Douluo Continent: I can nurture soul beasts and even perform super evolution.

Chapter 277 Eight Hundred People Strike First! The Sea God's Fate Tournament
Mingdu.

Outside a secluded courtyard, on the street, the air suddenly rippled and distorted, and then two figures dressed in black robes stepped out of thin air.

The only difference is...

The leader, a woman in black with a slightly slender build, walked with a steady and calm gait.

Behind him followed a tall, muscular man in black robes, whose steps seemed unsteady, as if he were struggling to support his exhausted body.

"Please come in, Your Highness has been waiting for you for quite some time..."

When the two arrived at the courtyard, the gate slowly opened, and an elderly man with white hair stood inside, bowing slightly and speaking respectfully.

"Xue Chen?" The leading woman's voice was surprised, and she raised an eyebrow.

"You've actually joined his ranks too..."

"Your Highness is kind and benevolent. I am but a crippled life. If it weren't for His Majesty's rescue back then, I would probably be nothing but withered bones in the wilderness long ago." Xue Chen smiled faintly and gestured for me to proceed.

As he spoke, he also glanced at Long Xiaoyao behind him.

A flash of astonishment crossed his eyes. Someone had actually managed to injure Long Xiaoyao. No wonder these two had accepted His Highness's invitation to come. It seemed the Holy Spirit Cult wasn't doing so well these days...

Otherwise, given their master's current decline, these two would most likely look down on them.

A few minutes later.

Inside the spacious hall.

Xu Tianran said with a wry smile, "Please forgive me, it is inconvenient for me to greet you with my injured body."

"It's alright." Ye Xishui untied her fringe, revealing her beautiful face, and casually waved her hand.

"What kind of cooperation are you talking about?"

Her purple eyes fixed on Xu Tianran, and she spoke indifferently.

“If the third brother seizes the position, the Holy Spirit Cult will surely be expelled.” Xu Tianran took a deep breath, as if he had made up his mind.

"..."

The scene was somewhat quiet.

Long Xiaoyao crossed his arms and closed his eyes to rest. Ye Xishui's eyes narrowed slightly, a hint of coldness flashing across them. The pressure emanating from the Limit Douluo swept across the entire courtyard. The wooden chairs creaked and groaned, the windowpanes swayed and rattled, and Xu Tianran's face turned deathly pale in an instant.

"Your Excellency, this is going too far!"

Xue Chen's pupils contracted, and he hurriedly stood in front of Xu Tianran. He unleashed the full power of a Super Douluo, even forcing out his Martial Soul. Nine Soul Rings rose from his feet, and he stared nervously at his opponent.

"Elder Xue." Xu Tianran coughed lightly twice.

"Yes……"

Xue Chen took a deep breath before taking a step back.

Ye Xishui also withdrew her pressure at the opportune moment.

“You’re right,” she said quietly. “No country on the original continent has a place for the Holy Spirit Church. If the Sun and Moon Empire also completely rejects it, then the Holy Spirit Church’s situation is indeed not optimistic.”

"Your Excellency is indeed far-sighted; I am no match for you," Xu Tianran said with a smile.

"So what do you mean?" Ye Xishui asked calmly.

"Cooperation! Win-win!" Xu Tianran said in a deep voice.

"I am all alone, and the military power I have gathered is negligible. I am no match for the third brother. If I were to take power, I would definitely use the power of the Holy Spirit Cult to balance the army. At that time, the Holy Spirit Cult would become the state religion of my Sun Moon Empire!"

"..."

Concise and clear, Xu Tianran looked sincerely at the person opposite him.

The pros and cons have been clarified.

Presumably, these two will make the right choice.

really.

"it is good!"

Ye Xishui nodded slightly, but her brows furrowed again.

“But now the followers are only eight hundred, and the strong members of the sect have also suffered heavy casualties. It will be difficult to support you to take the throne. After all, you said that the royal family behind your third brother controls most of the military power of the Sun Moon Empire.”

Xu Tianran's pupils contracted.

The Holy Spirit Cult has indeed met with a great calamity?!
The information I received from the spy a few days ago turned out to be true.

According to his estimate, the entire Holy Spirit Cult has at least 1,500 Soul Master members across all its branches, and these are all "elites," evil Soul Masters who start as Great Soul Masters. But now... nearly half of them have been lost!
Have these guys gone mad and gotten into a fight with the Evil Emperor of the Demon Forest?!
Otherwise, who else on the entire continent could have caused such heavy losses to the Holy Spirit Cult?
Xu Tianran's heart was churning with emotions that were difficult to calm down.

But he remained expressionless and continued, "Eight hundred men it is. Eight hundred men, the first to strike is the best!"

"In another half month, it will be Father Emperor's birthday."

"Logically, the third, fourth, and seventh princes should all come to participate, and their routes will generally pass through the East Gate and Chengde Gate of the Imperial City. You should send people to surround and kill them all there. Then, taking advantage of the chaos in the Imperial Palace, you should all go to Father Emperor's place and force him to abdicate!"

"You won't kill your father?" Ye Xishui took a sip of tea and said coldly.

"..."

Xu Tianran's lips twitched slightly.

"No! Killing a brother is acceptable, but killing a father is not! I can't bear that infamy. Besides, the old man is still alive to take charge of the overall situation. Kong Lao won't be completely disappointed in me. When I have power, he will have no choice but to acquiesce, no matter how unwilling he is."

"Then what if he imprisons you and has another child?" Ye Xishui said calmly.

"He's also... old and frail, he's been impotent for a long time." Xu Tianran chuckled.

"What if we borrow it?" "Borrow a member of the royal family, a member of the Sun Moon Empire's royal bloodline, what would you do then?"

