Huo Yuhao recalled the interactions between Tang Ya and Zhongli Wu previously, and discovered some useful things. For example, the Masquerade Douluo had used his Demonic Maggot to scare Tang Ya and cast a shadow in her heart. Furthermore, Zhongli Wu pampered her a lot. It didn’t seem like they had romantic feelings between them. Rather, it felt like Zhongli Wu was protecting her. What kind of feeling was it? It was very weird.
Waiting was sometimes a torture, especially in the situation that Huo Yuhao was facing.
Waiting for an hour was like waiting for half a century. Finally, Huo Yuhao calmed himself down. Things should be fine since there’s been no reaction for half a day. It seems like I’m in luck.
——
After walking out from the tent, Huo Yuhao observed his surroundings as he proceeded towards the canteen. Indeed, Tang Ya and Zhongli Wu were no longer there. Things were very normal. He went to find Nangong Wan again. Seeing that he was fine, he verified that he had averted the crisis.
The afternoon passed just like that. Huo Yuhao only completely calmed down after lunch. He meditated in his tent for an hour before Nangong Wan came to find him.
“Seven, let’s go and take a look!” Nangong Wan’s voice rose outside the tent.
Huo Yuhao drifted up and walked out of the tent. Not only was Nangong Wan around, but there were also six other evil soul masters with weaker cultivations. They all had at least six rings. According to what Nangong Wan had told Huo Yuhao, the Holy Ghost Church sent only those who were at least Soul Emperors to the frontline. There were very few evil soul masters, and nurturing them wasn’t easy. It was very likely they would die at the front lines. That was why only those who could protect themselves were sent over.
“Go.” Huo Yuhao calmly said, and followed Nangong Wan.
Nangong Wan said, “Three and Four have been sent to supervise the Fourth Soul Engineer Legion. Let’s go take a look at the Second Soul Engineer Legion.”
“Alright,” Huo Yuhao replied.
Having Nangong Wan as a mole was very effective. The intelligence that he brought to Shrek Academy gave the Academy a new understanding of the Sun Moon Empire’s setup.
The Sun Moon Empire had originally only had ten soul engineer legions. However, all the other soul engineer legions from other empires were brought under their control after the war started, allowing them to form another five soul engineer legions. In this way, the Sun Moon Empire now had a total of fifteen soul engineer legions.
Among them, the five soul engineer legions in the Hand that Protects the Nation were the strongest. The other ten soul engineer legions were ordered.
Right now, there were five soul engineer legions at the front line. Apart from the Imperial Dragon Soul Engineer Legion and Terrorclaw Soul Engineer Legion, there were also the Second, Third and Fourth Soul Engineer Legions.
As for the other ten soul engineer legions, the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Legion was stationed in the capital. Unless they were commanded by Xu Tianran personally, they wouldn’t leave easily. The Phoenix Soul Engineer Legion was also in the capital right now. The Evil Tyrant Soul Engineer Legion had teamed up with two other soul engineer legions to deal with the soul master teams from the Star Luo Empire that were scattered all over the Sun Moon Empire’s territories. The remaining soul engineer legions were also arranged in their own ways.
The Sun Moon Empire relied on these five soul engineer legions and their elite soul tools at the front lines to suppress the coalition army of the three empires of the original Douluo Continent. In fact, the Heavenly Soul Empire had been battered so heavily that they were quite afraid by now. In the fights before, they had suffered heavy casualties. To keep Heavenly Spirit City intact was already the best that they could achieve at this stage. The initiative lay in the hands of the Sun Moon Empire now.
The Sun Moon Empire had their own plans. In the report that Ju Zi gave to Xu Tianran, they indicated that they wanted to consolidate the new territories they had obtained from the Heavenly Soul Empire first.
Given the strength of the Sun Moon Empire, they could definitely take the entire Heavenly Soul Empire down. However, that would also mean that the Sun Moon Empire would need to protect more land. When that happened, the Sun Moon Empire would also have to take on the Dou Ling and Star Luo Empires directly.
