Take the example of the undead Holy Law God Electrolux. He was strong enough that, even as a wisp of divine sense, nobody in Douluo Continent could erase him.
Yet, just because Huo Yuhao went to the Clear Sky Sect, Electrolux's divine sense was inexplicably dissipated, vanishing into nothingness while saving Huo Yuhao.
To say that there wasn't some major figure manipulating events behind the scenes—Lu Jingming doubted it.
After all, even after Electrolux's death, he left Huo Yuhao an Eternal Tower, but even that was eventually smashed to pieces by the god king in the Yin Yang Love Querying Valley.
All the clues pointed to one fact: Douluo Continent was always under the scrutiny of that god king.
Standing out in this era of the Douluo Continent was unimaginably difficult.
If it had been ten thousand years ago, Lu Jingming would have had nothing to fear—no external powers were interfering in the lower world's development, no gods from the Divine Realm descending, at most just divine senses passing on god positions, which couldn't interfere too much.
But ten thousand years later, the Divine Realm was hit by a space-time storm, swallowed by a black hole, and found itself in crisis.
Although the god king left behind some backup plans and a carefully laid ten-thousand-year scheme, things were still better than during Peerless Tang Sect's time.
After all, in this era, the god king—thanks to his role as Law Enforcer—could break Divine Realm rules at will, directly interfering in the lower world.
He could set rules restricting other gods from interfering, but applied no such limits to himself, freely breaking his own rules.
If Lu Jingming didn't have Real Authority and came to this era of the Douluo Continent, he probably would have had no choice but to give up.
Because in this era, no matter how talented a person was, there was almost no chance to become a god.
On one hand, the inheritance of god positions on Douluo Continent was already gone; on the other, even if someone forged a god position through their power, the Divine Realm was full—there was no space for new gods, and the future looked bleak.
In this harsh era, the only people with a chance at godhood were Tang Wutong, the god king's daughter, and Huo Yuhao, who was tamed by the god-king.
Take Bei Bei, Xiao Xiao, and the others: in the end, they could only live out their lives on the Douluo Continent and die of old age.
Were they less talented than the original Shrek Seven Monsters? Clearly not.
The root cause was that the Divine Realm was already full, leaving no place for them.
Moreover, the god king would never allow Huo Yuhao to have his team. So Bei Bei and the others were doomed to live and die on the continent.
Since realizing he'd arrived in the Peerless Tang Sect era, Lu Jingming never considered achieving godhood by inheriting a god position.
He knew that even if he succeeded and ascended to the Divine Realm, as a new god he would still be unable to escape living in the god king's shadow—even the highest god king position would be no exception.
Besides, at this time there was no such thing as a god king inheritance, so to overtake the competition, he'd have to blaze a new trail, and carve out a brand-new path of his own.
Thinking of this, Lu Jingming shook his head, stopping himself from dwelling on such distant and complicated matters.
After all, those were problems for the future. Right now, he had more important things to deal with.
At this moment, they slowly descended from the sky, passing through thick clouds. Below them stretched the vast expanse of forest—the continent's number one soul beast habitat: the Star Dou Great Forest.
It's hard to imagine that ten thousand years ago, the Star Dou Great Forest was even larger than it is now.
After ages of human expansion, the forest had shrunk considerably.
Take Shrek Academy's Shrek City, for example. It was originally part of the Star Dou Great Forest, but now it belonged to the Heavenly Soul Empire—though only in name since Shrek City was highly independent.
Star Dou Great Forest, the largest soul beast habitat on the continent, was divided into four distinct regions by danger level and soul beast distribution: the outer region, inner region, core region, and the forbidden area at the very center.
The outer region was relatively mild, inhabited mostly by hundred-year soul beasts and some thousand-year ones.
These were the weaker soul beasts, the usual targets for low-level soul masters seeking low-age soul rings.
Going deeper was the inner region, where the soul beasts were stronger, both in bloodline and power.
Besides more powerful thousand-year soul beasts, there were many ten-thousand-year beasts here.
These ten-thousand-year soul beasts had powerful abilities and unique skills; if soul masters could find a suitable one and obtain its soul ring, their strength would increase greatly.
Deeper still was the core region, where ten-thousand-year soul beasts were numerous, and there were even occasional sightings of legendary hundred-thousand-year soul beasts.
Hundred-thousand-year soul beasts were the elite of the soul beast world. Each was as powerful as a human Titled Douluo, with intelligence equal to humans, and were legends among soul beasts.
At the very heart of the Star Dou Great Forest was the forbidden zone—a place off-limits to humans.
There, several of the continent's top ten ferocious beasts resided.
Foremost among them was the Beast God Di Tian, who held court at the center. Di Tian possessed terrifying strength, and any human who dared approach the forbidden zone would be ruthlessly destroyed by him.
Lu Jingming also knew a deeper secret: in the alternate space at the center of the forbidden zone, in the Lake of Life, slept a mighty being known as the Lord of All Soul Beasts—the Silver Dragon King, half of the Dragon God, who at her peak had god king power.
Though the Silver Dragon King was now severely wounded and slumbering, that didn't mean she would sleep forever.
If the Star Dou Great Forest faced a crisis that threatened the very foundation of all soul beasts, the sleeping Silver Dragon Princess would surely awaken.
Even injured, her strength was not to be underestimated.
As the saying goes, a starved camel is still bigger than a horse—an injured god king-level being was still far beyond what mortals on Douluo Continent could deal with.