The moment Ma Hongjun blurted out that offbeat question, the heavy atmosphere eased a little.
Dai Mubai and the others couldn't help rolling their eyes, but they understood. Anyone who suddenly learned they would have descendants in the future would inevitably be wildly curious about the partner who would accompany them for life.
Xiao Wu didn't speak, but her actions made her stance clear.
She extended her slender jade hand and clasped Tang San's tightly, as if to pass her strength into him.
She lifted those soft, beguiling eyes to look at him. Her voice was gentle, yet carried firmness and deep affection:
"Brother, no matter where you go, no matter what powerful enemies you face—even gods—I will always be by your side. We will never part. Your hatred is my hatred; your goal is my goal."
Her words were simple, but as heavy as a thousand ton.
What's more, it wasn't only Tang San who bore enmity with the Spirit Empire. Xiao Wu also had a blood-deep vendetta—her mother had been slain—against Bibi Dong, who had already become the Rakshasa God.
Zhu Zhuqing remained as cool and distant as the moon. She did not speak, only gave a slight nod, a flash of cold light passing through those clear cat-like eyes.
Her attitude was self-evident—compared with potential power struggles and intrigue within the Star Luo royal family, she valued more the comradeship and trust forged with the Shrek Seven Devils through life-and-death trials.
"It's a pity Rongrong was taken away by Sect Master Ning. Otherwise, she would definitely stand with us."
Oscar sighed with some regret, but he believed Ning Rongrong's heart was with them. The Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect was still a powerful ally they could win over.
Dugu Bo let out his trademark cold laugh, venom-snake light flickering in his emerald eyes:
"Hmph, a god seat? This old man has no interest in such illusory things. After living for decades, I've seen through it all. But since I promised that little monster back then that I'd keep you youngsters safe, I naturally won't go back on my word."
His tone shifted, carrying a hint of chill.
"Sometimes, poison… is far cleaner and neater than a frontal brawl. If some people think that just because they're from ten thousand years in the future they're superior, and dare harbor crooked thoughts toward you, I don't mind letting them taste what it's like when the Jade Phosphor Serpent Emperor's venom seeps into bone, erodes the soul, and melts the spirit."
He straddled the line between right and wrong, acting purely on preference, but once he gave his word, he followed through to the end.
And he had his own calculations.
He knew his situation clearly: he was old, his potential almost exhausted. Let alone attaining a god seat, even breaking through to Rank 99 Limit Douluo was a faint hope.
His granddaughter Dugu Yan had decent talent, but a god seat was even further out of reach.
Rather than force some mirage of a godhood opportunity, better to steadfastly act as guardian for these few young people of boundless potential—especially Tang San.
A weighty debt of protection would be enough to secure the Dugu family's prosperity and peace for several generations to come.
Of course, all of this rested on the premise that he was betting on someone who knew gratitude and repayment.
And Dugu Bo prided himself on his venomous insight—he believed Tang San was such a person.
Even if he were to fall in battle in the future, Tang San would never mistreat Dugu Yan.
"Since our goals align and our hearts are united, we must now prepare actively."
Yu Xiaogang, seeing that the core team had achieved consensus and remained unusually sober and vigilant, felt slightly relieved and began to deploy.
"Erlong and I will do our utmost to persuade my father to stand on our side. Though his injuries haven't fully healed, Rank 96 Title Douluo is still a formidable power that cannot be ignored. With him joining us, both our safety and our voice at the table will improve significantly."
The more critical the moment, the more they needed to unite every force that could be united.
Tang San said in a deep voice:
"I will also find an opportunity as soon as possible to meet my uncle and formally return to the sect. Before he died, one of my father's greatest regrets was what he owed the sect. He hoped I would acknowledge my roots and clan, to make up for his past mistakes. Taking this chance, I must not only fulfill my father's last wish and seek the sect's forgiveness, so his spirit may rest, but also draw on the Clear Sky Sect's strength to add leverage to our journey."
Tang Hao had told him everything before dying. He had to carry out that heavy fatherly love and regret.
