"Th-this... Of course it would be more appropriate to stay by your side."
Di Tian hesitated for a moment before replying.
That much was beyond dispute. After our lord took human form and lost her memories, we had expected it would take about three years for them to return.
Yet only about a year had passed before our lord fully recovered her memories and we found her. It was undoubtedly because she had stayed by Tang Heng's side.
"But we took our lord away so we could take revenge on humanity and revive the Soul Beasts..."
"Revive the Soul Beasts? You few think you can manage that?"
Tang Heng gave a cold laugh. The Ferocious Beasts all lowered their heads. They wanted to argue, but had nothing to say.
In a mere ten thousand years, they had been driven from almost the entirety of the Star Dou Great Forest. The number of land-dwelling Soul Beasts had fallen to less than a thousandth of what it had been ten thousand years ago.
And as guardians of the Soul Beasts, they were no match for humanity.
Seeing no hope, they had placed their hopes in a god beyond humanity's reach: the Silver Dragon King.
"The wheels of history crush everyone without mercy. Even a Supreme God King could fall over the course of endless years."
"In this life, I am human, so I understand humanity's advantages over the Soul Beasts. They are born with intelligence, something Soul Beasts cannot match, and they have built a true civilization."
"And Soul Beasts? After all these years, they still live by eating raw meat and drinking blood, by the law of the jungle."
Tang Heng looked at Di Tian, his expression calm. "Ten thousand years ago, your cultivation had already reached the pinnacle of this world. With an 890,000-year Yin-Yang Complementary Soul Core, not even the strongest humans, the Limit Douluo, could possibly defeat you."
"But what about now? Do you still have the confidence to say you could defeat one—or several—Limit Douluo wearing four-word Battle Armor?"
Di Tian fell silent.
With his Dragon God Claw, perhaps he could defeat a Limit Douluo wearing four-word Battle Armor.
But only in a fair, one-on-one duel.
Humanity's strength now far surpassed that of the Soul Beasts. It was a fact he had no choice but to accept.
If they forced a war, he and the others wouldn't even be enough to give the humans a toothache.
"This is only temporary. As human technology advances and develops, they will never limit their ambitions to the tiny Douluo Planet."
"By then, they'll create five-word and six-word Battle Armor, perhaps even super-divine mechs and more powerful warships."
Tang Heng spoke each word distinctly. "Even if you, Di Tian, become a god by then, I believe humanity will still have the means to kill one."
"This..." Di Tian trailed off.
Xiong Jun had the worst temper of them all. He protested furiously, "So we can only stand by and watch humanity wipe us out? The Divine Realm is absent. Now is the perfect time for us to strike back!"
Tang Heng shook his head and continued his bluff:
"True, the Divine Realm is vacant, and no one is watching over Douluo Planet. It certainly seems like the perfect time."
"But what can you few do to revive the Soul Beasts, even with that dark curtain in the sky temporarily gone?"
The Ferocious Beasts exchanged glances. Even Di Tian probably had no answer.
"Venerable, please enlighten us and show us the way forward."
Di Tian dropped to his knees, bowing until his forehead touched the ground. His sincerity was unmistakable.
Seeing this, Tang Heng felt a pang of emotion.
Di Tian had been one of the greatest among the Soul Beasts, hailed as the Beast God and possessing absolute power more than ten thousand years ago. Yet, for the greater good—for the Silver Dragon King—he had watched the Star Dou Great Forest, where he had lived for countless years, be invaded until only its core region remained.
He had watched his kind get captured one after another. Human powerhouses had challenged and humiliated him time and again.
Yet he had endured the humiliation and continued to guard the Star Dou Great Forest.
If not for the Silver Dragon King, if not for his duty as the Beast God, Di Tian could have simply left and gone into hiding. He could have enjoyed a long stretch of peaceful days.
No one in this world would have wanted to make an enemy of a Beast God who stood at the summit.
Given Di Tian's pride, Tang Heng believed that without the burdens of responsibility and restraint, he would have gone to war with humanity long ago.
