The Stone of Three Lives was already in Lu Yun’s hands, but he realized that in order to truly obtain and refine this ultimate treasure of the netherdark, he had to kill Dusk Snake.
Another alternative was to force the Tome of Life and Death to come out and seize the stone, but it’d lain still in his body after collecting the body of God and helping him withstand hellfire. Thus, he chose the first method of killing Dusk Snake!
This was the end of the road for the demon god; fear and a hint of crazy streaked through his eyes when he heard Lu Yun’s words.
“If you want to kill me, then I’ll exterminate the human race first!” He finally screeched and twisted his massive body around so that it fell on the planet of the great wilderness!
“Stop him!” Lu Yun roared with a cold snort.
Hummm!
Next to the planet, a burst of silver illumination flared from the Taiyin Star while Diexi transformed into an enormous butterfly and abruptly vanished into thin air. Changxi then walked out of the star, wielding her shortsword and striking out at Dusk Snake.
“Changxi, how dare you harm me?!” The snake roared and crashed toward Changxi, momentum unabated.
Though Changxi was also a chaos realm connate god, her cultivation was a step lower than Dusk Snake’s. She wasn’t a premier chaos realm demon god, so her face paled when she saw the other throw himself at her with no thought for caution.
Despite that, she remained staunchly in place and refused to back down. In the segment of memory that Lu Yun had erased from his mind, countless yin spirits had besieged the Taiyin Star and he’d saved her from being overrun. Therefore, now that Dusk Snake wanted to destroy the boy’s race, she would stymie his objective even at the risk of her own life.
“You court death!” Dusk Snake opened his mouth wide and shattered Diexi’s light, then bit down on Changxi.
Hummm.
Jade brilliance suddenly flashed through the void as a green arrow pierced through space and connected with Dusk Snake’s head.
Boom!
He was knocked askew and sent off course from his devastating dive.
A girl dressed in golden armor and hair flaming like the sun walked out of the sun star. Alertly holding a jade-colored bow, she quickly reached Changxi’s side.
“Big sister!” Gratitude graced Changxi’s face and she shook slightly when she saw the golden-haired girl.
Xihe, the connate demon god born of the sun star! [1]
In the mythology that Lu Yun was familiar with, Xihe was the consort of Emperor Jun. But the legendary emperor had yet to be born in this age, and neither would he be a connate demon god. He would be a great emperor of humanity sometime in the future.
This was a clear example of how real history differed from mythology.
A blazing power constantly exuded from the golden-haired girl, but her expression was as icy as frost. A thick killing intent emanated from her pale-golden eyes. The jade-colored great bow in her possession was the Great Yi’s ultimate treasure, his bow!
“Dusk Snake, are you courting death by hurting my sister?” Her tones were so chilly that they stabbed straight into the bone. She drew back on the bow once more and aimed it at Dusk Snake.
“Get out of the way!” The snake screamed at seeing Lu Yun closing in on him. An inferno of hellfire ignited on him again and he recklessly charged the two sisters.
Xihe was stronger than Changxi and Dusk Snake, but her face changed when the snake started furiously summoning hellfire. She grabbed Changxi and scrambled madly to the side.
“Hellfire… this is hellfire from the deepest pits of the netherdark hell! Why is it in your hands??” Xihe yelled.
Dusk Snake ignored her and rushed into the boundary set by the Taiyin and Sun Stars, then angled himself down in a dive.
This boundary was a joint effort between Leize, Huaxu, Taiyi, Fuxi, and Great Yi. It was the final line of defense to prevent dead spirits and realm monsters from breaching the great wilderness. However, hellfire could pierce straight through this protection and enable its bearer to bear down on its target.
Though the Stone of Three Lives was in Lu Yun’s hand, Dusk Snake was still the treasure’s master. The snake could continue to command hellfire with it and imbue his strength with the flames. Stone burning in his hand, hellfire tried to climb all over Lu Yun and burn him to ashes.
Unfortunately for Dusk Snake, the boy wasn’t afraid of hellfire.
“What’s going on here?” Xihe looked at Changxi, her golden eyebrows tightly scrunched together.
Last time dead spirits had attacked the Taiyin Star and attempted to breach the great wilderness, Xihe had been refining her bow and overlooked what was going on outside. She’d never seen Lu Yun before.
The youth in question was close behind Dusk Snake and had also rushed into the great wilderness. The two were less than five thousand kilometers apart—an insurmountable distance for ordinary people, but just a stone’s throw away for great masters of their level.
The arrival of chaos realm masters immediately caused a great disturbance. Countless beings lifted their heads up to the sky, and even powerhouses of the same level extended tendrils of their consciousness to determine what was going on.
“It’s Dusk Snake of Taiyi’s celestial court! He’s being hunted by another great master, but who??” A few chaos realm connate demon gods in the area were flabbergasted. In their eyes, Lu Yun was just an empyrean cultivator. It was beyond incredible that he was pursuing Dusk Snake!
Since when could empyrean cultivators do this to great masters??
“Lie Shan of the human race, the big river is up ahead. If you don’t want humanity to be wiped out, you will stop now!” Dusk Snake snarled, his voice echoing throughout the land.
“Human race! Dusk Snake is being chased by a human! Since when did humans have such a strong expert?” Further shock shook the hearts of those listening. Humans were undeniably the lowest of the low in the great wilderness. They would rather believe Lie Shan was a monster spirit than think he was human!
Humans were weak and fragile, born lacking of many things. Though they had strong reproductive abilities, their strength had always been negligible.
“It’s possible that it’s actually a human… Last time one of them resonated with the great dao and a chaos realm cultivator made a move. Fuxi prevented anything from developing further then.”
“Humans are not to be underestimated!” Many experts looked to the great river basin with steely looks in their eyes.
“Then let’s see if you destroy the humans first or if I destroy you!” Lu Yun snorted and arrived in front of Dusk Snake with a quick shuffle. He reared back with the Stone of Three Lives and ruthlessly smashed it down on the snake’s heart.
“AhhhhHHHHH!!” Dusk Snake wailed and shrieked, but suddenly detached his head and bounced it at the great river!
All of the Yellow River would overflow the moment his head entered the waters, instantly wiping out the humans on both sides of its banks!
1. Xihe was a solar deity in Chinese mythology. One of the two wives of Emperor Jun (along with Changxi), she was the mother of ten suns that took the form of three-legged crows residing in a mulberry tree, the Fusang, in the East Sea. Each day, one of the sun birds traveled around the world on a carriage driven by Xihe.
