"During the Douluo II era, there were only a handful of top powers: the Four Great Empires, Shrek Academy, the Body Sect, the Clear Sky Sect, Mingde Hall, and then a few other academies and sects."
"Sects were generally closed off to outsiders. Unless you signed away your freedom and went in to be their dog, you had no chance. Academies were more complicated, and aside from Shrek Academy, none had top-tier experts to protect them. They also lacked the most advanced inheritance of knowledge."
"The Body Sect only accepted those with Body Martial Souls, and the Clear Sky Sect was even more exclusive. They only recognized the Clear Sky Hammer, and they were half-hidden from the world, not recruiting anyone.
"Not to mention, Da Ming and Er Ming were stationed over there at God King Tang's behest. If God King Tang discovered that I was a transmigrator, the outcome would be hard to predict. He might toss me a dog collar—or just erase me outright, so I wouldn't interfere with his dog-training plan and his grand scheme for ten thousand years."
"Mingde Hall focused primarily on developing Soul Tools, but what I needed more were the resources and knowledge related to Soul Master cultivation. Besides, Mingde Hall had no top experts guarding it either. The Body Sect had already swooped in and taken advantage of them once. It wasn't safe."
"That left only the Holy Spirit Cult. It had several Titled Douluo and Super Douluo, and even two Limit Douluo. It was perfect for finding a powerful backer. The only problem was that it was a little dangerous, given that every member was an Evil Soul Master."
After ruling out the options one by one, Yang Hao's thoughts turned to the Holy Spirit Cult. It was a villainous organization, but it truly had abundant resources—and plenty of strength to back them up.
As for the Four Great Empires, the Three Great Empires of Douluo had already posted wanted notices for him. There was almost no chance he could clear his name.
The Sun Moon Empire had plenty of problems of its own. It was in the middle of a succession struggle, and even the crown prince had been mutilated below the waist, leaving him a crippled yet resolute heir.
If his scrawny self got dragged into that mess, he probably wouldn't even have a scrap of bone left.
Besides...
"Xu Tianran is no pushover. It's too dangerous. He's not worth throwing in my lot with."
Most importantly, there was no reliable person to turn to in the Sun Moon Empire. There was no need to mention the other princes—they would all be killed by Xu Tianran later, and Yang Hao didn't know anything about them anyway.
Crown Prince Xu Tianran's nature spoke for itself. Yang Hao didn't want to be schemed against and killed by him in the future.
So the Holy Spirit Cult was his only choice. Besides, he had a strategic weapon of mass destruction like Explosives. With the Holy Spirit Cult's ambitions, they would surely take him seriously.
As he thought about the Holy Spirit Cult, Yang Hao suddenly noticed the sword and blade Martial Souls laid out before him. Looking at their sacred and evil attributes, he thought of the Holy Spirit Cult's Supreme Sect Leader, Death God Douluo Ye Xishui—one of the three greatest backers among humanity today.
"This seems even better. These days, the cheat system has long since updated. It's gone from an old grandpa to a mom. Chen Ping'an has his Sword Mom, Huang Tiandi has his Willow Mom. They're both incredibly powerful. I could get one too!"
Women were more emotional, after all. Once he earned her approval, she would protect her own without needing to justify it.
Ye Xishui had Twin Martial Souls: the Blood Soul Demon Puppet and the Bright Phoenix Martial Soul she had kept hidden all along. One had dark, evil attributes, while the other had light attributes.
His own blade-and-sword Martial Souls were opposites, with sacred and evil attributes. Perhaps that could be his way in.
"If I could make up an experience similar to hers and win her sympathy through shared pain, I could become a freeloader in Douluo."
"If my acting was good enough, I could even become the last glimmer of light in her heart—the new moon she couldn't forget."
The more he thought about it, the more excited Yang Hao became. He felt this plan had a real chance of working.
That was right. He planned to use a beauty trap on Death God Douluo.
He was a man, but that wasn't a problem.
It was called a beauty trap, not a beautiful-woman trap, because beauty had no gender restriction. It could be a woman or a man.
Besides, beauty traps came in different grades. Using good looks to seduce someone was the lowest sort of tactic. The truly sophisticated ones worked their way into the heart.
And the ultimate way to win someone's heart was to become the person they used to be—or to embody their past regrets.
Ye Xishui's past had been filled with regret and sorrow. It had even driven her mad. She was practically a copy of Bibi Dong.
