Shifting Undercurrents

Year 290 of Levant, year 370 of the Intermission, Dragon Valley Forest, the mountain where the spatial rift had opened.

Rus Wang had a rare companion following her after her visit to the Light Dragon King: Zi JI, the Hell Demon Dragon King, who had stayed in the Dragon Valley World to learn the Dragon Clan Secret Techniques from the Light Dragon King.

Zi JI wasn't especially gifted at learning. With the Light Dragon King's hard work and Barus's guidance and demonstrations, it had taken her a full twenty years to learn three Dragon Clan Secret Techniques that were extremely useful to Star Dou Forest and among the most important of their kind.

One technique hid its user from the gods' sight in the Divine Realm; another allowed a short-range random teleport within a hundred kilometers; the third created a ten-square-kilometer pocket world.

One for hiding, one for escape, and one to let the young grow up somewhere absolutely safe.

They could be created by engraving runes on the body, activating them directly with Soul Power, or using common materials from Douluo Planet to construct a rune array.

Barus had learned all three in just three years, while Zi JI had taken twenty. More importantly, Barus was a little dragon just over two hundred years old, barely an adult by Dragon Race standards (the age of adulthood here referred only to the ordinary lifespan of dragons; higher cultivation meant a longer lifespan). Zi JI, who had lived for tens of thousands of years, couldn't help feeling ashamed. It was a disgrace to the Dragon Race.

Even the Light Dragon King had sighed that if any dragon asked her who her teacher was in the future, she should simply leave the Light Dragon King's name out of it.

"This is such a disgrace to the Dragon Race. Really."

Zi JI, in human form, crouched on the ground with her hands over her cheeks.

"It's really nothing. If I had to learn them, I might do even worse than you, Zi JI."

"Your Majesty Rus Wang, don't tease me. Even if you couldn't learn the Dragon Clan Secret Techniques, the fact that you're now the Dragon King of Dragon Valley Forest and Zheer Continent means the Light Dragon King senior wouldn't say a thing to you."

During those twenty years of study, Zi JI couldn't have stayed in the Dragon Valley World the entire time, so she had naturally visited the northern lands of Folded Ear Continent, where the Elves lived. She'd become completely immersed in an environment where she didn't have to worry about being hunted. Why had the Elves appeared so late?

"Now I have to go back to Star Dou Forest and work alongside Di Tian and that brainless member of my own kind who's all strength and no sense. I'll have to teach them these three techniques and keep the Tang Sect, the Spirit Pagoda, Shrek Academy, and the human kingdoms from stealing them. What rotten luck."

After the Light Dragon King had crammed her full of basic knowledge about the Dragon Race and repeatedly reprimanded her while she learned the three techniques, Zi JI's mind had been reset like a computer. The cluttered data had been wiped, and it was finally running smoothly.

Under the Light Dragon King's tutelage, she had also come to agree that Di Tian, who had been born before her and once lived in the Dragon God Domain, had really wasted his life. Since the Dragon God's fall, he'd done nothing but hope that his master, the Silver Dragon King, would wake up. He'd probably forgotten every Dragon Clan Secret Technique by now.

"Oh, I'm afraid you won't be able to go back just yet, Zi JI."

Rus looked at Zi JI's crestfallen expression and shared what she considered less-than-good news.

"Huh? Did the Star Luo Empire try to launch its twenty-fourth Black Water River Battle against the Indigenous People's kingdom without even building proper roads, and fail again to break through the Great River Defense Line?"

"No. Based on reports from the Grey Feather Division agents embedded in human society and our military informants, something major has happened on the Star Luo Empire's home territory in Douluo Continent. In recent years, the number of people aboard ships sailing back to the empire's home territory from Star Luo Continent has been strictly limited. Meanwhile, shipments of shipbuilding materials from the mainland and the transport of people from the home territory to Star Luo Continent have increased dramatically."

"Yikes. Let me guess. If I remember right, after the generation that included that con artist Huo Yuhao was buried, the Star Luo Empire produced a Level 99 expert, the Dou Ling Empire produced a Level 99 expert, and Shrek Academy reliably had one of its own. When I sailed here, they were already pretty old."

Zi JI rubbed her chin, recalling the important figures who had maintained peace among the three kingdoms on Douluo Continent and kept them from being swallowed up by the Sun Moon Empire before she came to Dragon Valley Forest.

"If the Star Luo Empire is in such a hurry to move people from Douluo Continent to this place they call Star Luo Continent, it can only be related to the death of the Dou Ling Empire's Limit Douluo and the approaching end of the Star Luo Empire's Limit Douluo's lifespan, right?"

"Congratulations, Zi JI. You got it exactly right. The Limit Douluo of both the Star Luo Empire and the Dou Ling Empire are in trouble."

"Thirty-nine years have passed. Those two humans were both over two hundred years old. However tenacious they were, one must have died of old age, and how much strength could the other, with only a few decades left to live, still retain?"

This was one area where humans were utterly inferior to Soul Beasts. They killed Soul Beasts to obtain their Soul Rings, only to find that they had no hope of becoming gods.

Zi JI stood up, resting her hands behind her head, and sighed. "What a pity. The Soul Spirits from those Soul Rings hunted by humans have probably all dissipated, becoming resources that can't be recovered."

After thinking it over, Zi JI decided she might as well take a vacation before going back to suffer from high blood pressure. She turned to Rus Wang with a request.

"Since I can't return to Star Dou Forest anytime soon, take me to Folded Ear Continent, Your Majesty Rus Wang. I'd like to see your twenty-two-year-old granddaughter, Toriya."

Across the sea, on Douluo Continent, the royal family, military, and people of the Sun Moon Empire were celebrating and sharpening their blades, eagerly waiting for the other two of those three bastards to die of old age so they could launch the final battle to unify the continent.

By contrast, everyone in Shrek Academy, the Star Luo Empire, and the Dou Ling Empire was sunk in grief.

There was no other reason: the Dou Ling Empire's Limit Douluo had died.

On Sea God Island at Shrek Academy, Zhang Cheng, the Nation-Protecting Douluo who had secretly come from the Star Luo Empire, had age spots covering his resolute face. Though he still kept his usual composed expression, there was no hiding his signs of age.

Mu Huican, Shrek Academy's Limit Douluo, was in somewhat better shape, but not by much. The one advantage Shrek Academy had over the Star Luo Empire and the utterly finished Dou Ling Empire was that the academy had four Level 98 Titled Douluo. One of them was bound to reach Level 99 and take on the responsibilities of the Sea God Pavilion Master.

However, the next Sea God Pavilion Master would have an even harder time maintaining the stalemate between Shrek Academy, the Star Luo Empire, and the Dou Ling Empire on one side and the Sun Moon Empire on the other.

When Zhang Cheng took his seat, Mu Huican skipped any welcome ceremony and spoke directly.

"According to the information we commissioned the Tang Sect to gather, the Sun Moon Empire gained a Limit Douluo of its own a few years ago. She seems to be very young, only a little over a hundred years old."

In an instant, a heavy atmosphere settled over the previously quiet wooden hut.

"Is the information reliable?"

"The Tang Sect told us that one of their Level 94 experts died while investigating whether the Sun Moon Empire had a Limit Douluo. The Sun Moon Empire hasn't made any public announcement about it either, so the information is absolutely reliable."

"Then I'm afraid our Star Luo Empire will have to begin the Mountain Relocation Plan ahead of schedule."