Star Dou Journey, Dragon Thoughts Return to the Forest

The smoke of war over Rising Sun City had completely dispersed.

Above the shattered ruins of the city, a lingering wind carried a faint scent of blood. The dungeon that had once imprisoned countless soul master hostages now stood empty. The people of Shrek and the Tang Sect escorted all the rescued soul masters from the various sects, withdrawing in batches from the Sun Moon Empire's border at full speed toward the Heaven Soul Empire.

Only Huo Yuhao turned back alone, heading deeper inside.

His gaze was calm, icy-blue chill faintly circulating around him. Familiar with the way, he broke through the remaining soul tool restrictions and smoothly found the deepest part of the dungeon.

Nan Shuishui sat weakly in a corner, her face pale and her body covered in wounds left by long imprisonment. The instant she saw Huo Yuhao, a trace of warmth from surviving the disaster finally filled her eyes. Beside her, Nan Qiuqiu's eyes had long since reddened, and the tension she had held for so many days finally slackened at that moment.

"Yuhao..."

Huo Yuhao nodded slightly, his voice gentle and steady. "Auntie, Qiuqiu, it's all right now. Let's go home."

Protecting the mother and daughter, he avoided the Sun Moon Empire's remaining patrol units all the way, safely passed through Rising Sun City's blockade, and caught up with the retreating main force.

The turmoil across the continent had briefly subsided, but no one dared linger. They hurried back to the Tang Sect's headquarters without pause. Once everything had been settled, Huo Yuhao carefully treated Nan Shuishui's injuries and stabilized her damaged foundation. Only after the mother and daughter had fully settled down to recuperate did he quietly step outside.

Standing in the Tang Sect courtyard, the breeze stirred his black hair, yet the gloom weighing on the young man's eyes refused to fade.

Since their parting in the Valley of Questioning Emotions, Wang Dong'er had remained unconscious, lying silently in the Haotian Sect's secret realm without any news. This longing and helplessness tormented him day and night. The continent's situation was turbulent, the Sun Moon Empire watched like a tiger eyeing its prey, and undercurrents stirred within the Holy Spirit Cult. The road ahead was shrouded in fog, leaving his heart increasingly stifled and heavy.

Only the Star Dou Great Forest, that primordial sea of trees that had nurtured countless opportunities and held countless memories, could calm his chaotic thoughts a little.

"Qiu'er."

Huo Yuhao turned and looked at the Golden Dragon girl standing quietly beside him.

Wang Qiu'er wore a fitted golden outfit. Her beauty was peerless, and her golden eyes were clear and detached. At his words, she gently lifted her gaze. "What is it?"

"I want to visit the Star Dou Great Forest," Huo Yuhao said softly. "To clear my mind, and perhaps seek an opportunity. Would you come with me?"

Wang Qiu'er fell silent briefly, then nodded faintly. She had been born in Star Dou and naturally possessed an innate sense of belonging to that forest sea, so she readily agreed.

Just as the two finalized their journey, a somewhat frail yet still upright figure slowly approached.

Tang Wulin had only recently recovered from his injuries. His Three-Word Battle Armor had long since withdrawn into his body. Though the wounds on his skin had not fully faded and his face still carried a hint of pallor and weakness, his eyes held an unshakable obsession and tenderness.

He had remained quiet throughout the journey back.

Everyone else assumed that he had been drained by the battle and suffered damage to his origin, but only he himself knew that from the moment the Dragon God's pressure dissipated, his heart and soul had never left that vast primordial forest.

The Star Dou Great Forest.

The person he had yearned for across ten thousand years was there.

Gu Yue Na.

Even separated by thousands of miles, even with the road ahead unknown, even while his body remained seriously injured, that longing carved into his bones still pulled at his mind, making it impossible for him to remain peacefully at the academy even for a moment.

"You're going to Star Dou?" Tang Wulin asked softly.

Huo Yuhao looked at him, slightly surprised, then nodded. "Yes. We're planning to go in and settle our minds."

"Take me with you."

Tang Wulin's tone was calm, yet it carried an obstinacy that allowed no refusal.

Bei Bei had originally warned him that the battle had violently shaken the origin of his Dragon God Transformation, and that he needed peace and rest. He absolutely could not continue traveling and exhausting himself. Yet every rule and every reminder to recuperate turned into empty words before that overwhelming longing.

He did not fear the hardship of the journey, nor did he fear the dangers of the forest sea.

He only wanted to be closer to her. Closer still.

Huo Yuhao understood the emotion hidden deep in his eyes. He did not ask further, merely nodding in agreement. "All right. The three of us will travel together."

