"Ugh...W-What, where am I?" Huo Yuhao groaned as he came to consciousness. He looked up at the night sky above him in confusion.
The stars shone brightly, contrary to his inner conflict.
"Everyone! They—!" His eyes snapped open as he recalled the events prior, of Chen Zifeng and Yao Haoxuan exploding and the rest of his friends near them, he sat upright and looked around to try and question anyone of what had happened.
Only, there was no one else besides him. He was all alone on a patch of grass and surrounded by large trees.
His brows creased in confusion.
"This doesn't look like the Ming Dou Mountain Range..." He muttered.
He then started calling out to Ancestor, Skydream, Ice Empress and even Electrolux. But no answer.
He went into his spiritual sea and was shocked to see the unexpected changes, especially that large Sharingan eye in the sky that looked like a blood moon. He spread out his senses to find his friends but all he saw was four golden cocoons in the middle of his spiritual sea.
"Did they all go into hibernation or something?" He asked himself but couldn't come up with any reasonable explanation.
Finding no answers in his mind, he exited and decided to find out what was going on by himself.
"Alright. Alone in some kind of forest, with no one to rely on. It's just like when I first entered the Star Dou Forest."
Just as he stood up to assess the situation, the earth started to tremble and the trees began to shake uncontrollably.
"An earthquake?!" Huo Yuhao exclaimed in puzzlement. He subconsciously activated his martial soul but as his spiritual power circulated into his eyes, his eyes widened as he felt a stinging sensation from his eyes.
As if a thousand ants were crawling and nibbling at his eyes, it was an excruciating experience.
Huo Yuhao immediately cut off his connection to his Sharingan and he fell to his knees, heaving and perspiring from his forehead to his face cheeks.
His vision became hazy and blurry, his eyes glossy.
"W-What the heck...? What's wrong with my eyes?! Ugh, calm down. I have no answers to such questions right now. With an unexpected danger looming around me, I have to save up my energy and use my other skills to check out the surroundings."
Taking a deep breath, Huo Yuhao closed his eyes and started running forward, trusting his instincts to save him.
As he moved forward, he ran across shrubbery and barks of trees. It was all muscle memory for him to navigate a forest, he had been trained strictly by his Ancestor to know the terrain of a forest after all. Even if it was a simulated one at first.
Though, as he navigated through the vegetation on his lonesome, he felt as though the environment around him was familiar.
Raaaaa*!
His train of thought was disrupted as an ear piercing roar was heard from afar and then came a earth shattering shockwave, it was so powerful that it shook the trees around Huo Yuhao to the point of almost uprooting them!
Of course, Huo Yuhao, having been caught off guard by such a powerful blast, that he was thrown back and crashed through numerous trees.
Bang* Bang* Bang*
"Shit—!" Cursing out loud for the series of unfortunate events he was experiencing, Huo Yuhao used his second martial soul instinctively and hoped that it worked.
A blood-red soul ring with four golden strands, emanating a domineering aura that made the area around Huo Yuhao be bathed in a crimson light. Without any hesitation he activated the second ability of Ice Empress' hundred thousand year old soul ring.
Ice-jade diamond shaped crystals appeared all over his body, a deep chill exuded from him that turned the trees and other vegetation around him to ice sculptures.
Bang*!
"Ow!"
He finally stopped when the shockwave dissipated and crashed against a frozen tree, he then slid down onto the ground with a groan.
"Thank the Sea God I have a sturdy body, or else I would've died just from the initial impact." Huo Yuhao muttered as he hissed, turning to his side and he lowered his right hand to feel the uncomfortable pain on his left side, feeling a soaking wet feeling on his shirt.
Then the scent of blood...
"You gotta be kidding me." Huo Yuhao grunted as he shifted into an upright position against the tree and used ice to seal up his wound and then Mystical Palm Jutsu to heal it. "What the hell was that anyway? That beastly roar... It was just its roar and it was so far away, just how strong is this soul beast?"
'With that unknown powerful beast near me, I can't fire off the Shrek Guardian Emergency Flare. I have to get out of this forest.' He clenched his hands.
'Sucks that I can't see yet. Hm. This should be a perfect place to hide and recover my eyesight. With just my Ultimate Ice surrounding me, most soul beasts and humans would be reluctant to come close to me.'
Huo Yuhao sighed at the sudden strings of misfortune he was experiencing and a couple minutes later, the wound on his side closed up.
He then went into a meditative position and took a deep breath, initiating the Mysterious Heaven Skill.
Time passes by around 2 hours.
Huo Yuhao opened his eyes finally, his vision was clear and complete. He blinked and his bright blue pupils changed into golden red, his mature three tomoe Sharingan and his soul rings appeared.
White, black, black, black rings of light rose from underneath his legs and surrounded his body magnificently. An aura of a hunter oozes out of him as his gaze sharpens, Spiritual Detection was activated.
'Hm? Someone's here?' He furrowed his brows as he snapped his attention to the side, where the figure of a young girl with long brown braided hair was hiding behind a tree.
'Although I don't understand why Ancestor and the others are asleep, my strength still remains the same. Unless I encounter a 35,000 year old Soul Beast or a Soul Sage, I'll be fine. This girl should help shed the light of my situation.'
'A Soul Elder...but why does her aura seem strange? It's like Xiao Dong's but...' Huo Yuhao furrowed his brows in deep thought and shook his head, closing his martial soul.
