Tang Hao

Ye Guyi shook her head and said, "The legend of the Holy Emperor began spreading six hundred years ago. Back then, a nine-ring Titled Douluo-level Evil Soul Master appeared on the continent, bearing the title Blood Infant. He awakened his martial soul at eighteen. Afterward, he could only break through his bottlenecks and increase his soul power by devouring human infants. From an ordinary person to a Titled Douluo, Blood Infant Douluo killed over ten thousand babies."

Ye Guyi's expression grew grave as she continued. "Blood Infant Douluo inherited no powerful bloodline and had no family background that could supply vast cultivation resources. Yet within twenty years, he became a nine-ring Titled Douluo. His soul rings were red starting with his eighth. In other words, despite having no backing whatsoever, he killed a hundred-thousand-year soul beast while still a Seven-Ring Soul Sage. The previous commander of Shrek's Inspection Corps personally eliminated him. That was also when the legend of the Holy Emperor began."

"The legend of the Holy Emperor is one simple sentence: the Holy Emperor stands before a woman about to give birth, waiting to devour her child once it is born."

The Undead Demiplane Electrolux had entrusted to Huo Yuhao was filled with a warm aura of light, without the chill of an ordinary undead domain. Yet after Ye Guyi spoke those words, everyone except Huo Yuhao-even the ice-attributed Snow Girl-felt an exceptionally unsettling cold.

Only Huo Yuhao wore an intrigued expression after hearing Ye Guyi's account.

"The most widespread account on the Douluo Continent is Shrek's: Evil Soul Masters originated with the Rakshasa God. Tang San's grandfather, Tang Chen, went to Slaughter City to undertake the trials of the Asura God, the God of Divine Realm Judgment, but was corrupted by the divine will of the Rakshasa God, the god of evil thoughts, and became the King of Slaughter. Tang San obtained the Asura Domain from the King of Slaughter. The first Evil Soul Master Tang San encountered was Tang Chen, whom he later redeemed through the Sea God's Light. Finally, during the decisive battle at Jialing Pass, the new Rakshasa God, Bibi Dong, then emperor of the Spirit Hall Empire, revealed her true face."

"And according to Bibi Dong's last words, she began inheriting the Rakshasa God's power by devouring the Rakshasa God Priest, Qian Xunji."

Huo Yuhao studied Ye Guyi's delicate face, then glanced at the bewildered Snow Girl and said:

"So one implication of this legend of the Holy Emperor is that the Angel Clan intends to bring about the Restoration of the Evil Spirit Hall."

"After all, the rise of Bibi Dong, the founding emperor of the Spirit Hall Empire, began with cannibalism-with eating Qian Xunji."

"Who the Holy Emperor in the prophecy actually is doesn't matter. What matters is that he represents an image and a subject. Bibi Dong's image, and the subject of the Spirit Hall Empire."

Although the Angel Soul Masters had lived cautiously all these years, the true signal conveyed by this rumor from Shrek was, "I suspect someone wants to restore the evil Spirit Hall Empire." Those with a keen nose for such things could readily detect it.

Unlike Bibi Dong, who ultimately could not bring herself to harm her daughter Qian Renxue and only ate outsiders, this Anti-Tang Ambitionist would devour children.

This fable could serve as a metaphor for any person or faction seeking to nurture a new generation of geniuses while harboring irreverent thoughts toward the Sea God.

The Holy Spirit Cult was a group of Soul Masters actively working to fulfill this prophecy.

"Anyone who isn't a fool should understand that, with Shrek serving as the Douluo Continent's true seat of power, actively fulfilling this prophecy amounts to openly rebelling against the rule Tang San left behind on this continent."

"So who gave them the courage?"

"Openly making an enemy of a Supreme God? Have they gone mad?" Snow Girl was immediately bewildered at this point in Huo Yuhao's explanation.

Never mind this Holy Emperor who had yet to show so much as a shadow-even the actual Rakshasa God, Bibi Dong, had been killed in a single strike by Tang San's Asura God Sword, hadn't she?

Huo Yuhao said with a smile:

"But this is actually a confession without being asked. Because all of this began with Blood Infant Douluo, whom Shrek put an end to."