No one knew that behind the three of them lay the continent's most secret entanglement of destiny.

Huo Yuhao bore the fate of his sleeping beloved. The shackles of his incomplete divine soul had already been quietly restored, unknown to anyone, by the Dragon God aura that Tang Wulin had unleashed during the battle. Tang Wutong's god-level origin had long since quietly become complete within the Haotian Sect's secret realm, waiting only for the right moment to awaken.

Wang Qiu'er had escaped the sacrificial fate that was originally certain to kill her. The Golden Dragon origin within her remained safe and intact, and the course of her destiny had been completely rewritten.

And Tang Wulin, carrying the bloodline of the God Realm's supreme god and the twin origins of the heaven-defying Dragon God, set his heart toward Star Dou and was about to draw near once more to the Silver Dragon King destined for him.

After a brief rest, the three quietly left the Tang Sect, avoided everyone's notice, and headed toward the continent's center, toward that evergreen secret realm of ancient ages—the Star Dou Great Forest.

The wind swept past the hems of their clothes, while the forest sea ahead stretched endlessly.

A new encounter, new entanglements, and new destinies were about to slowly unfold in the depths of Star Dou.

As the three figures of the lower realm gradually receded on their way to the Star Dou Great Forest, the God Realm Nexus in the Nine Heavens God Realm lay silent beneath a sea of clouds, its divine radiance enduring through eternity.

Tang San still sat upon his supreme divine throne. His blue-gold divine eyes pierced through the barriers of countless planes. He watched Tang Wulin heading toward the forest sea in the lower realm while also gazing at the sleeping Wang Dong'er within the Haotian Sect's secret realm, layers of profound contemplation gathering in his eyes.

Ever since Tang Wulin erupted with pure Dragon God's Origin during the battle at Rising Sun City and shook the heavens and planes, Tang San had clearly sensed that trace of change.

Tang Wutong's divine soul fragments scattered throughout the world had originally been housed in two places. One was the sleeping Wang Dong'er in the Haotian Sect, bearing the mortal divine soul of worldly warmth, innocent love, and human emotion. The other was the fragment of Golden Dragon destiny consciousness that had split with the Dragon God billions of years ago, drifted into Star Dou, and eventually condensed within Wang Qiu'er.

Under the original fate, Wang Qiu'er's divine soul origin needed to be sacrificed to forcibly mend the two incomplete portions and restore the divided divine soul of the Butterfly God. But now, the True Dragon God Path awakened by Tang Wulin had gently stirred the dragon-nature origins of all heavens, completely linking the two divided divine bonds. There was no longer any need for a life sacrifice to complete the union of the divine soul.

This was an opportunity brought by the Dragon God variable, as well as a new trajectory of heavenly law beyond his eternal calculations.

Tang San's gaze shifted slightly, and he had already made his decision.

He would never allow his daughter's divine soul to remain forever divided, drifting through the mortal world. Nor would he permit incomplete divine consciousness to linger among humans and breed endless hidden dangers of fate. Since the sacrificial shackles of destiny had been broken by his grandson's power, he would personally bring this matter to its conclusion, perfect the Butterfly God's divine position, and set destiny in order.

The boundless divine power of the God Realm stirred silently, without the slightest ripple. It did not alarm the gods of the God Realm or disturb even a trace of fortune in the lower realm. A strand of supremely pure Asura God divinity, containing all things and wrapped in the power of Poseidon's order, transformed into an invisible Dao resonance, passed through layers of spacetime barriers, and descended upon the Douluo Continent.

Within the Star Dou Great Forest, Wang Qiu'er, who was traveling alongside the other two, remained completely unaware.

The golden dragon radiance surrounding her remained clear and brilliant. Her body was unharmed, her origin undamaged, and the shackles of destiny that had once bound her quietly shattered. The fragment of destiny consciousness from the divided Butterfly God, stored within her body like rootless duckweed, was gently drawn away by the supreme divine power of the God Realm. It turned into specks of golden flowing light and silently separated from her divine soul, yet did not harm her foundation in the slightest or diminish a thread of her cultivation.

This was the return of heavenly law to its proper place, not the annihilation of sacrifice.

Wang Qiu'er merely felt an indescribable lightness in her heart. The invisible shackles that had wrapped around her for ten thousand years suddenly vanished. The dragon power throughout her body became ever purer and more transparent, and her state of mind opened wide. Yet she had no idea that she had escaped the fate of certain death and entered an entirely new path in life.

At the same time, within the ice-sealed secret realm of the Haotian Sect thousands of miles away.

