Year 2638 of the Douluo Calendar, year 4 of the Divine Realm Calendar.
That day, fishermen working in the bay of the duchy's capital watched in terror as a fleet sailed toward Skyfrost City.
Like colossal steel beasts, the ships slowly approached the shore, trailing white wakes behind them.
What were those things? Where had they come from? The city's residents hurried to spread the news, their hearts uneasy.
Only later did many of them learn that these were not coastal vessels belonging to the Star Luo Empire, but warships from a distant place called the Spirit Ice Continent.
The people of the Douluo Continent could never have imagined that this day would become one repeatedly invoked throughout history.
This day became known to history as the arrival of the Divine Realm Empire.
Three years earlier.
Dusk was like an overturned inkstone, its ink slowly spreading across the sky above Star Luo City.
Long Yue leaned against the bronze railing of a tower at the Imperial Junior Soul Master Academy. The wind slipped through his fingers, carrying the faint hum of a departing Soul Guidance Train and the bitter fragrance of locust blossoms.
Spring departed and autumn came, and another year passed. Long Yue, a transmigrator who had been sent flying by a Dayun truck, celebrated his ninth birthday. His soul power was now at rank twenty-four.
Long Yue knew his future-he would become the foremost Heavenly King of the Monster Academy, and also the Mountain Dragon Douluo, suppressed by Tang Wulin for the rest of his life.
In the era of the Legend of the Dragon King, Long Yue had actually transmigrated to the Star Luo Continent rather than the Douluo Continent.
That was fine, too. The abyssal invasion, the tortured romance between Wulin and Gu Yue, the ten-thousand-year plan... none of those had anything to do with him anymore.
Long Yue had no system, but his Mountain Dragon King martial soul was enough to make him a Titled Douluo.
As the saying went, "With pickled greens and bubbling tofu to eat, even His Imperial Majesty has nothing on me." All Long Yue wanted was to live this life free and unrestrained.
Star Luo City gradually lit up.
Soul Guidance Lamps flowed along the roads in rivers of gold. Hovering Soul Guidance Trains were like startled fireflies, trailing long tails as they vanished toward the distant Xiding River Bridge. To the southeast, beyond Star Luo Lake's shimmering golden waters, the crimson walls and upturned eaves of the Imperial City received their final coating of dusky gold from the setting sun.
"Brother Long, I knew I'd find you here." Dai Yueyan climbed up the tower and greeted Long Yue with a warm smile.
"Fourth Prince." Long Yue did not mind associating with members of the imperial family. In the future, he would surely become an imperial retainer on the Star Luo Continent.
"I brought some wine. Want a drink?" Dai Yueyan took a flask from his Storage Soul Tool. He had bought it at the Splendid Glory Pavilion, Star Luo City's most exclusive restaurant, and it had cost a pretty penny.
"Not bad, Yan." Long Yue readily accepted the wine from the prince. "But you'd better be careful. The Splendid Glory Pavilion sits right beside Star Luo Lake. If the Imperial Clan Court catches you buying wine, they might tattle to His Majesty. Don't you want to inherit the throne?"
"Ahem-"
Dai Yueyan hurriedly cut that topic short, afraid Long Yue's loose tongue would land him in prison. "Father is still in the prime of his life. Don't say things like that again."
Dai Yueyan was Emperor Dai Tianling's fourth son, and the emperor had seventeen sons. Those princes would eventually have to compete for the position, and the competition would be fierce.
Fortunately, the Star Luo Empire had already abandoned the old calendar's practice of making imperial children fight one another to the death, dating back to its time on the Douluo Continent. Even if Dai Yueyan failed to become emperor, he would not be killed by his own brothers.
Long Yue poured a mouthful of wine down his throat. The pungent liquid burned its way down like a blazing line of fire, instantly flushing his face. "Good stuff. Bearblood Wine, a spirit wine that strengthens blood and vitality. You really splurged."
Dai Yueyan shook his head. To him, a flask of spirit wine hardly counted as splurging.
Besides, no amount of spiritual treasures was too much if it helped him build a good relationship with Long Yue, a powerhouse certain to become a Titled Douluo.
"Here." Long Yue passed the wine over. Dai Yueyan also took a large gulp, only to choke until his whole face turned red.
"Hahaha."
Long Yue laughed heartily and thumped Dai Yueyan on the back, looking like a bear with an arm slung around a little white rabbit.
