Chapter One: Twin Eyes of Sun and Moon

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Xu Zhao struggled awake from the chaos, and the instant his eyelids fluttered open, the vast void, wrapped in eternal silence, seemed to swallow him whole.

“The Underworld?” His murmured voice drifted into nothingness, but he quickly dismissed the thought. “No, there’s no icy chill of the Nine Hells here, nor the sound of the River of Forgetfulness…”

His gaze wandered aimlessly until, by instinct, he looked up.

The sky revealed a wondrous spectacle: sun and moon shining side by side, stars scattered like shattered diamonds across the dome of the heavens.

Beneath this defiance of natural law, a dragon’s silhouette coiled within the rift of time and space:

Its long body radiated the divinity of Eastern dragons, yet bone wings vast enough to shroud the sky stretched from its back, exuding the ferocious might of a Western dragon.

“In the old legends, isn’t the Ying Long supposed to be of the color of primordial yellow?” At first, Xu Zhao was puzzled. Then his pupils contracted in shock.

The massive dragon, resplendent in purple and gold, inhaled and exhaled the light of the stars as though refining the essence of sun and moon.

Fragments of memory surged forth. “Wait, a purple-gold dragon embodying both East and West… I think I’ve seen this somewhere before…” A thunderous name was about to explode in his mind—The Empyrean Purple Dragon of Annihilation!

A deafening roar shattered the void, and the scene before him fractured like colored glass!

Douluo Federation, Mingdu.

The Xu family ancestral home.

A heavy atmosphere pressed upon the old residence.

Outside a closed door, several people paced anxiously, their eyes flickering toward the entrance.

At last, a clear infant’s wail pierced the silence, and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Moments later, a maid carefully carried the swaddled newborn out and handed him to a dignified elder dressed in purple and gold robes.

The old man accepted the child with gentle hands, his wrinkled face breaking into a radiant smile.

Before he could utter a word, the infant in the swaddling clothes suddenly opened his eyes, revealing a pair of extraordinary pupils:

The left eye burned red as the sun, the right glimmered cold as the moon.

“What a magnificent pair of sun and moon twin pupils!” The elder beamed with delight and declared in a resonant voice, “Since this is so, my direct grandson shall be named Xu Zhao!”

The baby, still imitating the cries of a newborn, thought silently to himself:

“Xu… Could I have transmigrated into the Xu clan of the Sun-Moon Empire’s royal family?”

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He continued to wail as he furtively looked around.

Though his infant eyes saw everything in a blur, at least he could make out his surroundings.

Yet, as Xu Zhao took in the antique architecture, he still couldn’t discern which era he was in, nor where in the timeline of the Douluo Continent he now found himself.

True, in the birthing chamber earlier, there were pieces of advanced soul tool technology reminiscent of his former world—soul lamps and such.

The problem was, both “Peerless Tang Sect” and “Legend of the Dragon King” featured such things. How was he supposed to tell them apart?

No sooner had this thought arisen than a wave of dizziness washed over him.

“Damn!” Xu Zhao realized his infant body couldn’t handle such complex thinking and grumbled inwardly:

“Being a baby really is a hassle—my brain’s not even developed yet, and just pondering a little sends me into overload!”

He made up his mind at once: “Forget it. The timeline and all that—I’ll figure it out when I’m older…”

With that final thought, consciousness faded into sleep.

Six years passed.

Dawn had yet to break.

Xu Zhao was already awake, having completed his morning wash and dressing with the help of waiting maids.

“Young master, the lord is already waiting in the Awakening Room,” a maid reported.

Xu Zhao was inwardly speechless.

He’d long known that his grandfather, more eager than he himself for the six-year-old’s Martial Soul Awakening due to his “sun and moon twin pupils,” was excited for this day—but he hadn’t expected the old man to be waiting so early in the room.

“It’s only five o’clock; I’ve just gotten out of bed myself…” he thought, but replied calmly, “Understood, I’ll head there now.”

Xu Zhao stepped out, his small figure weaving swiftly through the expansive ancestral home as his mind reviewed all he’d learned about this world over the past six years:

His initial guess had been correct—this was indeed the Douluo Continent, and his family was none other than the former royal Xu clan of the Sun-Moon Empire.

However, the era was not that of “Peerless Tang Sect,” but rather the “Legend of the Dragon King” period, ten thousand years later, in the Douluo Federation.

After ten millennia, the Sun-Moon Empire was long consigned to history, and the Xu clan had transformed from royalty into one of Mingdu’s many ancient lineages.

Though the Xu family no longer enjoyed the glory of ages past, it remained among the most illustrious and powerful families in the Federation.

Yet it could no longer rival the likes of Shrek Academy, the Tang Sect, or the Spirit Transmission Tower.

The current patriarch of the Xu clan was Xu Zhao’s grandfather, Xu Minghuang.

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His Martial Soul was inherited from one of the Xu family’s three great legacy spirits: the Empyrean Purple Dragon of Annihilation. His soul power had reached the ninety-eighth rank, and he was both a Three-Word Battle Armor Master and a god-level mecha craftsman.

Xu Zhao’s father, Xu Chengyang—grandfather Xu Minghuang’s only son—had inherited another of the Xu family’s three great legacy spirits: the Sun.

At forty years old, his soul power wasn’t as high as his father’s, having only recently broken through to the ninety-fifth rank, but he too was a Three-Word Battle Armor Master.

Xu Zhao’s mother, Ye Qinghe, hailed from another of Mingdu’s ancient families—the Ye clan, inheritors of the Star Saint Sword Martial Soul.

However, unlike Ye Xinglan, she hadn’t been so fortunate; her Martial Soul had not evolved into the Star God Sword upon awakening.

Thus, her talent was slightly inferior to Xu Zhao’s father’s.

This year, at thirty-six, she had just broken through to rank ninety-three and had recently upgraded her battle armor from two-word to three-word as well.

As for Xu Zhao himself, his Martial Soul had yet to awaken, so no one knew what spirit he would gain.

But because of his sun and moon twin pupils, the family unanimously believed he had a strong chance of awakening both the Sun and Moon—two of the Xu family’s three great legacy spirits.

Twin Martial Souls, and of such supreme quality as the Sun and Moon.

If this were ten thousand years ago, Xu Zhao might have been thrilled, but in this era, twin Martial Souls were no longer so advantageous.

The advent of the soul spirit and soul ring system had replaced the old soul beast ring tradition.

To absorb soul spirits, one’s spiritual power needed to reach a certain level; the number of soul spirits one could host also depended on the strength of one’s spiritual power.

In this age, what did twin spirits matter?

If your spiritual power wasn’t strong enough to house enough soul spirits, unless you could have your second Martial Soul absorb all genuine soul beast rings, it was little more than an ornament.

Though Xu Zhao, as a transmigrator, had some confidence in his own spiritual aptitude, who could be sure of anything before it was confirmed?

After all, up to now, he had yet to receive any of those “golden finger” cheats that were standard in transmigration tales, which greatly diminished his mysterious self-assurance.

“Sigh.” Xu Zhao walked quickly, sighing as he thought to himself:

“In fact, on reflection, having twin Martial Souls of the Sun and Moon isn’t so bad.”

“At least I didn’t inherit the Empyrean Purple Dragon of Annihilation, one of our three legacies—otherwise, I’d be suppressed by the Dragon God bloodlines of the Golden Dragon King and Silver Dragon King, reduced to little more than a roadside lizard.”