Star Dou Great Forest, Land of Great Evil.
If Baili Du didn't want to be found, there was no one in the world who could discover him. Not even the Ferocious Beasts, with their keen noses, could sense him.
Without disturbing a single Soul Beast, he stood quietly, gazing at the lake before him.
The lake wasn't very large. He could see the opposite shore at a glance.
Its surface was as smooth as a mirror. The pale-green water was like a piece of the most beautiful natural jade, shimmering with a vibrant glow of life. Ancient trees towered around the lake, their crowns reaching into the clouds. A faint mist hovered above the water, and the damp air carried the distinctive fragrance of plants.
Life filled this place, its vitality at least several times greater than anywhere outside. It was like the source of life itself, as though every living thing in the Star Dou Great Forest had been born here.
"Lake of Life... It really has been a long time..."
The lake before him was the most sacred source of Life Water in the Star Dou Great Forest, the place that had given birth to all its creatures.
This was good stuff! It was no use to him now, but it would do Huo Yuhao a world of good!
He crouched down and gently scooped up some water with a large leaf. The emerald liquid gleamed like jade, brimming with the aura of life.
But as though something had just occurred to him, Baili Du's expression turned a little odd, and his hand hesitated.
Other people might not know, but how could he not? This Life Water was formed from the life force that seeped out of Gold of Life, and it was a powerful tonic for any living creature.
But... wasn't this also his younger brother's wife's—Silver Dragon King Gu Yuena's, the publicly recognized number-one beauty on Douluo Continent and the Dragon God's other half...
bathwater?
Baili Du gazed at the lake water in the broad leaf, his expression strange. He'd drunk it back then... Should he really make himself drink it again?
He shook his head, dispelling the bizarre thought. His eyes narrowed, turning a solid gold as his gaze pierced through the Lake of Life and settled on the silver dragon sleeping in the space beneath it.
His eyes narrowed slightly. "Sister-in-law... It's been a long time for us, too."
The giant dragon slept curled up in a comfortable position. Her silver scales gleamed like crystal, giving her an otherworldly beauty. Even the horrifying cracks running across them did nothing to diminish it; if anything, they lent her a fragile, delicate grace.
Baili Du carefully examined the Silver Dragon King's injuries with his divine sense. His heart sank.
He'd known the Silver Dragon King was recovering from her injuries, but he hadn't realized they were this severe! She probably didn't even have the cultivation of a God Official anymore.
No wonder the Silver Dragon King hadn't emerged in this era. In a head-on fight, she couldn't even match Di Tian now.
He, too, had barely managed to claw his way out of the Space-Time Turbulence and the Samsara Hurricane. But at the peak of his power, he'd been a Half-Step Supreme God King, even stronger than the Golden Dragon King had been then. Though he'd also been reduced to a Second-Level God, at least his most powerful divine sense remained intact. The Silver Dragon King, on the other hand, had regressed so far that her mental power was now no more than the spiritual awareness of a mortal.
Looking at his sleeping sister-in-law, Baili Du couldn't help giving a bitter laugh.
Tang Wulin really was lucky—lucky in the most ironic sense. Without Gu Yuena, Di Tian and the others would've torn that kid to pieces long ago... Then what would Tang San's Ten Thousand Year Plan have been for? His own son would've been dead on the spot.
As a leader, Gu Yuena had been an utterly, utterly poor one.
But as a lover, she was incomparably better than Tang Wutong.
Honestly, if twelve-year-old Huo Yuhao had seen the true faces of the Silver Dragon Princess and the Goddess of Light at the same time, he wouldn't have spared the Goddess of Light half a second.
Thinking this, Baili Du shook his head. It was a pity he and Gu Yuena had precious little in common, even though they'd both had their lives manipulated by Tang San.
Suddenly, Baili Du felt heartbroken. It hurt.
He still remembered the scene after Lan Xuanyu resurrected Di Tian in the Dragon God Realm.
He'd thought it would be a reunion between old friends after many years apart. But instead...
By then, Tang San had died by suicide to join his sword-sheath, Xiao Wu. The Tang Family's strongest fighter was Lan Xuanyu. Backed by this Dragon God, Di Tian, along with the Ferocious Beasts still alive as Soul Spirits—Bi Ji and Zi JI among them—had all turned on Huo Yuhao.
They didn't need to accuse him of anything else. The Spirit Pagoda he'd founded had become the chief culprit behind the Soul Beasts' eventual destruction. That alone was enough for the Ferocious Beasts to claim the moral high ground and berate him...
No one stopped to think that perhaps he'd saved them. People only hated the one who took away their hope and confidence...
Then Gu Yuena, the former Lord of Soul Beasts, joined in. Once she did, Tang Wulin had no reason to stay out of it. After all, the Spirit Pagoda and the Holy Spirit Cult had planned the destruction of Shrek and the Tang Sect together. In their eyes, Spirit Ice Douluo Huo Yuhao, founder of the Spirit Pagoda, was impossible to absolve of blame.
Huo Yuhao had wanted to defend himself, to point out that "at least Soul Spirit Technology preserved the intelligence of many Soul Beasts." But before long, even his wife, Butterfly Goddess Tang Wutong, joined her younger brother and sister-in-law's side. She even said, "You shouldn't have founded the Spirit Pagoda back then. Wouldn't it have been better to focus on developing the Tang Sect?"
Unable to argue back, he could only shoulder all the blame. Not long afterward, the Spirit Pagoda was absorbed into Shrek Academy and vanished from Douluo Continent's history.
One of Emotion God King Huo Yuhao's major sources of the Power of Faith disappeared with it. He could only split the faith from Shrek and the Tang Sect with three generations of the Tang family. It was easy to imagine how much faith Huo Yuhao, who didn't bear the Tang name, could claim...
From then on, Shrek Academy took complete control of Soul Spirit Technology. In that era, it held the Soul Master World firmly in its grasp through both education and Soul Power advancement. With the Tang Sect already in league with it, the Douluo Federation existed in name only.
Every high-ranking official in the Douluo Federation had graduated from Shrek Academy. Choosing between the Federation and the Academy was hardly a difficult decision for them...
Baili Du took a deep breath. He was alive, but he was no longer Dai Yuhao. He was no longer that weak and useless Dai Yuhao!
If Gu Yuena ever stood before him in the future and tried to stop his revenge, he would swing his sickle at the number-one beauty on Douluo Continent without hesitation.
In the end, everyone in the Tang family, and everyone who stood on their side, was his enemy.
Baili Du rose and walked away with the crude cup full of Life Water. "I'll do what needs to be done and set things right in this era. But if you Soul Beasts still end up like that in the end, you can't blame me..."
His figure disappeared from the Land of Great Evil, as if he had never been there.
Much later.
In the dim silver space, where no light ever reached, a pair of enormous purple slit pupils slowly opened...
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