The Ghost Emperor's life had been uncanny and dark, full of bizarre twists, legends, and madness that ordinary people could scarcely imagine. He could be called the most chilling Evil Soul Master overlord in ten thousand years of the Douluo Continent's history.
The Ghost Emperor had not come from a family of Soul Masters. He had no sect's foundations or family's protection behind him, and had mingled among the continent's lowest ranks in his youth. No one knew his true origins. In childhood, he had awakened an extremely rare ghost-type mutated martial soul, innately steeped in the aura of death.
Ordinary Soul Masters cultivated steadily by absorbing Soul Rings and tempering their soul power, but the Ghost Emperor's martial soul was exceptionally unusual. It could absorb the death energy and resentment left behind when living beings perished, converting them into the foundation of his own soul power.
From the moment of his martial soul awakening, an icy, sinister aura had lingered around him year-round. Wherever he went, the vitality of nearby creatures rapidly drained away, plants withered, and all things fell into deathly stillness.
In his youth, the Ghost Emperor had not yet understood how to restrain his martial soul's abnormal traits. While living in an ordinary village, his unusual constitution had caused the living beings around him to weaken and perish one after another.
The death energy amassed from countless lost lives had nourished his martial soul and soul power without end, allowing his cultivation to far surpass that of Soul Masters his age while he was still young. His cultivation speed could be called heaven-defying.
Having witnessed firsthand how death could bring an immense surge in strength, an obsession with power and reaching the continent's summit had taken deep root in the Ghost Emperor's heart, becoming his lifelong pursuit.
At that time, order under the Federation was stable across the Douluo Continent. Righteous Soul Master factions were spread throughout the land and would never permit Evil Soul Masters to slaughter living beings at will and trample the rules.
The Ghost Emperor's wanton absorption of death energy and slaughter of living beings soon alerted the Federation's regular Soul Master legions, prompting a large-scale campaign to surround and eradicate him.
The young Ghost Emperor's cultivation had yet to reach maturity. Surrounded by so many Soul Masters intent on killing him, he was ultimately overwhelmed by their numbers and gravely wounded, his physical body on the verge of shattering. Only the protection of his powerful spiritual origin and innate martial soul allowed him to barely escape the encirclement alive.
After escaping death, the Ghost Emperor shed his youthful recklessness completely, coming to understand that the tree that rose above the forest would be battered by the wind.
From then on, he hid in the continent's uninhabited deathtraps and perilous lands, vanishing without a trace. He remained concealed for years, evading every righteous faction's investigations while quietly accumulating soul power, honing his martial soul, and tempering his spiritual domain in the shadows.
The years passed in silence, and no one knew how much arduous cultivation the Ghost Emperor endured in the dark.
He advanced with care at every step, breaking through successive levels of soul power. From an ordinary Soul Master, he crossed the barriers between realms, reaching Titled Douluo and then Super Douluo.
Those long years in hiding wore away his impatience, but made his ambition all the deeper and his mind all the more ruthless and meticulous.
His fellow emperor among the Holy Spirit Cult's Two Emperors, Underworld Emperor Ha Luosa, was renowned across the continent for his extreme bloodshed and slaughter of entire cities. His vicious reputation was stark and chilling.
The Ghost Emperor never flaunted his power or built up publicity, and rarely appeared in public to slaughter others. Yet his unfathomable strength and meticulous mind inspired profound dread in the older generation's top Soul Masters. He was the most terrifying presence hidden in the continent's shadows.
In that era, when great figures rose together and powerful experts emerged one after another, Atlas Douluo Yun Ming presided over Shrek, suppressing all evil in the world. He was universally acknowledged across the continent as the strongest expert of the age.
The ambitious Ghost Emperor had once taken the initiative to challenge Yun Ming. The clash between those two supreme experts shook heaven and earth, rocking the entire Douluo Continent.
In that battle, the Ghost Emperor exhausted the full cultivation of his lifetime, yet still proved no match for the almost godlike Yun Ming and suffered grievous injuries.
But thanks to his martial soul's unique life-preserving abilities and his deep spiritual reserves, he did not perish. After being gravely wounded, he quietly withdrew and concealed himself completely, no longer readily involving himself in the continent's conflicts.
Despite that crushing defeat, the Ghost Emperor did not abandon his obsession. Instead, he became even more patient and calculating.
