Chapter 470 - 469: The Haiyuan League
With the support of the masses, Lu Jingming fell silent for a moment, before finally picking up the crown and the jade staff. He did not offer many hypocritical excuses, simply turning back and slowly ascending the steps before seating himself upon the empty throne. The moment he sat down, an invisible, commanding aura radiated from him, enveloping the entire hall.
"Long live the Emperor, long live the Emperor—!!!"
A wave of worshipful cries thundered out once more, announcing that the Star Lou Empire had welcomed its new sovereign.
After his enthronement as Emperor, Lu Jingming issued his first and most important imperial edict.
"From this day forth, the Star Lou Empire shall be renamed the 'Haiyuan Empire.'
At the same time, with the Haiyuan Empire as its core, the 'Haiyuan League' shall be established.
All who join the league shall become brothers and sisters, watching over each other and working together to build peace."
Lu Jingming became the first Emperor of the Haiyuan Empire, as well as the inaugural leader of the Haiyuan League. His gaze was no longer limited to a single nation, but was set upon the vast future of the entire continent.
On the second day after the proclamation of the new edict, Zhang Lexuan, Empress of the Sun-Moon Empire, who had just ascended to the throne, made a continent-wide announcement. The Sun-Moon Empire would voluntarily join the Haiyuan League as a founding member, pledging never to betray it. Once a massive war machine that had shaken the entire continent, the Sun-Moon Empire now became the second pillar of the Haiyuan League. The pattern of the mainland seemed set. Everyone thought the next era would be one of long-term peace and development led by the Haiyuan League.
However, none could have anticipated the pace of change that Lu Jingming would bring in this era.
…
Just one month after the founding of the Haiyuan League—
At the ruins of the old Mingdu, former capital of the Sun-Moon Empire, which had been utterly destroyed in the Holy Grail War and now lay silent and near-dead, space itself began to distort violently and quietly.
A massive rift in time and space slowly opened, as if tearing the sky in half.
On the other side of the rift was not void or chaos, but another Douluo Continent.
An unimaginably magnificent city of gold and light appeared on the other side of the rift. At the highest point of the city, a woman clad in golden armor, her sacred wings spread, stood quietly. Her beauty was so transcendent she seemed almost inhuman. Her gaze pierced the boundary of time and space, and Lu Jingming, far away in Star Lou City, felt her presence across the distance.
This was the Spirit Empire of a parallel world, and she was the Angel God herself—Qian Renxue.
Her arrival did not bring war.
Qian Renxue, leading her powerful Spirit Empire, officially announced their accession to the Haiyuan League. In this moment, the two worlds truly made contact and began to merge. The Spirit Empire became the third pillar of the Haiyuan League.
Immediately after, Wei Na, the former eldest daughter of the Heavenly Soul Empire, led the remaining forces of the Heavenly Soul Empire and the Body Sect to formally submit their application to the Haiyuan League, declaring total surrender and incorporation into the Haiyuan Empire's territory.
Just a few months after the formation of the Haiyuan League, under the joint maintenance of the three pillars—Haiyuan, Sun-Moon, and Spirit Empire—the order of the continent gradually returned to peace and prosperity.
Then, even greater news shook the world.
Gu Yuena, the Soul Beast Master, led the fierce beasts of the Star Dou Great Forest out of their home and arrived at Star Lou City.
With the continent's most powerful figures as witnesses, Lu Jingming, representing humanity, and Gu Yuena, representing the soul beasts, formally signed the "Human-Soul Beast Peace and Development Pact" at Star Lou City's central square. The soul beast clan officially joined the Haiyuan League, declaring their intent to coexist peacefully and develop together with humanity. The Star Dou Great Forest became the autonomous region of the soul beasts and the fourth pillar of the Haiyuan League.
At this point, the bloody conflict between humans and soul beasts that had plagued the Douluo Continent for generations was peacefully ended by Lu Jingming's hand.
With the league framework established, the next step was to nourish both body and soul.
Under Lu Jingming's direction, the "Haiyuan League Supreme Legislative Council" was established, with Ningguang, Changli, and Cerydra—renowned for their expertise in commerce and law—at its core. Combining advanced experiences from each world with the realities of the Douluo Continent, they began to draft new supreme laws to govern the entire league.
…
After everything in the league began progressing smoothly, a miraculous event occurred that astonished the people of the continent.
At the Haiyuan League headquarters, the ultra-modern city of Haiyuan, brimming with futuristic technology, dawn broke on a clear morning. Suddenly, the entire city let out a deep, distant roar.
Moments later, to the shock and disbelief of countless people across the continent,
Tens of thousands of enormous anti-gravity soul guide engines, shining like suns, lit up beneath this vast city, whose area spanned thousands of square kilometers and whose population numbered in the tens of millions.
The earth began to tremble violently.
And then, under the gaze of billions, Haiyuan City and its massive foundation slowly and steadily lifted off from the ground, rising higher and higher into the sky.
It soared ever upward, through the clouds, until at last it floated over ten thousand meters above the earth, like a kingdom left behind by the gods.
Beneath the city, the gigantic space station engine designed by Genius Club #83, the Herta, emitted a soft blue light, maintaining the stable suspension of the entire city. At the same time, a more advanced ecological circulation shield activated, supplying the airborne city with air, temperature, and gravity no different from those of the surface.
Haiyuan City was built by Lu Jingming himself, a city symbolizing the technology and dreams of a new era, and on this day, it became the first and only city in Douluo Continent's history—the city in the sky.
