Chapter 523.3 - A Display of Strength
No matter how soul tools developed in the future, when a person’s strength reached the pinnacle of the world, he would still be the most intimidating and the best deterrent. Wasn’t the Beast God in the Great Star Dou Forest like that? Even if the Sun Moon Empire conquered the entire continent in the future, would they dare to provoke the Beast God?
The Beast God had already mastered the laws of space, and not even an Ultimate Douluo could stop him if he truly wanted to assassinate somebody! Therefore, even a ruthless and ambitious character like Xu Tianran would never think of attacking the Great Star Dou Forest.
Huo Yuhao would likely become Shrek Academy’s deterrence in the same regard in the future.
Huo Yuhao smiled bashfully and said, “Please rest, everyone. I have just expended a lot of energy, so I’ll go ahead and recover.” He pulled Tang Wutong to one side and sat down as he spoke, and they placed their palms together as they meditated to recover.
Of course, Huo Yuhao didn’t use as much energy as he said he had. His spiritual power’s formidable strength had something to do with their martial soul fusion, but more came from his own abilities.
Tang Wutong stared at Huo Yuhao, and a smile appeared at the corner of her mouth. Huo Yuhao would make all the decisions when they were outside. She didn’t want to attract too much attention, and she didn’t have to prove anything.
The sun gradually began to set in the west, and the sky was slowly covered with beautiful reddish-gold colors, and anyone looking down from the sky over Radiant City would still have a feeling of obscurity.
This wasn’t Huo Yuhao’s first time in Radiant City, but his impression was a little different every time.
He was filled with admiration and shock in the beginning, and that was because he didn’t understand much about the world of soul tools. But now, he wasn’t just shocked. Instead, he felt a little fearful.
The tremendous explosion in Radiant City back then was incredibly frightening, but what was the ultimate result? The ultimate result was that, within several years, Radiant City had completely recovered. Furthermore, their buildings were even higher compared to back then, and the depth that they contained was much more profound and complex.
Huo Yuhao was already a Class 9 soul engineer, and he could understand a lot of things. Radiant City wasn’t as simple as a normal city. It didn’t have sprawling city walls, and there weren’t large numbers of guards. But what Huo Yuhao saw was Radiant City’s seemingly chaotic but actually extremely practical structural setups. These structures were like fulcrums in an enormous web, and weren’t as simple as just structures. They contained tremendous soul power undulations.
Huo Yuhao had heard from Xuan Ziwen that the Sun Moon Empire had some core secrets regarding their soul tool research, and not even Xuan Ziwen, who was the number one research fellow back then, was sure about what these secrets were.
The Sun Moon Empire had another place besides their Illustrious Virtue Hall called the Imperial Consecration Hall. It was called a “consecration hall”, but it was better named the Imperial Research Center. Almost all of the Sun Moon Empire’s Class 9 soul engineers were members of this research center, and one was only worthy of joining this research center when one became a Class 9 soul engineer.
That place controlled all of the Sun Moon Empire’s true secrets regarding soul tools, and these secrets included a kind of soul tool known as high-energy compression array soul tools.
This type of soul tool could store soul power in massive amounts, and could absorb energy from the external world to sustain itself. The only problem was that such soul tools were too bulky, and there was no way to transport them. That was the reason why they weren’t directly inserted into the war, and only Radiant City had such things around.
But these high-energy compression array soul tools also possessed incredibly formidable power. An array like that could store soul power equivalent to that of a hundred Titled Douluo combined. According to Xuan Ziwen’s judgment, Radiant City had a total of four of these exorbitantly expensive and enormous high-energy compression soul tools. What they were used for was to provide Radiant City with enough energy to sustain their overall defenses.
Only individuals from the Imperial Research Center knew exactly how these soul tools looked and worked, but they had to be absolutely terrifying.
Soul power equivalent to four hundred Titled Douluo was a force terrifying enough to construct a defensive barrier for the entire city! Xuan Ziwen had also told Huo Yuhao that if the Sun Moon Empire could make these high-energy compression array soul tools smaller, then apocalypse would descend upon the continent’s other empires. When that happened, the Sun Moon Empire would possess batches of soul tools similar to the Death God at their disposal, and Class 10 soul tools would appear immediately afterward.
Xuan Ziwen was proud and arrogant, but he told Huo Yuhao very clearly that finalizing research on something like high-energy compression array soul tools wasn’t something that a single soul engineer could achieve. That was the result of the Sun Moon Empire’s many Class 9 soul engineers’ research over many years. A single soul engineer could only master part of the technology’s components, and every one of this soul tool’s important components was equivalent to a Class 9 soul tool. This gap in soul tool technology wasn’t something that could be covered within ten or twenty years, or even within a hundred years.
