao readily cast aside Dai Huabin and his mother for the sake of his own interests would only make Huo Yuhao hate him even more.
In other words, the relationship between Huo Yuhao and the White Tiger Duke Mansion had become an impossible knot to untangle!
In this situation, even though Zhu Lu still had feelings for Dai Huabin, she had to think of the Zhu Family.
If she continued seeing Dai Huabin, and Huo Yuhao took his anger out on them, she wouldn't be the only one to suffer.
Besides, with the Dai Family's inevitable decline now clear, the Zhu Family wouldn't allow her to keep seeing Dai Huabin. They would want to avoid offending someone destined to become a god.
Their ancestors might have included a deity, but they knew their own family best. Of the Shrek Seven Devils from ten thousand years ago, aside from Hyena King Douluo Banban, none had left behind any children before ascending.
So whether it was the Nine Treasure Glazed Sect, the Dai Family, or the Zhu Family, none of them had particularly close ties to their ancestors who had ascended.
The fact that the Dai Family had once been usurped by the Star Luo Xu Family, while War God Dai Mubai from the Divine Realm hadn't stepped in to help, made that clear.
Apparently, to those deities, all that mattered was that their families in the lower realm continued their bloodlines. Whether they declined or not was something they truly couldn't be bothered to manage.
At this thought, the affection in Zhu Lu's eyes gradually faded, replaced by resolve.
"Hu... Dai Huabin, I never thought you were so vile behind people's backs. You can't even accept a single defeat in a fair fight!"
Zhu Lu paused, then gritted her teeth. "Yuhao is such a good person, yet you treated him like this. I was wrong about you!"
Dai Huabin flew into a rage. "You!"
Zhu Lu cut him off. Since she had decided to sever ties, she would do it thoroughly. In a cold voice, she said, "I thought you'd become a hero who could stand tall between heaven and earth, but now I see you're just a lowlife skulking in the gutter!"
"Someone like you thinks Yuhao will take you along when he ascends? Keep dreaming!"
"I'm leaving. Don't contact me again. I don't want Yuhao to get the wrong idea!"
With that, Zhu Lu turned and prepared to leave without hesitation.
Dai Huabin was reeling from her tirade, his eyes bloodshot and his breathing ragged. He immediately activated Martial Soul Possession and roared, "Zhu Lu! You're asking to die!"
"What? Was I wrong?" Zhu Lu backed away and activated Martial Soul Possession too. The two martial souls that had once been one now displayed undisguised hostility toward each other.
And beyond the bitterness of turning against him, Zhu Lu even felt a little pleased.
If she took this chance to fight Dai Huabin, the news would spread throughout the academy in no time.
Then, when Huo Yuhao enrolled, he would hear that she and Dai Huabin had fallen out. If she got injured in the fight, that would make the break even more convincing!
"You bitch! I'll teach you a lesson today!" Dai Huabin roared and charged at her.
Shadows flickered around Zhu Lu as she fearlessly met his charge. "At least I'd never do something so despicable to my own family, you scum!"
The two of them clashed in a furious brawl, leaving their nearby classmates stunned.
Meanwhile, the scenes in the Heavenly Screen continued.
[After learning from Qian Duoduo that deities possessed the power to reverse death and bring the dead back to life, Huo Yuhao rallied from his pain and despair and began training even harder.
Then, one day, the mysterious Remnant Soul in his Sea of Consciousness awoke. After speaking with him, Huo Yuhao received news that chilled him to the bone.
"My name is Electrolux. You can call me Elder Yi."
Electrolux said, "Although I'm now only a Remnant Soul and have forgotten most of my past and many of my abilities, the rules of the world I lived in before were largely the same as those here, despite a few differences."
"If I use the strongest person in this academy as a point of comparison, my former realm should have been no weaker than that of the gods in this world. And when I was alive, resurrecting the dead was indeed no difficult task."
"Elder Yi, do you mean you can bring my mother back to life?!" Huo Yuhao asked, both startled and overjoyed.
"I'm sorry, child. I'm only a Remnant Soul now, and I no longer possess the abilities I had in life..." Electrolux said apologetically. "I only wanted to warn you about something."
Huo Yuhao was disappointed at first, but quickly rallied. "Elder Yi, please go on!"
"Resurrecting the dead is no difficult task for the powerful..."
Electrolux spoke slowly. "But the longer someone has been dead, the more difficult it becomes to bring them back!"
"If a dead person's soul isn't preserved by some special means, it will soon travel to the Underworld. After that, resurrection becomes much more difficult!"
"Most importantly, souls that have entered the Underworld will gradually dissipate under the influence of the Underworld Law, eventually becoming pure soul origin."
The more Huo Yuhao listened to Electrolux, the grimmer his expression became.
Electrolux's eyes filled with pity, but he still finished what he had to say. "Once that happens, no matter how powerful someone is, they won't be able to bring the soul back..."
When he finished, Huo Yuhao asked in a trembling voice, "Elder Yi, according to what you've said, how long can a soul last in the Underworld?"
Electrolux answered softly, "An ordinary soul that hasn't undergone any transformation can last, at most, three years."
After a pause, Electrolux looked at Huo Yuhao's despairing face and sighed.
"Child, I don't want to discourage you. But if I don't tell you now, you might exhaust every effort, finally become a god, and then discover that you can't undo this tragedy. The despair and pain you'd feel then might be what finally breaks you..."
Huo Yuhao fell silent for a moment. He looked up at Electrolux, who was worried for him, then at Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, who had been forced into a deep slumber after unleashing his power to save him from the earlier assassination attempt.
The fighting spirit rose once more in his clear eyes.
"Thank you, Elder Yi. I know you told me because you want what's best for me. But even if I know things might not turn out the way I want, I still have to try."
"Even if there's only a one-in-a-hundred chance—or even one in ten thousand—I have to seize it!"
"As long as I can bring my mother back, I'm willing to give up everything for it!"]