A crescent moon illuminated the lone city. Each of them went through a long journey, facing the mountains of blades and the seas of fire from hell, traversing the endless abyss of Ruin’s End, returning home once more.
They had a thousand words for each other, but none of it needed to be said. They just needed to share a glance, a smile. With that, all of their thoughts and all of their pain would receive solace.
He no longer needed to sink into thought or roar furiously, setting aside the burden on him and stopping to gaze at the sky.
On this warm night, he fell asleep peacefully in her lap, sinking into a lighter dream once more.
Under the pale-white moon, Xiao An caressed his face gently. She gripped a long string of prayer beads and informed the other heavenly kings about the return of the “demon king”.
The Daemonic Beast realm.
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The huge kun moved its wing-like fins fervently, diving towards the deeper ocean. It was riddled with wounds, having just escaped a hunt. The cries of dragons continued to echo in its ears.
The ocean had always been the territory of the dragon clan. If they had a blacklist of most unwelcome visitors, kunpengs definitely would have ranked first.
For the sake of cultivation, she was unable to leave the ocean, so she spent much of her time running and hiding. Who knew how many close scrapes with death she had already. She did not seem particularly free at all.
In this natural world of the survival of the fittest, anything that was not an apex predator had to be prepared to become prey some time, some day. This was the price for “freedom”, not something that the weak could endure.
She paused in a great valley to rest. When she received the news, she smiled. “As long as you’re back!”
A pair of cold eyes suddenly lit up in the depths of the valley. Thousands of tentacles extended out from a crack slowly, without causing any disturbances in the water, enveloping her like a net.
A new round of hunting began again…
The Asura realm.
The wind and dust swept the banners as the war drums shook the stars.
Rāhu Xiaoming was locked in combat, but the situation was extremely disadvantageous. The army under his command was forced into a retreat as the army qi on him rapidly diminished, gradually becoming overwhelmed by the Asura Sovereign inside the Army God.
The method of cultivation for asura had never been secluded cultivation, but triumphing at the cost of countless lives, becoming an undefeatable god of war through endless wars.
If they did not challenge the strong, then fighting would all be meaningless. Blindly harassing the weak would instead weaken their battle spirit and make them lose the blessings of the heavens.
However, challenging the strong was easier said than done. It was basically asking for humiliation.
In order to keep his identity a secret, he was unable to use any of the powers from the Rāhu clan, so it was equivalent to fighting those stronger than him with his hands tied behind his back. As a result, it obviously led to frequent defeats. The only reason why he had not fallen in battle yet was completely due to the blessings of the heavens.
And this luck had run out.
Right now, his opponent was an Asura Battle God, which was equivalent to Human Immortals or Heretic Gods. His battle prowess was enough to crush any regular Human Immortal or Heretic God.
Of course, his opponent never bothered to confront him directly. In the very beginning, he sent envoys to convince him to surrender, wanting to recruit him as one of his own. As an Asura Sovereign who regularly suffered defeat yet never died, he had quite some renown in this region.
He obviously refused to surrender, so the Asura Battle God cut to the chase, sending Asura Sovereigns under his command to hunt him down.
As his cultivation recovered, regular Asura Sovereigns no longer posed a challenge to him. Despite several attempts at hunting him down, not only did they fail to succeed, but his army instead grew stronger.
The Asura Battle God became even more interested in him, personally leading an army to corner him. Coupled with over a dozen Asura Sovereigns that tagged in and out of battle, he was a little overwhelmed. Now, he was heavily surrounded.
This time, even if he was blessed by the heavens, he would probably struggle to escape. Even when the Asura Battle God never took to the battlefield himself, he possessed blessings from the heavens no less than him, compromising his advantage.
He either surrendered or died in battle. There was no other choice apart from that.
Now that he received this news, it was basically hope in the most dire of circumstances.
“What! He’s recovered his memories? What! His Origin Soul has undergone the sixth heavenly tribulation? Doesn’t that mean he split apart? Whatever, get him over here to fight for me!”
The heavenly kings each had their own battles. No one’s life was smooth sailing. There would always be thistles everywhere as they chased after a sweet dream.
Origin Soul projection!
Li Qingshan glanced at his sleeping self and bade farewell to Xiao An with a smile. He left the Hungry Ghost realm, returned to the Xuanming dwelling, and entered the Asura realm. He gazed at the blood-red sky.
“War! War will never change!”
He set off on a journey once again, rushing off to a distant battlefield.
