"You little beast! How dare you!"
"Stop!"
"Is your country deliberately using this tournament to kill our students?"
Under the somewhat dim spotlights of the Soul Fighting stage, the senior members of Shrek stepped forward one after another, their hair practically standing on end with fury.
Sensing how faint Dai Huabin's and Zhu Lu's auras had become, Xuan Zi glared so fiercely that the corners of his eyes nearly split.
"What, did you think I would kill them today?"
Looking at those familiar yet unfamiliar faces before him, Huo Yuhao first hauled up the ashen-faced Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu, one in each hand, then hurled them off the stage.
Well, what an interesting fellow! After so many years, another rising star has finally appeared on the Douluo Continent. What a pity-you still have some sharp edges that need smoothing.
Father God, no wonder you asked me to lower myself and come here to bring him into the fold.
In the Clear Sky Sect's section of the stands, Tang Wutong watched everything unfolding on the Soul Fighting stage. She rose to her feet, inwardly amused.
"Don't hold this against him. Carry these two away for treatment. Xuan Zi, take the students back first." Tang Wutong looked leisurely toward Xuan Zi, pointed at the unconscious Dai Huabin and Zhu Lu, and added,
"Don't you know that my father is pure as ice and immaculate as jade, an upright and honorable god? Why won't you learn from his ocean-wide generosity, instead of quibbling over every last copper?"
Now that the Goddess had deigned to speak, no one from Shrek dared object.
Before coming here, they had received a divine decree in their dreams: to behold the Goddess was to behold her divine father, Sea God Tang San.
Yet Huo Yuhao was panicking, because he saw an Engraving Knife in Tang Wutong's hand. Unlike everyone else present, who had no idea what that knife was, Huo Yuhao knew perfectly well that it was the Spirit-Devouring Carving Knife.
That Spirit-Devouring Carving Knife was, in essence, a piece of gold of life. In his previous life, Elder Yi had told him upon seeing it that, on the plane called the Holy Demon Continent where Elder Yi came from, this gold of life usually existed within Dream Heaven, the plane's life core.
"You're a little different from what I expected, boy. There really is quite a difference between you and other sons of the plane."
"Still, if you want to know what those above have planned for this continent's future, and your own future... you can come straight to me!"
"You needn't be shy!" Tang Wutong regarded Huo Yuhao with aloof hauteur. A revelation from the Supreme God had told her that this handsome young man before her had truly changed many things.
"I am honored by your favor, Goddess!" Huo Yuhao said gravely. "But I still have much to do for now."
Even without anything else Tang Wutong had said, the mere appearance of that gold of life in her hand told him how furious God-King Tang in the Divine Realm was—especially with the Plane Consciousness of the Douluo Continent.
If nothing had been done to the Plane Consciousness, then even though the Soul Fighting Tournament had moved to Mingdu, it would have manipulated fortune to transfer that gold of life from the Star Luo Auction House to the Sun Moon Auction House.
After all, gold of life was part of a plane's source of life. For a Plane Master, controlling where a piece of gold of life went within his own plane was utterly simple.
"Elder Yi, if I hadn't spent these past few days waiting at the Mingdu auction house like a farmer waiting by a stump for a rabbit, expecting the Plane Consciousness to deliver the gold of life to my doorstep, do you think I could have avoided rustling the grass and startling the snake, and having my flaws exposed so quickly?"
Huo Yuhao asked Electrolux in his Sea of Consciousness as he walked back to the Mingyue Hotel.
A strong wind blew, sending fallen leaves swirling in disarray.
"He was going to test you sooner or later. You already know what is happening inside that Golden Tree at Shrek Academy, yet you don't dare think about your meeting with that girl named Tang Ya in the Star Dou Great Forest that day. You know why."
Huo Yuhao smiled bitterly. The Blue Silver Grass martial soul, Blue Silver Grass, the Blue Silver Emperor, the Sea God... Did he really not know what role Tang Ya played in that chain?
