Journey to the Star Dou Great Forest

The deaths of the two guards quickly caused an uproar within the White Tiger Duke Mansion. Someone had infiltrated the mansion and silently killed two Soul Ancestor-level guards.

After this incident, even the Duchess felt somewhat uneasy.

For a time, the entire White Tiger Duke Mansion became far more tense. Over the past few days, the Duchess had devoted all her energy to dealing with the negative repercussions of the matter.

She had no time to concern herself with Huo Yuhao's whereabouts. Later, under the cover of a dark and windy night, Huo Yuhao quietly dealt with several more servants.

Unknowingly, the White Tiger Duke Mansion was no longer as united as it had been at the start. It gradually fell into a fractured state where everyone feared for their own safety.

That was precisely Huo Yuhao's goal. That night, he went to the Duchess's bedchamber.

With the special effect of the Void Eye, Huo Yuhao slipped into the Duchess's room without alerting anyone.

Late at night, the Duchess rested with her eyes closed amid vague unease. Huo Yuhao finally got a proper look at her.

The Duchess was even weaker than Huo Yuhao had imagined. She was not quite an ordinary person, but the Soul Power aura around her was extremely faint. Even her protective Soul Power was so thin it was nearly nonexistent.

The Saint King Pupil barely needed any effort to slit her throat...

Three days later, in a town near the Star Dou Great Forest.

To avoid the fate of the original protagonist, Huo Yuhao did not recklessly charge straight into the Star Dou Great Forest. Instead, he traveled to a city near the forest. There were plenty of soul-hunting teams there. Some guaranteed that they would help clients complete their hunts, while others merely escorted them to relatively safe locations in the outer regions.

Being sent to a safe location in the outer regions meant being taken to the edge of an outer area that had previously been surveyed and confirmed to contain no soul beasts. Its greatest use was avoiding a situation like Huo Yuhao's in the original story, where he ran straight into a Wind Baboon at point-blank range.

Huo Yuhao had brought quite a bit of wealth from the White Tiger Duke Mansion. After fencing the stolen goods on the black market, he earned several thousand Gold Soul Coins. Using the Void Eye to slip beyond people's sight, his path of selling the goods went quite smoothly.

He had also kept an eye on news from the White Tiger Duke. The Duchess's death did force Dai Hao to show himself, but although he stopped appearing in public not long after his Duchess died, the White Tiger Duke Mansion never connected her death to a boy barely ten years old.

Instead, Dai Hao's internal investigation uncovered several agents the Sun Moon Empire had originally planted in the White Tiger Duke Mansion to gather intelligence.

Those unlucky agents had unknowingly made a transaction with Huo Yuhao.

In the days after the Duchess's death and before Dai Hao arrived, several pieces of special intelligence that the Duchess had kept close to her person were taken away. The entire border of the Star Luo Empire was thrown into lockdown because of it.

Without realizing it, they had also taken the blame for Huo Yuhao.

In the small town, Huo Yuhao spent one Gold Soul Coin to join an escort team, one that would take him to the outer regions of the Star Dou Great Forest.

This would minimize the chances of running into Bei Bei and Tang Ya. Huo Yuhao was only eleven now, after all. Given a year, he was confident he could raise his Soul Power to Shrek Academy's admission standard. He did not need Bei Bei or Tang Ya to enter Shrek Academy.

Although Huo Yuhao had hated the doubts cast by Shrek Academy in his previous life, with his current talent—even the level of talent he could reach after obtaining Sky Dream Ice Silkworm—it was hard to say how the Body Sect would treat him, but he would definitely be among the overlooked ones in the Sun Moon Empire.

The best course was still to raise his strength at Shrek Academy, a place where, relatively speaking, they did not care much about one's usual talent after admission and only looked at results.

Then, he could make a name for himself in the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Elite Tournament. Once he emerged into prominence, he could negotiate the benefits of joining other factions.

Borrowing a chicken to lay eggs—that was the idea.

After a day of waiting, the team was finally assembled. Huo Yuhao had arrived at just the right time. It was currently the peak season for soul hunting, and quite a few eleven- and twelve-year-olds were preparing to complete their hunts at this time before enrolling in the academies they wanted.

After entering the Star Dou Great Forest, Huo Yuhao did not pay to extend the escort service. Instead, he headed alone toward the forest's outer regions.

His purpose on this trip was actually simple: to obtain Sky Dream Ice Silkworm and Electrolux. Beyond that, it would be best if he could convince Sky Dream Ice Silkworm not to grant him his first soul ring directly. After all, who would not covet a million-year seventh soul ring?

Of course, all of that depended on finding Sky Dream Ice Silkworm first.

Yet Huo Yuhao truly deserved to be called the child of fortune of all Douluo Continent. Even though someone else had taken over his body, that had not changed much.

Huo Yuhao spent only half a day before hearing those familiar lines.

"Hehe, I finally found a human with a spiritual attribute!"

Huo Yuhao curled his lips into a smile, then skillfully leaped onto a raised platform. He calmly folded his arms and watched the patch of ground beneath him wriggle.

A huge worm head, silver-white like jade, emerged from the earth. Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's oversized, silkworm-like head swayed, and his eyes suddenly flew open as he looked at Huo Yuhao.

"Eh? Aren't you afraid when you see me?" Sky Dream Ice Silkworm looked at Huo Yuhao in surprise. Seeing how calm and composed he was, Sky Dream Ice Silkworm moved the feelers on his head in disbelief.

Huo Yuhao smiled faintly and looked at Sky Dream Ice Silkworm. "I saw this meeting long ago. That is not important. Let's get straight to the point. You're a million-year soul beast, and you're about to die to a heavenly tribulation. Am I right?"

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm immediately revealed a shocked expression and stared at Huo Yuhao in disbelief. Huo Yuhao felt delighted inside. As long as he gained the upper hand in negotiations, everything would be easy to discuss.

Huo Yuhao walked closer to Sky Dream Ice Silkworm and said, "You may not believe this, but this isn't our first meeting. I know everything about you, including the God-Making Plan you have in mind. I can tell you responsibly that you succeeded with me, but it was incomplete."

Sky Dream Ice Silkworm swallowed. After forcing down the suspicion and shock in his heart, he said to Huo Yuhao, "It really succeeded? Then what do you mean by incomplete?"

Huo Yuhao folded his arms and smiled. He then said to Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, "We did indeed eventually become gods, but we were not free. We were driven like dogs by beings who had become gods earlier than us. And you could only remain imprisoned within my body. In essence, it was no different from death..."