Chapter 917: Yin-Yang Divine Mountain

Why had Su Yi gone to so much trouble tonight? The reason was simple.

His cultivation base was too weak.

If he wanted to take down a behemoth like the Mysterious Netherworld Divine Court, his only hope was to borrow external power.

That was why he borrowed the Book of Diting?from the Night Watchman before leaving Snowy Skies City.

When he left the Chaotic Void Blood Lake, Su Yi reconvened with You Xue and the others, and the group proceeded straight to the Dark Capital.

……

In a stretch of lifeless, desolate landscape, there was nothing but a single upright tombstone.

It was four feet, nine inches high and pitch black throughout. It looked perfectly ordinary and entirely unremarkable.

But the landscape in which it stood had a holy, austere atmosphere difficult to put into words. The mountains, rivers, and everything in them were utterly silent.

A hundred feet away.

Boom!

A low, muffled blast resounded throughout the deathly silence of the barren landscape.

A coppery-skinned, thin-faced man in black raised his right leg with great difficulty and took another step forward.

When his foot hid the ground, the earth shook. He swayed violently before managing to stabilize himself.

But afterward, his breathing was ragged, and his thin, chiseled face paled with exhaustion.

When he looked at the tombstone still a hundred feet away, his tawny eyes revealed his astonishment.

He was a terrifying expert capable of overpowering even Emperors of comparable cultivation, but here, he was under constant, unimaginable suppression. Taking even a single step was immensely difficult!

His footprints were clearly visible in the ground behind him, and they extended into the distance.

Although no one knew it, just getting within a hundred feet of the tombstone had taken him a full nine years!

For nine years, he’d poured everything he had into divining the tombstone’s secrets.

For nine years, he’d advanced, step by step, with enormous difficulty. He finally saw hope of reaching that mysterious tombstone!

“It sure lives up to its reputation as the divine relic the last monarch of the Infernal Palace left behind. Even after countless years, its aura is enough to make one’s heart quiver.” The man in black let out a rueful sigh.

He stood in place, then took out a golden purple gourd and poured out a radiant pill surrounded in flowing light. Once he’d swallowed it, he started refining it.

But he dared not sit down.

If he did, that terrifying suppressive force would prevent him from ever struggling to his feet again!

During his first year in this forbidden ground, he relied on his cultivation base to advance thirty thousand feet.

During his second year, he advanced another twenty-two thousand feet.

But during his third year, he only advanced ten thousand feet.

The closer he got to the tombstone, the greater the pressure he faced and the slower his advance.

Now, in his ninth year, he was within a hundred feet of the tombstone. Every step forward he took was harder than ascending the heavens!

At this point, he had no choice but to rely on the power of medicine to sustain his advance.

“If things continue like this, the final hundred feet will require five more Life-Inversion Divine Origin Pills and six hours. Then, I’ll finally reach the tombstone.”

The man couldn’t help but wince at the thought.

Life-Inversion Divine Origin Pills!

These were a peerless divine medicine. Even if someone was on the verge of death, swallowing such a pill could bring them back and restore flesh to bone. It even fully replenished the power of one’s cultivation base.

This was unquestionably a priceless treasure!

Any Emperor who obtained it would hide it on their person and treat it as a life-saving trump card.

Over the past nine years, the man in black had already consumed eight of the Life-Inversion Divine Origin Pills he’d brought with him. Only six remained in the purple-gold gourd.

“But if I can comprehend the secrets of reincarnation carved within the tombstone, it wouldn’t matter if I had to use up every treasure I had on me. It would be worth it.”

The man in black took a deep breath, and his eyes shone with newfound determination.

More than anyone else in the Netherworld, he understood just how precious the tombstone safeguarding the City of the Wrongfully Dead was.

……

The Dark Capital.

Unlike the other danger zones of the City of the Wrongfully Dead, the Dark Capital’s dangers were all hidden within its nine layers of purgatory.

Every layer contained numerous malevolent powers that had been left there since ancient times. The further down you went, the more terrifying they got.

Starting from the sixth layer, the evil powers lurking there were strong enough to threaten even Emperors!

To the vast majority of the world’s cultivators, the Nine Great Purgatories of the Dark Capital were endlessly fearsome.

But to some people, they were treasured grounds brimming with opportunity.

Exploring these purgatories wouldn’t just help temper one’s cultivation base. Explorers could also hunt the demons that lived there and gather rare and ancient Grand Dao Fragments.

But now that the Yin-Yang Road leading in and out of the Dark Capital’s interior had been destroyed, not even Emperors could enter it.

And those already inside its Nine Great Purgatories found it extremely difficult to leave.

And tonight, a shocking grand battle raged in the Dark Capital.

Boom!

Heaven and earth shook. The entire landscape trembled.

An army of evil spirits blanketed the landscape, descending upon the Dark Capital in relentless waves. Baleful energies surged through the air like dark clouds, blotting out the skies and obscuring the sun.

As if the forces of hell were waging war!

Beneath the dome of heaven.

Dazzling divine radiance crisscrossed and ripped through the sky, illuminating the entire landscape.

The radiance of treasures swept out in all directions, causing widespread destruction. Daoist invocations boomed like thunder.

Roaring, like the cries of gods of demons, shook the entire stretch of sky.

Figure after figure shot through the air, charging into the fray, terrifying beyond limit.