Clouds and mist coiled through the air, suffused with immortal spiritual energy. Upon a jade bed, Wang Dong'er slept peacefully, her long hair cascading like a waterfall and her features exquisite and flawless. Her long lashes rested against her cheeks, and she resembled a sleeping spirit of the world. Her divine soul had long been incomplete, like a waning moon that could never become whole. This was the root of why she had remained asleep for so long.

The moment that fragment of destiny consciousness from Wang Qiu'er, carrying the ordered Dao resonance of the God Realm, gently flowed into the secret realm, the sleeping girl's body trembled slightly.

The barriers in her incomplete divine soul were gently filled, and every severed thread of divinity was reconnected.

Wang Dong'er's innocent mortal attachment, pure love, and memories of the human world perfectly merged at that moment with the noble origin, complete divine status, and destiny Dao of the Butterfly God from the God Realm, returning to a complete unity.

Her originally clear pale-blue martial soul origin quietly transformed the instant her divine soul returned. Its foundation was gradually dyed a sacred violet-gold, while the radiance of her wings flowed with the dual brilliance of dragon and phoenix.

The Radiant Goddess Butterfly had completely evolved into the supreme Radiant Dragon God Butterfly!

Within the secret realm, countless rays of rosy light shone. Seven-colored divine patterns rose from the ground and endlessly circled the jade bed. Strands of immortal energy from the God Realm swirled around the girl, tempering her flesh, bones, and tendons while rebuilding her god-level foundation.

Wang Dong'er's mortal warmth and smoke of life, her youthful and innocent memories of the mundane world, were gently sealed away by the power of her divine status and sunk into the deepest reaches of her divine soul.

Replacing them were the cold detachment, nobility, ethereality, and vastness belonging to the Butterfly God of the God Realm.

The body that had slept for years finally bore a complete and flawless god-level divine soul.

The long silence slowly came to an end. The girl upon the jade bed gently fluttered her long lashes and slowly opened her eyes.

They were no longer the clear, tender azure eyes of the past, carrying a touch of adorable innocence.

A pair of clear, ethereal violet-gold pupils, filled with the vastness of the starry river, illuminated the entire secret realm. Her gaze was cold and detached from the mundane world, untouched by mortal warmth, carrying the distance and nobility of a deity looking down upon all living beings—yet it also held a trace of innocent confusion.

She had awakened.

She was no longer Wang Dong'er, the Shrek student dependent on the mortal world and burdened with an incomplete divine soul.

From this moment onward, Wang Dong'er no longer existed in this world. There was only Tang Wutong, the Butterfly God of the God Realm.

She slowly sat up. Her white dress was immaculate, and exquisite violet-gold butterfly wing phantoms drifted around her body. Divine radiance blazed around her, making her peerlessly magnificent. Her mind was utterly empty. She had no memories of growing up in the Haotian Sect, no days spent beside the others at Shrek, and no lingering love with Huo Yuhao. There was only a clear blankness.

Her complete divine status had stripped away all mortal bonds, leaving only the innate foundation of a deity.

Above the God Realm Nexus, Tang San watched his daughter awaken completely within the Haotian Sect's secret realm below, and the tension between his brows eased slightly.

The suffering of a divided divine soul that had lasted ten thousand years had finally been fully resolved today.

He had saved Wang Qiu'er's life, perfected Tang Wutong's divine position, and broken the sacrificial fate set by the original work.

But the next moment, his gaze pierced through the planes once more and fell upon the upright, determined young man within the Star Dou Great Forest.

Tang Wulin.

Once again, this variable that transcended time and space had rewritten the destinies of two people chosen by fate.

The Dragon God's Origin and the bloodline of a supreme god coexisted within him. With his strength alone, he had shifted the destiny of the entire continent and dissolved the Butterfly God's dead end of fate.

The solemnness in Tang San's eyes resurfaced, layered with countless complexities.

Was this child an opportunity bestowed by heavenly law, or the greatest variable capable of overturning all heavens?

The answer still drifted in the unknown.

He slowly withdrew his divine consciousness, leaving behind only a strand of gentle divine aura to envelop the Haotian Sect's secret realm, protecting Tang Wutong as she stabilized her newly reborn divine status and quietly waited for the day she would enter the world and meet the person destined for her again.

In the lower realm, winds rose through the forest sea of Star Dou, and the road ahead was long.

Tang Wulin, racing toward the place his heart desired; Wang Qiu'er, freed from destiny; and Tang Wutong, newly reborn in confusion—their three threads of fate had been completely rewritten, and a new legend of the continent had quietly begun.