Ten thousand years ago, Tang San, the son of the Blue Silver Emperor, had inherited the Asura God's divine seat and become a Supreme God. Everything related to Blue Silver Grass on the Douluo Continent was part of Tang San's domain-how could it possibly be free of his mark?
Tang Ya did not know that she was part of the Blue Silver Entanglement manifestation within Tang San's Blue Silver Domain, and Huo Yuhao always found himself involuntarily making excuses to avoid the subject.
But avoiding something did not make it cease to exist.
In Huo Yuhao's previous life, it was not only Tang Ya's many later fortuitous encounters. In the era of his rise, the Blue Silver Emperor's ability to devour the Plane Consciousness had also relied on Tang San's Supreme God-level Blue Silver Domain.
"Elder Yi, in this era, the entire Douluo Continent is already bound in Blue Silver Entanglement. Do you think my resistance is truly right? If resisting means dying, then what I'm doing now is actually leading all of you to your deaths." Huo Yuhao's voice was filled with conflict.
"Little Yuhao, at least you avoided the first Blue Silver Entanglement aimed at you that day in the Star Dou Great Forest, didn't you?" It was Tian Meng who spoke. He could understand Huo Yuhao's helplessness. Elder Yi, meanwhile, fell silent.
"That's true, Brother Sky Dream. You're always so optimistic." Huo Yuhao nodded.
"There's death energy. It seems quite a few things happened at the hotel where you're staying while you were competing today." As he approached his lodgings, Elder Yi's voice rang out in Huo Yuhao's Sea of Consciousness.
Seeing a crowd gathered around the Mingyue Hotel, Huo Yuhao hurried over to ask what had happened. Having stayed here throughout his time in Sun Moon, he had gotten to know quite a few people.
After asking around, Huo Yuhao learned that a girl injured in today's Soul Fighting match had just been murdered by an Evil Soul Master. Mingdu's Garrison Troops were "investigating."
Naturally, an investigation like that would yield no results.
Yu Mengdi? Whether in his previous life or this one, Huo Yuhao had met her only once, but he remembered her as a lively, determined girl.
He had never imagined that, after seeing her that morning, he would hear of her death that evening.
For some reason, he felt a little sorrowful. When he returned to his room, he found Ye Guyi waiting for him while Snow Girl cultivated.
"Miss Ye, could you tell me what happened?"
These past few days, after Ye Guyi temporarily quit her job at the Mingyue Hotel, Huo Yuhao had hired her to cook for him.
At Huo Yuhao's question, Ye Guyi's eyes immediately reddened. She lowered her head and recounted what had happened.
"Miss Ye, are you saying you intend to avenge Yu Mengdi? You know that with your current strength, you have no chance of standing against the Holy Spirit Cult."
Seeing Huo Yuhao frown, Ye Guyi said, "If I can trade my life for even one of theirs, that's enough. I never dreamed I could shake a colossus like the Holy Spirit Cult."
"If I'm killed, it will only mean one less mayfly between heaven and earth. But many lives won't have to become fodder on an Evil Soul Master's path to power..." Ye Guyi smiled. "The blood of our angel lineage carries sin. We can never become nine-ring Titled Douluos."
"So I've never dreamed of one day overthrowing the Holy Spirit Cult, or having our clan accepted by the world again..."
Huo Yuhao simply listened patiently. There was little he could do now.
Having lived through his previous life, he knew that the Angel Clan's revival over the next ten thousand years came about because Ye Guyi, whom he had saved on his journey to becoming the God of Emotion as Spirit Ice Douluo Huo Yuhao and reviving the Tang Sect, had joined the Tang Sect and later formed a marriage alliance with the Yue Family.
In this life, Huo Yuhao could not take the same path as before, and thus could not help Ye Guyi purchase an indulgence from the Tang Family.
He could only listen and offer Ye Guyi some solace.
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