But he had held back all the same. Then, at the final moment in the original story, just as success was within reach, his own lord declared that she was Tang Wulin's wife, not the sovereign of the Soul Beasts.
If Tang Heng put himself in Di Tian's place, he would have exploded on the spot.
Unfortunately, in the end, the Beast God had still fallen under Tang Buddha's spell. Ten thousand years later, he had become another dog in Third Brother's household.
How tragic! How lamentable!
"If you want to revive the Soul Beasts, just wait until I become a god. Within ten years, I will ascend to the rank of Supreme God King. Then I'll open a new plane for the Soul Beast Clan, and from that day on, we'll be entirely separated from humanity."
"If you want revenge on humanity, infiltrate the Spirit Pagoda. This organization controls the path by which human Soul Masters advance, and it is the foundation of the Soul Master World today."
Di Tian raised his head, countless scenes from the past ten thousand years flashing through his mind.
The young ones had endured hardship to become Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts, only to be slaughtered by humans for the cultivation they had gained.
Spirit Ice Douluo, from ten thousand years ago, had given him a glimmer of hope. But he had ascended to the Divine Realm in a hurry, and the Spirit Pagoda he left behind had completely betrayed its original purpose.
It should have been a bridge between humanity and the Soul Beasts. Instead, it had become the chief culprit behind the Soul Beasts' current plight, with extinction looming.
"I... I choose to revive the Soul Beasts..."
At that, Tang Heng let out a soft sigh.
The Dragon God was the god of the dragons, while the Beast God was the god of the Soul Beasts.
In the end, Tang Heng couldn't bear to leave him in the dark, so he told Di Tian the plan that should have unfolded as it did in the original story.
"Thank you, Venerable, for showing us the way!"
As Di Tian said this, he felt a weight lift from his shoulders.
He had borne too much for too long.
Now that the burden was gone and he felt light as a swallow, he found himself a little unaccustomed to it.
"I'll split the Silver Dragon King in two. Na'er will stay with me, while the other half will go with you to carry out the plan." (Gu Yue is one of the female leads, so don't worry, everyone.)
Tang Heng suddenly paused and looked at Di Tian.
"Di Tian, you're still suppressing your cultivation, aren't you?"
"Yes. Douluo Planet does not allow us Soul Beasts to become gods. We must face a tribulation every hundred thousand years. I've been stuck at 890,000 years for a long time now."
Tang Heng gave a slight nod. "Break through. Right here. You don't need to suppress your cultivation at all."
"This plane is my divine kingdom. Its laws surpass those of the mere Douluo Plane, so you needn't worry about the tribulation."
Di Tian didn't hesitate. He transformed into a gigantic black dragon, its eyes like golden pupils that would never go out.
The other Ferocious Beasts all raised their heads, watching Di Tian closely.
They, too, were plagued by tribulations.
If Di Tian could break through in this world, then they could as well.
Di Tian spiraled upward. His entire cultivation burst forth without restraint, and his age quickly broke through the Level 90 bottleneck, then continued to soar.
In the end, it stopped at 990,000 years.
The terrifying tribulation they had expected never came. The Ferocious Beasts all breathed a sigh of relief.
Di Tian transformed back into human form, his expression alight with excitement.
He could actually have tried to break through to the million-year level just now. At that point, he should have been able to become a god outright.
During the breakthrough, he hadn't sensed the suppression of the laws that he had felt on Douluo Planet. The rule that Soul Beasts could not become gods had long been accepted as fact, and it was a rule established by the Dragon God back then.
But the Venerable was still too weak to bring the laws of this world fully into Douluo Planet. Once he became a god and returned to Douluo Planet, the plane's consciousness would reject him.
Newly ascended gods had shallow foundations. He probably wouldn't be able to move freely around Douluo Continent for some time, which could interfere with the Venerable's plans.
That was why Di Tian had held his cultivation at the 990,000-year level, resisting the temptation to become a god.
"We swear to serve the Venerable with our lives!"
Before you continue