As Mu En spoke, everyone's expressions grew increasingly solemn, and a firm resolve shone in their eyes.
Shrek was indeed an academy, but to the people of Shrek, it was also a belief.
Though everyone present held different views, they were all willing to give their lives for Shrek.
Even Yan Shaozhe, who had earlier urged Mu En to think it over, had been most deeply worried that opposing the Will of the Sea God might cause Shrek irreparable losses.
But once Mu En had explained all the consequences, everyone's position became one and the same.
In a word: Shrek could expel students, weed them out, and accept that they might die in battle, during Soul Hunting, or while carrying out a Surveillance Mission. But it could not accept selling out a student under the gaze of the entire continent.
Looking at everyone's expressions, Mu En nodded slightly.
He actually had an even deeper thought he hadn't voiced.
The Sea God's scheme might originally have succeeded, but now that the Heavenly Screen had exposed it, Sea God Tang San would have a much harder time manipulating Huo Yuhao!
Most importantly, the Heavenly Screen now covered Douluo Star. Could the Divine Realm see it?
If so, Sea God Tang San's interference in the Mortal World and violation of the law would inevitably put him in a very unfavorable position!
Even in the worst-case scenario, the God of Destruction, who was also an Enforcer, would keep Tang San under close watch, leaving him unable to influence Douluo Continent again.
In these circumstances, siding with the Sea God would not only cost Shrek the reputation it had built over ten thousand years, but also offer very slim odds of success. Even if the Sea God succeeded, Shrek would gain nothing.
But if the Sea God failed to take control of Huo Yuhao, Shrek would face a God King's retaliation! They'd lose everything and then some. Their destruction and eternal disgrace would be inevitable.
If they chose to support and protect Huo Yuhao, Shrek might face some difficulties and even suffer a serious setback in the short term. But with a reputation for standing against the Sea God to protect a student, Shrek could not be destroyed!
As long as Huo Yuhao could grow stronger, Shrek would reap unprecedented rewards! Judging by the Future Scenes shown on the Heavenly Screen, ascending together and sharing Eternity wouldn't be out of the question!
Should they risk everything to help a treacherous, vicious god, only to meet a miserable end? Or should they take on some manageable risks to help a student who might one day become a God King and would repay their kindness, and make Shrek great again?
Anyone with common sense knew which to choose.
Apart from the people Inside Shrek Academy, someone outside it was especially excited at that moment.
"Innate Evil Tang San! You dare scheme against Shrek's pride and joy?! You've chosen the Path to Death!"
Riding his Rank 8 Flying Soul Tool, Xuan Zi sped back toward Shrek, cursing all the while.
He no longer had time to capture the White Tiger Duchess and give her to Huo Yuhao as an enrollment gift.
"What kind of standing does the Tang Sect have? You think you can leech the fortune of Shrek's pride and joy? Keep dreaming! I'm going back to revoke your First Generation Shrek Degree!"
Unlike Mu En and the others, who had made their decision after careful deliberation, Xuan Zi's thinking was simple.
He knew only that Huo Yuyao, the Son of Destiny, could make Shrek great again by joining them. Meanwhile, Tang San, a graduate who'd left ten thousand years ago, wasn't helping the academy at all. Instead, he wanted to snatch someone from the very academy that had raised him!
That was outrageous!
So you were trying to poach from the academy? Take him to the Tang Sect and keep all the benefits for yourself? Steal Huo Yuhao's fortune to become a God King?
You must be out of your mind!
What was more important: a long-graduated student becoming a God King and bringing the academy little benefit, or making Shrek greater than ever?!
"Such a vicious, devious Evil Soul Master's way of doing things! As expected, you've been away from the academy too long. Without its guidance, you've gone astray! And you've made the academy a laughingstock in front of the entire continent!"
"You even destroyed the City of Slaughter, letting Evil Soul Masters run rampant across the continent in later generations. How many outstanding students from Shrek Inner Court died fighting Evil Soul Masters over the past ten thousand years? It was all your fault!"
The more Xuan Zi thought about it, the angrier he got. His teeth ground together. "Tang San, you deserve to die! If I'd been born ten thousand years ago, I'd have dealt with you myself, you evil little brat!"
"So this is the Sea God? How could the Clear Sky Sect have had an Ancestor like that... What a disgusting face."
Inside Shrek Academy, Wang Dong had finished enrolling and was standing before the statues of the First Generation Shrek Seven Devils and the academy's three founders. As he ate a snack, he frowned at the Heavenly Screen.
He'd once been proud that the Sea God was his ancestor. Now that pride had shattered to pieces, and he almost felt ashamed to let others know he belonged to the Clear Sky Sect.
He was afraid people would look at him differently.
Though it was hard to accept, Wang Dong glanced at the seven hundred-meter-tall statues of the Shrek Seven Devils and felt better.
The seven statues were arranged with great care. The statue of Thousand Hand Douluo Tang San, third in line, gazed tenderly at the imposing statue in fifth place.
"Hyena King Douluo Banban. Legend has it she was a hundred-thousand-year-old Spotted Hyena who took human form..."
"With that size and face, her portrait could ward off evil if hung on a door. If the Sea God fell so deeply in love with someone like that, his mental state must have been unusual from the start. It's understandable if he was a little perverted."
"Legend has it that when Hyena King Douluo first took human form, she was shunned everywhere because of her fierce, ugly face. Only Tang San didn't care about her looks. He even shared his bedding with her and slept in the same bed."
"Hyena King Douluo didn't let Tang San's devotion go to waste, either. She gifted him an External Soul Bone made from a Thousand-Legged Centipede that she'd kept in her collection. Whenever Tang San used it, more than a thousand centipede legs sprouted from his body. That was how he earned the title Thousand Hands Douluo."
As Wang Dong thought it over, her expression grew increasingly strange.
That was because Spotted Hyenas had a very famous trait: among canine and wolf-like Soul Beasts, they were one of the few Matriarchal Clans.
To fit in with wolf-like and canine Soul Beasts, the Female Leader of a Spotted Hyena pack would often grow a fake male organ and pretend to be male.
That was also why, for ten thousand years, rumors had circulated across the continent that Hyena King Douluo's thing could actually be used, and that Tang San had risen to prominence by selling his goods and winning her favor, earning himself a pile of treasures and benefits.
Wang Dong had never believed those rumors before. But now, having seen Tang San's gloomy expression on the Heavenly Screen, she suddenly thought perhaps the rumors weren't necessarily false.
Perhaps Sea God Tang San had spent so long selling his goods and being pinned beneath Hyena King Douluo that, over time, the repression had twisted him into the perverted, warped figure he'd become.
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