Once the Heavenly Soul Empire was destroyed, the remaining two empires would have no choice except to fight all-out. Along with the threat of Shrek City, the Sun Moon Empire would also have no other option but to fight. To the overall plans of the Sun Moon Empire, this wasn’t a good thing. At least, it wasn’t good if they weren’t prepared. Without the confidence of attaining complete victory, Ju Zi suggested that the Sun Moon Empire shouldn’t rush to destroy the Heavenly Soul Empire.
Xu Tianran adopted her suggestion. As he consolidated the territories that they had, he quickly adjusted their resources to produce more soul tool accessories. Through soul tool technology, he slowly influenced the people in the parts of the Heavenly Soul Empire that had fallen to the Sun Moon Empire. This would gradually get them to accept reality.
War couldn’t achieve their aims immediately. Ju Zi’s plan would take as long as ten years. In her complete plan, domination of the continent would take at least that long. Although Xu Tianran thought that this was a little too long, her detailed plan still managed to convince him. Even the senior commanders of the Sun Moon Empire approved of her plan after reviewing it. The plan raised Ju Zi’s reputation in the Sun Moon Empire.
After this plan was drafted, she had headed into the north to gather rare metals. However, she had bumped into Huo Yuhao, who had ruined her plan.
Ju Zi’s status in the military was very important to Xu Tianran. As a result, he even took the initiative to cover up her setback. An unbeaten female god of war was very helpful for morale. It was something that mustn’t be affected easily.
Currently, the five soul engineer legions at the frontline had been there for some time. Among them, the Imperial Dragon and Terrorclaw Soul Engineer Legions were very strong. They didn’t even give face to the Holy Ghost Church. The Holy Ghost Church had faced quite a few problems trying to supervise these two soul engineer legions. They only took orders directly from the Sun Moon Empire’s imperial family.
Although Zhongli Wu had wanted to force a check on them, the Holy Ghost Church still had many objectives to be achieved in the Sun Moon Empire. It wasn’t advisable for him to offend Xu Tianran. After all, Xu Tianran was the Emperor. The Sun Moon Empire was also very influential and powerful now. Although the Holy Ghost Church was also very powerful, and even had two Ultimate Douluo, how could a sect compete with an entire empire in terms of overall abilities?
As a result, Zhongli Wu could only bear it and perform circumstantial supervision on them.
While the beast lord-ranked soul engineer legions were unwilling, the other three ordinary soul engineer legions were helpless. Just like how Zhongli Wu didn’t want to offend Xu Tianran, Xu Tianran also didn’t want to offend the Holy Ghost Church. There was something that he shared with the Holy Ghost Church: they wanted to borrow each other’s strength to deal with Shrek Academy.
While Shrek Academy hadn’t seemed to do anything in the war so far, both Xu Tianran and Zhongli Wu were very wary of them!
————–
“We’re here.” Nangong Wan alerted Huo Yuhao. There was a soul formation not far in front of them.
There were already senior commanders from the Second Soul Engineer Legion waiting outside the soul formation after they received their orders. The person standing in front was a middle-aged man around fifty years old. He was tall and burly, and his aura was overwhelming. He was obviously a Soul Douluo.
“Greetings, Your Majesty.” That middle-aged man came up to receive them. Your Majesty was how they referred to Titled Douluo. In the world of Titled Douluo, they didn’t call one another that. However, it was how lower-ranked soul masters showed their respect when they saw Titled Douluo.
“Show us the way.” Nangong Wan was much more arrogant when he saw these ordinary soul masters. Huo Yuhao didn’t say anything.
This middle-aged man was the legion commander of the Second Soul Engineer Legion, Guo Nu. He was a Soul Douluo, and a Class 8 soul engineer.
Ordinary soul engineer legions were led by Class 8 soul engineers. After all, there were very few Class 9 soul engineers, even in the Sun Moon Empire.
Guo Nu stood to one side and gave way to the both of them. He personally showed them the way.
This was Huo Yuhao’s first time entering a soul formation of the Sun Moon Empire without fighting them.
After entering, he immediately sensed a strong killing aura sweeping across him. Lethal soul tools were neatly arranged, almost all long-range soul cannons. Looking in from the outside, it really looked like a forest of steel.