To fulfill my lifelong wish, Yun Ming must die!
When the Holy Spirit Cult gradually revived, the Demon Empress fell into slumber, and the cult was left a host of dragons without a head, the Ghost Emperor emerged once more after years in hiding. He took charge of the Holy Spirit Cult's affairs, great and small, becoming its true central authority.
The Holy Spirit Cult's many external schemes, secret arrangements, and conspiracies that stirred up the continent's political landscape all originated with the Ghost Emperor.
Compared with the bloodthirsty, impulsive Underworld Emperor, the Ghost Emperor excelled at patiently laying plans and turning others' strength against them. Ruthless and meticulous, his calculations left nothing unaccounted for. He was the Holy Spirit Cult's most terrifying strategist and fighting force.
The Abyss had the Sage Emperor; the Holy Spirit Cult had the Ghost Emperor.
At his peak, the Ghost Emperor was a Level 99 Limit Douluo, possessed Four-Word Battle Armor, and had spiritual power at the pinnacle of the Spirit Domain Realm. He stood at the very top of the Douluo Continent's Soul Master hierarchy.
His ultimate lifelong obsession was to use the death energy of countless living beings to break through the barriers of his realm, touch the threshold of godhood, and shatter the ultimate limit of Soul Masters.
To fulfill his lifelong wish of becoming a god, he stopped at nothing. He secretly colluded with forces from the Abyss Plane and reached a secret pact with Spirit Pagoda Master Qiangu Dongfeng. The two dark powers conspired together and exploited each other, intending to overturn the Federation's rule, destroy Shrek's legacy, and completely rewrite the Douluo Continent's landscape.
The Shrek catastrophe erupted. Level Twelve God-Slaying Fixed Soul Cannon Shells descended, bringing the ten-thousand-year-old academy to the brink of annihilation.
The Ghost Emperor personally joined the battle, leading a host of powerful Evil Soul Masters in an overwhelming advance. He presided over the battlefield, his oppressive might intimidating everyone present.
Even when faced once more with Yun Ming's supreme divine might, he fought stubbornly to the death, remaining standing despite his grievous wounds.
After Yun Ming fell, the continent no longer had a supreme being capable of completely suppressing evil.
The Ghost Emperor seized the opportunity to lay plans in secret, obstructing Shrek's reconstruction by every means possible. He sought to extinguish all hope for the righteous legacy and clear every obstacle from his future path to godhood.
He schemed and plotted his entire life, stirring storms across the continent and treating countless lives as sacrificial offerings for his cultivation. He believed his great undertaking was about to reach fruition and that he would ascend to the summit.
Yet he never imagined that Holy Spirit Douluo Ya Li and the others would sacrifice their life origins, burning all their spiritual origins and life force to unleash the divine light of life that purified all evil in the world.
Brilliant, sacred light of life swept across the battlefield, subduing all death energy of the ghostly path.
This Limit Douluo overlord, who had schemed his entire life and harbored towering ambitions, had both his body and spiritual origin utterly destroyed by that purifying power, perishing from the world completely.
Everyone knew that the Holy Spirit Cult's Two Emperors possessed fearsome reputations that cowed the ages, yet few knew that the Ghost Emperor, who hid in darkness and stirred the storms of his era, had spent his entire life plotting madly for nothing more than a deluded obsession: to defy heaven and become a god with all living beings as his sacrifices. In the end, his life and path were extinguished, and everything came to nothing.
But things were different now. Everyone said the Underworld Emperor was favored by the plane, coming with the Underworld's wrath to punish humanity's evil. Yet who knew that he, the Ghost Emperor, had now truly gained the Plane Spirit's recognition?
Before that power, what did that fool of a Demon Empress amount to? Once I find the person my lord wants and wait for the Abyss to descend, all these people will become sacrifices for my Blood River God-Slaying Array. Hahaha!
Once I deal with Divine Blacksmith Zhen Hua and let the world feel the terror of the Holy Spirit Cult, next will be Shrek...
These three Level Nine Soul Cannon Shells cost me quite a bit of effort, too. The continent's peace organization-the Tang Sect. Heh...
Inside the dim underground chamber, several Soul Guidance Lights glowed faintly from their settings in the stone walls. Their murky, cold light cast alternating patches of brightness and shadow throughout the cavern, while a faint blend of decay and death energy permeated the air.
