At that moment.
Di Tian's expression suddenly turned resolute.
A future path of "old body becoming new bud, finding life in desperate circumstances" slowly took shape within him.
He turned back in sync.
Only to see two trails of clear tears flowing down Bi Ji's cheeks.
"Didn't they say... humans and soul beasts would coexist peacefully?"
"Why did they reject our request to return home and undergo the Godhood Tribulation?"
"Why?"
"Why do those humans still treat us like monkeys in a zoo?"
"..."
She grieved for Di Tian, and for the Soul Beast Clan as well.
Di Tian did not let the pressure show on his face.
He raised a hand to caress Bi Ji's cheek, gently wiping away the tear tracks with his thumb.
He smiled and comforted her.
"Bi Ji."
"Don't cry."
"I won't undergo the tribulation."
"I have an instinctive feeling that undergoing the Godhood Tribulation in a soul beast body was a path with no chance of survival."
Bi Ji froze at those words.
"You won't undergo the tribulation?"
Then she finally understood.
"No chance of survival."
Bi Ji did not doubt him.
As a Beast with more than six hundred thousand years of cultivation, she knew only too well how severely the laws of heaven and earth suppressed soul beasts seeking godhood.
She knew even better.
Given Di Tian's longing to return to the divine path, if he said he would not undergo the Godhood Tribulation, then it truly had to be a path with no chance of survival.
She pressed her red lips together and did not try to dissuade Di Tian further.
She merely threw herself into Di Tian's embrace without hesitation.
Her breath was fragrant as orchids.
"Di Tian."
"How much longer can you suppress your Godhood Tribulation?"
Feeling the warmth and softness in his arms, with her fragrance continually entering his nostrils.
Di Tian paused, but still wrapped his arms around her slender waist.
"If I suppress it with all my strength, at most another ten-odd years. The Godhood Tribulation will inevitably descend."
"More than ten years..." the lovely woman in his arms murmured. "Though brief, it is enough."
"Let's leave behind a child."
"Okay?"
That completely stunned Di Tian.
It was not until Bi Ji spoke again that he understood why.
"It can count as the last trace we leave behind in this world."
The moment she said that, a wish for death emerged.
Once Di Tian fell, she was destined to fail her next Beast Tribulation.
Rather than linger uselessly for a few more years, she would rather walk the path to rebirth in the Underworld hand in hand with Di Tian.
Di Tian knew Bi Ji had misunderstood.
He simply was not going to undergo the Godhood Tribulation. It was not as though he wanted to die.
He immediately shook his head.
"No."
But before he could explain carefully.
Bi Ji spoke first again.
"Then... then I'll call Zi Ji over too."
Zi Ji was the same as her.
If Di Tian fell, she would never live alone.
Together in life, together in death.
Di Tian: "..."
He was utterly speechless now.
He had been tirelessly perfecting the future path of "old body becoming new bud, finding life in desperate circumstances" in his mind, preparing to challenge fate with my fate is mine, not heaven's.
Why did everyone keep trying to drag him into the arms of beauty?
He immediately cut in.
"Bi Ji, you've misunderstood."
"I only said I would not undergo the Godhood Tribulation in a soul beast body. I never said I had given up in despair."
Bi Ji was no fool and immediately understood Di Tian's plan.
"You're planning to take human form and recultivate?!"
Di Tian nodded.
His tone carried one part helplessness, two parts determination, and seven parts of the desperate will to survive when brave warriors met on a narrow road.
If not for the curse that soul beasts could not become gods, he would certainly have chosen to take a gamble in his soul beast body.
But reality had no ifs.
That was the curse of a Supreme God King.
He could only choose to take human form and recultivate.
Taking human form and recultivating was indeed a path that could succeed.
In the original timeline, Dong Qianqiu, who had transformed from a Hundred-Thousand-Year Demon Soul Great White Shark into a human, successfully underwent the tribulation and became a god.
"Once I take human form and recultivate."
"The Federation's wariness of me will also diminish by more than half."
"If I succeeded in undergoing the tribulation in my soul beast body, not only could I use my accumulated foundation to leap directly to the upper limit that the Douluo Demi-God Realm could bear—Rank-Two God, True God level—I might even inherit the soul beasts' long lifespan."
"The former is manageable. The Federation does not lack True God level powerhouses, and there are even beings half a step beyond the True God level."
"But the latter is something they cannot accept."
"Though I cannot be certain whether becoming a god in a soul beast body would truly allow me to inherit a soul beast's long lifespan, neither the Federation nor the entire human race could tolerate the birth of a True God level Soul Beast King with an endless lifespan."
"Even if there were only the slightest possibility, they could not tolerate it."
"But once I take human form and recultivate."
"Even if I recultivate to the True God level, I will live for no more than a thousand years."
"To preserve the facade of peaceful coexistence between humans and soul beasts, the various forces of the Douluo Federation would be quite happy to watch me die of old age naturally."
