Heavenly Tribulation and the Arrival of the New Dragon

In the Douluo World, there is a rule among Soul Beasts: no matter what, a Soul Beast can never become a god. Even if they reach the million-year level, the God Realm will not accept them. All of this is because of the order issued by the Dragon God; as long as the Dragon God does not appear, no divine beast can ascend to godhood in the God Realm!

At this point, Soul Beasts have three paths they can take. The first is to transform into a human and marry someone capable of becoming a god, but this path is currently blocked—don't ask why. The second is to become a Soul Spirit, similar to Huo Yuhao, residing within a human's Sea of Consciousness to reach the God Realm and achieve godhood. However, this is completely different from the spirits in Pokémon or Seer; it is more like being a slave. In the former, if a Pokémon is unhappy—like Ash's Charizard—it can just sleep during a match. In the early plot of Seer, when a team is in a desperate situation, Xiaomi immediately "recharges" to become a three-minute pay-to-win player, trading one-for-one against divine beasts and remaining invincible against anything below them.

The third path is quite desperate: wait several hundred years to face the Heavenly Tribulation and become a Fierce Beast. But not every Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast can become a Fierce Beast; if they cannot withstand the Heavenly Tribulation, they will surely be obliterated, body and soul. Rus Wang, who knows the plot, is well aware of why this path is so hopeless. The Silver Dragon King is a fool; even by the time of Douluo 4, when she is the Dragon God, her decision-making is still abysmal. When Di Tian was about to perish, she was nowhere to be found. That man had diligently followed her orders for tens of thousands of years, enduring her various antics without rebelling, remaining a loyal subject until his death. In the end, he didn't even become a god official, and he died shielding Lan Xuanyu from the Heavenly Tribulation. As for when Lan Xuanyu will become a God King, who knows?

So, when his wife, the Female Water Dragon, prepared to face the hundred-thousand-year Heavenly Tribulation alone, Rus Wang was truly anxious. His wife is actually not stupid; she managed to learn how to count and read while only having ten thousand years of cultivation, which is a remarkable feat. If she already had a hundred-thousand-year lifespan, Rus Wang would have even more confidence in teaching her to be a Soul Beast with human intelligence. As for what she would become in the end, as long as it wasn't the level of intelligence of the Silver Dragon King, Rus Wang was willing to look after her in every way.

"Don't!"

After placing several Energy Shields on his five cubs, Rus Wang chased after the Female Water Dragon. But less than a minute later, Rus Wang's figure returned to the pool. He was worried about his wife, but he wasn't a fool. As the king of the Nanshan Rainforest on the Zheer Continent, he was crystal clear about the situation of the Soul Beasts fleeing here.

A few measly, makeshift Energy Shields could be shattered in a few hits by many special Soul Beasts with ten-thousand-year cultivation levels, who would then slaughter his cubs.

He dug a hole for the five cubs, placed them inside, and surrounded them with dozens of Energy Magic Arrays capable of triggering defensive skills. He also installed several sets of shields on the cubs themselves, capable of fully handling attacks from those ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts, before he felt at ease enough to leave.

The Female Water Dragon walked toward the depths of the Nanshan Rainforest. The further she went, the denser the trees became, and the sunlight found it increasingly difficult to penetrate the canopy.

Even if there was no hope for a hundred-thousand-year lifespan, she should at least find a suitable place to die.

The Female Water Dragon felt the fluctuation of Rus Wang chasing her halfway before turning back, and her mind began to race.

She did not worry about what would happen to her Bloodline Crystal after she was gone; she trusted Rus Wang to take care of the children. From the moment she had sent a signal to Rus Wang—this Soul Beast that looked like a dragon—she had determined that he would be a competent father. He would look after the children until they reached the thousand-year level and could survive on their own.

The life of the Female Water Dragon could be described as extremely turbulent. She was born in the forests of the continent occupied by the Sun Moon Empire in Douluo 3, protected by her mother for only the first twenty years of her life, while her father was nowhere to be found. During those twenty years, humans would occasionally send people to hunt Soul Beasts to obtain soul rings. Many of them set their sights on her while she was still young, but they were all driven back by her mother.

