Huo Yuhao gazed at the scenery of his homeland, his expression complex.
“The White Tiger Dai family, once the royal house of Star Luo, descendants of the divine being Dai Mubai in the divine realm…
as long as the Duke returns, there’s no need to fear that Duchess from the Zhu family anymore.”
He, Huo Yuhao, had grown up hearing his mother say such words.
But in the end, his mother never lived to see that day.
Yet aside from Dai Hao, what else did Huo Yun’er have to cling to?
He, Huo Yuhao, was a mediocrity with ordinary talent—even a servant in the Duke’s mansion cultivated several times faster than he did.
He could never become his mother’s support.
In such circumstances, he was the least qualified person to blame his mother for any misjudgment.
Even though Huo Yuhao of this life had once reached great heights, looking back on those days in the wood shed, he still could not find a way to break the deadlock.
Before meeting Brother Tianmeng and Elder I, he had been a complete failure with only a Level 1 innate soul power.
And in the Douluo Continent—a jungle world that had gradually revealed its true nature since Tang San became a Divine King—being a failure truly meant that even breathing was a sin.
During those long years in the divine realm of his previous life, even though Huo Yuhao had done his best to bury his head in the sand and play the role of “Dai Yuhao,” his sensitive heart could still catch the meaning behind the gazes that Dai Mubai, Dai Hao, and their ilk cast upon him and his mother.
After the Great Divine Realm emerged from the black hole, when Huo Yuhao returned to the Douluo Continent, he hadn’t given much thought to why the Spirit Transferring Pagoda he had left behind on the Douluo Continent had ended up on the opposite side of his father-in-law “Tang the Pure’s” crown prince Tang Wulin.
Now, after opening the Records of the Douluo Continent through his “Spectator” interface, he understood.
It was simply because the Spirit Transferring Pagoda—an organization responsible for awakening the martial souls of all who might become soul masters across the continent, and which, like the Spirit Hall before it, had genuinely given the common folk a possible path to rise—had been marked by the Tang family for that very reason.
In the eyes of the Tang family, he, Huo Yuhao, had always been nothing more than a peasant who had climbed up from the mud, a phoenix man who had stolen their family’s precious cabbage.
The Spirit Transferring Pagoda was merely an extension of that image.
As for the Qian Gu clan, with their Dragon-Subduing Staff martial soul that cultivated evil-breaking power—did they really collude with evil soul masters out of foolishness?
It was the same script as when, back in Tang San’s rise, the Spirit Hall had conveniently produced a madwoman, Bibi Dong, as its Pope.
Calming his emotions, Huo Yuhao arrived at the gates of Star Luo City, clenched his fists, and entered.
Soon after entering the city, Huo Yuhao’s figure appeared like a ghost in a small hilly area surrounding the Duke’s mansion.
This was the place where he had spent his childhood.
Quickly, he arrived before a grave.
Back then, the young Huo Yuhao had been utterly incapable of giving his mother a proper burial.
His mother’s grave had only a wooden tombstone he had carved with his own hands, and a mound of yellow earth.
But now, that wooden tombstone was gone.
All that remained on the grave was a string of cursed words: “Lowly servant, even in death you shall find no peace.”
The dark-attribute soul power residual on the words was unmistakably left behind by an evil soul master.
Had the White Tiger Duke’s mansion been invaded by evil soul masters?
Of course not.
It was clearly the work of the Duchess, who had hired those rogue evil soul masters not accepted by the Holy Spirit Church.
Of course, Huo Yuhao was uncertain whether this was the doing of the Tang family in the divine realm after they detected his anomaly.
Though Huo Yuhao of his previous life had been seeded with a demonic heart by Divine King Tang through Wang Dong—Tang Wutong—and the Three Absolutes of Haodong, he was no fool.
He never doubted how ruthlessly the Tang family would discard a pawn.
When they needed you, you were “sweet”; when they didn’t, you were “crap”—the Tang family carried this principle to its extreme.
With his divine sense as a Divine King who had lived two lifetimes, Huo Yuhao quickly found his mother’s remnant soul in the underworld of the Douluo plane.
