Heavenly Soul Empire, Akatsuki Headquarters.
In a large manor hidden in a misty swamp, Ye Guyi grumbles as she finishes up washing the dishes and wipes her wet fingers.
"Just where the heck is he? It's been weeks and my food supplies are running low," she muttered and her eyes twitched.
'Dammit. Because that guy's cooking is so divine, whatever I make tastes like shit! And trying to improve my cooking to try and match a mere faction of his meals would diminish my supplies even faster.'
She slammed the cupboard shut a little harder than necessary. The echo rattled through the empty kitchen like a ghost mocking her frustration.
Now a lot of people would be wondering why Ye Guyi was still staying in the Akatsuki Headquarters even after Huo Yuhao's shadow clone had dissipated into smoke.
As the successor and hope of the Holy Angel Clan, the last remnant of Spirit Hall and descendants of the Angel God, Ye Guyi has numerous responsibilities that cannot be ignored.
A few months back, Huo Yuhao had captured Ye Guyi in order to analyze the holy element and light element of her Holy Angel martial soul for his necromancy and light magic. And of course for researching about the Holy Angel martial soul, it was a top-tier martial soul that wouldn't naturally appear in the mortal world aside from being a martial soul.
After he was done doing experiments on her, he naturally let her go—not!
Not only had he done very unethical practices on her, but she also knew about his necromancy. He could not let that information spread out to the world.
But why couldn't Huo Yuhao just erase her memories of the whole experience? Well, he didn't think about it since he decided on making her his subordinate.
She's someone with the Holy Angel martial soul, the antithesis towards all things evil, and a top-tier martial soul that has the chance to evolve into the six-winged God-tier Seraphim martial soul.
Her talent, character, and potential were simply too valuable to discard.
Given the right circumstances and resources, she would become at least a Transcendent Douluo.
So, Huo Yuhao didn't get rid of her. But he did mess with her memories and slowly indoctrinated her over time; making her loyal towards Huo Yuhao first and foremost.
Which is why Huo Yuhao wasn't worried that Ye Guyi would try and escape the manor whenever his shadow clone pops.
"I should go resume the research and experimentation on project: "Communication". But, just like the other projects, it's slowly starting to hit a wall." Ye Guyi said as she grabbed her lab coat before heading towards the underground lab.
After a few months, the lab had certainly gotten a renovation and was as large as a football field now, lined with rows of humming soul equipment, glowing containment chambers filled with the body parts of soul beasts, and crystalline data pillars that pulsed with soul formations.
The underground lab, once a dingy holding space for raw experiments, had transformed into the central hub of Huo Yuhao's research and development of soul tools.
And Ye Guyi was the one and only assistant of Huo Yuhao's soul clone in the Soul Tool Department of Akatsuki, despite being completely unqualified for the job considering that she was only a peak class 4 Soul Engineer.
She was more of a soul master than soul engineer after all, but, what can Huo Yuhao do? She was the only one in the manor after all. Fortunately she only handled basic tasks.
As for recruiting his 'classmates' from the Soul Engineering Department in Shrek Academy to join his sect? Forget about it.
Unlike other well established organizations, Akatsuki's finance and resources are near the brink of disappearing. What was he gonna pay his classmates or fund their research?
It was to be expected. The resources that he got from the Ironblood Sect and secret caches from Tang Sect wasn't that much to begin with and what little he had was either funneled into long-term experiments or burned through getting rare materials to support his projects.
Ye Guyi passed by a series of containment tanks labeled "Project: LEFT ARM", "Project: ECLIPSE", and finally, "Project: COMMUNICATION"—a project aimed at creating a recording device that can capture image and audio to transmit across long distances through soul power frequencies, even in real time.
It was a crude attempt at building something akin to surveillance or live broadcasting, which Huo Yuhao had seen in his past life as Sasuke Uchiha.
In this world, there were indeed screens that were used to show videos of soul masters fighting but there were none that were small enough to be carried around casually by a single person, let alone hidden in plain sight.
The concept of a portable visual transmission device simply didn't exist in the Three Douluo Empires and Shrek Academy—not because it was impossible, but because they weren't creative enough and mostly focused on creating soul tools of war.
However, it was unclear if the Sun Moon Empire had them since Huo Yuhao hasn't visited that place yet.
