Sun Moon Empire's View of the First-Generation Shrek Seven Devils

"I think around sixty thousand years—perhaps sixty-five thousand years—would be best."

Xiao Changge quickly decided that a Soul Ring of around sixty thousand years would be ideal for his third Soul Ring. That would better enhance the power and soul skills of his Vermilion Bird Martial Soul.

Moreover, absorbing the Soul Power provided by a Soul Ring around sixty thousand years old would allow him to advance in rank faster, letting him catch up to Ma Xiaotao more quickly.

"If you want to absorb one, I can help you. But I still need to warn you: even though having Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Rings as both your first and second Soul Rings is indeed remarkable, if you can't withstand it, you'll die. You'll explode!"

Exploding Iron King, the Sun Moon Empire's Eight-Level Soul Engineer and Soul Douluo, truly had Xiao Changge's best interests at heart. He was genuinely afraid that if Xiao Changge failed to absorb it, he would be held responsible and might even be thrown straight into the Sun Moon Empire's dungeons.

There was no need to imagine the charge: harming a genius of the Sun Moon Empire. He would bear the infamy for the rest of his life, and his family would be disgraced as well.

"Well, actually, when absorbing a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring, there's something called Soul Shock. Everyone knows about it, right? Anyone who has reached the level of absorbing Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Rings—or any high-level Soul Master—knows."

"That is indeed how it works. Only Soul Beasts over ten thousand years old have this condition: once their cultivation exceeds ten thousand years, they gain intelligence, and their resentment at death, along with their remaining soul, becomes imprinted within the Soul Ring. When absorbing the Soul Ring, that remnant soul turns into a mental shockwave and pours into the Soul Master's sea of consciousness. That is Soul Shock. It is separate from 'Soul Ring energy exploding the body'—two independent lines of death. Even if the body withstands it, a shattered mind still leaves one crippled."

The Eight-Level Soul Engineer explained these matters to the Soul Douluo. In the Sun Moon Empire, this was textbook knowledge, as common as basic sense, and many people knew it.

"Actually, I have a way to solve the problems caused by Soul Shock, and my physical constitution is strong as well. That's why I can absorb Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Rings. That is the secret behind my ability to absorb Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Rings across realms. Isn't that normal? The story of Sea God Tang San, one of the First-Generation Shrek Seven Devils, explained this. He absorbed a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring at a young age for the same reason."

"Indeed, we in the Sun Moon Empire have also heard the legends of Sea God Tang San. But I always considered them myths, or perhaps something Shrek had excessively mythologized."

The people of the Sun Moon Empire did not hold the "First-Generation Shrek Seven Devils" in devout worship. Their overall attitude could be divided into three layers, completely unlike the Douluo Three Kingdoms, where they were revered within the academy as founding patriarchs.

(1) Common folk and lower military ranks: they regarded them as historical stories or the foundation of Shrek's reputation, not as mythology.

The First-Generation Seven Devils had lived ten thousand years ago. To present-day Sun Moon commoners and low-level Soul Engineers in The Unrivaled Tang Clan era, they felt as distant as ancient legends.

When Tang Ya explained things to Huo Yuhao, she said, "The stories of the Shrek Seven Devils have long circulated across the continent. The most famous remain the Tang Sect master and his wife"—this was the common continental narrative. When Sun Moon people heard it, they would merely place it in the category of historical lessons on how Shrek Academy's reputation first arose. They would not be filled with solemn reverence.

Xuan Zi's tone when he said, "Your Tang Sect ancestor Tang San's Soul Rings seemed to have surpassed the limits," showed that even Shrek's own people spoke of Tang San as an impressive senior, not as though reciting sacred scripture. The Sun Moon side was even less likely to treat him as a religious faith.

(2) The Soul Engineer establishment, such as Xiao Hongchen and Jing Hongchen's line: they looked down on "legends" and refused to accept "Soul Masters of the old era."

The Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Academy's attitude toward Shrek was one of ideological contempt. When people of Xiao Hongchen's generation scorned Shrek's team members during the Soul Master Tournament, it was not because they did not know the First-Generation Seven Devils' reputation. Rather, they believed that "the glory won through Martial Souls and hidden weapons ten thousand years ago amounts to nothing in the era of Soul Tools."

In their understanding, no matter how powerful the First-Generation Seven Devils had been, they were still the pinnacle of the old Soul Master system. The Sun Moon Empire followed the technological path of Soul Tools. Tang San's Blue Silver Grass and hidden weapons had already been proven inferior to Soul Tools through the wars following the collision with the Sun Moon Continent. Four thousand years ago, the Sun Moon Empire had used Soul Tools to crush the Tang Sect's hidden-weapon allied forces. Thus, legends remained legends; they did not acknowledge them in practical combat.

(3) The upper class and imperial stance: they were wary of Shrek's lingering influence, but not afraid of the ghosts of the First-Generation Seven Devils.

What the Sun Moon Empire's upper ranks truly feared was the modern Shrek Academy—dozens of Titled Douluo, the Sea God Pavilion, and living Super Douluo such as Xuan Zi and Mu En—not the First-Generation Seven Devils themselves.

During the continental collision war four thousand years ago, Shrek's contemporary dean had rallied nearly sixty Titled Douluo and driven back the Sun Moon Empire. That was the true source of the Sun Moon upper ranks' resentment and fear, the "Shrek threat." The First-Generation Seven Devils were merely the origin story of Shrek's name, counted as part of the academy's accumulated prestige rather than an independent deterrent.

Only in the later period, when the Sun Moon Empire was reorganized into the Sun Moon Federation at the novel's end, did it elevate Tang San as the "progenitor of the human Soul Master world" in its official narrative for the sake of legitimizing its rule. That was political maneuvering after unification, not the Sun Moon people's sincere worship during the war in The Unrivaled Tang Clan.

Therefore, during The Unrivaled Tang Clan era, the people of the Sun Moon Empire knew that the First-Generation Shrek Seven Devils were the founding legends of Shrek and the Tang Sect from ten thousand years ago, but ordinary people treated them as ancient stories.

The Soul Engineer class saw them as outdated examples and looked down on them, while the imperial upper ranks only considered them part of the backdrop explaining why Shrek was so difficult to deal with. What they truly revered was the living Sea God Pavilion, not seven people who had been dead for over ten thousand years.

"Enough. Let's hurry on our way. We need to get back quickly. If people from the Heaven Dou Empire discover us, it could bring quite a bit of trouble. And if the Body Sect discovers us, those bandits are not easy to deal with either."

As the Heaven Dou Empire's guardian sect, the Body Sect cared deeply for the Heaven Dou Empire. Whenever the empire faced danger, they were willing to risk their lives for it. They were far better than Shrek's bunch of hypocrites.

Mu En in particular was the worst hypocrite of them all.

Thus, in his view, although the Body Sect resembled bandits, they were still far superior to hypocrites—one hundred times better than Shrek's hypocrites. At least they held the Heaven Dou Empire in their hearts and were willing to risk their lives for it. Shrek, however, only acted for itself, spouted hypocritical words, and deceived him.

Soon afterward, the two continued on their journey and quickly arrived at the Natural Azureflame Bird's habitat. Before long, a sixty-five-thousand-year Natural Azureflame Bird appeared before them.

"You can't handle this one. Let me do it. Then you can absorb its Soul Ring."

The Soul Douluo spoke at that moment.