“He has always valued the purity of his concubines, so how could he be willing to lend them out? No matter what, I am his flesh and blood…” Xu Tianran shook his head in denial.

"Alright!" Ye Xishui nodded slightly, a smile playing on her lips, a hint of bloodlust flashing in her eyes.

Having cultivated evil arts and craving blood, the Holy Spirit Cult, these evil soul masters, have always hoped for war on the continent so they could profit from it. Therefore, taking advantage of this struggle for the throne, they wouldn't mind stirring up an even bigger storm, such as harming the innocent people in Mingdu...

"If that's the case, then let's go all out!"

They watched as the two figures disappeared.

Xue Chen's expression was complicated.

"Your Highness, this time, the people of Mingdu are likely to..."

"It's a last resort. Let them suffer a bit. As for the infamy... cough cough, let the Holy Spirit Church bear it." Xu Tianran said indifferently.

"If it succeeds, I will give the people of Mingdu a more prosperous future, and let the iron hooves of the empire trample across every part of the continent. That cowardly third brother who only knows how to enjoy himself is not worthy to compete with me."

“But such a heinous crime of rebellion is enough…” Xue Chen still hesitated.

"Rebellion is what losers call it!" Xu Tianran said calmly.

"Winner takes all!"

……

Shrek Academy.

The inner court.

Although it was night, the shore of Poseidon Lake was brightly lit, with countless exquisitely carved pink lanterns hanging on the streetlights, casting an ambiguous color over the originally pale yellow streetlights.

"Young Master, this is a Singles Club. Only we singles deserve to enjoy the wine made from grapes here. What are you doing here?"

Xu Sanshi said sullenly.

"Is there such a thing?" Su Wen raised an eyebrow, downed the pale purple wine in his glass in one gulp. It was sweet and delicious, but it couldn't ease the bitterness in his heart.

Do you know how many girls were at this Poseidon's Fate matchmaking event?

Thirty-seven in total!
He remembered that there were only seventeen in the original work...

It's hard to say how many of those extra twenty people actually like him.

Of course, it may also be related to his reform of the Shrek Academy Inner Court Inspection Team's mission system. He temporarily suspended all missions to eliminate evil spirit masters, allowing these rookies to pass the "tests" he set up first. Only after successfully completing all the questions in the question bank would they be qualified to complete the subsequent missions.

Suppressing scattered, wild evil spirit masters is not too difficult.

However, if they wanted to inflict any damage on the elite forces of the Holy Spirit Cult's evil soul masters, then the current inspection team would be nothing more than a free gift...

They've already established a systematic and large-scale organization with discipline, while the supervisory team is still fighting amongst themselves with some peripheral nobodies and weaklings. How can that be allowed?

As a result, the number of resident disciples in the inner court increased dramatically from more than fifty to eighty or ninety. Even after deducting some inner court disciples who were already in relationships, the number of those participating in the Sea God's Fate Blind Date Event reached more than seventy.

However, this also shows that the inner court disciples are indeed feeling stifled, with less than a quarter of them finding partners, and there are quite a few older singles.

"I've remembered a joke," Xu Sanshi said with a chuckle as he sipped his wine.

"Shut up! I'm in a good mood tonight, and if you dare to ruin it, I'll kill you!" Beibei warned, grabbing Xu Sanshi by the neck.

"Is Xiaoya inside too?" Xiao Hongchen asked.

"Mmm." When Xiaoya was mentioned, Beibei's face immediately lit up with happiness.

It can be said that true love has finally come to fruition.

"Can I participate too?" Xiao Hongchen hesitated for a moment, her face flushing slightly, and said, "Of course, it doesn't matter if I don't participate, I'm not very..."

“As long as you are an inner court disciple who stayed at the school during this period, you are on the list of attendees. Unless you resist and express your refusal, the academy will not remove your name,” Bei Bei explained.

"You're already an inner disciple, how come you only found out about the Sea God's Fate Conference at the last minute?" After saying that, he asked with some curiosity.

"I've been researching battle armor, I've been incredibly busy lately..." Xiao Hongchen breathed a sigh of relief and grinned.

Sweet love, who doesn't crave that?

"Doukai?"

Upon hearing a familiar yet unfamiliar word, everyone turned their attention to it.

Seeing Su Wen's worried expression, they didn't have the heart to disturb him and could only focus their attention on Xiao Hongchen. At present, the research and development of battle armor is classified as secret and only the academy's higher-ups know about it. Now that they have met a true insider, they are naturally quite curious.

"Hmm... It's still under development for now, but the integration of the soul-guiding array core and the metal forging technology is quite good. In your lifetime, you will definitely have the opportunity to see the battle armor born, and even have the chance to try it on. As for its performance..."

"It provides a unique bonus to the martial soul attribute. When an ordinary Soul King puts on a basic battle armor, he can enhance his strength to the level of a Soul Saint."

"A Soul Saint?!"

"What the hell?"

"..."

There was an uproar around them, and everyone looked shocked.

The leap of twenty levels in a row is simply heaven-defying. You have to know that it would probably take them at least twenty years to cultivate from Soul King to Soul Saint, but a so-called... Battle Armor can actually allow them to reach Soul Saint directly.

What's the point of cultivation then?
"Don't be discouraged, everyone," Xiao Hongchen explained. "The purpose of battle armor is merely to enhance combat power. If you can increase your strength from Soul King to Soul Saint, then others can also increase their strength from Soul Saint to Soul Douluo, or even be granted a title..."

"It is something that adds icing on the cake, not the soil that eliminates ordinary soul masters."

P.S.: Two more chapters to go.

(End of this chapter)