Just as Tang San, Yu Xiaogang, and the others were discussing countermeasures and planning the perilous trip to Sea God Island, Xiao Wu, quietly nestled at Tang San's side, felt a sudden, indescribable unease rise in her heart.
At the same time, an extremely faint yet inescapable strange sensing—like a call across a thousand mountains and rivers—seemed to come from some far-off direction.
In a daze, her consciousness felt tugged. She vaguely saw a figure—one whose looks were seven or eight parts similar to hers, but more mature, colder, radiant with a powerful and chilling aura.
Yet facing this mirror-like existence, Xiao Wu felt no familiarity or closeness—only a bone-deep, soul-level chill suddenly surged up, as if some voice in the dark warned her that if she met that other self, it would trigger some unpredictable, even cataclysmic consequence.
The feeling came suddenly and left quickly, but it cast a lingering shadow in her heart.
…
Meanwhile, in the distant core area of the Star Dou Forest, beside the Lake of Life—
In stark contrast to the grave council among the Shrek group, a brutal and eerie encirclement and slaughter was underway here.
A dense mass of undead creatures exuding a thick aura of death kept pouring out of a twisted rift in space like a tide. Fearless of death, they hurled themselves forward endlessly at the two mountain-like figures in the middle of the lake—the rulers of the forest, the hundred-thousand-year soul beasts Titan Giant Ape and Azure Bull Python.
Huo Yuhao stood on a rise, blood-red eyes flashing with icy light. Like a supreme commander, he calmly directed the undead army, constantly shifting formations, grinding down the two rulers' strength.
He needed a hundred-thousand-year spirit ring to break through his bottleneck, and these two top-tier hundred-thousand-year soul beasts had become his best targets.
At his side, Xiao Wu quietly stood guard.
She watched the Titan Giant Ape and Azure Bull Python roar and struggle under the undead army's siege, yet puzzlement crossed her exquisite face—ill-suited to the carnage before her.
For some reason, she felt a vague, almost illusory sense of kinship from these two powerful soul beasts that weren't even of her kind, as if something deep in her soul had been touched.
But the feeling was too fleeting, more like a mirage, leaving her unable to understand.
Farther off, Bei Bei gripped Tang Ya's hand tightly. Protected by Jing Yuan, the two silently observed the hunt.
They had stumbled into this world via a temporal passage. Although they were initially scattered, thanks to their communication soul tools which hadn't been overly disrupted, they quickly regrouped.
Bei Bei and Tang Ya were lucky enough to be transported together with Jing Yuan, and Tang Ya carried a communication soul tool capable of contacting Huo Yuhao.
However, Tang Ya's condition was dire.
Without the Holy Spirit Sect's special secret medicine to suppress it, the hidden peril planted in her body was constantly eroding her vitality. Her life hung by a thread.
Thus, as soon as Bei Bei regrouped, he found Huo Yuhao and Xiao Wu by any means necessary.
Huo Yuhao indeed carried some of the Holy Spirit Sect's secret medicines, but they were limited in number—critical life-prolonging items.
If they couldn't find a way back to their original world for a long time and return to the Holy Spirit Sect to obtain a stable supply of medicine, then Tang Ya… would surely die.
Just as the Xiao Wu of this era felt a tremor and unease sensing the mature version of herself in the distant Star Dou Forest—
Within the Star Dou Forest, the Xiao Wu who was observing the battle also shuddered slightly, a trace of confusion flashing in her eyes, before turning into a strange longing.
She too vaguely sensed the existence of the other Xiao Wu.
At the same time, a fierce intuition born of life instinct rose within her—find her.
Find the Xiao Wu of this era, still tender and young—as if… as long as she could find and… fuse with the other, she would become more complete. The old, hidden injuries within her, which even divine power could not fully heal, might finally be wholly cured.
Once that thought arose, it spread like wildfire across her heart, impossible to suppress.
The once serene, idyllic Lake of Life had become a living hell.
