Take the Necromancer, Electrolux, for example. He was powerful enough that even a wisp of his divine sense could not be extinguished by anyone on the entire Douluo Continent.
However, simply because Huo Yuhao visited the Clear Sky Sect, Electrolux mysteriously dissipated, his divine sense vanishing into thin air, all for the sake of saving Huo Yuhao.
Lu Jingming was skeptical that there wasn't some powerful figure secretly manipulating and scheming behind this.
After Electrolux's death, he even left Huo Yuhao an Eternal Tower, yet even this tower was forcibly shattered by that God King in the Valley of Affection.
All these clues clearly indicated that the Douluo Continent was always under the strict scrutiny of that God King.
Trying to rise to prominence during this period of the Douluo Continent was unimaginably difficult.
If it were ten thousand years ago, Lu Jingming naturally would have nothing to fear. At that time, there was no interference from powers outside the Douluo Continent affecting the lower realm's development, nor were there gods from the Divine Realm descending. At most, it was the transmission of divine senses for divine positions, but even then, there wasn't excessive interference.
However, ten thousand years later, the Divine Realm encountered a space-time storm, and the entire Divine Realm was engulfed by a black hole, falling into its own predicament.
Although that God King had prepared some contingencies and meticulously planned a grand strategy spanning ten thousand years, relatively speaking, it was still better than the Peerless Tang Sect era.
Because in the current period, that God King, by virtue of his identity as a Law Enforcer God, could wantonly violate the rules of the Divine Realm and directly intervene in the development of the lower realm.
He could set rules to restrain other gods from interfering in lower realm affairs, yet impose no constraints on himself, recklessly breaking the rules.
If Lu Jingming hadn't possessed the True Authority and arrived in the Douluo Continent at this time, he might have truly had no choice but to lie low.
Because in this era, no matter how exceptional a person's talent, it was almost impossible to become a god.
On one hand, there were no longer any divine position inheritances on the Douluo Continent. On the other hand, even if someone managed to condense a divine position through their powerful strength, the Divine Realm was now full, with no extra positions available for newly ascended gods. The future was bleak.
In this difficult era, the only ones with a chance to become gods were the God King's daughter, Tang Wutong, and the Son of Fortune, Huo Yuhao, who had been "tamed" by the God King.
Take Beibei and Xiao Xiao as examples; they could ultimately only spend their lives on the Douluo Continent until they grew old and died.
Does this mean their talent was inferior to that of the First Generation Shrek Seven Monsters? Clearly not.
Ultimately, it was because the divine positions in the Divine Realm were already full, leaving no place for them. Moreover, that God King would not allow Huo Yuhao to have his own faction, so Beibei and the others were destined to grow old and die on the Douluo Continent.
Ever since he knew he had arrived in the Peerless Tang Sect era, Lu Jingming had never considered achieving godhood by inheriting a divine position.
He knew very well that even if he successfully inherited a divine position and ascended to the Divine Realm, as a new god, he would still be unable to escape the fate of living under the God King's shadow, even if he inherited the supreme position of a God King.
Furthermore, in the current period, there was no such thing as a God King inheritance. Therefore, to achieve an overtaking maneuver in this world, he had to find another path and forge his own completely new trajectory.
Thinking of this, Lu Jingming gently shook his head, temporarily setting aside these distant and complex matters.
After all, those were problems to be faced later; there were more important things waiting for him to deal with now.
At this moment, they slowly descended from high altitude, passing through layers of clouds. Below them, an endless, vast forest came into view. This forest was the Star Dou Great Forest, hailed as the continent's largest gathering place for soul beasts.
It was hard to imagine that ten thousand years ago, the Star Dou Great Forest was far larger than it is now.
After long years of change, the area of the current Star Dou Great Forest has significantly shrunk due to human expansion.
Take Shrek City, for example, which is home to Shrek Academy. That place was originally part of the Star Dou Great Forest, but now it has become territory of the Heaven Soul Empire. Of course, this is merely a nominal affiliation; in reality, Shrek City maintains a high degree of independence.
The Star Dou Great Forest, the largest habitat for soul beasts on the Douluo Continent, is clearly divided into four distinct zones based on danger level and soul beast distribution: the Outer Zone, the Inner Zone, the Core Zone, and the Forbidden Land at the very center.
The Outer Zone is relatively the milder area of the Star Dou Great Forest, primarily inhabited by a large number of hundred-year soul beasts and some thousand-year soul beasts.
The strength of these soul beasts is at a relatively weaker level within the entire Star Dou Great Forest, making them common targets for low-level Soul Masters to acquire low-year soul rings.
Further inward lies the Inner Zone. The soul beasts living here have significantly improved in both bloodline power and strength compared to those in the Outer Zone.
In addition to more powerful thousand-year soul beasts, many ten-thousand-year soul beasts also appear here.
These ten-thousand-year soul beasts possess formidable abilities and unique skills. For Soul Masters, finding suitable soul beasts here and acquiring their soul rings would greatly enhance their own strength.
Delving deeper into the forest is the Core Zone. Within the Core Zone, the number of ten-thousand-year soul beasts is vast, and even more astonishingly, traces of hundred-thousand-year soul beasts can occasionally be found in this area.
Hundred-thousand-year soul beasts are the top-tier existence among soul beasts. Each one is comparable to a Title Douluo among humans, and they have shed their bestial nature, their intelligence no less than that of humans. Each one is considered a legend among soul beasts.
And the Forbidden Land, located at the very center of the Star Dou Great Forest, is an absolute forbidden zone for humans.
In the Forbidden Land of the Star Dou Great Forest, several top-tier existences among the continent's Ten Great Fierce Beasts are entrenched.
Among them, the first-ranked Beast God Ditian is also stationed here. Ditian possesses terrifyingly immense strength, and any human daring to approach the Forbidden Land will suffer his ruthless and fatal blow.
Lu Jingming also knew an even more hidden secret: at the center of that Forbidden Land, within the Life Lake's spatial rift, slept a powerful being known as the co-ruler of soul beasts—the half-body of the Dragon God, the Silver Dragon King, who possessed God King level strength in her prime.
Although this Silver Dragon King is now in a long slumber due to severe injuries, this does not mean she will remain dormant forever.
Should the Star Dou Great Forest encounter a major upheaval, a crisis significant enough to shake the foundations of the entire soul beast race, it would surely awaken this slumbering Silver Dragon Princess.
Even in her severely injured state, the Silver Dragon King's strength is still not to be underestimated.
As the saying goes, "a starving camel is still bigger than a horse"; the foundation and power of a severely injured God King level powerhouse are far beyond what mortals on the Douluo Continent can achieve.