Chapter 41: Heroes From All Sides Join The Grand Event
Huo Yuhao traveled continuously for three days before arriving at a city in the Heaven Soul Empire near the Star Dou Great Forest—Xilu City.
This city has an extremely long history and was one of the first batch of cities built when the Heaven Dou Empire was founded.
It has steadfastly endured the split of the Heaven Dou Empire and the invasion of the Sun Moon Empire.
This is closely related to Shrek City, which is extremely close to Xilu City.
Actually, there were many cities around the Star Dou Great Forest at the beginning.
These cities were all established to facilitate Soul Masters in hunting for soul rings.
Countless Soul Masters and merchants flocked here, joining in the prosperity together.
This prosperity also spurred the economic development of the entire Heaven Dou Plain at once, making Shrek City the absolute center of the continent.
However, more than two thousand years ago, the Body Sect emerged and wantonly hunted Hundred Thousand Year Soul Beasts in the Star Dou Great Forest.
This caused Di Tian to become extremely angry, triggering the first recorded super-scale beast tide!
Countless Soul Beasts, under the command of several major Fierce Beasts in the core circle, indiscriminately impacted all human cities.
The Heaven Dou Plain was the first to bear the brunt.
Countless cities near the Star Dou Great Forest were destroyed under the tide of Soul Beasts.
Only the cities around Shrek City were spared.
After this impact, the Heaven Dou Plain was directly cleared out, the once prosperous scene ceased to exist, and basically no one dared to build cities around the Star Dou Great Forest anymore.
The current city layout on the Heaven Dou Plain is centered on Shrek City, with the other cities on both sides forming a pincer-shaped pattern surrounding the Star Dou Great Forest.
This ensures that if a beast tide erupts again in the future, Shrek City can prevent the beast tide from spreading beyond the Heaven Dou Plain.
In other words, Di Tian isn’t using his brain and can’t see that this is a Douluo Continent version of a blockade island chain deliberately set up by a certain Sea God Pavilion Master.
Moreover, this blockade is still encroaching closer to the Star Dou Great Forest as Shrek City expands.
This pattern has also laid a good foundation for the Spirit Pagoda to build the Star Dou Fortress in the future.
If there were even one Soul Beast with a bit of brains, they wouldn’t allow this situation to occur.
They would have long ago launched an unprecedented beast tide at all costs, not necessarily to annihilate Shrek Academy, but at least to break through a passage on the Heaven Dou Plain.
Otherwise, the Soul Beasts would be frogs in warm water, dry bones in a grave.
Even if the Spirit Pagoda hadn’t appeared, some other organization would build the Star Dou Fortress in the future.
Maybe the federation, maybe Shrek.
No one would give up this fat piece of meat in the Star Dou Great Forest.
Currently, humanity is holding back and hasn’t bared its fangs purely because Di Tian is too strong, in a league of his own.
Unless the God Realm intervenes, no one can withstand Di Tian’s Dragon God Claw.
Huo Yuhao entered Xilu City one hour before the city gates closed.
The gate guards here are similar to those in Xuan Feng City, basically just glancing at you a few times before letting you pass.
It’s practically nonexistent.
They didn’t even carefully check if the Shadow Cat was a Soul Beast, even though Huo Yuhao had specially used Spiritual Power to disguise it.
Huo Yuhao had heard about this situation in Xuan Feng City from a gate guard who came to the medical clinic; it’s mainly out of fear of provoking powerful Soul Masters.
These Soul Masters killing them is no different from killing a chicken.
These guards only earn five Silver Soul Coins a month, which is considered high in Xuan Feng City; many places only pay one Silver Soul Coin—what’s worth risking their lives for that?
Appropriately glancing a few times, doing some superficial work, not slacking off, and shooting a couple of arrows during a Soul Beast attack is already worthy of the empire’s salary.
Getting them to work seriously would require a different price.
Upon entering Xilu City, Huo Yuhao headed straight to the prosperous commercial district here.
Such places have lots of people and are where information from the entire city converges.
Just casually sensing with Spiritual Power gives a rough idea of the power structure in this city.
