A Choice

Aside from the Star Luo Empire, the strongest of the three nations, both the Heaven Dou Empire and the Dou Ling Empire lacked any decisive powerhouse.

The Heaven Dou Empire was somewhat better off. It had the Body Sect as its protector sect, as well as the Ten Thousand Year Profound Ice Cave. After all, the Body Sect was home to all body soul masters.

Moreover, it had Du Busi, an exceptionally protective patriarch. He possessed the combat strength of a Rank 98 Douluo under normal circumstances and could temporarily enter the realm of a Rank 99 Limit Douluo. He ranked among the strongest on the entire Douluo Continent. Not to mention that he only had thirty to fifty years left to live and urgently needed to find a successor. The Spirit Attribute martial soul, Spirit Eye, happened to possess tremendous potential. Generally speaking, this would undoubtedly have been an excellent choice.

Yet even if Lin You chose the Star Luo Empire, he would not choose the Body Sect. The reason was simple.

It was the ever-present ultimate safety net.

If you chose another path and reaped all its benefits, then revealed your martial soul at the end, an absurdly powerful and fiercely protective patriarch would still come take you home. No matter how strong your husband's family was, this member of your maiden family would not even frown. He even dared to stand against Shrek Academy head-on, so what did he have to fear?

But choosing the Body Sect first meant giving up all the other benefits. Even Shrek Academy had first investigated Huo Gua's background. Then Mu En personally went to the Far North and captured an Ice Jade Scorpion for research, confirmed that the Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion's power resided within Huo Gua, and only then accepted him as a disciple. With the wrong identity, it would be difficult to advance further within any other faction.

As for the Dou Ling Empire, the first nation to be destroyed, Lin You honestly did not really know what the original novel had written about it. Its presence was far too weak. Other than mentioning that its upper class consisted of descendants of the Heaven Dou Empire's Snow family, there was not much description at all. So he would not consider it for the time being.

The Sun Moon Empire was even more of a heavyweight. At least, after Lin You gathered and analyzed some of the original novel's plot points that he knew, it was undoubtedly the place he least wanted to take Huo Yuhao to.

First, there was its cooperation with Evil Soul Masters. There was no defending that. At the highest level, it had established the Holy Spirit Cult as the Sun Moon state religion. The reigning emperor of the Sun Moon Empire had acknowledged the Holy Spirit Cult's Supreme Consecrator as his adoptive mother and appointed its current leader as the Imperial Preceptor. The state had joined forces with a cannibalistic evil cult and officially endorsed it. The common people were probably being massacred openly, their blood aura and resentment harvested, with nowhere to seek justice.

Second, Jing Hongchen and the Illustrious Virtue Hall had openly collaborated with the Holy Spirit Cult. The three heads of Sun Moon national defense, the three figures who practically commanded every Soul Engineer in the empire, all maintained close ties with the Holy Spirit Cult. Even Ye Xishui's top-tier Soul Tool, the God of Death Tower, had been made by Kong Deming. (Ye Xishui stated this herself in Chapter 554 of the original.) One could imagine how deeply entangled the Holy Spirit Cult and the Sun Moon Empire were.

Then there were the rampant evil cults and the endlessly growing underground forces, intertwined in a tangled web. Human trafficking, drug deals, arms sales—even rare strategic metal resources could be brazenly brought out as stakes in underground competitions. Ye Yulin was even one of the judges. The gangs had the military backing them too. It was a complete hodgepodge of the Green Gang, the Axe Gang, and the Nationalist Army.

Even more deranged was that Xu Tianran himself admired Shrek Academy. Jing Hongchen entered the Sea God Pavilion, got threatened by Mu En, and actually showed a relieved expression. He said that he felt deeply honored to become a guest of the Sea God Pavilion. Every single one of the upper ranks was Shrek at heart.

The most heavyweight matter was Universe Love Questioning Valley. Lin You had been somewhat confused before, but after sorting through all the clues and arranging them together, he was completely numb.

Its activation required the sacrifice of a man and a woman, and it was controlled by the Holy Spirit Cult. Yet God Kings could enter and leave freely.

During the era of Douluo 3, the entire Clear Sky Sect vanished, while the Holy Spirit Cult's people all knew a supreme Clear Sky technique: Ring Detonation. It was also explicitly stated that Ha Luosa, the Nether King of the Holy Spirit Cult, was someone favored by the plane—he could come back to life even after dying. And the master of the plane at that time happened to be Tang Hao.