There were valiant Emperors, fighting and killing like mad.

There were enormous, bestial figures shuttling through the skies. Their auras alone bore down on the air, shattering and collapsing the landscape.

The battle was utter chaos. They fought with such intensity that the sun and moon lost their light, and the entire area descended into turmoil, upheaval, and destruction. It was like a vision of the apocalypse.

In the midst of all this chaos, evil spirits comparable to Emperors fell, and their miserable shrieks echoed throughout the landscape.

Other times, Emperors were captured alive, and they roared with fury and unwillingness.

“First, retreat from Yin-Yang Divine Mountain! We can’t let them take us down one by one. If that happens, we won’t be able to escape disaster!”

The Jade Sword Empress of Fire Illumination Divine Palace, Feng Yuzhi, shouted from the skies.

This unmatched beauty of a Profound Serenity Empress was bathed in blood. Her clothing was stained, and her disheveled hair was smeared with red liquid.

Her aura was sharp and forceful, and her sword intent blazed like fire. It almost seemed like it would incinerate both heaven and earth.

By now, too many evil spirits had perished beneath her blade to count.

Including more than ten Imperial-level evil spirits!

Throughout the battlefield, no one was more valiant or forceful than her.

“Retreat!”

In another section of the battlefield, Profound Serenity Emperors Yun Songzi of Yellow Springs Palace and Lu Changming of Meng Po Palace immediately retreated. All of them headed straight toward the solitary mountain in the distance.

Yin-Yang Divine Mountain.

It was originally the entrance to the Dark Capital.

A portion of the Laws of the City of the Wrongfully Dead’s source were distributed throughout the mountain, and it could suppress evil and prevent the demons living within its Nine Great Purgatories from escaping into the outside world.

Now, Yin-Yang Divine Mountain had become these Emperors’ only refuge!

However, as they retreated, two Profound Illumination Emperors failed to break through their foes’ encirclement. Both were taken alive.

As strong as she was, the Jade Sword Empress, Feng Yuzhi, could do nothing to save them.

She was up against a full three Dark Vassals!

Each of these terrifying evil spirits was comparable to a typical Profound Serenity Emperor. When they attacked together, they were extremely troublesome opponents.

In the end, she had to rely on the power of a secret treasure she was carrying to break through their encirclement, escape the battlefield, and return safely to Yin-Yang Divine Mountain.

They’d fought, surrounded on all sides and trying to break free, for less than ten minutes. In the end, they lost.

“When we started fighting, there were a full twenty Emperors on our side, but now, only seven remain…” Yun Songzi stood atop Yin-Yang Peak and sighed, his face ashen.

When they retreated, the battle came to a lull, but the mountain was thoroughly surrounded by a massive army of evil spirits. The dense mass of spirits blanketed the entire landscape and filled the skies. There was no end to them in sight.

Their ranks included no shortage of terrifying spirits comparable to Emperors.

But the strongest were the heretical cultivators of the Mysterious Netherworld Divine Court and the Nine Serenities Netherworld Crow presiding over the army of evil spirits from the rear!

Heaven and earth were in upheaval, and the landscape withered.

The smell of bloodshed and smoke permeated the battlefield. Although the boundlessly vast army of evil spirits dared not approach Yin-Yang Divine Mountain, they sealed off all possible escape routes.

This oppressive sight was enough to make any Emperor give in to despair!

“You still don’t understand? Right from the start, the changes to the Dark Capital were a trap!” Feng Yuzhi said coldly.

The crowd’s expressions shifted erratically. All of their hearts were incomparably heavy.

They’d come here tonight to investigate what had happened in the Dark Capital and search for a way to save their sectmates trapped in its Nine Great Purgatories.

Who’d have thought that such an enormous disaster would befall them so soon after they arrived at Yin-Yang Divine Mountain?

Now, only the seven of them remained trapped here. The forces of the Mysterious Netherworld Divine Court had already captured all of the others alive!

They could already predict that, if they didn’t break out of this encirclement and cut a path to life, all of them would fall here.

“Had I known it would be like this, I would have heeded Fellow Daoist Su’s warning…” Lu Changming muttered bitterly.

“Brother Lu, what do you mean by that?” Yun Songzi asked.

Everyone else looked over as well.

Lu Changming’s expression shifted erratically, but in the end, he sighed. “I won’t lie to you, everyone. Yesterday night, in Snowy Skies City, Fellow Daoist Su warned me that the recent developments in the Dark Capital were a trap, and he urged me not to get involved.”

Lu Changming paused, then continued, “I thought that our combined power would be enough to overcome any danger we encountered, so I didn’t take his warning to heart. Who’d have thought that…”

His voice trailed off here, but the others already understood, and their expressions grew even darker.

“Fellow Daoist Lu, why didn’t you say something earlier!!?” someone sputtered indignantly.

“Had I said something, would you have stayed out of the City of the Wrongfully Dead?” Lu Changming asked right back.

Everyone fell silent, and all of them felt conflicted.

It was then that an aged voice suddenly rang out from afar. “Fellow Daoists, if you’re willing to surrender and come quietly, I can swear on my life that I’ll leave you a path to survival!”

As this voice rang out, an elderly monk in black appeared in the distant skies.

He smiled warmly and benevolently at the group. “But if you remain stubborn, I’m afraid you won’t be able to escape even if you grow wings!”