But after the twentieth year, everything changed. Her mother was killed by a powerful human and turned into a soul ring. At that time, she hadn't even reached four hundred years of cultivation, and she began a difficult struggle for survival; sometimes, she couldn't even catch a fish.

A million desperate escapes, hunts, and life-and-death struggles—summarized, it was the most primitive instinct of a living being: survival.

Later, she finally reached the ten-thousand-year level and had a lake of her own. But the countless experiences of dodging human pursuits, Soul Beast hunts, and fighting for food and territory allowed her brain to break through the original savagery of a Soul Beast and begin to distinguish and think. All of this was exchanged for the painful, deep-seated struggle and survival she had endured from the age of twenty to over three thousand.

In the four-hundredth year of her third millennium, she keenly noticed that the humans entering the forest had been replaced by a new batch. Their cries were completely different from the previous humans, and they were even more powerful, addicted to slaughter. She even saw the fate of the captured Soul Beasts.

They were still alive, but they were alive in captivity, stripped of their bodies by humans and imprisoned as unknown energy clusters, waiting to be chosen by human cubs. That wasn't living at all; it was just existing to be wantonly picked by humans.

The Female Water Dragon was furious, but her reason and self-restraint allowed her to think calmly. A mere ten-thousand-year-old beast could not defeat the things in human hands. The top priority remained migration and survival, not conflict with humans, and certainly not being discovered by them.

Over the next two hundred years, she constantly hid and dodged on the continent where she grew up, venturing into places inaccessible to humans to avoid their sight.

Gradually, as she migrated further south, the temperature became colder, and even completely white, icy environments began to appear. This was not a good destination for her, as a water-attribute creature, because there was less and less food available.

But she could never shake off the footsteps of humans; another area of ice-attribute Soul Beasts was slaughtered by them. With no other choice, the Female Water Dragon chose to head south, to cross that area with chaotic magnetic fields. She crossed the empty sea ice surface, flew over the bone-chilling ocean, and avoided the ill intentions of the Sea Soul Beasts.

Finally, she succeeded and arrived at a corner of a New Continent. Even if it was just an icy environment, the density of the heaven and earth energy was far greater than that of her first territory in the forest. And humans did not follow her footsteps here afterward; she could finally rest her legs. When she encountered the first coniferous forest zone on the New Continent, she gorged herself on the local "Soul Beasts."

While feeling the joy of finally having a full stomach after a long time, she was puzzled that the creatures of this continent did not produce soul rings after being killed by her, unlike the Soul Beasts she had killed on the Old Continent.

The food had truly entered her stomach and filled her up, but the absence of soul rings was also a reality. These local Soul Beasts might not be Soul Beasts at all, but a new type of creature, which made the Female Water Dragon feel astonished.

The New Continent she had broken into was even more mysterious than she had imagined.

The Female Water Dragon began to explore everything on this New Continent. She continued to move further toward what she thought was the south.

The temperature began to warm up, and food became more abundant, including some existences that could hurt her. But coincidentally, the New Continent "Soul Beasts" she hunted still did not have the soul rings that Soul Beasts should have.

The Female Water Dragon had no choice but to continue investigating to discover the secrets of this continent.

A few months later, she discovered a group of upright, two-legged things that looked very much like humans, but their long ears and the soul power reactions that were so low they were practically non-existent made her feel puzzled.

That shouldn't be right? Were these humans or not? She did not choose to treat these guys as human kin and take revenge; instead, she quietly chose to observe.

Another few months passed. During this time, the Female Water Dragon continued to observe the Pointy-Ears, who launched clan-wide hunts for the sake of what she considered food. During this period, she even saw several Soul Beasts that had fled here just like her, launching retaliatory massacres against these two-legged beasts.

It was almost one-sided; the powerful ones among these two-legged beasts seemed not to exist, and they never appeared until they were all killed by the Soul Beasts. After months of observation, the Female Water Dragon tentatively concluded that these Pointy-Ears were not humans, and they had no grudge against the Soul Beasts. She and those other Soul Beasts were the outsiders on this continent.