……
Several hundred kilometres away from Unadorned city was a vast forest. There was not a single leaf on the dead trees. White bones piled up under the trees.
The forest was deathly silent. Not a single undead dared to set foot there.
In the very depths of the forest, an inconspicuous burl protruded from an inconspicuous tree. A shiny, white pearl was embedded deep inside, like a white eyeball.
At a closer glance, it seemed to resemble a skull, and it even seemed to be cackling away.
That was Xiao An’s Skull Prayer Bead. The reason why she left it there was for surveillance.
Under the white bones and black soil, deep underground, there was an enormous, gloomy palace.
Death qi and yin qi mixed together and condensed, like tangible fluid. Let alone the fact that it was buried so deeply underground, even if there was the light of day, visibility would probably be at a minimum.
It resembled a catacomb, or perhaps it was a catacomb. The entire Hungry Ghost realm was a necropolis assembled from graves like this, burying countless failed cultivators and deceased souls.
The name of the catacomb was Unadorned palace. It was where the Unadorned Ghost Immortal slumbered.
While this old ghost was sleeping, Li Qingshan and Xiao An took Unadorned city together. The Ghost Sovereigns and Corpse Sovereigns either died or surrendered, basically taken down in one fell swoop. They all turned into Xiao An’s food.
As a result, she left a Skull Prayer Bead here to guard against the sudden awakening of this “family of the deceased”.
The old ghost had always spent a century sleeping and a century awake in an extremely predictable manner, and there was still over three decades before he awakened, but it was always better to err on the side of caution. The heavens of the Hungry Ghost realm were quite hostile towards her as a successor of white bone.
Of course, they were not people to be trifled with either. Once the thirty-odd years really had elapsed, they would “raid the tomb” and burn this bastard to ashes even if the old ghost did not come for them.
A black, stone casket hung upside down in the centre of the underground palace. Beneath it was a great chasm, deep and gloomy as if it led to the underworld.
This was where underground veins intersected. In a regular world, this would definitely be a renowned mountain or river blessed by spiritual qi, most suited for establishing a dwelling. However, in the Hungry Ghost realm, there was no such thing as spiritual qi, only yin qi and death qi. They constantly gushed out of the chasm, seeping into the stone casket bit by bit.
On this day, the chasm let out a strange rumble. Rocks jostled as they fell, and the stone casket shook gently.
Ever since many years ago, or more accurately, from the day Li Qingshan and Xiao An occupied Unadorned city, earthquakes have occurred regularly here.
It only seemed to be the natural phenomena of the crust moving, having just gathered around this period of time coincidentally.
Earthquakes by nature had always been a string of events that occurred randomly. Perhaps it was just the shattering of a single rock that affected the entire structure of the plate, leading to a world-shaking earthquake.
However, the shaking gradually stopped, and the stone casket that swung like a pendulum gradually settled down as well, without budging at all.
The Unadorned palace itself was an indestructible formation, so it did not fear any earthquakes at all. Even if entire mountains collapsed outside, there would not be too much disturbance in here.
If a mighty Ghost Immortal’s dwelling collapsed to an earthquake, that would be utterly hilarious. The Unadorned Ghost Immortal slept very heavily, so he obviously could not be awakened by such a small disturbance.
However, the situation seemed to be slightly different this time around.
The death qi and yin qi gradually declined, completely vanishing before long.
The stone casket suddenly opened by a crack!
A pitch-black figure poked his head out. There were no facial features, just a black shadow. He was the Unadorned Ghost Immortal.
He let out a wisp of his soul sense, quickly investigating the entire chasm. Soon, he discovered that the trajectory of the underground vein had changed.
He was visibly surprised. Underground veins were equivalent to the blood vessels of a world. Unlike surface features like mountains and rivers, they changed extremely slowly.
Because the Hungry Ghost realm was constantly devouring and expanding, it was slightly faster than other worlds, but it would take millions of years at the very least.
Even when the surface geography was directly altered, it was very difficult to influence the trajectory of underground veins. That required highly precise calculations to achieve.
However, the constant earthquakes had subtly changed the trajectory of the underground vein, severing the source of energy to the Unadorned palace.
Was this a coincidence? His gut told him this was not that simple.
As a Ghost Immortal, he was already capable of viewing the laws, and over the lengthy passage of time, it became clearer and clearer to him. Peering into fate was as natural as seeing with his eyes and listening with his ears.
However, his observation this time was far easier than any of his attempts in the past for some reason.
“Something’s happened to Unadorned city!”