Huo Yuhao made an estimate as he looked over. There were more than a hundred long-range soul cannons!
As for why they were of different classes, it was because their effective ranges and strengths were different. Not only could they overlap one another, but they could also conserve soul power for short-range attacks.
These soul cannons were just covering the perimeter. There were larger soul tools in the middle. There was even a Class 9 soul tool, and soul tools that Huo Yuhao didn’t know the names to.
Soon enough, Huo Yuhao saw the elongated warehouses in the soul formation. Overall, they looked narrow and long, and they were placed to the sides of the soul formation, so that they could replenish it at anytime.
There were five hundred soul engineers in this ordinary soul engineer legion. Not only were they fully equipped with soul tools, they even had linked soul tools. Once they attacked, they were very destructive. The soul tools they had were definitely much stronger than the ones Shrek City had before.
Di Tian’s wariness of humans was not unfounded. As soul tools developed, the balance between soul beasts and humans was disrupted. Although soul beasts had the Beast God, humans were overall getting much stronger than soul beasts.
Given such a soul formation, even a hundred thousand-man army might not be able to breach it! Linked soul tools could greatly harm them before the soul tools exhausted their power. This was also why a soul engineer legion was so terrifying.
They simply toured the soul formation in a round of supervision. To the other soul engineers, this was a routine inspection, and it wasn’t their first time. However, Huo Yuhao was delighted. Although he couldn’t imprint the production method of every soul tool there into memory, he could still remember the arrangement of this soul formation, the uses of the soul tools, and how they coordinated with one another. This was undoubtedly great knowledge for the future three soul engineer legions of Shrek Academy.
“Are both of you coming to our side to rest and take a cup of tea?” Guo Nu asked respectfully.
He didn’t dare to treat evil soul masters poorly. He wasn’t even a Titled Douluo. His soul engineer legion was also not as great as the soul engineer legions in the Hand that Protects the Nation. He couldn’t afford to offend these powerful evil soul masters.
“Alright, we shall do so. I wonder if Commander Guo has any good stuff?” Nangong Wan asked.
“I’ve prepared them for both of you,” Guo Na replied softly.
Guo Nu’s tent was to the left of the soul formation. Every commander of a soul engineer legion had his own tent.
The so-called ‘getting a cup of tea’ was in fact a feast. Guo Nu had long prepared things. He invited Huo Yuhao, Nangong Wan, and the six evil soul masters into his tent for the feast. He first gave them a toast before asking his subordinates to bring some other stuff in.
Guo Nu smiled as he said, “Your Majesty, please put in some good words for me in front of the Imperial Tutor.” After this, he gestured, and a few of his subordinates opened a few cases.
The aura of metal mixed with a killing aura was released. Nangong Wan’s eyes brightened, and he subconsciously said, “This is great stuff! Although they aren’t very strong, they are still decent enough.”
There were four cases. One of them contained three Class 7 stationary soul cannon shells. The other three cases contained Class 5 stationary soul cannon shells. There were ten of them in each case.
Although they were only Class 5 and 7 soul cannon shells, there were a large number of them. If they were sold, they could be exchanged for an astronomical number of gold soul coins.
Soul engineer legions lacked everything except for soul tools. Furthermore, Guo Nu was clearly aware that evil soul masters loved stationary soul cannon shells. They were powerful, and had a great effective range. At any time, they were strategic resources. Even if they were sold somewhere else and to any empire, they were well-loved.
“Seven, keep them for now. We can divide them later. Commander Guo is too kind. It seems like the Second Soul Engineer Legion will only get stronger under your leadership.”
Although Nangong Wan was greedy, his own life was more important. He gave all of them to Huo Yuhao as a gift. At the very least, he hoped Huo Yuhao would be more willing to remove his restrictions in the future.
Huo Yuhao naturally didn’t stand on ceremony. This was good stuff. He had used almost all of the stationary soul cannon shells he had obtained from Radiant City during the beast wave. What he lacked right now was advanced stationary soul cannon shells.