Furthermore, if the Demon Empress wanted to break through to True Godhood and summon the abyss, aside from the deaths of twelve million people, she needed one absolutely crucial item: the whale pearl of the Deep Sea Demonic Whale King.

And that whale pearl had already been taken by Tang San, who had become the Sea God at the time, and embedded into the Sea God Trident. If Tang San refused to hand it over, the Demon Empress would not have the slightest chance.

With all these clues, it was practically certain that a certain God King had a pair of gray gloves, specially used to handle certain unclean matters.

After all, God Kings were pure and immaculate, supreme and exalted, righteous and radiant. How could they possibly threaten a mother and child on a battlefield?

This so-called ten-thousand-year grand plan, which sacrificed ten billion lives over ten thousand years, had already begun during Douluo 2.

And in the Sun Moon Empire, God King Tang's level of interference was extremely high. At best, he could have her taken to Universe Love Questioning Valley for brainwashing; one utterance of "suffering," and she would be refined in an instant into Tang Family Star Fury. At worst, he could send her to the Holy Spirit Cult as the Holy Son and thoroughly train her into darkness again. If that still did not work, seeing that Huo Yuhao was beautiful and naturally alluring, he might just seal her away and save her for Tang Wulin as a wife.

If one went to Sun Moon purely to study Soul Tools, one would actually find that throughout the era of Peerless Tang Sect, although Soul Tools were the answer to the current meta, it was still the age of martial souls.

In Di Tian's battle, whether it was Soul Cores, Martial Soul Fusion Skills, or anything else, their effects were almost all greater than that of the Ice Armor. Whether it could even rank among the top five was unknown, and it was already Little Huo's crowning achievement. One could well imagine how awkward Soul Tools were when facing the most elite existences.

Even by the era of Douluo 3, your Rank 12 Fixed Soul Guidance Shell could only kill the demigod Yun Ming. Against the Abyssal Sage King, a first- or second-class god, even the Sun Moon Federation, with battle armor and mechs filling the skies, got beaten so badly it could not find its bearings. With that level of power, could it fight an opponent at the God King level? Not a chance.

The true upper limit still lay with the Star Dou Great Forest. Soul Tools alone could never defeat divine artifacts. So there was little point in going to Sun Moon.

By comparison, aside from one locator, Shrek had at most Mu En using the Golden Tree to wield Sea God's Light. There were no other risks.

Ma Xiaotao? Xuan Zi? They were merely close calls without real danger. Shrek's teaching philosophy was rather disgusting, but otherwise there was no problem.

Although Shrek was also terrible, if it was a contest of who was worse, there was no need to pick the smellier pile of shit. That was why Lin You would rather arrange for Huo Yuhao to go to Shrek. Given the larger environment, it was better to choose a safer place and live an honest life.

"Ah, there really isn't a single good place."

Lin You sighed softly. Under Huo Yuhao's puzzled gaze, his expression was incomparably complicated.

Was Shrek really a good place?

That witch during enrollment was outright deranged, and there was also that absurd material-fusion nonsense. Wang Dong was actually not bad; he had quite a bit of personal charm in the middle stages. Wang Dong'er was also lovely, and Wang Qiu'er was beyond question, but Tang Wutong, who had been fused together from them, was hard to put into words.

The most unbearable part was that she was also God King Tang's locator. If not for Wang Dong, God King Tang would at most have known that some child of destiny was connected to the Tang Sect, but he absolutely would not have been able to locate Huo Gua. But with her staying so close and serving as a locator—oh dear, once the God King acted, he directly blocked the other gods' perception of Huo Gua. It was equivalent to marking him off. Unless he abandoned him himself, no one could take him away. Otherwise, Rong Nianbing would have come to snatch him long ago.

"Yuhao, remember this: in the future, don't turn into a lovestruck fool just because a boy is handsome or pretty, understand? From my six years of experience as a boy, not a single man is any good."

Lin You suddenly pressed his hands onto Huo Yuhao's shoulders and stared directly into her eyes, which seemed to hold a pool of autumn water. His tone was grave.

"Mm-hm. You-ge is the exception." Her voice was as soft as a mosquito's buzz. The little girl favored by fate bravely raised her head. Her eyes, brilliant as stars, met Lin You's truly indifferent, somber gaze, but she still could not help looking away.

"Alright, let's continue training. Improve our abilities sooner, and then we'll all leave the White Tiger Duke Residence together. It's a promise, okay?"

"Mm!"

Woohoo, the contract was signed.