Ye Guyi picked up a clipboard and was about to start on her work, when the mechanical door slide opened.
"Yo!" (SC)Huo Yuhao loudly said as he stepped in.
Even though he had revealed to Ye Guyi that he would only be coming into the headquarters for a few years as a Shadow Clone, she could never tell if he was a clone until he suddenly pops into smoke.
As a member of the Akatsuki, Ye Guyi had naturally learned about jutsus and more. Her natural element, besides Holy and Light, was wind—which was kinda expected considering her Holy Angel martial soul was also called the 'Lord of the Sky'.
She learned perfect soul power control, general ninjutsu, some taijutsu, bukijutsu, kenjutsu, and Wind Style from E-C rank as of now.
"Welcome back, Sect Master. You were gone far longer than usual this time," Ye Guyi snidely said after she set the clipboard down and turned to bow towards him.
"Had to handle some matters in the academy," the shadow clone replied casually, not minding her displeasure, he examined the rows of unfinished prototypes. "It was supposed to be a simple hunt for soul rings — turned into a huge battle between the higher ups of the Great Star Dou Forest and Shrek Academy, before I pacified them into an alliance."
"...Say what now?" Ye Guyi stared at him incredulously.
"It's nothing to be worried about," (SC)Huo Yuhao didn't elaborate further as a dozen more shadow clones entered the lab and they started working on their respective projects.
'No, you can't just say something so shocking without me asking questions!' Ye Guyi really wanted to ask, but after a few seconds, she held back.
"....Fine. But Yuhao, I need a soul ring, I broke through to rank 50 a day after you disappeared."
(SC1)Huo Yuhao wasn't surprised and said, "I know. Before my previous shadow clone disappeared, I knew that you were close to becoming rank 50. So I got something waiting for you outside."
Ye Guyi blinked, and after coming out of the manor, she stared in disbelief at a 15,000 year old Golden Light One-Winged Ape tied up and unconscious.
The Golden Light One-Winged Ape was a rare mutation of a Golden Ape, Golden Apes are typically descendants of the Behemoth, soul beasts that aren't native to the Douluo World and have gone extinct due to the Dragon Clan. Golden Apes are typically known for their divine strength and ferocious nature.
But this mutated Golden Ape came to be because another recessive gene within its bloodline had been stimulated, the Light Dragon bloodline.
The Behemoth clan were known to be dragon eaters because they're known to eat Dragons, literally and figuratively. Some of them had even gotten into the divine realm, attaining divinity—which caused the Dragon God and the Dragon Clan to get rid of them.
"Hurry and kill it. I'll protect you," (SC2)Huo Yuhao said, standing beside her. "After you absorb its soul ring, I have a mission for you."
Ye Guyi snapped out her thoughts and asked, "A mission? What's the difficulty? Who's the target? Where's their location?"
(SC2)Huo Yuhao chuckled, unsurprised by her questions.
Months of training her wasn't a waste after all. "No, no. I'm afraid it's not that kind of mission, not yet at least."
"It's an escort mission, about D to C rank level of difficulty. Who you're escorting are other members of our sect, new and inexperienced. You are to lead them, but also train them on the field. You and your team will go to multiple locations, all in the Heavenly Soul Empire.
I have intel about two villages being occupied by Evil Soul Masters and a few corrupted politicians that have committed heavy sins that they are immediately identified as Evil, thus, kill them on sight. However, you and your team only have two weeks to complete them all."
(SC2)Huo Yuhao gently placed a hand on her face, staring directly at her.
Ye Guyi stared back at him, her face flustered.
"Do well, and I'll reward you. Fail...well, you understand."
Ye Guyi shuddered and nodded.
"Good. It's about time that the name, Akatsuki, would be whispered throughout the land."
(SC2)Huo Yuhao's lips curled and took a step back.
A windy breeze swept across the clearing, causing (SC2)Huo Yuhao's long white hair to flutter like silk in the wind, his light blue eyes half-lidded as he watched her in silence.
Staring at those eyes, Ye Guyi felt a deep chill in her heart.
Ice cold, indifferent, and calculating—eyes that held no warmth. It was the look of someone who didn't see people, only results.
Even though he was smiling, even though his tone had been gentle just moments ago, those eyes reminded her exactly who she was dealing with.
A monster.
A Heavenly Demon.
A God in the making.
It was time....to start a war against the world!