Chapter 8: Heaven Soul Empire
“Brother Tuanzang, we’re about to enter the Heaven Soul Empire.” A young Merchant Association guard enthusiastically reminded the Huo Yuhao beside him.
Huo Yuhao was riding a tall White Scale Horse, with a simple balance Soul Tool installed on the horse’s back, allowing even Huo Yuhao, a novice, to easily control the mount beneath him.
During this time, Huo Yuhao had successfully become familiar with some members of the Ding Yi Chamber of Commerce.
These Merchant Association members often traveled between the original Douluo Three Kingdoms, and some had even been to the Sun Moon Empire.
They knew most places on the Continent, many of which were not detailed in the original work.
For example, in the central region of the Star Luo Empire, there existed the Tiger Fury Mountain Range, Tiger Might Mountain Range, and Tiger Roar Mountain Range. These three mountain ranges formed a core delta, an important Soul Beast gathering place in the Star Luo Empire, mainly consisting of Tiger Type Soul Beasts.
South of their Bei Ming City was a vast Disaster Mountain Range, composed of the Disaster Mountain Range and Catastrophe Mountain Range.
That mountain range frequently erupted with various natural disasters, and it was said that a Soul Master had once ventured deep into it and encountered a unique Lion-Dog Type Soul Beast.
That Soul Beast was six meters long, covered in brilliant gold fur, shaped like a giant lion but with a pitch black dog face like Shura.
That Soul Master was a Level Ninety-Six Super Douluo, whose Martial Soul was the Armored Rock Bear. From the name, it was clear he was a Titled Douluo specializing in power.
In his perception, this Soul Beast’s cultivation was only thirty thousand years, which he, as a Super Douluo, could easily kill.
So at first, he didn’t take this Soul Beast seriously and merely released Soul Power Fluctuation to try to force it back.
Unexpectedly, it enraged the opponent. This Soul Beast unleashed a unique domain, and within the domain, it lost reason and clashed head-on with this Super Douluo.
Incredibly, this Super Douluo was directly beaten into severe injury by it, with half his body nearly smashed into meat paste by some enormous force.
If not for his long-range displacement Soul Bone Skill, he probably would have really died there.
After that, basically no high-level Soul Masters went to explore that mountain range.
The Merchant Association member telling this story to Huo Yuhao said it was just for listening, as it was too ancient to verify its authenticity, and many people didn’t believe a thirty thousand year Soul Beast could defeat a Super Douluo.
Moreover, that Soul Beast had no dragon features, meaning it had no Dragon Clan Bloodline. How could a Lion-Dog Type Soul Beast achieve something even the Dragon Clan would find difficult?
However, Huo Yuhao knew this story was probably true.
As soon as he heard the description of this Soul Beast, he realized it was the extinct Golden Mane Lion-Mastiff from the Dragon King Legend.
The Golden Mane Lion-Mastiff was the ancestor of all dog-type Soul Beasts. In the original work, even Tang Wulin, a Level Ninety with Golden Dragon King Bloodline, was nearly single-killed by a ten thousand year Golden Mane Lion-Mastiff, showing how powerful this type of Soul Beast was.
This was precisely the purpose of Huo Yuhao becoming familiar with these Merchant Association members: to understand various secrets on the Continent and extract useful information from them.
For example, now he knew there was a Golden Mane Lion-Mastiff over thirty thousand years old in the Disaster Mountain Range, so if he needed it later, he wouldn’t have to run around everywhere.
Soon, the caravan passed through the Bei Ming Gorge ahead, with the Heaven Soul Empire’s territory on the other side of the canyon.
During the crossing of the canyon, Huo Yuhao saw many abandoned wartime fortifications. Judging by the oxidation and damage on those metals, they probably hadn’t been maintained for a thousand years.
Huo Yuhao turned back to ask the enthusiastic Merchant Association guard: “Brother Li, logically speaking, this area as the border between Heaven Soul and Star Luo should be a strategic stronghold. Why are these fortifications so dilapidated?”
“And there are no garrisoned armies visible on either side of the canyon?”
Hearing Huo Yuhao’s question, Li Fei pointed to the west and said: “Brother Tuanzang, you don’t know, but now almost all Star Luo armies are over at the Ming Dou Mountain Range.”
“Only some key passes on the Heaven Soul Empire border have military camps deployed.”
“The high-level military alert against the Heaven Soul Empire was canceled a thousand years ago. It was said that a strong person from Shrek Academy at the time stepped in to persuade them, getting the two empires to focus their efforts on guarding against the Sun Moon.”
Huo Yuhao nodded thoughtfully.
Leaving the Bei Ming Gorge, a vast expanse of lush grassland stretching endlessly came into view.
Green waves surged with the wind like ocean swells, occasionally dotted by a few unknown butterfly-type Soul Beasts fluttering among the leaf waves, like stars leaping in the green sea.
Huo Yuhao, who had never seen such a sight in his previous life, was stunned. The rich aroma of soil and fresh grass in the air made him feel as if he were in a dream.
Or rather, in his previous life, he wouldn’t have dared to even dream of such beauty.
Seeing Huo Yuhao’s entranced expression, Li Fei couldn’t help but say: “Every time I pass through here, I feel shocked too. My hometown is in the eastern desert of the Star Luo Empire— that place is nothing but sand and rock, sometimes not even a bird in sight for hundreds of miles!”
