The person who appeared in front of the group of three led by Bai Zemin was actually a man that looked slightly aged, even though his hair was not completely white, gray hair was visible for the most part and at the edge of his eyes, several wrinkles could be seen accumulating.
Wearing a deep green armor that perfectly matched the silver shoulder pads and cloak of the same color as the armor, the aura surrounding the person who had just identified himself as Kang Guiying could have been extraordinary and praiseworthy were it not for the terror that his presence alone exuded.
The atmosphere around Kang Guiying seemed to be trembling slightly, and with each step he took, the ground shuddered slightly for an instant before returning to normal for a second only to tremble again with his next step.
Shangguan Bing Xue and Xia Ya froze as they looked at those deep black eyes on Kang Guiying’s face, the two women looked like they were about to be devoured by two black holes as the fear quickly began to take over their bodies with each step the being before them took.
“Fourth Order?”
Bai Zemin frowned sharply and as he looked at Kang Guiying he couldn’t help but compare the aura of the man in front of him with the aura of Emperor Thannath of the asura race and Emperor Jack of the ghost race; both Fourth Order existences, rulers of the Oblon World.
Kang Guiying stopped his movements more than 300 meters away from the trio, and as if responding to Bai Zemin’s words, he nodded:
“You could say that in the past I was a Fourth Order existence, in fact.”
In the past? Bai Zemin’s ears perked up at those words and somehow he now understood some things he could feel from the Soul Power of the man in front of him.
“Do you see this?” Kang Guiying pointed out as he raised his right arm so that the descending sun was partially covered by it…. Or so it should have been.
Bai Zemin, Shangguan Bing Xue, and Xia Ya were astonished to see how the sun that should have been partially covered by Kang Guiying’s arm from the angle at which they were looking actually did not seem to encounter any obstacle.
In fact, now that the three of them had a better look, they realized that the rays of sunlight seemed to pass through Kang Guiying’s body as if there was nothing in its path; the man didn’t even have a shadow.
“Are you a ghost?” Bai Zemin asked in amazement at the same time as he subtly tried with one hand to gesture to the two women behind him to indicate them to step back.
Shangguan Bing Xue and Xia Ya immediately nodded silently and gradually began to distance but with their eyes still fixed on the mysterious man who had just stepped out of the fourth pagoda; after all, even if they had not yet been attacked, Kang Guiying had already told them that he was the last trial they had to pass so even if they were now chatting in a friendly way, it was only a matter of time before the flames of war would erupt.
And unfortunately, even Bai Zemin had little if anything to do here.
Not only did he not have the 20% increase in his overall strength from the title ‘Destroyer of Destroyers’, but the current Bai Zemin did not even have the 65% increase in strength that the skill ‘God of War’s Will’ could give him after killing enemies. After all, golems were not naturally born beings, they had no Soul Power and thus no soul and no records; golems were just empty shells that had nothing to offer except headaches for their opponents.
Even if Kang Guiying seemed weaker compared to the two Fourth Order existences that Bai Zemin met in the past, an existence that surpassed him by at least 350 levels was not something that Bai Zemin could face in any way.
Kang Guiying chuckled as he watched the two women back away, but he did nothing to stop them as his attention was focused on Bai Zemin.
“Young warrior, would you mind telling me what year of the Sage Calendar we are in?”
“This…” Bai Zemin hesitated for a moment before replying in an honest and respectful voice, “Elder, this junior is only a little over 20 years old this year…. But actually, in the over 2000 years of the recorded or known history of our human race, there is no information of any Sage Calendar.”
Bai Zemin noticed the expression on Kang Guiying’s face frozen for a second before returning to normal after he said those words.
“… I see…” Kang Guiying sighed and a peculiar glint flashed in his lonely eyes as he muttered to himself with a hint of self-deprecation, “It seems like a lot of great events happened after this old man went to sleep…. Of course…”
Then, Kang Guiying looked at Bai Zemin again, and as if nothing had happened, he questioned:
“Just now, you said that you are a little over 20 years old. Is that right?”
“That is correct.” Bai Zemin nodded with a serious expression on his face.