"On one hand, this prophecy encourages dark-attributed Soul Masters to attack Angel Soul Masters, promising that doing so will let them become a version of Bibi Dong who devoured Qian Renxue."

In this life, before the destruction of the Mingyue Hotel, Huo Yuhao had remained uncertain whether the Holy Emperor was his Father-in-law [Tang Bingqing] or Tang Hao.

Now he was certain that the Holy Emperor at this point was Tang Hao and the Blue Silver Emperor inside the Golden Tree.

Huo Yuhao remembered it clearly: in his previous life, after his Father-in-law [Tang Bingqing] returned from searching for her wife in the Falan Star plane, [Tang Bingqing] suddenly broke with her usual behavior and generously brought out the Temporal Tower, a Super Divine Artifact refined from a huge Temporal Marker, allowing the Supreme Gods of the Great God Realm to create new planes within its temporal power and resurrect the people and things of their own eras.

For example, the Tang Family's Crown Prince, Tang Wulin, resurrected and recreated in his own plane all the people and things from the ten thousand years between the day he awakened his martial soul under the guidance of Spirit Pagoda personnel in Aolai City on the eastern coast of the Sun Moon Federation and the birth of the Tang Family Holy Grandson, Lan Xuanyu, from his eggshell.

Huo Yuhao's Father-in-law [Tang Bingqing], meanwhile, directly resurrected and recreated in her own plane all the people and things from two periods totaling twenty thousand years: the ten thousand years from her martial soul awakening in Holy Soul Village until Huo Yuhao left the White Tiger Duke's Mansion, and the ten thousand years from Huo Yuhao being summoned to the Divine Realm until the Tang Family's Crown Prince, Tang Wulin, awakened his martial soul in Aolai City.

And what about Huo Yuhao himself? Or perhaps he should have been called [Tang Family Good Dog Huo Yuhao] back then. The people and things he could resurrect and recreate in his own plane were confined to the mere dozen or so years between that cold winter when he left the White Tiger Duke's Mansion and the end of his great battle with Di Tian.

Among the "Douluo Worlds" formed by the new planes the Supreme Gods created within the Temporal Tower, his world-[Tang Family Good Dog Huo Yuhao]'s-was the most monotonous.

Because his plane was one whose historical blanks were filled entirely by his own imagination.

Sensitive as he was, Huo Yuhao could naturally sense that there were many things the Tang Family simply did not want him to know. Aware of that unwritten rule, he had of course not dared use Temporal Reversal to investigate any history beyond those dozen or so years between leaving the White Tiger Duke's Mansion and battling Di Tian.

"And the unspoken message of this prophecy is meant for the plane consciousness." After hearing Ye Guyi recount history as people of this era understood it, Huo Yuhao reached his own conclusion.

"The child the Holy Emperor will devour is me. The woman giving birth refers to my parents in terms of fortune-in other words, this plane's plane consciousness."

"The moment I'm devoured and become Huo Yuhao is also the moment the plane consciousness is completely consumed by Tang Hao and the Blue Silver Emperor inside the Golden Tree."

As Huo Yuhao reached this point, even he found it ironic: had he not used Defying Heaven to Peer into Fate, becoming an [Audience] and gaining the ability to see "Peerless Tang Sect," his understanding of the Douluo Continent-the land of his birth, where he had once been the heaven-chosen child of an era-would have fallen short even of Ye Guyi's. She had been four years older than him in his previous life and was only one year older in this one, to say nothing of living fossils like the Ice Empress and Snow Girl.

"I can only tell you these things here in the Undead Demiplane after concealing us with a special method. Otherwise, that [Tang Bingqing] could see and hear us from the Divine Realm."

Huo Yuhao looked at Ye Guyi's fair face and asked,

"Guyi, I'm afraid you'll have to endure some hardship next: once you leave this Undead Demiplane, you'll still face mortal danger. But if you stay here-or rather, if, from the perspective of the plane and the Divine Realm, you vanish into thin air without dying-then the danger that descends next won't merely be deadly. It will leave no chance of survival. What will you choose?"