Trailing

Northwest of Star Luo City, White Tiger Duke Mansion.

At dawn, a boy of about eleven or twelve, with a well-proportioned build and dressed in grey cloth, slipped out from the back gate on the north side of the Duke Mansion.

After whispering a few words to himself like, "Mother, I will definitely return to avenge you," he cast one last hateful glance at the Duke Mansion, turned around, and headed toward the Star Dou Great Forest without looking back.

At the same time, in a patch of woods a kilometer away from the Duke Mansion, a black figure emerged slightly.

Watching this scene from afar, his entire body began to tremble uncontrollably. His slender, powerful hands gripped the corners of his clothes, tugging and pulling as if they were his enemies; fortunately, the fabric was of high quality, or it would have been torn to shreds.

Afterward, he turned and vanished into the woods.

A moment later, from another direction outside the woods, another boy appeared.

This boy looked to be about the same age as the one who had just left the Duke Mansion, or perhaps only slightly older.

He had large, clear black-and-white eyes, delicate brows, fair and refined skin, thin lips, and a straight nose. His temperament was elegant, and his long black hair hung loosely behind him without appearing unkempt. He wore a luxurious, dark-toned martial outfit with gold-threaded edges, and a large black hooded cloak draped over his back, accentuating his lean, slender frame.

He looked every bit the young noble of ancient times.

His features and physique were near perfect; had he been on Blue Star, any person of the opposite sex would likely have been momentarily dazed upon seeing him.

The boy was named Feng Piaoling, and he possessed two identities.

His first identity was that of an orphan adopted by Xu Tianran, the Crown Prince of the Sun Moon Empire. Because of his extraordinary talent in both Soul Master cultivation and Soul Tools, he had been highly valued by Xu Tianran since childhood.

Together with Ju Zi, the future Empress Dowager of the Sun Moon Empire who nearly unified the Douluo Continent, he was regarded as one of Xu Tianran's closest confidants.

This time, he had been ordered to infiltrate Shrek Academy to uncover information regarding the former Crown Prince, Xu He, and if possible, find an opportunity to eliminate him.

As for how Xu Tianran knew of Xu He's identity at Shrek, that brought us to Feng Piaoling's other identity.

He was a transmigrator.

In his previous life, he had died suddenly from overwork while binge-reading the novel Chinjao.

When he woke up again, he had been reincarnated into this world, ten thousand years after Tang San became a god.

He was born into a small border town in the Sun Moon Empire.

There was no "parents dead," no "broken engagement," and no "being bullied."

His mother ran a restaurant and possessed a Talisman Martial Soul, though she had no Soul Power.

His father was a Soul Master with a Green Lotus Sword Martial Soul; while not a top-tier Martial Soul, he had reached the level of a Soul Ancestor while only in his early twenties.

But when he was six, everything changed.

Evil Soul Masters attacked his city.

Including his parents, a crowd of civilians were all brutally murdered, leaving only him alive.

Watching the boy from the Duke Mansion moving further away, Feng Piaoling felt a thousand emotions stirring in his heart.

Unknowingly, it had been nearly twelve years since he transmigrated into this world.

He had experienced more excitement than in all the decades of his previous life combined.

From the high spirits he felt when he first arrived to his current inner stillness; from the terror that made him vomit while hiding in a rice jar as he watched his parents being killed, to the forbearance and composure he now held when facing his enemies.

At this very moment, the enemy who murdered his parents was all but revealed.

Those who killed his parents were indeed Evil Soul Masters, that much was true.

But the true mastermind behind it all was likely someone else entirely.

And the one with the greatest suspicion was undoubtedly the man who adopted him, Crown Prince Xu Tianran of the Sun Moon Empire.

As for why it was him, it was simple.

First, Xu Tianran was in league with the Holy Spirit Cult.

Second, the Evil Soul Masters had spent three days in that small city, killing, burning, and looting. They had wiped out every living thing on the street where his family lived—not even a dog or chicken was spared; even an earthworm would have been sliced in half.

Yet, they had failed to find him, hidden as he was in the rice jar.

When he was finally found, Xu Tianran had traveled thousands of miles to personally bring men and kill all the Evil Soul Masters.

Anyone with a shred of intelligence could see there was something wrong with that.

As for why Xu Tianran had set his sights on him, that was also simple.

Because he had a cheat.

The cheat was called Heaven Rewards Diligence.

As long as he found the right method and direction for any skill or technique and remained persistent, he would eventually succeed.

Depending on the difficulty—for instance, before his Martial Soul awakened, he practiced meditation to sense Soul Power every day. Feng Piaoling started at age one and persisted until he was four. After two and a half years of continuous effort, he finally sensed Soul Power.

In the two years that followed, through trial and error, he created a cultivation technique that suited him perfectly.

Relying on this technique, he not only cultivated Innate Full Soul Power but also sensed the Green Lotus Sword Martial Soul from his father and the Talisman Martial Soul from his mother within his bloodline.

Although neither was a particularly powerful Martial Soul, it was a very good start.

Relying on this self-created technique, he managed to avoid the mutual consumption of the Green Lotus Sword and the Talisman Martial Soul during his awakening, thereby successfully awakening Twin Martial Souls.

Furthermore, out of caution, when his father took him to the City Lord's Mansion to awaken his Martial Soul, he only displayed his Talisman Martial Soul.

Unexpectedly, as fate would have it, the local City Lord had actually attended Shrek Academy and was a fan of that fraud, the Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang, from ten thousand years ago.

Upon learning that Feng Piaoling had awakened with Innate Full Soul Power, he asked if he possessed a second, more powerful Martial Soul.

He naturally denied it outright, not even telling his parents, yet he never imagined it would still bring a catastrophe upon his family.

Given this, it is not hard to explain why Xu Tianran traveled all the way to this godforsaken border town to find him.

If Xu Tianran had approached him normally, out of consideration for his parents, Feng Piaoling might not have refused to pledge his loyalty, or even genuinely submitted to help him unify the continent.

But this madman should never, ever have brought in Evil Soul Masters to kill his parents.

And now, his revenge begins.

After leaving the Sun Moon Empire, he came directly here to lie in wait for Huo Dog, intending to intercept Tian Meng and Electrolux.

As for why he calls him Huo Dog?

Aside from being trained like a dog by Tang San in the middle and late stages, it is inseparable from his own dog-like character; those who know, know.

To intercept Tian Meng and Electrolux, he made extensive preparations.

In the five-plus years since awakening his Martial Soul, besides raising his own soul power to level thirty early on, he specifically tempered his mental power and successfully expanded his sea of consciousness.

The method for expanding his sea of consciousness was simple: he first had servants from the Sun Moon Empire's Crown Prince's Mansion throw stones at him, then gradually increased the difficulty by using Soul Tools to attack him.

He himself would release his mental power to dodge.

At first, he might have ended up bruised and battered, but as he continuously utilized his mental power, it grew, and he took the opportunity to expand his sea of consciousness.

During this period, he also created a mental cultivation and eye-refining technique called the Heaven-Reaching Demon Eye and a footwork technique called Clone Shadow.

The Heaven-Reaching Demon Eye can temper mental power and see through an enemy's weaknesses.

Clone Shadow provides astonishing speed and evasion capabilities, and it can create soul power projections to confuse enemies.

Either one of these would provide tremendous assistance in battle.