"The Holy Ghost Cult!"
Huo Yuhao's heart jolted. He had never, ever expected that people from the Holy Ghost Cult would appear in this place, and high-ranking members at that!
The Holy Ghost Cult—they were one of the absolute final bosses of the original novel. Even from the perspective of Huo Yuhao's modern societal values, this group was irredeemable. Heaven knows how many massacres this organization, composed purely of evil soul masters, had caused over the years.
Considering the dirt on the Tang God-King from the original work, the emergence of the Holy Ghost Cult was strongly related to the Tang God-King's destruction of a secret realm called Slaughter City in his early years. Having lost Slaughter City, a prison for evil soul masters that was easy to enter but hard to leave, evil soul masters began to operate all over the continent. And ten thousand years ago, the Angel martial soul inherited by Spirit Hall, with its sacred attribute, was the greatest nemesis of evil soul masters. Yet, its god-seat was crippled in the final battle with the Tang God-King. The inheritors of the Angel martial soul scattered in the outside world were but a few, and the god-level martial soul of the Six-Winged Angel had even degenerated into ordinary top-tier martial souls like the Sacred Angel and a Seraphim with healing abilities, possessing only a certain sacred attribute or purely healing capabilities.
The era created you. You don't have to work for the welfare of the common people, but at the very least, you shouldn't bring disaster to the world.
Reading about it was one thing, but facing it in reality was another. Even though the Douluo world's power level put it in the sewers of fantasy worlds, the current Huo Yuhao was still no match for the man in black before him, who was very likely the Holy Ghost Cult's leader, Zhongli Wu. Not unless a nuclear weapon had also transmigrated with him.
"This junior is Huo Yuanjia. May I dare to ask for senior's name?" Huo Yuhao could only silently curse the family tree of the Tang God-King and his father, Tang Hao. His mind raced as he unhurriedly gave a false name.
"Not bad, not bad. This old one's surname is Zhongli. I never expected that this trip would bring such a great surprise to our cult," the man in black said, squeezing Huo Yuhao's shoulder and clicking his tongue in praise.
It really is you, old fellow! Huo Yuhao lamented in his heart. He never thought he would fall into the hands of the main boss so soon. He could only hope he could escape this old demon's venomous claws as soon as possible and not be brainwashed by the Holy Ghost Cult into some inhuman monster.
"Dare I ask senior, I don't know why I was just called an evil soul master. My martial soul is merely a pair of eyes," Huo Yuhao was genuinely puzzled at this point. The timeline was still a year earlier than when Huo Gua from the original novel began to practice Electrolux's necromancy. Besides the strange absorption of a large number of souls by his Spirit Eyes just now, his current abilities probably didn't live up to the title of Holy Son of the Holy Ghost Cult. At most, he could be considered half an ordinary evil soul master.
"The Holy Son is just starting out and probably doesn't know how to observe his own strength yet. It's not surprising," Zhongli Wu seemed very satisfied with the youth before him, and he unconsciously became more talkative. "The Holy Son's martial soul has undergone a second awakening. This old one has had the honor of hearing about geniuses with innate full soul power, and I also know of the legendary peerless prodigies with innate level twenty. But innate level thirty, which is beyond the understanding of the world, this old one has only seen for the first time today."
Innate level thirty soul power? Huo Yuhao was completely bewildered. He clearly felt that he should only have level ten soul power.
"You have not cultivated soul power for long and cannot sense your own actual strength. In the ancient era, it was recorded in Spirit Hall that the cultivation of soul power does not stagnate due to the failure to obtain a soul ring, but continues to accumulate. And your innate soul power exceeds the god-level potential limit of twenty, so your martial soul has given birth to a self-generated soul ring, something that has not appeared for tens of thousands of years. You only need to hunt a suitable soul beast, and this self-generated soul ring can become a real soul ring that possesses a skill and meets the limit of the age you can absorb," Zhongli Wu explained patiently to Huo Yuhao. Speaking of this, he couldn't help but praise Huo Yuhao: "As expected of our cult's Holy Son, you have the makings of a god!"
While the two were talking, the Titled Douluo-level evil soul masters had already dealt with all the members of the Shrek Inspection Team, leaving only the unconscious "Saintess," Ma Xiaotao, who was wreathed in evil fire.
Compared to when Huo Gua first saw her in the original novel, Ma Xiaotao's stunningly beautiful face still showed a trace of youthfulness; she still had the air of a little fire demon.
"The Saintess possesses the rare Evil Fire Phoenix martial soul. The Holy Son only needs to use his spiritual power to slightly guide its evil nature, and it can be completely transformed into a world-destroying Dark Phoenix. That fellow from the first generation of Shrek really did manage to pass down this martial soul," Zhongli Wu said with a cold laugh after grabbing Ma Xiaotao's fair wrist to feel it.