If she could go back in time and live her life over, she would surely abandon everything she had now and start again.
She had even indirectly tried to do this before: she had risked her life to test Long Xiaoyao's feelings, making up for the regret of him not coming to find her back then. After that, she had become a little woman, utterly obedient to Long Xiaoyao.
Yang Hao couldn't give her a true second chance at life, but he could do something similar in an indirect way, putting himself in circumstances like those Ye Xishui had once faced.
As for the most top-tier beauty trap, just look at that German art student—a peerless Succubus.
Of course, if the sophisticated beauty trap failed, he could try a lower-grade one too. He knew a thing or two about the language of the steel wool ball.
"Right, she supposedly had a child with Long Xiaoyao too. Later, to keep the previous Holy Spirit Cult leader from discovering the child, she sent him away to be raised elsewhere. Yan Shaozhe of Shrek Academy seems to be descended from that line.
"That's another regret. Maybe I can use Hu Liena's character from the Douluo I era as a reference and go there as a well-behaved little boy."
With that thought, Yang Hao gradually began to formulate a plan.
Since he was looking for a powerful backer, he naturally had to latch onto the biggest, strongest one. As long as he got his arms around Ye Xishui's massive thigh, he could stride sideways through the Holy Spirit Cult and gain access to even more resources.
After laying out his plan, Yang Hao rested for a night to restore his energy. The next day, he gazed toward the western horizon, his heart pounding with excitement.
"Mother Ye, I'm coming!"
He set off west at once. He didn't ride a horse again, but ran on his own two legs, both to adjust to his greatly enhanced physique and to shed the layer of fat on his body through exercise.
Most women were creatures of beauty. If he wanted to win Ye Xishui over, he didn't need to be handsome, but he had to be presentable. Losing weight was the most efficient way to improve his looks.
Besides that, he needed to study and refine his movement technique. After comprehending the Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track from the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record, he had used it as a foundation to create a brand-new light-footed movement technique that let him dash over long distances.
Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track excelled at dodging and weaving in a small area, making it useful in close combat, but it offered no advantage over long-distance sprints.
To solve that, he had used his Golden Finger to boost his comprehension and developed the Grass-Gliding movement technique.
With his powerful physique and light-footed movement technique, Yang Hao moved very quickly. A few days later, he reached the Mingdou Mountain Range.
He didn't stop to rest. He plunged straight in and headed rapidly west, while pushing his perception to its limit, especially his sensitivity to evil and dark attributes.
There were many powerful Evil Soul Masters in the Mingdou Mountain Range. Evil Soul Masters generally possessed attributes like evil and darkness, so if he sensed any, he could avoid them immediately and spare himself a lot of trouble.
He only wanted to get into the Sun Moon Empire as quickly as possible. He didn't want to invite complications.
But that plan soon changed.
Deep in the night, Yang Hao spotted a dazzling firelight in the distance and took out a Soul Tool telescope to observe it.
"Fire Phoenix? Is that Ma Xiaotao? Did she come here on a mission as an inspector?"
Seeing the Fire Phoenix-shaped Soul Skill in the distance, Yang Hao immediately thought of Ma Xiaotao from Shrek Academy.
"Who are they fighting? Could it be an Evil Soul Master from the Holy Spirit Cult?"
After thinking it over, Yang Hao decided to sneak over and take a look.
Powerful Evil Soul Masters were almost all from the Holy Spirit Cult. If they could fight Ma Xiaotao and the others so fiercely, they had to be strong. There was a good chance they were experts from the Holy Spirit Cult, especially since this was the border of the Sun Moon Empire, and the Holy Spirit Cult's headquarters was inside the empire.
If they really were Evil Soul Masters from the Holy Spirit Cult, he could find a way to use them as a breakthrough and slip into the organization.
Although he was no longer weak, he still lacked high-level Soul Master cultivation knowledge. Such knowledge was treasured by the various great powers and couldn't be bought, no matter how much one offered. The only way to obtain it was to join a power.
Otherwise, the secrets of Soul Master cultivation on the Douluo Continent would have long since been stolen wholesale by the Sun Moon Empire. The Sun Moon Empire also kept a tight lock on high-level knowledge about the Soul Engineer system.
Joining the Holy Spirit Cult was the best choice right now. It had many powerful experts, even two Level 99 Limit Douluo. They were certain to possess the most advanced cultivation knowledge, exactly what he needed.
