169: The Secrets of the Chosen One

Having obtained the Taibai Sword Manual, Harosa went into secluded cultivation with delight, while Shen Guyan continued his life of Body Tempering in the blood pool.

The process of blood pool Body Tempering was certainly painful, but fortunately, with Nalali's special assistance, Shen Guyan was able to endure it.

The tampering the Dark Blood Demon did in the blood pool naturally couldn't escape Shen Guyan's perception; it was nothing more than applying more curse seals to his body through the Body Tempering. Once these curse seals entered his body, they were secretly blocked by the Great Primordial Art and the Great Acupoint Shifting Method, so they couldn't pose a substantial threat to Shen Guyan.

As the saying goes, 'nothing ventured, nothing gained.' As the days of Shen Guyan's cultivation in the Holy Spirit Cult passed, the Dark Blood Demon gradually began to trust him.

After a month of Body Tempering and self-adjustment, Shen Guyan finally stabilized his Soul Power at the Spirit Ancestor Realm, though he had not yet obtained a third spirit soul.

During this month, Shen Guyan also became well-acquainted with Harosa. For some reason, the interactions between the two were strangely harmonious, which even shocked the Dark Blood Demon who was observing in secret.

When did this god of death become so easy to talk to?

After a month of spending time together, Shen Guyan finally managed to guess a few things from their conversations.

Through their talks, he learned that Harosa was actually a Fusion of the world's negative energy! Furthermore, he was an emissary sent by the heavens to punish humanity for destroying the environment of the Douluo Continent. He was a true chosen one of heaven, a Favored One of the Plane—a so-called Son of the Plane!

Who in this world could be resurrected after being ground to dust? Only one existence could achieve such a feat: the Lord of the Plane!

The Lord of the Plane doesn't just need someone who can restore nature; he also needs to remove redundancies. Human development has been too fast—so fast that it has exceeded the scope of the Lord of the Plane's control.

At such a time, the Lord of the Plane would deliberately create trouble for humans. The Lord of the Plane didn't just create humans; he created many other living beings, such as the Spirit Beasts that lived before humans. Now that Spirit Beasts are on the brink of extinction, and they are also his children, how could he not be angry when one child is about to be killed by another?

This brings to mind the Lord of the Douluo Plane whom Shen Guyan had previously encountered on the Yellow Springs Road. In a sense, Shen Guyan had inherited an authority from the Lord of the Douluo Plane, making him half a Lord of the Plane himself.

Creation Reincarnation. This was the only trump card Shen Guyan had to flip the table. However, once this authority was used, the Douluo Continent would return to the era of its creation, and everything would start over.

As for how Harosa could continuously reincarnate in the past, he naturally relied on the support of the former Lord of the Plane to be so fearless. But about a hundred years ago, the Lord of the Plane suffered a Possession by a certain Divinity.

Having lost the favor of the former Lord of the Plane, Harosa's resurrection process took as long as a century. This seemed to be the only explanation that made sense.

Harosa was born by heavenly mandate. No other existence has appeared until now who possesses the aura of the Netherworld that he controls. He is perhaps the proudest of powerhouses, and there was only one reason he was willing to join the Holy Spirit Cult: to remove the 'pseudo' from the title of pseudo-god and truly become a god.

Looking at it this way, there must be something within the Holy Spirit Cult that is persuasive enough; otherwise, making someone like him submit would be no easy task.

Unless it was for cultivation, Harosa had no interest in killing. Moreover, at his current level, killing ordinary people was meaningless, and he disdained doing so, nor would he participate in wars. Even the Holy Spirit Cult could not fully control a powerhouse of this level; it could only be a cooperative relationship.

Overall, Harosa himself wasn't particularly evil, but his abilities were extremely terrifying. Back then, if the Heaven-Blessed Douluo hadn't relied on the foundations of Shrek Academy, she would have been no match for him by their second encounter.

The gap between a Quasi-Demi-God and a Demi-God is roughly one to two, while the gap between a Quasi-God and a Demi-God is about one to three. In other words, it would take three powerhouses at the level of Heavenly Phoenix Douluo Leng Yaozhu to match Pluto Douluo Harosa.

If the Holy Spirit Cult only consisted of one emperor, two sovereigns, and the four heavenly kings, the four heavenly kings didn't seem to have reached the Limit level yet. At most, only the Dark Blood Demon was close to those three Limit Realms, while the other three heavenly kings should still only be Super Douluos.

It wasn't until the appearance of the Underworld Emperor Harosa that Shen Guyan truly saw how terrifying the overall strength of the Holy Spirit Cult was. The Ghost Emperor, who stood on equal footing with him, naturally possessed equivalent strength.

As for that mysterious Demon Empress... a single word inevitably flashed through Shen Guyan's mind—

God!

Only at this level could the Demon Empress's status in the Holy Spirit Cult surpass the two Quasi-Gods, the Ghost Emperor and the Underworld Emperor!

But now that the Divine Realm has long since vanished without a trace, and no one has been able to Breakthrough to godhood for ten thousand years, how could they become gods?

These questions could probably only be answered by that Demon Empress.

Even within the Quasi-God level, there are differences in strength, including other personal abilities, whether they counter each other, and battle armor capabilities, among others.

Harosa's battle armor was actually not a four-word battle armor, because a Divine Craftsman would never work for them, but it wasn't a three-word battle armor either. His battle armor had undergone a transformation through Body Integration with himself after reaching the three-word stage, serving as a disguised four-word battle armor. However, compared to a true transformation after reaching the four-word stage, there was still a slight gap.

In the current continent, there are definitely not many powerhouses at the Quasi-God level. Sky Pillar Douluo and Beast God Di Tian naturally are, and it's rumored that the Qian Gu Family also has one. The two Sect Leaders of the Tang Sect combined could count as one, and the Hall Master of the War God Hall might also be... Compared to these major forces, the Shen Family is likely not enough... Even as strong as Old Master Shen is, he is only a rank 98 Super Douluo; otherwise, he wouldn't have failed to last even one round against Beast God Di Tian.

The continent is currently considered peaceful, which is naturally due to these powerhouses restraining each other. However, balance will eventually be broken by one side's desires, and it's unknown how much longer the Douluo Continent can maintain this calm... Shen Guyan pondered these issues as he walked aimlessly through the Holy Spirit Cult's headquarters.

The Holy Spirit Cult was located entirely beneath a glacier. Harosa had mentioned that this place used to be a Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Cave, and it had even given birth to a Spirit Beast that reached the million-year level by relying on Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Pith. After that million-year Spirit Beast left for the ocean from here, the Demon Empress found and developed this place.

And that lucky million-year Spirit Beast seemingly went to the Star Dou Great Forest of that time and never returned.

This place was naturally taken over by the Demon Empress, who, together with some of the Holy Spirit Cult powerhouses who had escaped with their lives from the hands of Spirit Ice Douluo Huo Yuhao back then, jointly established the new Holy Spirit Cult headquarters—