The Ghost Emperor sat upright in the chamber's seat of honor, his gray-black robes hanging still. The oppressive presence of a Quasi-God flickered around him as his fingertips gently stroked a pitch-black Bone Ring. His gaze was lowered, as though he were considering his next arrangements.
Dark Hummingbird stood to one side with his hands behind his back, his brow slightly furrowed and a lingering frustration buried in his eyes. He had been trapped at the peak of Level 98 for decades, and that invisible chasm between realms still lay across his path.
Dark Phoenix Leng Yulai leaned against the stone wall, the aura of her dark-purple Phoenix Martial Soul faintly circulating around her. There was a trace of discontent in her expression. Others of her generation had advanced in cultivation one after another, while her progress remained a step behind, making it hard to keep envy from welling up in her heart.
The stone door gave a low scraping sound, and Na Nali slowly walked into the chamber.
Her aura had already transformed from before. The soul power circulating around her was dense and substantial, having firmly reached Level 97, and a faint, sinister chiming lingered about her.
The Ghost Emperor raised his eyes, his indifferent gaze settling on Na Nali and slowly sweeping over her.
"You're here."
Na Nali paused and bowed slightly, her bearing respectful.
"Greetings, Lord Ghost Emperor."
The Ghost Emperor could clearly perceive the surge of soul power within her. His tone was flat, revealing neither pleasure nor anger.
"Did you go out to make a breakthrough this time?"
Na Nali lowered her eyes, the faintest smile touching the corners of her lips.
"I devoured quite a bit of essence, and my strength improved. Lord Ghost Emperor, your discerning eyes miss nothing."
The Ghost Emperor showed a measure of approval and nodded slightly.
"As long as it doesn't affect our plans."
He did not care what living beings Na Nali had devoured or what opportunities she had seized. So long as it did not disrupt the Holy Spirit Cult's overall plans, he could leave it all alone.
Beside them, Leng Yulai's pupils contracted slightly. Sensing the genuine increase in Na Nali's soul power, she could no longer conceal her envy. Her fingers tightened unconsciously, and her heart filled with despondency.
They were both Heavenly Kings of the Holy Spirit Cult, yet the other woman had made another breakthrough while she remained rooted to the same spot.
"I really envy you. Just one short trip away, and you managed a breakthrough."
Leng Yulai spoke softly, her tone tinged with a barely perceptible bitterness.
Dark Hummingbird's eyes also lit up. He hurried forward several steps to stand before Na Nali, letting his soul power spread slightly as he carefully sensed the new fluctuations of power coming from her. His face was filled with urgency.
"Na Nali, just what sort of opportunity did you find? I've been trapped at Level 98 for far too long. That barrier is like a heavenly chasm. No matter how hard I cultivate, I can never take even half a step forward."
Dark Hummingbird kept his voice very low, his gaze fixed intently on Na Nali. "Did you make this breakthrough by relying on heavenly treasures, or by devouring some unusual living being? Could you tell me how it worked?"
Na Nali tilted her head slightly, her ponytail swaying gently with the movement. A half-smile appeared on her face.
"Opportunities are things you can encounter, but cannot seek. Some things, even if I told you, you might not be able to reproduce."
At her words, Dark Hummingbird's expression darkened slightly, and a trace of disappointment passed through his heart. But he also understood that opportunities could not be forced, and he could hardly continue pressing her.
Listening to their conversation from the side, Leng Yulai let out a long, stale breath, a shadow passing through her eyes.
"Let's hope this increase in strength lets you complete the task assigned to you, rather than wasting this opportunity for nothing."
Seated in the place of honor, the Ghost Emperor had heard their entire exchange. He spoke slowly, his low voice suppressing all other sounds within the chamber.
"Enough. Opportunities are one thing, but don't forget our most important business at present. The situation between the Federation, Shrek, and the Spirit Pagoda changes in an instant. We don't have much time left. All our strength must be used where it belongs."
Na Nali let the faint smile fade from her face and bowed respectfully once more.
"Understood."
The dim light of the Soul Guidance Lamps fell across their faces. The chamber sank back into an oppressive silence, with only the faintest whisper of wind coming through the cracks in the stone walls.