More than four thousand years ago, a continent named Sun Moon drifted over from across the western sea. As the Douluo Continent's landmass greatly increased, different races also led to frequent wars across the land.
Ten thousand years before the Tang God-King and the original Shrek Seven Devils dominated the continent, the Douluo Continent originally consisted of only two nations: Heaven Dou and Star Luo. Ten thousand years later, the Star Luo Empire still existed, but the Heaven Dou Empire had split into the Heaven Soul Empire and the Dou Ling Empire.
After the continents collided, a great war immediately began. In the end, a coalition of the three great nations from the original Douluo Continent defeated the Sun Moon Empire, thereby unifying the continent under the name Douluo.
Although the Sun Moon Empire was defeated, it was not completely conquered. Relying on its advanced weaponry and the underlying conflicts among the three great empires of the original Douluo Continent, a stalemate was formed, leading to a stable situation.
Martial souls are a power that everyone on the Douluo Continent possesses. Although the Sun Moon Empire developed in a different direction from the other nations, martial souls were still their foundation.
Everyone is born with a martial soul, which is awakened at the age of six. It can be anything, such as a tool, an animal, etc. Animal-types are generally called Beast Souls. Other than Beast Souls, all other types of martial souls are collectively referred to as Tool Souls, along with some special mutated martial souls.
After a martial soul is awakened, a small number of people will acquire an energy called soul power. Only those who possess soul power at the time of awakening can cultivate to become the most noble profession on the Douluo Continent: a Soul Master.
Putting aside the legendary gods, the soul masters on the continent are currently divided into ten ranks. From lowest to highest, they are: Soul Scholar, Soul Master, Soul Grandmaster, Soul Elder, Soul Ancestor, Soul King, Soul Emperor, Soul Sage, Soul Douluo, and Titled Douluo. The higher the rank of the soul master, the more powerful they are. The highest rank, Titled Douluo, possesses the terrifying strength to easily fight against tens of thousands of troops.
When soul power is between levels one and ten, one is in the category of a Soul Scholar. At the time of martial soul awakening, the higher the innate soul power, the better the talent after becoming a soul master, and the faster the cultivation speed. If one's soul power is level ten at awakening, they are considered to have the best talent, "innate full soul power," and are called a genius soul master. Legend even speaks of peerless prodigies with innate full soul power of level twenty.
Although Huo Yuhao was born the son of a duke, he did not inherit the White Tiger lineage's legacy martial soul. As a result, the fate of Huo Yuhao and his mother was changed—
Huo Yuhao's martial soul underwent an extremely rare mutation.
Spirit Eyes. This was the original Huo Yuhao's martial soul.
In the classification of martial souls recorded in ancient texts, there is a type of Body Martial Soul that belongs to neither Tool Souls nor Beast Souls. That is, after awakening, the martial soul is a part of the body, such as the hands, feet, etc. As a part of the body, these martial souls are very powerful. Although the probability of their appearance is extremely small, they are superior to Beast Souls and Tool Souls.
Unfortunately, the original Huo Yuhao's martial soul was an exception.
The Spirit Eyes were located in the eyes and were an extremely rare spiritual-attribute martial soul. Unfortunately, two points restricted his development.
When his martial soul awakened, Huo Yuhao's innate soul power was only level one, which meant his talent was, by all accounts, extremely poor. The second point was that not only was the spiritual attribute rare, but spiritual-attribute soul beasts that could produce corresponding soul rings were even rarer. When a soul master's cultivation reached a bottleneck in increments of ten levels, they had to hunt and kill a soul beast whose attributes matched their own to obtain a soul ring and achieve a breakthrough in soul power level.
A soul ring is not only a necessity for a martial soul to break through cultivation bottlenecks, but it normally provides a soul master with a skill. This is the root of a soul master's power.
Within the Duke's Mansion, even the children of some servants, as long as they awakened a martial soul with innate soul power, could reach level ten soul power in three years at most, allowing them to advance from the lowest Soul Scholar rank to the Soul Master rank.
The above was the memory Huo Yuhao obtained from the original owner's body when he transmigrated.
On the Douluo Continent, the level of a soul beast is distinguished by its cultivation time and evolutionary age. The ability of a soul ring is directly linked to the soul beast's age and its own abilities.
Traditional soul beasts are uniformly divided into ten-year, hundred-year, thousand-year, ten-thousand-year, and hundred-thousand-year soul beasts, as well as the legendary ferocious beasts.
As in the original novel, a soul master must personally hunt and kill a soul beast to obtain a soul ring from its body after it dies.
The original Huo Yuhao, perhaps due to his own abilities, could only wait until he was eleven to leave grimly, burdened by hatred. But the transmigrated Huo Yuhao was different.
Because their names were similar, Huo Yuhao had read the entire Douluo series. Since he was reborn as the male protagonist of Douluo Dalu II, he would naturally break free from the shackles of the original character and live the life he wanted.
Returning to the present day, it was also Huo Yuhao's tenth birthday.
Huo Yuhao used the destruction of the entire Duke's Mansion as the celebratory cannon fire for his tenth birthday, completely dispelling the last trace of the original owner's lingering obsession.
At this moment, his Spirit Eyes uncontrollably devoured the residual souls of the nearly three-thousand-acre Duke's Mansion's personnel, and it felt as if his entire being had become joyful.