The Female Water Dragon then intended to continue moving "south," because the further "south" she went, the denser the heaven and earth energy became, which had a fatal temptation for a Soul Beast relying on age for longevity.

Then, while passing near another Pointy-Ear tribe being slaughtered by other Soul Beasts, she felt a long-lost pressure, like that of a Fierce Beast over a hundred thousand years old.

Had the powerful ones of the Pointy-Ears finally appeared?

At that time, she hid in the nearest body of water with the fastest speed of her life, but as it turned out, it was not them. It was a blue, dragon-like creature. That was her first time observing Rus Wang, the guardian beast of these Pointy-Ears and the most powerful existence currently known on this continent.

He almost instantly killed the Soul Beast that was slaughtering the Pointy-Ears with one bite, then used his soul power to lift the remaining Pointy-Ears and settle them in what is now the Levant Region, carrying out a human-like rule.

At that time, the Female Water Dragon could be said to have watched the departing Rus Wang with feelings of anger, dissatisfaction, and confusion.

However, as Rus Wang continued to kill Soul Beasts that dared to kill the Pointy-Ears, and with her own meticulous observation of these long-eared creatures, the Female Water Dragon completely stopped equating the Pointy-Ears with humans.

Because she discovered that as Rus Wang bestowed various technologies originally possessed by humans upon these long-eared creatures, the well-fed Pointy-Ears began to grow strong. Under the protection of Rus Wang, they actually achieved soul power reactions of over level twenty—the level of human cubs in the old continent—without obtaining soul rings! And it wasn't just one individual, but hundreds! And it would only increase over time.

Combining the phenomenon that the native creatures of this New Continent had no soul rings with the behavior of this hundred-thousand-year-level existence protecting the Pointy-Ears, the Female Water Dragon realized what Rus Wang was doing. He intended to use this group of Pointy-Ears as his own kin. He wanted to ensure that before this continent was discovered by humans, these Pointy-Ears, who could increase their cultivation without needing Soul Beast rings and had the possibility of coexisting with foreign Soul Beasts, would be deeply bound to the Soul Beasts. This way, in the future, when humans discovered this continent, they could join forces with the Pointy-Ears to fight against humans together!

He was planning all of this in advance. Killing Soul Beasts to protect the Pointy-Ears was not a betrayal of the Soul Beast collective. Instead, he saw the biggest difference between these Pointy-Ears and humans in the long run. Protecting the still-weak Pointy-Ears was, for the Soul Beast race, more beneficial than harmful.

Slowly, the Female Water Dragon began to try to contact this strongest "Soul Beast" known on the New Continent.

At first, she was very careful, only leaving her scent around the territory and then hiding to observe. Because of her thousand years of experience, she knew very well that among the Dragon Race, even if a female dragon accidentally entered a male dragon's territory, the other party wouldn't care who you were. As long as you entered the territory, regardless of whether you were male or female, they would attack you all the same.

Slowly, she felt that Rus Wang began to intentionally follow her, but he still maintained a considerable safety distance, watching each other from far away. Only later, after the two sides began to close the distance more and more, did the Female Water Dragon finally confirm that the strongest "Soul Beast" on this continent looked a bit like a dragon, but was indeed a member of the Dragon Race, because the two could communicate in the same language, and the other party intended to reproduce with her. (In Seer, Rus Wang only has the water attribute, but I think Rus Wang's character design is a dragon, so he should have the dragon attribute.)

In the time they spent together, the Female Water Dragon also learned the name of this dragon: Rus. And those protected Pointy-Ears, the native intelligent species of this New Continent in Rus's words, the Elves, called him Rus Wang.

During the time spent with him, Rus Wang took the Female Water Dragon to learn the Elvish Language, which was different from human language, and traveled through the rainforest, letting her know the regional blocks of the New Continent and the locations of the rich resources throughout the Nanshan Rainforest. He also allowed the other ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts that had fled here and were arranged by Rus in various parts of the rainforest to choose their preferred egg-laying locations. Later, under his protection, she was able to safely lay her first batch of offspring in the depths of the rainforest where the heaven and earth energy was most intense—a reproductive act she had never dared to hope for while constantly suppressing her estrus cycle.