To Huo Yuhao’s slight surprise, the class divide here is even greater than in Xuan Feng City!
There are three classes here: commoners, Soul Masters, and nobles.
Commoners are the lowest class, while nobles and Soul Masters are two classes with some overlap.
The nobles here are extremely numerous, each more gorgeously dressed than the last, with more attendants than the next.
There really aren’t any strong nobles in terms of strength; they’re basically around Great Soul Master level.
And many nobles have several slaves with them, and the surrounding commoners have to keep their heads down when they see them.
It’s practically Celestial Dragons brought to reality.
Huo Yuhao frowned; he remembered that the Heaven Soul Empire had long abolished slavery.
How come it’s still here?
What is Xilu City’s City Lord doing? Heaven Soul Empire laws clearly prohibit the existence of slaves.
It’s at least a feudal empire—how can it revert history back to slavery?
Huo Yuhao repeated his old trick, found the best restaurant in the area, ordered a few dishes, and gathered information here through Spiritual Power.
The people who can eat here are either major merchants, Soul Masters, or nobles.
The common trait of these people is that they hold a large amount of information.
Through their conversations, Huo Yuhao pieced together the truth of this city from their fragmentary words.
Xilu City is close to Shrek City and counts as a vassal of Shrek City.
Every year, it pays tribute to Shrek City’s Treasure Pavilion with large quantities of rare items, including but not limited to soul bones, rare metals, rare medicinal herbs, and whale jelly.
It’s precisely because they lick hard enough that Lin Huiqun, who presides over the Treasure Pavilion among the Sea God Pavilion members of Shrek Academy, comes to Xilu City for inspections every year.
She also conveniently lets the petty crooks know that this place is under her protection.
Her existence has allowed Xilu City to directly latch onto the thigh of the Sea God Pavilion.
In fact, the cities around Shrek Academy more or less have connections with Shrek’s upper echelons.
Therefore, the Heaven Soul Empire doesn’t dare to touch these cities, and even their tax revenue goes directly to Shrek City.
And because these cities nominally belong to the Heaven Soul Empire, a large number of Heaven Soul Empire nobles gather here, joining in the prosperity together!
Here, these nobles can openly use slaves, open casinos, brothels, and bloody arenas.
It’s just that the Heaven Soul Empire doesn’t dare to interfere, and Shrek, seeing their continuous tributes, is too lazy to bother.
This has turned the place into a kind of alternative lawless land.
After collecting the information and eating his fill, Huo Yuhao left the restaurant and looked for a place to stay on the main street.
Honestly, compared to here, even Somalia seems politically stable and harmonious.
Just walking on the road for a bit, he saw a group of heroes showing off their skills.
First, Huo Yuhao simultaneously encountered five pickpockets; before he could use telekinesis on them, they started fighting among themselves.
Huo Yuhao couldn’t help it and used telekinesis to knock them all out, then casually tossed them into a stinking gutter.
Then he saw a gang of robbers on the roadside unleashing their Martial Souls, faces covered with black cloth, robbing a jewelry store.
But the shop owner turned out to be a Soul Elder who killed one robber on the spot; the rest dropped the goods and fled.
Then that shop owner chased them for several streets.
He also saw a god-human who seemed drunk, face flushed red, grabbing stray cats or dogs on the street and using his scissor Martial Soul to shave their heads bald.
This scared the Shadow Cat into shrinking on Huo Yuhao’s shoulder, not daring to move.
Huo Yuhao sighed helplessly and used Spiritual Power to knock out that barber god-human, casually tossing him into an alley.
Then he stroked the Shadow Cat’s head and said, “Don’t be afraid; you’re a Hundred-Year Soul Beast, and that ordinary person doesn’t even have Soul Power—what are you afraid of?”
Then he muttered inwardly, “What kind of mess did they dump on me?”
“It’s like immortals and extraordinary people are as common as hemp.”
“Is this Gotham City?”
Thanks to the big shots for the follow-up reading, monthly votes, and tips. Rat Rat can only stick its butt up high OrZ