The thick, cloying stench of blood mixed with the life-eroding death energy of the undead army, forming a nauseating miasma that made even the air feel viscous and heavy.
For the Titan Giant Ape Er Ming, its mountain-like, majestic body had become the very source of its pain.
Its once glossy fur was shredded to tatters, covered in countless ghastly claw marks that laid open to bone. Large patches were charred and ulcerated by the corrosive energy in the undead's breath, exuding a foul burnt smell.
Each roar of pain and fury shook the earth like muffled thunder and churned the lake. Its massive fists, carrying ten thousand ton of force, could crush swathes of lower undead into powder and scatter them as black mist in an instant.
But the terror of the undead army lay in its near-endless regeneration.
The broken bones and dissipated soul bodies would often hover in the air for only a moment before the low, eerie chanting of the undead warlocks in the rear would draw and gather unseen necrotic power to reassemble them. They would take on their hideous forms again and charge forward howling, as if without end.
The Azure Bull Python Da Ming was in even direr straits.
Its vast, sinuous body was ensnared and gnawed by countless semi-transparent wraiths exuding bone-chilling deathly cold, clinging like a malignancy to bone.
These wraiths had no physical form, rendering physical attacks largely ineffective, but their mere presence relentlessly eroded Da Ming's life force and greatly hindered its movements.
It tried to summon a sky full of azure lightning or spit a heat breath hot enough to melt metal and stone, but under the suicidal attrition of the undead tide—and the battlefield's necrotic canopy that constantly suppressed and weakened elemental energy—its proud soul skills had lost ninety percent of their might, becoming dim and anemic.
Huo Yuhao stood on a slightly raised earthen slope, blood-red eyes cold and merciless.
Through Spirit Detection Sharing, he functioned like a master strategist, precisely transmitting orders to the high-tier undead commanders.
Under his command, the tireless, deathless army became a precise and efficient killing machine. Its various arms coordinated, leveraging their endless numbers and curses, freezes, corrosion, and other negative states to wear away, drip by drip, the power, stamina, and unyielding will of the forest's two rulers.
"Roar—!"
The Titan Giant Ape Er Ming let out a roar filled with pain and unwillingness. It stomped the ground, trying to unleash its innate soul skill—Gravity Control Domain—to crush the annoying undead into powder.
But as the warped gravity field spread outward from it, several undead warlocks, long prepared, jointly cast interference spells. Gray-black energy ripples slammed into the domain, making it unstable and greatly diminishing its effect.
Almost at the same moment, the Azure Bull Python Da Ming raised its head and hissed, trying to gather its remaining soul power to summon a final world-shaking thunderstorm for a desperate gamble.
But Huo Yuhao had anticipated this. The undead canopy constructed by hundreds of undead mages abruptly thickened. Dense deathly clouds became the toughest barrier, layer upon layer weakening and absorbing the blazing heavenly lightning. In the end, only scattered arcs with feeble power reached it.
"Now."
A sharp light burst in Huo Yuhao's blood-red eyes like a viper catching its prey.
"Death Knights, charge. Target locked!"
He also struck personally, no longer holding back.
Ultimate cold erupted from him, freezing even the air with crisp cracking sounds.
The massive jade-like phantom of the Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion flickered behind him. Terrifying low temperatures swept across the entire lake; the water froze at a speed visible to the naked eye.
A thick layer of ice, glimmering with ghostly blue light, coated the Azure Bull Python's surface. Its once-ready movements froze, lagging for a fatal instant.
"Charge—!"
With a silent psychic roar from their commander, the long-still Death Knight corps finally moved.
They became a black steel flood. Hooves shattered the ice with a deafening thunder. Deathly aura condensed into an unstoppable spearhead as they launched a do-or-die charge.
Their sharp lances flashed coldly in the dim light, thrusting in unison at the python's fatal spot—its reverse scale at seven inches—now poorly defended due to the freeze.
"Da Ming—!!"
The Titan Giant Ape Er Ming, seeing this, eyes splitting, loosed a heart-rending roar.