Douluo Dalu 2: Reincarnated as the Auspicious Beast

After Lu Mingyou gave a few words of advice, he left.

"Come on, this way." Lang Xingying, acting as if nothing had happened, quickly scrambled up from the ground and cheerfully called his friends over. "We kids will sit in the kids' carriage. We're not sitting with the adults."

He led Wang Rui and the others forward along the convoy, passing carriage after carriage adorned with crescent-moon wolf head emblems. The spirit masters organizing the goods smiled and greeted them along the way.

The Moonshadow Merchant Association's convoy used a variety of spirit beasts as draft animals.

Most were still wolves, but there were also ordinary horse-type spirit beasts, unicorns, winged pegasi, and winged one-horned celestial beasts (some kind of My Little Pony race). A few snow-white deer were fighting over a piece of bean cake.

In the middle of several carriages, a pair of owl bears were playfully wrestling and biting each other. These creatures had feathered front halves, owl-like heads, front claws connected to thick wings, and round, plump bear hindquarters with short tails. A group of Moonshadow City disciples surrounded them, clapping and cheering despite the dust flying everywhere.

Further ahead, a young elephant was chewing on a sugarcane stalk, and then there was...

"Wait a minute, is that a rabbit???" Huo Yuqing's eyes widened as she stared at the creature squatting in front of the carriage… Uh.

"Yes." Wang Rui nodded.

Indeed, that towering, white, unknown creature—taller than Huo Yuqing even when crouching—was a giant white rabbit.

Its short fur was silky white on its back, but its lower body, especially its hind legs and the area under its tail, was a scorched yellow. Its body was covered in large, well-defined muscles that cast shadows under the short fur, especially on its four legs, which were thick with sinew. It looked like it could kick any of the kids to death in an instant.

The rabbit's face was full of thick muscle, making it look ferocious. Its long, upright ears bulged with visible veins, and its eyes were blood-red with a thin line of white, giving it the appearance of looking down on everyone equally. Its three-lobed mouth drooped slightly, and there were even some suspicious brownish-red stains on the fur around it.

"…Is this really a rabbit???" Seeing such an intimidating rabbit for the first time, Huo Yuqing was dazed.

She was used to the sight of soft, harmless little bunnies in the woods, so this monstrous rabbit completely shattered her worldview.

This rabbit looked incredibly strong…

Huo Yuqing couldn't help but think of the statue at Shrek Academy—once belonging to the Soft Bone Douluo, Xiao Wu… That woman, the Sea God's wife, had been a hundred-thousand-year Soft Bone Rabbit. Could it be that she had also looked like this muscular monster?

But the statue didn't suggest that at all!

"A real rabbit should be like this." Wang Rui shrugged. "Any rabbit that can survive for tens of thousands of years in the Star Dou Forest is never a simple creature. They should be stomping the earth with their hind legs, tearing through rocks with their front claws, and firing dung pellets like machine guns—"

"Holy crap, wouldn't that be an unstoppable move, like stepping on a poop-covered mop?" Lang Xingying exclaimed in admiration.

"CHIRP!" The muscular rabbit furiously thumped its hind legs against the ground, screeching in protest.

"Ugh!" Jiang Nannan, who had a rabbit martial soul, shuddered in disgust, hugging her arms. She shot a glare at Wang Rui and Lang Xingying. "Can you two not say such disgusting things? Do you want a beating?"

Wang Rui quickly raised his hands in surrender.

Under the muscular rabbit's irate screeches, they continued moving forward.

"Most of these draft beasts are spirit beasts that cultivate quickly and have great talent. Their intelligence is also much higher than that of ordinary spirit beasts, so they don't even need a driver to guide them. Visiting the human world helps improve their wisdom… The carriages ahead mostly carry goods that can't be stored in spatial soul devices," Lang Xingying explained as he walked backward, facing them with a playful grin, completely unserious.

"Other places use horned horses to pull carriages, but these guys are going to the human world to 'further their education.' When soul beasts with high cultivation and intelligence visit human cities, they gain more knowledge and experience. After returning, their cultivation speeds up significantly. This is a strategy developed by Beast Hall… The Moonshadow Merchant Association is responsible for taking them out on these 'study tours.'"

"…Alright, this one." Lang Xingying stopped and waved them over.

Everyone boarded the so-called "kids' carriage" he mentioned. The interior wasn't exactly luxurious, but it was comfortable enough. There were two rows of dark red leather seats facing each other, each side able to accommodate five or six people. A small wooden table sat in the middle, holding a fruit platter and snacks. Below the table was a small soul-guided icebox for chilling drinks and preserving food.

However, there was already someone inside.

It was a young man with delicate, almost feminine features. He had been resting against the window with his eyes closed, but when he saw Wang Rui and the others enter, he smiled warmly and nodded in greeting.

"You… A Shrek inner court student?" Jiang Nannan immediately noticed the red inner court uniform pants peeking out from under his dark blue long coat, looking a bit surprised.

"Ah… Yes, I'm an inner court student. How did you know?" The young man seemed a little surprised, then glanced down at his own pants and suddenly understood. "Oh, I left in a hurry this morning and didn't have time to find other pants, so I just threw these on… I guess they don't really match my coat. Honestly, I've always thought the inner court uniforms don't look that great…"

"Who even cares if uniforms look good? As long as they're wearable, it's fine," Lang Xingying said as he plopped down beside the young man. He introduced Wang Rui and the others, then gestured toward the delicate-looking youth. "You can ignore this guy—he's just hitching a ride."

"Gongyang Mo." The refined young man smiled helplessly, as if used to Lang Xingying's antics, and cupped his hands in greeting. "From the Gongyang family of Dragon City."

One of the unfortunate cannon fodder who almost got blown up by Drumstick Douluo, Wang Rui mentally added.

"Dragon City?" Huo Yuqing looked a bit puzzled. Having grown up in the Star Luo Empire, she had never heard of this place, so she instinctively turned to Wang Rui for an explanation.

"Dragon City is located at the northernmost border between the Heavenly Soul Empire and the Sun Moon Empire. It's the largest city in the northern continent… However, it does not belong to either empire. It's a neutral city," Wang Rui explained.

"But the Heavenly Soul Empire and the Sun Moon Empire are at war… Would they really allow such a place to exist?" Huo Yuqing asked, confused.

"Sixty percent of Dragon City's population consists of soul masters. The rest are mostly their non-cultivator relatives," Wang Rui explained. "It's similar to Nine-Colored City, the subsidiary city of the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect—Dragon City is controlled by a local faction rather than an empire."

The sheer number of soul masters in Dragon City made it an extremely tough target. As long as it remained neutral, neither empire found it worthwhile to go to war over it.

"However, the city isn't controlled by a single sect, but rather three families."

"Nan, Yu, and Gongyang."

"Yu Lan Dian?" Jiang Nannan raised an eyebrow, clearly thinking of a certain prominent figure in her own year. She asked curiously, "Is that the same 'Blue Lightning' as in Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon?"

"Exactly." Gongyang Mo smiled and continued, "The founder of Shrek Academy, Yu Xiaogang, was from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan ten thousand years ago. However, his branch had a mutated Light attribute. Meanwhile, the Yu family of Dragon City is the most orthodox lineage of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan."

(End of Chapter)