Apart from Han Shuo, Wasir and Salas remained in the Hexopolis to defend it. Wasir had already sent word for his subordinates to temporarily hide in Pandemonium. Meanwhile, Salas used the time to meet with the various faction leaders in the Hexopolis. Since Han Shuo had announced that he wouldn't be taking anyone into the House of Han, it was up to Salas and Wasir to handle the rest.
As soon as Han Shuo's intentions were made known, the others who didn't treat Salas as someone worthy began to seriously consider his words. Some of them knew that their faction's power was too weak to do much within the fringe and decided to join Salas instead.
Han Shuo spent the next few days at the Celestial Pearl Pharmacy, breaking down the remaining impurities in the souls of the Hegemons, leaving only the cultivation insights and turning them into a few arcane orbs for Han Jin and Andrina to deliver to Pandemonium.
Han Shuo had eliminated all the Hegemons in the previous clash, resulting in a total of eleven arcane orbs, including those for Han Huo, Han Mu and Han Shui to use. Aside from these three, Akley was able to obtain a Destruction Arcane Orb made from Tyre's soul. There was also the Death Arcane Orb for Fanny, while Emily would get Asser's Dark Arcane Orb. As for the other Destruction Arcane Orb from Dhaka, Isaiah's Earth Arcane Orb, Regis' Lightning Arcane Orb and Miller's Wind Arcane Orb, Han Shuo would keep them for the others in his house.
Since Han Jin had been able to operate and expand his Goldstone Enterprise to such an enormous extent to this day, he had proven that his intelligence wasn't inferior to Han Hao's in the slightest. And since he had begun to get along with Andrina, he had begun to grow even faster, allowing Han Shuo to leave many important matters in his hands.
After Han Jin and Andrina left, Han Shuo stayed on in Hexopolis, spreading the word to those who came to the Fringe from other territories and drafting the new regulations for the city.
With the support of Wasir and Salas, Han Shuo became the undisputed ruler of the Fringe. He also drew inspiration from the laws of Ethereal City and the City of Shadows to create new regulations for Hexopolis. He decided to revoke all of Omphalos' despotic laws. From now on, Hexopolis would be the new capital of the Fringe, and gods would no longer have to pay to stay there. They could stay as long as they liked.
This clash with the Godhunters had resulted in much less traffic to the Fringe. Many powerful gods in the Fringe were either killed by the Godhunters or temporarily moved to the countryside to avoid the conflict. In order to get the Fringe back to prosperity, Han Shuo implemented a series of policy changes that took him several days to complete. Once everything was back on track, Han Shuo went into seclusion to cultivate in an underground room in the pharmacy Han Tu had built.
Since the breakthrough in Pandemonium, Han Shuo had realised that the thirteen avatars within the Cauldron were incredibly powerful. Each of these individual avatars could compete with overgods without Quintessence, but when two of them fused, they could easily dominate normal overgods like Tyre.
The fusion of six of them didn't make them any more powerful than Quintessence overgods, but they did have a terrifying power that could render Tyre and Logue helpless and unable to fight back. Given this, Han Shuo believed that if he could fuse all thirteen of his avatars, he might even be able to overpower the Quintessence Overgods.
It was a shame that six was his limit for now. Although he had wanted to test it with the seventh, he hadn't found the opportunity yet. Not to mention that he had tried the other seven energies before, but hadn't been able to fuse any of them, much to his dismay.
Sitting alone in the training room, he fused the six Avatars of Destruction, Death, Darkness, Lightning, Wind and Water. The forces merged like six separate rivers flowing into one, giving him a new, more powerful energy. He took a deep breath and began to test the fusion of the Avatar of Light with the other six, only to find that it was repelled as soon as it was combined.
Han Shuo wasn't in a hurry, so he tried again and again, trying to figure out the problem. Gradually, he found that a trace of darkness energy was repulsing the light energy. It seemed that the energy became stronger after the fusion of the six clones, which was a significant chance that the fusion could collapse.
In his many attempts, he found that the darkness energy repelled the light energy immediately after the fusion attempt. Unable to find a workaround, he tried fusing other energies instead of Light, such as Fire, Life, Space, Fate, Earth and Combat Aura. He found that fire was repelled by water, while life was repelled by death. Space, Fate, Earth and Combat Aura didn't repel each other, but they didn't seem to blend well either. It was almost as if polar opposites like light and darkness, death and life, and fire and water couldn't merge.
He thought about it a bit more and came to the conclusion that it would be difficult, but probably not impossible. With that in mind, he decided to concentrate more on Space, Earth, Fate and Combat Aura. These four energies seemed easy to handle. As he merged with the Combat Aura avatar, he felt a little more comfortable. Even though he hadn't managed to successfully merge yet, it felt like it would be quite easy.
In total, he had only trained for ten days, and while he hadn't made any major breakthroughs, he had found a clear direction in which to progress. He decided to focus on fusing the four energies mentioned above, with an extra effort on combat aura into the sixteenth energy avatar. As for life, light and fire, he would leave that for later. Whether it was possible to fuse them was a question he still didn't have an answer for.
That day he left the seclusion training and had Wasir and Salas summon those who had joined them to Hexopolis. With his powerful consciousness, he sensed that the guardians of the Twelve Divine Dominions had arrived in the city.
"Bryan, how many are there?" Salas asked worriedly.
"They outnumber the Godhunter Alliance. But don't worry, numbers don't mean much. I'd like to see how they stand up to me."
As long as they were within the Fringe, Han Shuo and Han Hao's telepathic connection could be maintained. He was told that Han Hao and the Godhunters didn't suffer too many casualties when they left the Fringe.
Han Hao's message gave Han Shuo a rough idea of the Guardian's forces, but he didn't really pay any attention to it. The only one he paid attention to was the Lightkeeper, Gyál.
Among those who came to the fringe under false pretences was McKinley, the city lord of Ethereal City. He was a good friend of Han Shuo's and had informed him of their arrival beforehand, so Han Shuo was always well aware of their movements.
"Bryan, Gyál is here. If possible, I hope you can get rid of him for me!" McKinley said. His expression in the spatial mirror was one of pure rage. "Gyál really broke through and became a Overgod. He's the one who led the campaign here to take on the godhunters in the Fringe. Sigh, I'm still no match for him. I have been ridiculed the whole time I have been here, but all I have been able to do is endure his insults.
Apart from complaining, McKinley also revealed all sorts of information about Gyál. Han Shuo rather sympathised with McKinley. He finally escaped after being sealed by Gyál for so long, only to find that he was still no match for him. Not to mention that he was forced to join the campaign, only to meet Gyál and suffer his harsh treatment without being able to take revenge. One can only imagine the anger he felt.
Gyál was loyal to the God of Light, who had warned Han Shuo not to touch him back in Pandemonium. However, Han Shuo had never been on friendly terms with the God of Light since his days on the Profound Continent, and he wasn't about to start now. He smiled coldly as he watched the guards approach.