“It’s quite good that you’re already touching the Second Order despite being so young. But the most amazing thing is the purity of your Soul Power.” Kang Guiying looked genuinely surprised as he looked Bai Zemin from head to toe and slowly said, “You should have killed at least a couple of First Order existences while you were still a little Unclassified, shouldn’t you? And for your Soul Power to be so pure, at the very least the amount of help you received could be ignored.”
Bai Zemin said nothing. In fact, at this entire moment, he held his greatsword high with both feet positioned to attack, defend, or retreat in any instance.
After all, he and Kang Guiying were not allies even if they were not exactly enemies either.
Kang Guiying took the silence of the young man in front of him as a positive answer so he couldn’t help but praise him in an honest voice: “For you, despite being so young, to be able to wait so long just to hunt down the right enemy at the right time…” Then, he sighed and shook his head, “What a shame… A warrior with such a bright future is destined to fall here?”
“I’m sorry, but I have no intention of falling yet.” Bai Zemin replied in a louder voice this time. His eyes sparkled with fighting intent but mostly with a will to live as he said in a firm voice that was filled with resolve, “I, Bai Zemin, stepped onto the path of evolution less than three months ago but I have killed tens of thousands of enemies of a higher level than mine. I risked my life to the point where every part of my body can remember a different pain, all for the sake of surviving to find those I love and fulfill my promise.”
“Uh?”
A sound of surprise escaped from Kang Guiying’s half-open mouth. He seemed to ignore most of what he heard and instead focused on a small detail that caught his attention.
“What did you say? You started evolving only three months ago?”
“This thing called Soul Record, whatever it is, came to our world exactly two months and three weeks ago. All evolved beings regardless of whether it is a mutant beast, mutant plant, goblin, human, sea creature, or any other race I have yet to see have begun evolving two months and three weeks ago at most.” Bai Zemin replied in a deep voice, and it wasn’t hard to notice the shock on the face of the man a couple of hundred meters ahead of him.
“How is this possible…?”
Kang Guiying muttered with lost eyes and surprise flashing in his gaze.
He was a man who had seen everything during his lifetime, to Kang Guiying, reading a young man like Bai Zemin was really as easy as knowing when a baby was sad or happy. Precisely for that reason, Kang Guiying was 100% sure that this young man in front of him was not lying.
However, if what the young warrior in front of him was saying was true…. Kang Guiying did not understand what was happening.
He scanned the surroundings, felt the mana of the world, tried to find an answer…. But he didn’t succeed.
All Kang Guiying received in return for his curiosity were more doubts and questions.
Why was the Earth close to its second stage?
Why had the goblins already appeared if the world had not even advanced to the second stage?
Why had humans and sea creatures already come into contact?
Why was the mana of the world so low but astonishingly pure?
…
Hundreds and hundreds of questions filled Kang Guiying’s head but each of them had no answers. Worse yet, Kang Guiying knew that the people in front of him could not give him the explanations he wanted to hear and the time he had left was not enough to find them on his own.
“… This fourth trial was supposed to be a clash between the remnants of me and the challengers.” Kang Guiying muttered looking at the ground before raising his head and looking at Bai Zemin with serious eyes, “But it looks like things need to change now.”
The expression of Bai Zemin and the others brightened as they heard Kang Guiying’s words.
Didn’t it mean that at least now they had a better chance of getting out of here alive?
But Bai Zemin and the others had already experienced a lot. Everyone here was people who would never let their guard down just because of a couple of words.
“Elder, what do you mean?” Bai Zemin asked cautiously.
“As you must well know by now, this old man is in fact already dead and what you see now is nothing but the shadow of what I used to once be.” Kang Guiying said in a serious and deep voice.
“The ancient ruins were built by me and my subordinates after defeating the king of an enemy kingdom and suffering a mortal wound that left me with less than 20 years of life remaining. After building the ruins, I used the Fourth Order Soul Stone that I obtained from the enemy king, and with the help of the strongest mage in the Kang Kingdom, my consciousness was moved to that Soul Stone so that the power within the Fourth Order Soul Stone would be consumed bit by bit and then quickly once a challenger emerged.” Kang Guiying explained.
