Applause surged like a tide, enduring without end.
Li Qinglian stood amid the roaring cheers. He was small, yet his back was straight.
Morning light fell upon his black hair, making the strand of stark white at its tips especially distinct beneath the golden sunlight.
"My God. Is this the Holy Son's strength?"
"Yan is a Soul Elder, yet he was defeated by the Holy Son, who is only a Soul Grandmaster!"
"What's so surprising about that? The Holy Son seems to be only six years old, yet he already has the cultivation of a Soul Grandmaster. That's the truly outrageous part."
At that moment, countless people were swept up in excitement.
Even the other Holy Son candidates who had once been held in high regard were completely convinced.
Yan's talent was absolutely no worse than Hu Liena's!
Among all the youths under fifteen in Spirit Hall, his talent was the greatest.
Hu Liena and Xie Yue only had the advantage of a Martial Soul Fusion Skill. Setting that aside, they might even have been somewhat inferior to Yan.
The reason Bibi Dong had chosen to name Hu Liena the Holy Maiden while giving up on Yan was likely due to her own selfish motives.
Yet such a monstrous genius had lost to Li Qinglian!
One had to know that there was nearly a seven-year age gap between them!
At this point, even before Pope Bibi Dong had issued that decisive decree, Li Qinglian had already completely won them over.
If such a monster could not become the Holy Son, then there had to be something shady going on!
So I've finally gained a firm foothold in Spirit Hall, haven't I?
Bibi Dong's schemes have actually worked in my favor. At the very least, they helped me establish my prestige completely.
And even though Bibi Dong handled this matter discreetly, it still made many people realize that the Pope was targeting Li Qinglian. If she wants to pull any more tricks in the future, she'll have to be far more careful.
Otherwise, once her public image collapses, it will be even harder for her, a Pope not born of the Angel lineage, to establish her authority.
Li Qinglian looked toward Bibi Dong atop Pope Mountain, the corners of his lips curling upward.
Hu Liena had been made the Holy Maiden by Bibi Dong for many years, but her influence within Spirit Hall had never truly been great.
Yet now, at least a hundred thousand people had gathered beneath Pope Mountain.
Once these people spread word of today's events, Li Qinglian's reputation would soar.
After rebuilding his cultivation, Li Qinglian's strength had weakened.
But this sense of freedom made Li Qinglian feel wonderful.
Clap, clap, clap.
"Qinglian, you're amazing!"
Qian Renxue had long known that Li Qinglian could not lose.
But even she had not expected him to win so easily.
It could be said that the moment the Death Divine Tree ensnared Yan, Yan had already been destined to lose!
Once Yan's maximum attack power could no longer pose an effective threat to Li Qinglian, Li Qinglian could continuously devour the energy within his body through the soul skill Death Siphon, steadily wearing down his attack power.
As one side rose and the other fell, Yan's combat strength would only grow worse and worse!
That was also why Xie Yue and Hu Liena had both felt that the strength Yan displayed was far weaker than usual. It was not that he did not want to fight with all his strength. Rather, Li Qinglian had drained away such a large portion of even his most basic attack power, not to mention his rapidly depleted Soul Power!
And the soul skill Withered Glory Prison was even more terrifying. Like a man-eating flower, given enough time, it could truly cause living beings to wither away completely.
One drained, and one imprisoned.
Even against someone whose cultivation far surpassed Li Qinglian's, as long as they failed to defeat him immediately, they would be continuously worn down by him.
Qian Renxue walked over, the gleam in her eyes becoming even more intense.
Douluo Continent was a world where bloodlines reigned supreme.
This was true not only in the world of soul beasts, but even more so in the world of Soul Masters.
For that very reason, women in this world were far more rational and materialistic than those in her previous life.
No woman wished to see her child born with an insurmountable gulf between them and their peers. The gap between Martial Souls could not be remedied through later effort, and Martial Souls were tied to bloodlines.
The fertility rate in the God Realm was outrageously low.
After reaching the God Realm, the chance of finding another half of such exceptional quality would be infinitely close to zero.
I...
I absolutely cannot miss Li Qinglian...
Even if I go to the God Realm, I cannot allow myself to become some transparent nobody.
Looking at the figure of the youth before her, Qian Renxue clenched her fists even tighter.
However, what Qian Renxue would never have imagined, even in her dreams, was that the Angel God could make a mistake in judgment as well.
Li Qinglian and the Goddess of Life were indeed of the same race and shared similar appearances, but their cores were different.
That was why the imaginative Angel God had concluded that Li Qinglian was the child of the Goddess of Life and some evil deity.
How could she have known that Li Qinglian's Death Divine Tree and the Goddess of Life's true body existed on the same level? Li Qinglian had merely been born much later.
The Goddess of Life had been unwilling to bring him into the God Realm because she feared that someone would harm him.
Before Li Qinglian appeared, there had been no Death God King in the God Realm.
Yet the authority over death, that enormous and tempting cake, had already been carved up by countless gods.
Once Li Qinglian, the Death Divine Tree, emerged into the world, the impact would be immense.
Would those vested interests willingly take out the authority they had claimed and return it to Li Qinglian? Difficult!
This was also where Li Qinglian differed from inheritors like Qian Renxue.
Qian Renxue's acceptance of inheritance was, at its core, merely a transfer and handover of power.
Li Qinglian, on the other hand, had to fight an armed struggle to make those who had taken what belonged to him return it!
This would be extremely dangerous!
If Qian Renxue knew that Li Qinglian was someone the Goddess of Life regarded as her other half, she would probably slap herself hard.
Trying to steal a man from a God King? Qian Renxue, Qian Renxue, you really dared to dream big!
But who could possibly have such an imagination as to think that the Goddess of Life and Li Qinglian shared that kind of relationship?
Even the imaginative Angel God suspected the Goddess of Life and the Evil God King, yet she never considered that the Goddess of Life might like Li Qinglian.
And the Goddess of Life's affection for Li Qinglian was, in the truest sense, physical attraction!
Other than the Goddess of Life, who knew that he was the Death Divine Tree, perhaps only several other Supreme Gods possessed such insight.
Yet the only one who could be certain that Li Qinglian was the Death Divine Tree was the Goddess of Life.
Even if the Supreme Gods saw Li Qinglian, they could at most make a guess.
Death energy was an exceedingly complex form of composite energy.
Withering, cycles of decay and revival, decline, corrosion, undead... there was simply too much to be unearthed from the Death Divine Tree.
Furthermore, many gods of the God Realm's darker side had, to varying degrees, taken a portion of the authority belonging to death. Thus, Li Qinglian's power appeared to be somewhat related to many gods of the darker side.
The core method of death was withering, while the core of Destruction was annihilation. Their essences were worlds apart. Yet when these methods were used in battle, ordinary beings might not be able to distinguish withering from annihilation with the naked eye.
"I lost."
"I accept my defeat completely. I have no objections to Li Qinglian being named the Holy Son."
Yan's eyes were filled with loss and pain.
He did not know why he could not defeat Li Qinglian.
But Li Qinglian's Martial Soul was truly powerful!
This Martial Soul absolutely could not be treated as an ordinary plant Martial Soul!
It was practically the emperor of plants, the sovereign of death!
He knew that even if he did it all over again, he would still lose. His defeat to Li Qinglian was a genuine gap in strength, not a mistake in combat.
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