The two drank as they sat atop the Imperial Junior Soul Master Academy's towering spire and gazed out over the city.
Soul guidance screens in the business district flashed with color, advertisements for soul guidance mechas drifting through their shifting light.
"How much more advanced do you think the Sun Moon Federation on the Douluo Continent is than us?"
Dai Yueyan asked drunkenly:
"I've seen the footage brought over by the Spirit Pagoda and the Tang Sect. Mingdu is practically a city of steel. Shrek City is pretty impressive, too. Oh, and... and Old Star Luo City. Star Luo City is great, too!"
As he spoke, tears actually began streaming down Dai Yueyan's face. He stood and jumped onto a small spire, circling unsteadily as he sang a song from the "migration era."
"Sun and Moon pressed upon us, our mountains and rivers fell; we bade farewell to our ancient halls and stepped onto the boundless sea. Through mighty waves we journeyed-how long the road ahead..."
Only after the song ended did Dai Yueyan stop his wild singing and dancing and regain his usual composure, closing with a single line:
"I raise my eyes and see the sun, but cannot see Star Luo."
That Star Luo meant Old Star Luo City. Long Yue understood.
Normally, Dai Yueyan was the refined Fourth Prince, raised with an excellent imperial education and observing etiquette in every movement. In truth, however, he was a sensitive, artistic young man.
After the "migration era" and the "landing era," few people on the Star Luo Continent could still relate to such longing for the old homeland. Yet Dai Yueyan had always hoped he could return to the Douluo Continent one day and see it for himself.
"The old continent had Star Luo, and this place is Star Luo, too."
Long Yue leaped onto the small spire atop the tower, balancing almost entirely on one foot, and sang at the top of his lungs, "We landed on a new continent, its grasses and trees smelling raw; we planted parasol trees to draw the phoenix home!"
This was still Star Luo City. It had never changed.
It was still a city built around a central axis, its imperial palace constructed in the old style, seated in the north and facing south. The moat remained a silver ribbon, though now the metal tail fins of mechas skimmed its ripples. Along the streets and alleys, old men selling lotus-root starch from bamboo shoulder poles stepped shakily through patches of light cast by soul guidance neon billboards.
Long Yue carried on with Dai Yueyan's song, seemingly unconcerned that he was high atop a tower, one foot dangling in midair, liable to fall at any moment.
Dai Yueyan thought, That's just the kind of man Brother Long is, free and unrestrained, singing loudly in his cups like the celebrated scholars and wild eccentrics of ancient times.
The sky suddenly darkened.
An immense oppressive force descended upon Long Yue and Dai Yueyan, nearly pitching them off the tower. Only after jumping back to safety did they exchange looks of alarm and uncertainty.
Who were we bothering by acting a little crazy?
Long Yue and Dai Yueyan were not the only ones who felt that oppressive force. All of Star Luo City felt it.
Several powerful streaks of light shot out from the imperial palace. Outside the city to the northwest, a white, dragon-shaped radiance imbued with an aura of light also rose from the Monster Academy.
Boom-
The explosion sounded like muffled thunder surging up from the depths of the earth.
The sky was like a length of silk abruptly torn apart, exposing the chaotic darkness behind it.
Hundreds upon hundreds of enormous soul guidance screens throughout the city shattered in the same instant, scattering dark snowflakes. Every light vanished, and darkness came crashing down from above.
Then came a dizzying sensation of weightlessness, as though someone had uprooted the entire city and hurled it into the boundless void.
Long Yue seized the cold bronze railing beside him, then grabbed the terrified Dai Yueyan.
He heard...
"You and I shall perish together!"
The terrified screams of the people within the city were swallowed by a far greater roar, one that seemed to come from the world itself.
After an unknown length of time, the horrifying tremors slowly subsided. A deathly silence settled over Star Luo City.
Long Yue jerked his head up and looked beyond the city from the tower.
The familiar steel forest outside Star Luo City stretched outward, until, at the city's edge, there appeared an almost terrifying... emptiness.
Across the deep vault of the heavens, the stars were denser and brighter than ever before, like countless cold eyes looking down upon this suddenly silenced, beastlike city.
A solitary moon spilled its cold, almost cruel radiance across the icy metal shell of Star Luo City's walls.
The wind blew down from the Big Dipper Mountains to the north, carrying an unfamiliar, primal scent.
So,
Where was Star Luo City now?
Before you continue