She spent the two most comfortable years of her life, aside from the twenty years she spent with her mother.

Ever since Rus Wang brought the Female Water Dragon to visit the villages of the Elves several times, she felt that her cultivation age was increasing a bit too rapidly. When she arrived at the New Continent, she was only at eighty-five thousand years of age, and upon first reaching the Nanshan Rainforest, where the essence of heaven and earth is most concentrated, she had only just reached ninety thousand and one hundred years. Now, in just a few months, her age was skyrocketing every single day.

Are you not going to let me live in peace?

After the Female Water Dragon secured a prime location to undergo her Heavenly Tribulation, she lay down silently and thought as she watched the dark clouds gathering in the sky above.

But so be it, these past two years have been enough.

The Female Water Dragon felt a sense of relief; in this life, she had lived too bitterly and fought too exhaustingly just to survive. Having swallowed countless pains, it was enough to have these brief moments of comfort before the final moment of the Heavenly Tribulation.

Rustle, rustle—

Trees were being violently snapped; it was the aura of Rus!

The Female Water Dragon was horrified. She roared at the approaching Rus Wang, her mind echoing with accusations and disbelief.

Rus Wang did not stop his advance, charging straight toward the Female Water Dragon, while she continued to retreat.

"I beg you, go back! The children will be without this burden of mine, but at least they will have you!"

Rus did not speak, only running blindly toward the Female Water Dragon. The lightning of the Heavenly Tribulation, however, would not concern itself with the actions between Rus Wang and the Female Water Dragon, striking down directly. In an instant, ten-thousand-year soul beasts throughout the Nanshan Rainforest felt the stirrings of the Heavenly Tribulation and began to grow restless.

Among them, a Dark Gold Terror Claw Bear with remnants of Behemoth blood and over seventy thousand years of age could not suppress its glee. Without a second thought, it charged into the restricted zone marked by Rus Wang to investigate in person: was it the fall of Rus Wang, or the fall of the Female Water Dragon? Or would it discover that one of them had become even more powerful, only to be hunted to the ends of the earth?

...Three days later...

Health Bar: 462/469

Rus Wang looked at the health bar on his panel, and his posture immediately became arrogant as he walked.

"In the battle mechanics of Seer, this Heavenly Tribulation doesn't even deal double-digit damage to species that don't match the target. It's hilarious."

As Rus Wang led the Female Water Dragon—who had successfully broken through the one-hundred-thousand-year threshold and stabilized her realm after he took the brunt of the Heavenly Tribulation for her—toward the cave of their cubs, both of them stopped in their tracks.

The area was completely unrecognizable, destroyed by the defensive mechanisms Rus Wang had previously set up around the cubs' cave. The culprit who triggered it all, the Dark Gold Terror Claw Bear, was covered in wounds with its bones exposed, pinned under the claws of a female Dark Night Dragon with over sixty thousand years of age. Their five cubs were gathered around this female dragon; it was clear at a glance who the loyal subject was.

Seeing Rus Wang return with the successfully ascended Female Water Dragon, the latter respectfully lowered her head.

"Congratulations to the Queen on your breakthrough."

But after saying this, Rus Wang, the Female Water Dragon, the Dark Night Dragon, the Dark Gold Terror Claw Bear, and the five cubs all stared at each other in silence, as if time had frozen.

One millisecond passed, then two.

As the Female Water Dragon realized that her cubs had been targeted by a malicious beast while she was undergoing her Heavenly Tribulation—triggering the protective mechanism her husband had placed on them before he went to find her—she let out a roar filled with infinite fury. Rus Wang also immediately activated [Skill: Water and Sky of One Color] to boost his attack power, causing a massive commotion throughout the rainforest.

The Dark Night Dragon silently moved to the side with the five cubs, using her wings to shield their vision so they would not see the gruesome death of the Dark Gold Terror Claw.

The entire southern part of the Nanshan Rainforest was in turmoil; even the Elves in the Levant Region felt it as the ground trembled continuously.