Therefore, Xuan Ziwen had already privately given his pessimistic opinion about the war. The Sun Moon Empire’s foundations were just too powerful, and they also had sufficient resources. What they needed now was to gradually convert their foundations in soul tool technology accumulated over the years into practical uses for war. When that happened, who could stop their forward march?
That was the reason why Huo Yuhao felt fearful in this moment. That frightful sensation was too evident when he viewed Radiant City as a Class 9 soul engineer. Radiant City was like a frightening Transcendent soul beast in his eyes, and it was just lying there, prostrate. Nobody knew when it would truly flash its fangs.
Huo Yuhao even found the Holy Ghost Church laughable. That frightening sect that seemed to control many of the Sun Moon Empire’s core existences, which also possessed formidable strength in two Ultimate Douluo, was perhaps just a joke in front of the Sun Moon Empire’s true foundations. However, the Sun Moon Empire needed them right now. If the day came when Xu Tianran believed that his wings were fully outstretched, and when the might of soul tools could be placed on full display, the Holy Ghost Church would face a calamity that would probably exceed their expectations.
Huo Yuhao gradually clenched his fist as Xuan Ziwen’s words echoed in his mind. If you want to stop the Sun Moon Empire from launching an invasion, there’s only one thing you can do. You have to create a kind of power or force large enough to intimidate the entire Sun Moon Empire so that they won’t dare to use their frightening soul tools so easily. That is the only way to give the Douluo Continent’s three native empires sufficient time.
When Xuan Ziwen was making that speech to Huo Yuhao, he also told him that he couldn’t achieve such a feat. A Class 9 soul engineer was Xuan Ziwen’s limit, and only a talented prodigy like Huo Yuhao had a chance to push through to become a Class 10 soul engineer, and create a terrifyingly apocalyptic soul tool.
Huo Yuhao didn’t feel that deeply back then, but now he truly understood the meaning behind Xuan Ziwen’s words.
There were many more surveillance soul tools of many different kinds inside Radiant City, and their surveillance was much tighter. There was no question that some of the newly developed surveillance soul tools would appear inside Radiant City, especially when it came to aerial surveillance soul tools. There were many domain-related surveillance soul tools that Huo Yuhao was coming across for the first time.
Huo Yuhao inspected everything closely and made his judgment before he brought the Titled Douluo down to the ground. Entering Radiant City across the ground was, comparatively, the easiest way. The city didn’t have any city walls after all, so they could enter from anywhere.
Huo Yuhao made sure that the space in between everyone was a little tighter before he shared his Spiritual Detection. They circled around Radiant City for almost a third of its circumference, and only when the sky had completely darkened did they find a gap, which Huo Yuhao swiftly brought everyone through and into Radiant City.
There were fewer surveillance soul tools once they entered Radiant City, since the majority of them were aimed outward.
Huo Yuhao stopped using Imitation when they reached a dark and shady corner. He turned to the Titled Douluo and whispered, “Luck has been on our side, seniors, and I’ve managed to bring everyone inside. I will now return my interim command to you, Body Douluo. What do we do next?”
Huo Yuhao strongly adhered to the White Tiger Duke’s reminder, that his main task had been completed once he brought these Titled Douluo into Radiant City. He would naturally no longer be the one directing things after that.
Huo Yuhao could tell from the White Tiger Duke’s words back then that this operation wasn’t as simple as it seemed on the surface. There had to be deeper things within, but since the Duke wasn’t willing to tell him what the true aim of their mission was, he couldn’t probe any further. Naturally, he wouldn’t involve himself too much.
The Body Douluo, Du Busi nodded and said, “Change your appearances, everyone, and split up to find a place to settle down. We have arrived earlier than we predicted, so we should get familiar with our environment. Three individuals will form one team. Yuhao, you and Tang Wutong will form a team with me. We will use the transmission soul tools that we have prepared to communicate, and we will use codes when we talk to each other.”
The Titled Douluo nodded one by one as they began to disguise themselves.
They were evidently prepared as they swiftly changed into the Sun Moon Empire’s clothing before they made some simple changes to their facial appearance.
Anyone who could become a powerful Titled Douluo wasn’t simple, and it didn’t take long before they dispersed.
Du Busi disguised himself as a middle-aged man in his forties, and even his body became strangely different. His originally broad and towering frame became much smaller, to the point where he seemed weak and frail. The other two powerful individuals from the Body Sect had also disguised themselves as his servants, and they were extremely inconspicuous.