In the central area of Slaughter City, amidst a vast coliseum constructed of dark red rocks, Gu La stood firm, his gaze becoming intensely focused. He took a deep breath, connecting his consciousness with distant temporal avatars and the elemental tablets within him.
Mysteriously, four vastly different yet equally immense forces crossed the barriers of time and space, descending from all corners of the world.
Four divine lights intertwined and merged behind him, ultimately collapsing into a pure and radiant halo of extreme brilliance.
The terrifying pressure of a peak-level god swept across the entire Slaughter City like a tangible tsunami.
Around the coliseum, those reveling in the pleasure of slaughter collapsed as if struck by an invisible hammer, screaming and bleeding from their seven orifices, their souls trembling.
The entire Slaughter City fell silent, leaving only Gu La's godlike figure illuminated by the divine halo.
Beneath the deepest, darkest throne of Slaughter City, a figure cloaked in a blood-red robe, face hidden in the shadow of a hood—the Slaughter King—now cowered at the base of the throne, trembling like a quail in the cold wind.
The Blood Red Nine-Headed Bat King residing within him had long been terrified out of its wits by the pure and dreadful supreme divine aura above.
It desperately suppressed any remnants of resistance from the original host, Tang Chen, shrinking to its smallest form, hoping not to be discovered by that terrifying presence.
Show itself? It didn't dare to leak even a trace of its presence!
Gu La paid no heed to the insignificant beings beneath him.
His thoughts raced, and the millennium-old seed of the flower of the other shore, prepared beforehand, floated before him. This magical plant from the side of the dead bones, symbolizing death and reincarnation, was chosen by him as the core carrier for the avatar.
"Fourth Soul Skill—Forest Avatar!"
Gu La roared, lava surging around him, immense spiritual power mixed with godly soul power erupted, not directly injecting into the seed but transforming into countless intangible tentacles, violently piercing every inch of space in Slaughter City.
Rumble—!
The earth moaned, and the visible dark red killing qi, like thick blood mist whipped up by a fierce wind, was forcibly extracted, torn from every crack in the coliseum bricks, every shadow on the streets, every corner where countless lost souls wailed.
These filthy, chaotic energies filled with negative intentions were forcefully restrained and purified by Gu La's supreme might, forming a crimson torrent, pouring into the slightly trembling seed of the flower of the other shore.
Simultaneously, his powerful will penetrated the thick crust, reaching the River of Hell's Brew that had flowed for countless years deep beneath Slaughter City. (T/N: Hell's Brew is the Manhua name for Bloody Mary, since the author said this is the Manhua universe I'll use the respective name for things where possible)
The icy, lifeless, and sinking aura of the River was forcibly extracted, forming a turbid gray-yellow water column, breaking through the rock layers and similarly pouring into the seed.
The flower of the other shore seed greedily absorbed this most evil and vile power, emitting an eerie red-black glow, its form beginning to twist and grow.
But this was only the beginning. Gu La's gaze was sharp as a blade, with billions of stars seemingly being born and dying deep within his pupils.
He fully unleashed his abilities, seeing through the timeline.
At the moment of the birth of this avatar's core true spirit, he intended to forcefully "weave" an independent timeline outside the current spatiotemporal framework—a path to divinity!
A road to ignite the divine flame, using death and faith as steps!
"Condense!"
With Gu La's shout, the flower of the other shore seed, which had absorbed vast amounts of killing qi and Yellow Spring essence, suddenly exploded.
In the blinding brilliance, a vague human silhouette rapidly coalesced and became clear.
When the light dissipated, a figure quietly hovered before Gu La.
He was tall and slender, wearing a robe seemingly cut from the deepest night, with faint gray streams flowing at the edges.
His face bore a resemblance to Gu La's, but was colder, like ice that had not melted for ten thousand years. His eyes were pure, devoid of any impurities, gray, as if they could see through the boundary between life and death.
Gray streams of deathly stillness swirled around him, exuding a chilling aura that froze the soul.
The newly born avatar slowly raised his hands.
In his left hand, an ancient, elongated, curved blade wrapped in decaying aura appeared—Death Scythe!
In his right hand, a miniature pyramid made of countless strange dark golden metals floated quietly, with a flicker of dark light at its apex, as if it could devour all soul remnants—Sun Pyramid!
These two accompanying divine artifact phantoms clearly indicated the future path of this avatar—harvesting death, accumulating faith, using lost souls as fuel, and faith as a foundation to ascend to the divine seat.
Gu La looked at this avatar, which had cost him immense effort, fusing the essence of slaughter and the laws of death, and nodded satisfactorily: "From now on, your name is 'Du'An'."
He raised his hand, and a specially made storage ring imprinted with his mental mark flew towards Du'An. "Inside are the papers I prepared. Release one each month on schedule. In your spare time, you can wander the continent freely, gathering faith energy for me."
Du'An's gray eyes were calm, like two deep wells.
Silently, he took the ring, nodding slightly in response. His icy gaze swept over the silent Slaughter City below, as if looking at a barren graveyard.
Gu La stayed in Slaughter City for another month. During this month, he was not idle.
He sat cross-legged in front of Du'An, as if constructing an invisible spiritual bridge between them. Du'An, as an extension of his power and will, was the perfect container and converter of faith energy.
Through this bridge, Gu La carefully sensed and analyzed the intricate mechanism of faith energy flow, purification, and storage within Du'An, like the most precise engineer studying a perfect instrument.
Extremely weak yet exceptionally pure faint golden dots seeped from the despairing and numb souls of the survivors in Slaughter City, drawn and devoured by the gray streams swirling around Du'An, eventually converging into the virtual image of the Sun Pyramid held in his right hand.
Gu La's spiritual power acted like the most precise probe, tracking the trajectory of every trace of faith energy, analyzing the process of its transformation, purification, and compression into liquid divine radiance within the pyramid.
One month was enough for Gu La to roughly understand the principles of faith energy operation; various secrets behind it could wait until after he achieved godhood.
When he thoroughly understood the methods of using faith energy, he no longer lingered.
"It's time to go back." Gu La rose, speaking to Du'An, who had remained still like a sculpture. Du'An's gray eyes glanced at him, and his figure silently merged into the surrounding gray streams, disappearing without a trace.
Gu La turned to look at Gu Yue, who had been waiting in the distance with a slightly impatient expression, and smiled faintly: "This matter is settled here. It's time to return to our era."
Gu Yue's purple eyes glanced at the direction where Du'An disappeared, then looked back at Gu La, her usual mocking smile still playing on her lips: "I hope you haven't forgotten the conditions you promised me."
"Of course." Gu La was unfazed by her tone, his smile unchanged.
He extended his finger and lightly tapped the void. The space in front rippled like water disturbed by a stone, forming a profound channel exuding chaotic temporal energy.
From the other end of the channel came faint sounds of soul-guided train whistles and the low hum of soul-guided devices.
Gu La stepped into the channel first. Gu Yue watched his figure disappear in the silver light, lightly snorted, a barely perceptible complexity flashing in her purple eyes, and then stepped in as well.
The silver spatial ripples slowly closed, completely isolating the suffocating blood and deathly silence of Slaughter City.
The Douluo Continent continued to run along its predetermined path, unknown to anyone that a Death God avatar named "Du'An" had quietly begun to walk in the shadows of the continent, holding a stack of papers capable of changing the entire course of the soul master civilization.
And the name 'Oak', accompanied by a series of groundbreaking papers, was about to once again stirred a massive wave across the continent.
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