Bai Zemin and the others were hugely shocked to hear what Kang Guiying was saying. The man before them, if any doubts still needed to be cleared up, had just answered that indeed, at some point on the face of the Earth Fourth Order existences walked!
“Bai Zemin, how is the situation of the world at present?” Kang Guiying suddenly asked before realizing that with only three months of evolution it was impossible for the young man in front of him to know how the world was doing. Therefore, he rephrased his previous question immediately, “Technology, weaponry, show me something.”
Bai Zemin quickly waved his right hand and with a faint glow from his spatial storage ring, a heat-sensing self-guided anti-tank missile appeared on the ground in front of him.
“This weapon is a Hongjian-12 or HJ-12 for short.” Bai Zemin explained in a serious voice. “Elder, among the weapons that a human can carry by itself and leaving aside larger sized vehicles, this weapon can be considered as one of the most powerful weapons that exist in the world. It has the capability of destroying even battle tanks, which are the most powerful ground vehicles.”
“Pure bullshit!” Kang Guiying spat with wide eyes as he looked at the anti-tank missile on the ground. “That thing couldn’t even destroy a western kingdom’s vanguard vehicle!”
“This…” Bai Zemin was a bit at a loss for words at the sudden outburst of the man in front of him. In fact, he had no idea what Kang Guiying was talking about.
Kang Guiying took a deep breath and quickly regained his composure as he quietly said, “It seems that the situation of our human race is not looking good at all….”
Bai Zemin smiled bitterly and shook his head, “Far from looking good, during these three months I have managed to conquer practically two Districts of our motherland and gather most of the mankind that once inhabited them but I barely found just over 300,000 when there should be a few million at the very least.”
As Bai Zemin talked about the zombies and the abnormally fast-evolving speed of the other races, the expression on Kang Guiying’s face grew uglier and uglier with every word he heard.
“Alright, I understand…” Kang Guiying took another deep breath and nodded earnestly. He looked at Bai Zemin for several seconds before saying in a soft voice: “Young Zemin, you are the most outstanding talent I have seen in my more than 300 years of life and even now after death. A person like you, a young man, must definitely have ambitions, mustn’t he?”
“Yes!” Bai Zemin nodded without hesitation and answered honestly, “I have the intention to regain our lands in the shortest amount of time possible and build a safe place for our countrymen. I will become the king of these lands and lead our people to heights never seen before!”
“Hahahaha! Heights never seen before, uh? Those words are pretty big!” Kang Guiying laughed out loud as if he had heard some kind of funny joke. However, judging from the satisfied expression on his face, it seemed to be that Bai Zemin’s words pleased him quite a bit.
But Kang Guiying would probably try to slap Bai Zemin to death if he heard that in reality, reclaiming the lands of China and reuniting the country’s mankind was actually Bai Zemin’s smallest goal among his biggest goals.
If Kang Guiying knew that Bai Zemin aspired to rule the world and later even the universe, he would probably kill him thinking that it was not good for a lunatic to rule and lead the Chinese who were clearly somehow part of what was once the Kang Kingdom that Kang Guiying built.
Suddenly, Kang Guiying stopped laughing and his murderous intent grew exponentially as he said in a deep and powerful voice:
“In theory, I should do my best to defeat and kill the challengers since if even my remnant self is able to defeat them it means that the challengers don’t have the qualifications to obtain the treasures in these ruins…. But considering all the strange events that are going on and the mysteries that are probably being engineered behind the curtain, I think I need to change the rules a bit.”
“Change the rules?” Bai Zemin was slightly startled and a glimmer of hope flared in his heart.
The current him definitely had no way of defeating a Fourth Order existence no matter how weakened it was. At most, Bai Zemin could give a Fourth Order existence several considerably serious wounds using Overlap Regeneration or Crimson Blood Judgment in case he could prepare the attack.
But he definitely could not win, and he knew it.
Therefore, any rule change was good in this situation. Even more so when Kang Guiying clearly seemed to be a smart and sensible person who cared about his kind.