By this time, Huo Yun’er’s soul had been corroded by the curse until it was riddled with holes.
Huo Yuhao used Elder I’s necromancy to bestow a soul blessing upon her.
Seeing that her son seemed to be able to see her, Huo Yun’er was both startled and afraid: “Little Yuhao, why have you come?
Leave quickly, it’s dangerous here!
Especially after those days when the Duchess invited several strange people here…”
Huo Yuhao comforted her: “Mother, rest assured, there’s no danger.
Come with me.
I’ll take you to a safe place.”
Hearing Huo Yuhao say this, Huo Yun’er was overjoyed.
“Little Yuhao, you’ve learned a skill?
Let’s go find Hao-ge quickly.
He’ll find you a good position.
You don’t have to worry about your talents going to waste and your years slipping away.”
Hearing these words from his mother’s consciousness, Huo Yuhao raised an eyebrow as intense hatred welled up within him.
Always thinking the best of others, always believing that others would resonate with such feelings—that was Huo Yun’er’s true nature, and also the utterly useless philosophy she had instilled in him for this thoroughly utilitarian world.
He was about to explode with anger, but looking at his mother’s fragile soul, the words died in his throat.
Huo Yun’er had indeed done everything within her understanding for him.
What right did he, her son, have to demand more from the one who had given him life and raised him?
Forcing down the overwhelming malice in his heart, Huo Yuhao smiled and said, “Mother, let me ask you a question: if a man’s feelings for a woman were genuine, would he use a dagger to carry that affection?
And what about this so-called Duke you speak of—if, as you say, he hasn’t forgotten you, then why does he constantly publicize his pure relationship with the Duchess throughout the Star Luo Empire?”
Huo Yuhao’s words stunned Huo Yun’er.
Still in her soul state, she seemed to forget she no longer had a physical body as she tightly grasped Huo Yuhao’s hand.
She had never imagined her son would say such things to her.
In his previous life as the God of Emotions, Huo Yuhao had been most sensitive to emotional fluctuations.
He knew he had just delivered a heavy blow to Huo Yun’er’s fanatical trust in Dai Hao—that unconditional devotion to a beautiful ideal.
This was an opportunity—a chance to shatter the perfect idol of Dai Hao in Huo Yun’er’s heart.
Huo Yuhao continued: “Mother, I’ll soon take you to see that Dai Hao you’ve been longing for.
But I must warn you: no matter what you see, don’t get agitated.
After all these years, when you died miserably in that wood shed and no one cared, you should already be mentally prepared for many things.”
Inside the White Tiger Duke’s mansion, the Duke’s chamber was extravagantly opulent—there was not a single item that wasn’t made of gold, silver, agate, or diamond.
Concealing his presence with necromancy and lurking outside the window, Huo Yuhao brought Huo Yun’er’s soul to the window and let her listen to the conversation taking place within.
At that moment, Dai Hao was in a great rage.
Because the Sun Moon Empire had not launched large-scale military campaigns in recent years, the border between the Sun Moon Empire and the Star Luo Empire was guarded only by some second- and third-line Sun Moon divisions.
Dai Hao, leading the Star Luo Empire’s million-strong main force, would harass the Sun Moon border troops, and while he was at it, he and his soldiers would slaughter a bunch of Star Luo border civilians like chopping vegetables to claim as military merits.
Then, in public, he would make some dignified remarks like “A man who can’t control his third leg is no true man,” coordinating with the Duchess to put on a show of pure devotion, all to package himself as the nation’s idol, the White Tiger War God.
But these past days, the combat effectiveness of those second- and third-line Sun Moon divisions had increased dramatically, shattering this pleasant state of affairs.
In the past three months, during one of his offensives, he had lost seventy thousand soldiers in a single day.
Having displayed such incompetence and disgraced his country before all, how was he to salvage the situation?
“Madam, you wouldn’t want your husband to become the laughingstock of the Star Luo Empire, would you?” Dai Hao looked at the Duchess, who was sobbing into her handkerchief, and asked calmly.