“But you can only see this stretch of road; after this it’s all mountains.”
Huo Yuhao didn’t continue chatting with him. Sitting on the horse’s back, he slightly extended his Spiritual Power, carefully sensing the wisps of breeze flowing past him.
This was the first time Huo Yuhao truly felt that he was alive in a brand new world, a world full of vitality, making him realize this world was far from the fixed ink on paper from his previous life.
A subtle, unknown shift occurred deep in Huo Yuhao’s spirit. If he opened his panel now, he would find his originally 800 points of Spiritual Power slowly increasing.
The mastery of the 【Understanding】 Authority also reached 3%.
After a full day of travel, they were still nine hundred miles from their destination, Xuan Feng City, but they could arrive by tomorrow afternoon.
Nighttime in the Heaven Soul Empire was not as safe as in the Star Luo Empire, so the caravan didn’t dare travel rashly and could only spend the night in a valley.
In a remote corner of the valley, Huo Yuhao and Xiao Xiao sat by the campfire grilling food.
Li Fei, who had just set up his tent in the distance, walked over. Huo Yuhao picked up a skewer of grilled fish from beside the campfire and handed it to him.
Li Fei wiped his sweat, sat across from the campfire, took a bite of the fish meat, and began chewing.
Then his eyes lit up and he said: “Brother Tuanzang, your grilled fish skill is simply amazing. I’ve traveled far and wide and never eaten anything this delicious.”
Xiao Xiao nodded in strong agreement. She hadn’t eaten such tasty grilled fish in the Merchant Association either.
“I agree too! This is even better than the grilled fish at the God of Food Restaurant in Heaven Dou City!” She shook her little head, mumbling unclearly with fish in her mouth.
Huo Yuhao gently shook his head to indicate it was excessive praise, then seemed to think of something and looked at Li Fei as he asked:
“By the way, are there no cities around here? We’ve traveled so long without seeing a single city.”
This question puzzled not only Huo Yuhao; Xiao Xiao also stared at Li Fei with her sparkling eyes, showing curiosity.
Although Xiao Xiao was the young miss of the Merchant Association, due to various reasons she had basically never left home, so she was also curious about the Heaven Soul Empire.
Li Fei looked helplessly at the campfire before him and said:
“The Heaven Soul Empire and Dou Ling Empire used to be one country called the Heaven Dou Empire.”
“When they split, the two empires fought for several hundred years, leading to national decline. After the war ended, just as the two empires wanted to recuperate, the Sun Moon Empire came.”
“That war that swept the Continent completely destroyed the economies of the Heaven Soul and Dou Ling Empires at the time.”
“Prices in the Heaven Soul Empire skyrocketed, cities were full of refugees, even cannibalism occurred, so large numbers of residents fled the cities for the more fertile Heaven Dou Plain under Shrek Academy’s protection to survive.”
“This led to basically no cities on the Heaven Soul Empire’s borders, with most cities concentrated on the Heaven Dou Plain. The cheap civilian labor even propelled Shrek City to become one of the most prosperous cities on the Continent!”
After explaining the reason to the two, Li Fei quickly finished the grilled fish in two or three bites, stood up without wiping the crumbs from his mouth, and said to Huo Yuhao:
“Alright, brother, I’ll go on watch on the perimeter. The inner circle is yours.”
After Li Fei discreetly entered the darkness, Huo Yuhao shooed the reluctant Xiao Xiao, who wanted to stand watch with him, into the tent like chasing a chick.
“Tch, Uncle has no sense of camaraderie.”
Xiao Xiao made a face at Huo Yuhao, then pulled the tent flap closed and extinguished the Soul Guiding Lamp inside.
Huo Yuhao sat cross-legged beside the tent and entered a meditation state, while slightly channeling Spiritual Power to cooperate with Soul Power vibrations in the surrounding air, sending out silent special fluctuations.
He then received the waves reflecting back to probe the surroundings.
This move was something Huo Yuhao had recently figured out. In his previous life, he had at least been a Planetary Engine maintenance worker, so the principles and generation method of ultrasound were easy for him.
By using co-frequency vibrations of Spiritual Power and Soul Power to simulate ultrasound, then receiving the reflected ultrasound with Spiritual Power and passing it to the brain for analysis. Though this method wasn’t as convenient as the original work’s Spiritual Detection, it had extremely low Soul Power Consumption and a far probe range.
The downside was needing the brain to precisely and quickly process the massive information from the returning sound waves.
That is, Huo Yuhao’s Martial Soul was the Spiritual Eye, and after evolving into kaleidoscope, he could finely control Spiritual Power. A normal person would probably need ten years of practice to learn this.
In the latter half of the night, the moon was obscured by dark clouds at some point, the campfire had long burned out, leaving only faint dark red glows from the embers in the valley.
Huo Yuhao’s Spiritual Power suddenly stirred; his Spiritual Detection sound waves sensed something rapidly approaching from the eastern part of the valley.
“One, two, three……”
Huo Yuhao abruptly opened his eyes and looked toward the eastern direction of the valley. In the pitch black night, he vaguely saw flying birds being startled.
Huo Yuhao didn’t hesitate at all and shouted loudly to everyone in the valley:
“Everyone pay attention, there’s a situation to the east of the valley!!!”
