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Before the creation of the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor, Chu Chengzhou had three methods to elevate his combat strength to the Level 100 tier.
Spirit Fusion Trait of his True Spirit Banner martial soul: By entering Humanized Spirit State—with himself as the core and his spirit as support—his Level 99 soul power, combined with the +1 level boost from a 100,000-year spirit, would reliably push him into Level 100. Elemental Fusion Secret Art: Fusing all eleven fundamental elemental soul powers into Chaos Energy, then channeling it through Sun-Shooting Divine Arrow and Instant Bloom. This method not only stabilized his offensive and defensive capabilities at Level 100, but—given his current Level 99 Peak Douluo status—even surpassed the Level 100 threshold by a significant margin. Attribute Amplification Skills or Soul Bone Abilities, such as Ning Rongrong's percentage-based amplification (which ignored level gaps) or the All-Attribute Boost from his Saint Light Dragon Armor external soul bone: Dragon's Light.
Now, with the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor, he had a fourth method.
Importantly, the armor's amplification only conflicted with the third method—it stacked perfectly with both Spirit Fusion and Elemental Fusion.
At first glance, adding a fourth method might seem redundant—like "gilding the lily." But in reality, the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor was far from useless.
After all, in equipment crafting, better materials always yield superior performance, assuming craftsmanship remains constant.
As for his second brother-in-law Tang Hao's saying—
"A true master smith forges divine artifacts from common iron. One who merely assembles miracles from premium materials is just a synthesizer."
—that was pure toxic nonsense. Worth hearing once, but never to be taken seriously.
As one of the "Three Divine Craftsmen of the Continent", what had Tang Hao actually forged?
Hoes and woks for Saint Spirit Village peasants?
Let's be honest: a hundred Tang Haos couldn't match one Chu Chengzhou in smithing!
In the art of forging, Chu Chengzhou—the one and only true Divine Craftsmen of this era—spoke the ultimate truth. His words were the industry standard.
Of course, Chu Chengzhou knew the real reason the armor wasn't "redundant":
Its actual performance far exceeded his initial expectations.
If it had been an ordinary Four-Word Heaven-Refined Armor—merely elevating a Level 99 Peak Douluo to Demi-God level—it would've been nearly useless to him. Its only value would've been as a foundation for future divine armor upon his ascension.
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"Bro, your armor is so gorgeous! Way prettier than ours!"
Xiao Wu's voice chimed in from the side.
And she wasn't wrong. The Nine Heavens Chaos Armor utterly outclassed the earlier Soul-Refined metal armors he'd made for them. Even the elegant, lightweight headband alone made the old armors' clunky helmets look primitive.
Xiao Wu's comment was met with immediate, unanimous nods from Ning Rongrong, Zhu Zhuqing, and Hu Liena.
Unlike men—who prioritize utility—women could tolerate something being less functional, but never something being ugly.
Aesthetics always came before performance, even if the latter suffered slightly.
"Of course!" Chu Chengzhou grinned without hesitation. "Higher-tier gear always has higher aesthetics!"
Just like fighter jets in his past life: the more advanced the jet, the more beautiful it looked. Ugly ones? Industrial trash—missile bait.
And what about the terrifying "mushroom bomb"? Round, chubby, and oddly… adorable?
Hearing this, the four girls exchanged glances—then declared in perfect unison:
"We want some too!"
"Don't worry," Chu Chengzhou winked meaningfully, "bread will come, milk will come… but you know how it goes."
The four girls: "…."
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Two days later, having finished crafting Heaven-Refined Battle Armor for all four girls, Chu Chengzhou mounted his Time Dragon and departed the Sea God Island.
As he flew westward, he activated his True Spirit Domain, siphoning the ocean's abundant water-elemental energy to continue upgrading Xiao Qing (his Life Tree spirit).
His destination: Evildemon Forest, Sun Moon Continent Continent.
His target: Evil Emperor, the Evil Eye Tyrant Sovereign—ranked second among the continent's Ten Great Beasts in the future.
The Evildemon Forest was Sun Moon Continent Continent's largest soul beast habitat, dominated by dark-attribute beasts.
Its undisputed rulers were the Evil Eye Clan—a rare spiritual-type soul beast lineage. The Evil Emperor was their king.
Unlike the Star Dou Great Forest (where fierce beasts were preoccupied with "milking" the Ice Silkworm) or the Far North (too remote for human contact), the Evildemon Forest's sovereign was notoriously high-profile.
Evil Emperor's fearsome reputation was known across Sun Moon Continent's soul master circles—and so legendary was his power that the Sun Moon Continent Empire enshrined him as a national totem.
…Which was, admittedly, one of the empire's greatest embarrassments.
The imperial family's inherited martial soul was the Sun—yet they worshipped an "evil eyeball" as their totem.
Literal "adopting a demon as your father."
But they had no choice.
Sun Moon Continent's soul master community was significantly weaker than Douluo Continent's—not just in overall strength, but at the pinnacle level.
Beyond rising stars like Bibi Dong and Chu Chengzhou, Douluo Continent boasted three Quasi-God-tier experts: Qian Daoliu, Tang Chen, and (overseas) Bo Saixi.
Sun Moon Continent? As far as Chu Chengzhou knew, no Quasi-Gods, no Level 99 Limit Douluos, and possibly not even a Level 98 Title Douluo.
And the Evil Emperor was a spiritual-type fierce beast—the most troublesome kind. Even a Level 98 Title Douluo would likely die in one move against him.
Unable to eliminate him—even with their entire soul master community united—Sun Moon Continent was forced to sue for peace.
When you can't win, and coexistence is impossible (given the natural enmity between humans and soul beasts), the only option is to turn swords into plowshares.
Chu Chengzhou suspected the Evil Emperor refrained from devouring humans only because he feared attracting divine retribution from the God Realm. For a beast of his caliber, eating humans offered no real cultivation benefit—otherwise, the Sun Moon Continent's population would've long since become livestock or slaves.
But today, the supreme tyrant of Evildemon Forest—the mighty Evil Eye Tyrant Emperor—would see his carefree reign end.
A young man with no regard for martial virtue had crossed the ocean, riding a divine dragon.
Wherever he passed, oppressive soul power radiated, forcing every human and beast within a hundred miles to kneel in submission.
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