He had just recently recovered. He didn't want to strain his eyes once more.
He stood up and used Body Flicker Jutsu to appear before the mysterious girl spying on him.
"Eep!" The girl jumped back in surprise, hitting the frozen tree as Huo Yuhao appeared before her. "Y-You..." She stuttered, not just out of surprise, but also from the cold.
Huo Yuhao politely smiled and cupped his hands together. "Hello miss, my name is Huo Yuhao. I wonder if you can help me answer a few questions?"
"W-What kind of questions?" The girl warily asked.
Huo Yuhao said. "This place...where is this?"
The girl blinked. "You... don't know where you are? This place is pretty famous, infamous in fact."
Huo Yuhao shook his head. "I don't know. I was with my friends when we encountered an...evil group of soul masters. One unfortunate event led to another and I woke up in a daze, my friends nowhere in sight and the area around me unfamiliar. So please, can you tell me where we are?" He explained.
The girl's expression softened. "...This is the Great Star Dou Forest, the hybrid region that stands between the outskirts and core regions."
"Great Star Dou Forest?!" Huo Yuhao exclaimed in shock. How did he get here? The distance from the Ming Dou Mountain Range to here was something that not even a Titled Douluo could easily cover in a brief moment!
Having a brief internal scanning of his body, Huo Yuhao found out that it wasn't even a few hours since he arrived here.
So how did he get here?
'Was it because of Absolute Domain? That...might be the case since my Sharingan had become painful to use. It might've been strained from using the ability of space manipulation.'
He sighed. "Thank you for helping me, miss."
The girl giggled and had now eased up to him, despite how dangerous and cold looking he was, he seemed friendly.
"It's weird being called miss. My name is Xiao Wu! Nice to meet you, Huo Yuhao." She then stretched out her hand.
Huo Yuhao smiled and accepted the handshake.
Just as they were about chatting together, Xiao Wu's eyes widened as she cried out in a panic.
"ER MING NO! STOP!"
A whistling sound was heard through the leaves as a large boulder like fist punched towards Huo Yuhao. Space crumbled and the air distorted. An aura of destruction and absolute power emanated from it.
It was like a fist that can break through heaven itself!
Huo Yuhao looked back up in horror. He immediately used his Sharingan and tried to use Absolute Domain to escape but it was futile; space around him had been locked down.
'Shit!'
He gritted his teeth as his spiritual power increased his perception, making it as though time had slowed down. He looked up to see what kind of Soul Beast was attacking them and his heart sank in despair.
It was a Titan Giant Ape, one of the most powerful Soul Beasts in the world and is qualified to become the king of a soul beast forest.
From what Huo Yuhao had remembered about the Great Star Dou Forest, it was once said that it had two kings ten thousand years ago, a Titan Giant Ape and the Sky Azure Bull Python. Both were powerful hundred thousand year old soul beasts that would've stood at the top five among the Top 10 Strongest Great Beasts.
But they all disappeared ten thousand years ago to become Ancestor Tang San's soul rings in order to fight against the Soul Hall. Since then, there had been no sightings of another Titan Giant Ape in the Great Star Dou Forest.
To find a powerful Titan Giant Ape before him, and probably at least more than 50,000 years old, just how rotten his luck become?
Suddenly, the speed of his surroundings gradually returned to its original speed.
Huo Yuhao's mind raced to all kinds of solutions to escape this deadly situation, unbeknownst to him, the tomoes in his eyes suddenly spun rapidly and began to...changed.
Bang*!
"NO! Er Ming, you–! Huh?" Tears streamed down Xiao Wu's eyes. Just as she was crying out indignantly at the Titan Giant Ape, she looked up in shock to see a giant ribcage around them that radiated dark blue flames.
She was even more shocked when she saw her brother's fist was stopped by the strange bone structure around them!
'No way. It managed to stop Er Ming's fist?! Even if he held back, that was still the fist of hundred thousand year old soul beast capable of injuring a Title Douluo!'
"What...is this? Hey, Huo Yuhao—ah!" She turned to ask the youth beside her but she was further stunned when she saw the collection of soul rings around him; white, black, black, black soul rings rotated around him rhythmically.
'3 black soul rings?! He's just, no, just when he was a Soul Grandmaster he managed to defeat and absorb a ten thousand year old soul ring! What about the soul shock? He managed to overcome that just when he was a Soul Grandmaster?!'
Just as Xiao Wu was rendered speechless, Huo Yuhao as well was surprised by the sudden appearance of a ribcage around them. Tears of blood slowly streamed down his face, in each of his eyes showed a strange mark: both resembling a bloomed lotus flower.
'I...how can I do this?'
'Yuhao.' Suddenly, Ancestor's voice sounded in his mind.
Huo Yuhao's eyes widened. 'Ancestor?! You're finally awake! Can you tell what's happening right now?'
'...The current situation is a lot more complicated than you think. You've unlocked your Mangekyou Sharingan, Yuhao. And one of the abilities you unlocked is an extremely powerful Space-Time jutsu.'
'Space-Time Jutsu? What does that...'
'Yuhao. We're not in our timeline anymore.... we've gone back in time—ten thousand years ago to be exact.'
Huo Yuhao's mind blanched out.
And then he blacked out.
...
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