"Elder Xuan, this upheaval certainly dealt Sun Moon a crushing blow, but if word got out, wouldn't it make our Shrek Academy the target of every arrow?" Bei Bei suddenly asked. "And Sun Moon will inevitably use this as an excuse to impose martial law in Mingdu."
"So you must never tell anyone that Caitou did this. Understand?" Xuan Zi glanced at Bei Bei, then addressed everyone from Shrek in a grave voice.
"Elder Xuan, countless departed souls are wandering Mingdu now, and my martial soul has evolved into the Soul-Destroying Sword. Every soul I destroy increases my soul power. This is my opportunity!"
In the Shrek Academy Team's lounge, a young man whose attire was utterly out of place among the divine descendants and aristocrats present suddenly spoke.
He was Chen Zifeng, who had consumed an excessive amount of immortal herbs and burned his own life force during the earlier battle against Snow Girl, triggering a backlash that had left him incontinent these past few days.
Watching the departed souls drifting all over Mingdu, Chen Zifeng's face brimmed with longing.
"Then go! Keep your movements concealed, leave quickly and return quickly, and don't cause any unnecessary complications."
Looking at the young man standing before him, who had not yet entirely shed his boyishness, then at Ma Xiaotao, Dai Huabin, Zhu Lu, and the other divine descendants, whose faces had been filled with venomous resentment these past few days until they finally regained their composure today, Xuan Zi's eyes flashed.
"Yes, thank you for granting my wish, Elder Xuan. At last! At last, my chance to defy heaven and change my fate has arrived. The next time I encounter that bitch, I'll destroy her utterly and reclaim Shrek's glory."
"Junior brothers and sisters, your senior brother will be back shortly."
"Snow Girl, Huo Yuhao... very good. I'll remember you. One day, I'll make you two bastards repay the humiliation you inflicted on my Shrek a thousand times over."
After rising into the air, Chen Zifeng searched for sufficiently powerful departed souls-high-value targets for him now, since the stronger the soul his Soul-Destroying Sword martial soul slew, the greater the increase in soul power he received-while vowing vengeance.
Although Chen Zifeng came from a commoner family, after entering Shrek and becoming a leading figure among his peers at Shrek Academy, he could never accept divine descendants being desecrated by lowborn wretches.
In the eyes of Chen Zifeng and those like him, Junior Sister Xiaotao, Junior Sister Zhu Lu, Junior Brother Huabin... their ancestors had rendered unparalleled service to the Sea God's great undertaking of destroying the [Evil Angel God], achievements greater than heaven itself. How could anyone allow people with such exalted blood flowing through their veins to be desecrated by Huo Yuhao, a mud-legged peasant?
To Chen Zifeng, only death could atone for the desecrator's sins.
So eager to show off. Isn't he just trying to win some wealthy divine-descendant family's favor and climb the ladder?
Xu He, a prince of Sun Moon's former dynasty, is one thing. But a nobody like you? You stumbled into dog-shit luck, received immortal herbs bestowed by a goddess, and evolved your martial soul, only to suffer a crushing defeat. And you still dream of claiming credit and reaping rewards someday? A toad lusting after swan flesh.
An impoverished sprout with bitter roots, a lowly surname from a humble household, forever dreaming in broad daylight! Watching Chen Zifeng soar away, a flicker of utter contempt passed through Xuan Zi's eyes. How did this lowborn wretch come to think he was someone worth counting? Just because Ma Xiaotao and Dai Huabin called him senior brother or senior a few times?
At that moment, most of the younger generation in the Shrek Team's lounge had never weathered any truly great storms. Only He Caitou, adept at reading expressions, discerned Xuan Zi's thoughts.
Even though he had already lost his noble status, He Caitou had no intention of exposing this distinction.
Because the deity who had appeared in his dreams had promised to bestow the goddess Xiaoxiao upon him as his wife once the undertaking succeeded.
I am favored by a god. I am not rootless duckweed like you, even if I am almost entirely alone right now, He Caitou thought as he watched Chen Zifeng disappear into the distance.
Next to take the stage will be our old friends, Xuan Zi thought as he took a chicken leg from his Storage Soul Tool and quickly finished it.
The Body Sect was the Heaven Dou Empire's trump card, as well as the soul master faction most firmly aligned with the nations of Douluo. Such a group naturally posed an apparent threat to Shrek within the soul master world.
In reality, however, the one they truly threatened was the Sun Moon Empire.
How could Du Busi, who had been watching Mingdu from the shadows all along, miss the opportunity presented by Mingde Hall being wiped out in this explosion?
Amid the chaos, large numbers of Body Sect disciples suddenly appeared and engaged one of the Mingdu Garrison Troops' Hand of National Protection units in fierce combat.
As for the Body Sect's sect master, Du Busi himself, he carefully monitored the movements of Long Xiaoyao, one of the three great Limit Douluos of the age.
Late that night at the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy, Huo Yuhao and Snow Girl, drenched in sweat after half a day's work administering Ye Guyi's first course of bone repair treatment, went to bathe and heard that the commotion outside was still continuing.
"Yuhao, hasn't this chain of explosions stopped yet? Could it spread to the academy?" Snow Girl sounded somewhat anxious.
"The explosions are over, of course. The ones who'll take the blame have probably arrived now." Huo Yuhao emerged from the bathroom with a smile.
"Take the blame? Who could shoulder such a heaven-high catastrophe? Being hunted by a colossus like Sun Moon is no joke anywhere on this continent." Snow Girl was doubtful.
"Differences in strength and intelligence do make the vast majority submit, but not everyone will bow to the will of authority built on those differences. Yet to the chess players standing beyond the board, that backbone can likewise serve as a chess piece."
Huo Yuhao understood that Shrek Academy's setback in this Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Fighting Tournament, along with the fact that he, the son of the plane, had not attended Shrek Academy, had already altered the ten-thousand-year trend of the continent's fortune flowing in one direction toward Shrek.
He, the child of fortune, was not at Shrek, and Shrek had not achieved complete victory in this year's soul fighting tournament, yet the entire planet's fortune was still gathering toward Shrek, where the Golden Tree stood. Could that still be a natural phenomenon?
In this era, before the Tang Family had killed the God of Destruction and pinned the blame on him, they at least had to obey the Divine Realm's rules on the surface if they wanted to do whatever they pleased on the Douluo Continent.
For instance, Shrek excelled at teaching, drawing a gathering of geniuses. People could not choose the circumstances of their birth, so anyone born a genius must possess fortune. A gathering of geniuses objectively caused fortune to accumulate. And that accumulated fortune, in turn, caused the entire Douluo Continent's plane origin and life core to gather spontaneously toward Shrek's Golden Tree.
How reasonable! How natural!
"But the most crucial link-being excellent teachers-has to be proven through the students' performance. And in this life, I've damaged that illusion."
The Huo Yuhao of this life naturally knew what Shrek's glory really amounted to.
Only if that glory-the glory of winning every competition and auction for ten thousand years-was a form of "achievement" rather than something else could the image of "excellent teachers" presented to the Divine Realm hold up.
And only once that image held up could the final link in the logical chain-the plane origin and life core merging with the Golden Tree-appear reasonable under the Divine Realm's rules.
"Snow Girl, don't go out over the next few days. It'll be dangerous outside. This situation isn't something you and I can control right now."
"And... even inside the academy, conceal your aura as much as possible. The powerful figures arriving these past few days have no shortage of interest in hunting geniuses born in Sun Moon."
Before you continue