As Haiyuan City, the pinnacle of human wisdom and dreams, towered ten thousand meters above the earth, the entire Douluo Continent was struck speechless, awed, shocked, and fanatical all at once.
No matter where they were, people on the ground could look up to see the floating city in the sky, radiating gentle light.
It became a new coordinate, a new totem, a living miracle, marking the arrival of a new era for the world.
Before this impossible city, the old conventions, nations, and racial barriers seemed so small and fragile.
A powerful, unified era—known as the "Haiyuan"—descended upon the planet with undeniable force.
In the Star Observatory of Haiyuan City, symbol of the league's supreme power, Lu Jingming was not basking in the joy of creating history.
Through the gigantic floor-to-ceiling porthole, he gazed down at the majestic mountains and rivers below, already planning the next step for this new league—a step that would reach even farther.
"A unified regime is only the beginning of peace.
But to maintain peace, there must be unified resources, unified borders, and…
Unified laws—not just for the living, but for the dead as well."
He whispered to himself, and from his office, two precise commands were transmitted through the astrocomputer network.
The first command was delivered to Silver Dragon King Gu Yuena and Hysilens:
"Gu Yuena, Hysilens, go to the sea.
Tell the soul beasts of the deep that their god has returned.
Tell them the boundless blue has a new master."
The two received their orders without hesitation.
Gu Yuena's form became a streak of silver light, emerging from the Lake of Life. No longer restraining her coercion as master of the soul beasts, her aura swept like a storm across the entire continent, finally descending upon the sea.
When her noble silver dragon horn and violet eyes appeared above the ocean, every sea soul beast within thousands of miles—from those cultivated for a thousand years, ten thousand years, or even over a hundred thousand years, to the rulers hidden in the deepest trenches—felt an irresistible tremor and submission from the very source of their bloodlines and souls.
This…
This was the coercion of the Soul Beast Master.
"Aooo—!!!"
A colossal whale, over a hundred meters long, surfaced from a trench ten thousand meters deep like a moving island. Its sheer size could swallow a fleet, yet it bowed low before Gu Yuena, letting out a cry of submission.
Immediately after, countless strange and gigantic sea soul beasts converged from all directions as if on pilgrimage, transforming the entire sea region into their domain.
Yet they stirred not a single wave, expressing only the humblest reverence toward the silver figure on the shore.
On the other side, Hysilens appeared at the center of the sea.
Without withdrawing her coercion, she reached out her slender, white fingers and gently touched the blue ocean.
"Buzz—"
An invisible divine will centered on her instantly spread through every ocean and every drop of seawater on this planet.
At that instant, all the seas of the world ceased to flow.
Every tide, current, storm, and whirlpool halted at that moment.
The entire ocean of the planet became a vast, smooth blue mirror—so silent it made hearts pound.
This was the authority of the Sea God.
Gu Yuena used her blood to conquer the bodies of the sea soul beasts; Hysilens used her authority to rule the heart of the sea.
One was internal, one external; one hard, one soft.
In just a single day, the vast oceans covering seventy percent of the Douluo Continent, holding infinite resources and secrets, were completely and effortlessly brought under the control of the Haiyuan League.
Countless invaluable marine mineral resources and unimaginably complex deep-sea terrains teeming with sea soul beasts became the new trump cards of the league.
Lu Jingming's second command was delivered directly to the core AI of the astrocomputer, "Hatsune Miku."
"Miku, initiate the 'Global Explorer' plan. Use Haiyuan City as the base station, mobilize all league satellite resources, and conduct a full-spectrum scan of Douluo Star. We must find out if there are any undiscovered lands beyond our continent."
"Order received, Master."
A clear, sweet, yet emotionless synthesized electronic voice echoed in Lu Jingming's mind.
"Global Explorer Plan initiated. Mobilizing Sky Eye satellite system… Data analysis in progress…
Estimated time to completion for the uncensored, high-definition geological map of the world: 17 hours, 42 minutes, and 31 seconds."
In the next ten hours, the terrifying technological prowess of the Haiyuan League was put on full display.
Dozens of satellites orbiting in space simultaneously switched to high-precision detection mode.
Their various detection waves combed through every corner of the planet over and over.
Seventeen hours later, a massive, complete three-dimensional projection appeared before Lu Jingming.
On it, the familiar Douluo Continent plate was clearly marked.
But in two other areas of the planet, two brand-new continental plates were discovered.
"Assemble the Trailblazer fleet immediately."
Lu Jingming's eyes gleamed as he gazed at the two new continents.
"Our goal is to spread the glory of the Haiyuan League to every corner of this planet."
…
A few days later, three state-of-the-art Abyss-class destroyers equipped with space-jump engines departed from the port of Haiyuan City, heading for the two newly discovered continents under the millisecond-precise routing of AI "Hatsune Miku."
Confronted by these massive steel ships descending from the sky and the terrifying might of a fleet capable of easily destroying entire civilizations, the natives of the two continents offered no effective resistance.
Faced with absolute and overwhelming power, they made the wisest choice—
They joined.
In just half a year, the banner of the Haiyuan League was raised over every corner of these two new continents.
New laws, a unified currency, advanced soul guide technology, and the league's official language began to spread across these ancient, once-sealed lands at unprecedented speed.
At this point, the Haiyuan League had, both in name and in reality, achieved complete dominion over the entire Douluo Star.
A truly unprecedented unified world government had been born.
And just as the world cheered for this grand reunification, Lu Jingming's figure quietly disappeared from public view.
He arrived at a place for which only a select few possessed the credentials to enter.
...