"Taking a step back... would they attack me after I take human form?"
"It is possible."
"However."
"If True God level human powerhouses wanted to kill me, whether I am as I am now or after taking human form, it would be as easy as turning a hand."
"Over these past ten thousand years, humans have not restricted the growth of my cultivation. They only feared the explosive growth I would achieve after passing the Godhood Tribulation."
"After I take human form and recultivate, humans will not fear me before I undergo the Godhood Tribulation either."
"Of course, they may still obstruct my divine path when I undergo the Godhood Tribulation."
"Therefore."
"I cannot possibly remain obediently in the Douluo Demi-God Realm to undergo the Godhood Tribulation."
"As everyone knows."
"After soul beasts take human form, they must cultivate alongside humans in order to raise their cultivation."
"The academy education that has been popular for tens of thousands of years has, in the interstellar era, turned its students' trial grounds into the universe."
"For example, the lower plane Dragon Source Planet; the Demi-God Realm Planet of Sin; or..."
"During cosmic trials, incidents of students accidentally ending up in other Demi-God Realms or lower planes occur from time to time."
"After taking human form, my chance of leaving the Douluo Demi-God Realm and slipping away like a cicada shedding its shell will be far greater than before."
"Besides."
"Humans do not know my full background."
"They only know that, as a soul beast, I have enough accumulated power to become a god ten times over. They do not know of my days as a Divine Dragon and the captain of the Dragon God's personal guards."
"After my Divine Dragon body degenerated into the true dragon body of a soul beast, many of my former abilities became unusable. They are a different sort of foundation, one that has been sealed away."
"As long as the environment permits it, recultivating to a First-Rank God or Super God level will only be a matter of time."
After hearing him out.
Bi Ji's joy rose from delight to ecstasy.
But immediately afterward, worry returned to her face.
Taking human form and recultivating, especially for Di Tian, would certainly be filled with hardships and thorns.
The first problem was the transformation itself.
Only Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts could take human form.
Not a single Beast had ever successfully done so.
Snow Empress only counted as half a success. She was sealed by the God-Sealing Platform midway through her transformation and ultimately became a soul spirit directly.
Her lady, the Silver Dragon King Gu Yuena, did not count at all. She was a Divine Dragon, not a soul beast.
"I know what you are worried about," Di Tian said solemnly. "Snow Empress's method for a Beast to take human form is viable."
"She used a Hundred-Thousand-Year Snow Lotus as a catalyst back then. In truth, she could indeed have transformed successfully."
"Heavenly treasures such as Snow Lotuses have difficulty developing intelligence, yet they possess pure essence of heaven and earth. Snow Empress fused herself into a Hundred-Thousand-Year Snow Lotus, deceived heaven itself, and successfully took human form."
"The divine-grade immortal herb Lovesick Heartbreak Red should work as well, but it only grows in the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well. Tang Sect would never trade it to us."
The worry between Bi Ji's brows did not ease.
For the Soul Beast King to take human form and recultivate, the road ahead held eighty-one trials.
Each was harder than the last.
"Ah..."
"What worries me most is... is..."
"Eh!" Bi Ji hesitated and stammered, but she finally forced herself to say it.
"What worries me most is that after soul beasts take human form and enter human society, they might encounter an unspeakable, indescribable, unseeable great terror!"
Her voice was filled with extraordinary concern.
"No!"
"This matter of taking human form and recultivating definitely cannot be kept secret. I have to let Zi Ji, Xiong Jun, and the others know."
Faced with the hardest of the eighty-one trials involved in taking human form and recultivating, Di Tian found it difficult to stop Bi Ji from calling friends together and pooling their wisdom.
Not long after.
Bi Ji, Zi Ji, King of Ten Thousand Monsters, Xiong Jun, Red King, Yao Ling, the Elf Queen, and Lan Hudie, the Tiger King.
The eight great guardians and four great beauties.
They sat cross-legged according to the eight trigrams' positions for dispelling evil, all staring at Di Tian seated in the center from east, west, south, north, northeast, southeast, northwest, and southwest.
They vividly performed a silent background tune.
Their eyes were wide as bronze bells~
Shooting out lightning-like shrewdness~
Together, they even formed a backdrop like "the emperor's new clothes"—confess and be treated leniently, resist and be treated severely!
It could not be seen or touched, yet everyone felt that this backdrop existed.
Xiong Jun made the first move.
He took out a photo album of a bear-type soul beast named Cuihua.
Then he said, "Boss."
"Which one looks better?"
As he asked, Xiong Jun produced a comparison item.
He unlocked the intelligent soul tool communicator in his hand, opened a matrix second-level software library, swiped left a few times, then tapped an inconspicuous icon.
In the end, an advertisement interface popped up that needed to be censored before it could be played.
Before you continue