The fighting had ended, and the continent's balance of power had settled. The Douluo Continent entered a long-awaited period of relative peace, with the Tang Sect and Shrek Academy as its unseen pillars. The two great empires recuperated, while the Soul Master World flourished beneath the lingering shelter of the gods. Old grudges and the fires of war seemed to fade into legends recorded in history, following those figures who had ascended to the Divine Realm.
Yet in the deep-blue waters far from the continent's clamor, some scars had not been so easily smoothed away by time.
On Sea God Island, atop the Sacred Mountain, before the Sea God Hall.
Even its former majesty and sanctity seemed shrouded in a gloom that refused to disperse. Bo Saixi had sacrificed herself, and Tang San, inheritor of the Sea God, had ascended. This sacred island had lost its central beacon of faith and its supreme protector. Though the Sacred Pillars remained and the inheritance ceremonies continued, everyone could feel that the direct blessings and unsurpassed authority of the god had faded considerably.
A deeper, hidden ache lay at the summit of the Sacred Mountain, in that pure-white figure who had once ruled the seas.
Xiao Bai still lay upon a specially made recuperation platform fashioned from ten thousand year profound ice and soul-warming jade marrow. Several years had passed, yet her enormous body showed no signs of recovery. The grotesquely intertwined dark-purple and ashen patterns covering her skin remained as stubborn as maggots clinging to bone, winding and spreading. Only the forceful suppression of a vast blue divine power, visibly strained, kept them from erupting completely. Her breath was weak and uneven, like a dying candle in the wind. The once pure and boundless Sea God's power had dwindled to a faint