Yang Hao acted as soon as the thought came to him. Using the cover of night, he ran toward the battlefield, but didn't get too close. He watched from afar through the telescope.
"That Martial Soul—is it the Ten Thousand Soul Banner?"
Through the telescope, Yang Hao saw the figure being surrounded and attacked by Ma Xiaotao and the others, and thought of the Ten Thousand Soul Douluo from the Holy Spirit Cult.
The man before him only had seven Soul Rings, but that made sense. It was still very early in the timeline.
Chapter 15: Evil Fire Runs Wild
"Brats from Shrek, you're all going to die!"
"Martial Soul Avatar!"
Ten Thousand Soul was in a sorry state and furious. He stopped holding back and decisively used his Seventh Soul Skill—the Martial Soul Avatar.
The Ten Thousand Soul Banner rapidly grew larger, and he merged into it, becoming its main soul and gaining even greater control over the vengeful spirits.
Thousands of vengeful spirits blotted out the sky. The various negative emotions they contained formed a mental attack that left the others agitated and confused.
Ma Xiaotao was affected most of all. Her Evil Fire Phoenix Martial Soul already possessed evil attributes, and the Evil Fire it produced had always tormented her.
The Evil Fire she had kept suppressed was now provoked by the negative emotions and erupted, making her consciousness turn volatile and even muddled.
"Xiaotao!"
"Fall back!"
Wang Yan, the teacher leading the team, paled and immediately ordered them to retreat.
He knew all too well about the hidden flaw in Ma Xiaotao's Martial Soul. If her Evil Fire erupted and ran out of control, she might attack the rest of them too.
They had to retreat as quickly as possible and let Ma Xiaotao suppress the Evil Fire inside her.
"Fall back!"
Dai Yueheng glanced at the Evil Soul Master's Martial Soul Avatar and the thousands of vengeful spirits. He gave the order to retreat, unwilling as he was to do so.
This was their second failed mission since joining the Shrek Inspectorate. What a disgrace!
"Xiaotao, let's go!"
Gongyang Mo, who could fly, rushed over and grabbed Ma Xiaotao by the wrist, carrying her away at speed. The others retreated in good order as well.
"You think you can get away? Not a chance."
Ten Thousand Soul roared, controlling the Ten Thousand Soul Banner to lead the thousands of vengeful spirits in pursuit.
"Phoenix Evil Fire. What a treasure!"
Watching them disappear into the distance, Yang Hao turned his gaze to the flames left behind by Ma Xiaotao's Soul Skill, his eyes shining.
He hurried over and extended his Spider Leg Soul Bone, using the spider leg with fire attributes to devour the flames.
The Phoenix Evil Fire was rapidly devoured and absorbed, fusing with the fire attribute power inside the Soul Bone.
But the Gold of Life once again repelled and separated the evil attributes within it. Yang Hao guided the expelled evil energy into the Demon Blade.
With the evil energy gone, the Phoenix Flame returned to its pure state, gradually taking on a hint of the essence of Ultimate Fire.
The Fire Phoenix Martial Soul was one of the highest-ranked divine beast Martial Souls, so it naturally possessed Ultimate Attributes.
Ma Xiaotao's Evil Fire Phoenix Martial Soul, however, was impure, tainted by evil energy.
Just like Ma Hongjun ten thousand years ago, she could only restore the purity of the Fire Phoenix Martial Soul and reveal the power of Ultimate Fire by removing that evil energy.
Now, by relying on the domineering power of the Gold of Life to drive the evil energy out of the Phoenix Flame, Yang Hao had essentially restored the Phoenix Flame to purity.
Besides, the power of the Gold of Life was also a great tonic for the Phoenix Flame.
After all, a phoenix could be reborn through Nirvana, even attaining immortality. This was one manifestation of the power of life.
So the Phoenix Flame wasn't just fire. It also contained the attribute of life. The life force of the Gold of Life was the highest-level life force on the Douluo Plane, making it a great tonic that could nourish and strengthen the Phoenix Flame.
Unfortunately, Ma Xiaotao's level was too low, and she hadn't developed her Martial Soul enough. The flames she produced weren't all that strong.
Yang Hao and his fire-attribute spider leg Soul Bone weren't picky. After devouring all the Phoenix Evil Fire at the scene, he pursued them, continuing to devour the Phoenix Evil Fire Ma Xiaotao had left behind when she erupted along the way.
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