Am I becoming an evil soul master? Huo Yuhao was shocked. He wanted to stop it but was powerless. He could feel his slowly progressing soul power rapidly increasing, reaching level ten in just a few short minutes.
Just as Huo Yuhao was hesitating whether to continue devouring his enemies' residual souls to improve himself, the unexpected arrived first.
"It's an evil soul master!"
A sharp cry rang out from the horizon. Huo Yuhao struggled to turn his head to look towards the source of the sound. A total of seven beams of light were flying towards him.
"The Shrek Inspection Team is here! Evil soul master, surrender at once!"
"Evil soul master?" Hearing that righteous declaration, Huo Yuhao couldn't help but find it amusing.
Do not persuade others to be good without having experienced their suffering.
On this Douluo Continent, where theocracy and aristocracy reigned supreme, the so-called evil soul masters were practically synonymous with rats scurrying across the street. No one was willing to listen to their hardships or tragic pasts.
Just like the Huo Yuhao from the original novel. If the Tang God-King hadn't secretly influenced his mind through his daughter, given the resentment of being driven from his home and the disdainful looks from Shrek Academy, the person who should have turned dark the most instead became a lovesick, loyal dog with a glass heart.
The so-called God of Emotions was merely the final destination for maximizing the value of a fragile pawn.
The speed of the leading red figure was simply astonishing. Like a blazing red cloud, she rapidly drifted forward. In a short while, she had already rushed to a spot not far in front of Huo Yuhao.
As the two drew closer, Huo Yuhao could see more clearly. Not only was the red figure's uniform red, but even her hair was blood-red. Her figure was slender, but her entire body exuded a fierce and piercingly cold majesty, like a terrifying soul beast. She wore a red mask, and even her eyes were blood-red.
If anything, this person looks more like an evil soul master than I do, right? Huo Yuhao couldn't help but complain in his heart.
The Shrek Inspection Team? So this group of people are the inner court students from Shrek Academy in the original novel.
At the same time, the air around her body twisted slightly, and the faint ethereal image of a phoenix solidified behind her. Wherever she passed, the air was even scorched, causing ripples of mist.
A Fire Phoenix martial soul? Connecting it to the plot of the original novel, Huo Yuhao's mind raced. Could it be her?
"What evil soul master? You must have the wrong person, right?" Huo Yuhao hurriedly retreated. He didn't think he currently had the ability to deal with an expert who was very likely a Soul Emperor.
"If you're not, then why are you running?" The woman's light pink pupils suddenly turned cold. She raised her hand and clenched it in front of her, and an immense force was generated out of thin air, forcibly pulling Huo Yuhao towards her.
"It's over!" This was the only thought in Huo Yuhao's mind during this life-and-death crisis. This person, who was plagued by evil fire, was definitely the most reckless one in the Shrek Inspection Team. He subconsciously condensed the little soul power he had into his dual pupils. He didn't have any cheats like the Tianmeng Ice Silkworm yet. If he couldn't mount an effective counterattack, his story would end here.
Just at this moment, the soul power Huo Yuhao had just gained from devouring many undead souls fluctuated. An extremely transparent, grayish-white soul ring emerged from under his feet. A peculiar feeling arose, as if the soul power in his pupils had found a point of release. Huo Yuhao, not caring about the consequences, directly urged his soul power to activate it.
The moment the woman looked directly into Huo Yuhao's eyes, her gaze instantly became dull. She felt the world spin, as if she were in the middle of a world-destroying storm. She was like a small boat, having lost all points of leverage.
"Ah——" The woman instantly let out a sharp scream, clutching her head as she fell to the ground. Strange black flames ignited from the phoenix silhouette behind her. Wherever the flames touched, even the hardest granite in the ruins melted into lava.
"Not good, Xiaotao's evil fire has erupted!" The members of the Shrek Inspection Team who had followed the woman exclaimed in alarm. They all acted together, releasing their soul power in an attempt to suppress the red-clothed woman who was about to explode.
It really is her! Huo Yuhao's heart settled. If I want to escape, it has to be now!
Without bothering to study the grayish-white soul ring and the skill he had just generated out of thin air, Huo Yuhao summoned the little soul power he had and turned to flee. The six of them were having a hard time suppressing the red-clothed woman together; they certainly wouldn't be able to spare a hand to deal with him.
Little did he know, the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. The few black-clad figures who had been hiding in the dark finally revealed themselves. The leader gently raised his hand and immobilized the desperately fleeing Huo Yuhao, while the others instantly revealed their martial souls. Countless soul rings emerged from under their feet as they unleashed their soul skills at the Shrek Inspection Team.
"Evil soul masters! They're all Titled Douluo-level evil soul masters!"
"Help——"
The man in black who had immobilized Huo Yuhao came before him, licked his pale lips, then raised a hand to his abdomen and gave Huo Yuhao a slight bow.
"We welcome the Holy Son of our cult. The Holy Son has descended and has brought back the Saintess for our cult. This is truly worthy of celebration!"
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Author's Note: The world line has changed. This time, the Holy Ghost Cult will get its wish. In the Douluo series, the Holy Ghost Cult sought a Holy Son for tens of thousands of years without success. Let Huo Gua add a rich and colorful stroke to their legacy!