Huo Yuhao stood beside Zhongli Wu, looking faintly at the unconscious Ma Xiaotao without saying a word. He had some goodwill towards this girl who was like a sister to Huo Gua in the original novel and who had unhesitatingly taken on Huo Gua's burdens in the mortal world in the end. However, this crazy woman had just tried to kill him, so that bit of goodwill instantly vanished.
If he had the chance and could communicate with Ma Xiaotao normally, he wouldn't mind recruiting her for his own use. After all, her talent was also quite rare in the Unrivaled Tang Sect era.
"Holy Son, let us go back. Back to the place that belongs only to us."
"I will follow senior's arrangements."
---
Just as described in the original novel, the Holy Ghost Cult and the high-ranking officials of the Sun Moon Empire had extremely intricate relationships. Zhongli Wu was even equipped with a high-level flying soul tool from the Illustrious Virtue Hall, which provided great convenience for their travels.
Huo Yuhao sat obediently within the wind-proof shield of the flying soul tool. In his previous life, he had flown on planes quite often, so he didn't have much resistance to this other world's flying machine. His calm and comfortable appearance earned him the secret praise of Zhongli Wu and the others who were observing him.
The flying speed of a Super Douluo equipped with a flying soul tool was extremely fast, comparable to the supersonic speeds of special forces fighter jets from his previous life. The development of soul tools is indeed fast. No wonder things like mecha appeared in the Dragon King Legend era, Huo Yuhao thought.
Through casual conversation with Zhongli Wu and the others, Huo Yuhao made good use of his past-life conversational skills to coax out the reason why the Holy Ghost Cult's leader had appeared in the Star Luo Empire.
The main army of the Sun Moon Empire was stationed at the Ming Dou Mountain Range, in a standoff with the Star Luo Empire's army led by the White Tiger Duke. The White Tiger Duke's formidable military command had caused a lot of trouble for the Sun Moon Empire's army. The purpose of Zhongli Wu's group was to infiltrate the Star Luo Empire and find a way to capture the White Tiger Duke's relatives and friends to use as hostages, to catch the White Tiger Duke off guard when war broke out in the future.
And in the original novel, after Huo Gua left the Duke's Mansion, the Duchess didn't live for many more years and died of illness early. This was actually the secret work of the Holy Ghost Cult, intended to distract the White Tiger Duke during the war. This point was not described in much detail in the original text, only briefly mentioned by Dai Huabin. He never thought there was such an inside story.
Unfortunately, the vast Duke's Mansion was directly turned into a pile of ruins by Huo Yuhao's "art." And before Huo Yuhao made his move, he had confirmed multiple times that the Duchess had not gone out, so she had successfully become nutrients for his Spirit Eyes martial soul. Therefore, Zhongli Wu's group had failed in their mission this time. Of course, this was excluding the gains of Huo Yuhao and Ma Xiaotao.
The forest before them was located more to the north, and as far as the eye could see, it was mostly coniferous forest. Moreover, looking from a distance in the air, one could see that among this coniferous forest, many of the branches and leaves were blackish-gray. It was a dense, dark mass, and the vast forest presented a color ranging from dark green to pitch black. On the entire continent, only this forest had such a characteristic. Because this was, the Evildemon Forest! Before even entering it, an oppressive feeling already washed over them.
The Evildemon Forest. Without a doubt, the destination of Zhongli Wu's trip had been reached. Any soul master with a bit of common sense would not attempt to fly over a forest teeming with a large number of soul beasts; that was no different from suicide. But Zhongli Wu's group, confident in their own strength, flew directly through the dense sea of trees. Huo Yuhao was brought down from the air and landed on the ground.
Yes, the headquarters of the Holy Ghost Cult was located within the Evildemon Forest. If Huo Yuhao hadn't known this beforehand from his god's-eye view, no one could have imagined that the Holy Ghost Cult's headquarters was a structure that could almost be described as a palace, located beneath the ground in the outer periphery of the Evildemon Forest. What an engineering feat this was!
Moreover, the status of the Evildemon Forest in the Sun Moon Empire was like that of the Star Dou Great Forest on the Douluo Continent. The most powerful soul beasts of the Sun Moon Empire lived here. Among them, the second-ranked of the ten great ferocious beasts of the world, the Evil Eye Tyrant Emperor, lived here.
In the original novel, Huo Gua's seventh soul ring for his Spirit Eyes was obtained from here. At that time, he had killed a hundred-thousand-year-old Evil Eye Tyrant and was later discovered by the Evil Eye Tyrant Emperor. It could be said that he had a narrow escape from death.
"We welcome the Lord Cult Master." Evil soul masters who had long been hiding here as guards had noticed Huo Yuhao's group. Seeing Zhongli Wu and the others in the lead, they hurried forward to greet them.
"Pass down the order! All members of the Holy Spirit Hall are to assemble. Accompany me to welcome the Holy Son and Saintess!"