Chapter 559 - I’m Willing - Part 2

High above, the Human Emperor stood watching it all, a faint smile playing on his lips.

But then, a sudden, sharp pain stabbed through his head.

He raised a hand to his brow and steadied himself, breathing through it. After several heartbeats, the pain passed.

He turned his gaze downward toward the earth, where a thick, oppressive aura seemed to brood beneath the surface. Something hidden. Something ancient.

His eyes flickered with an unreadable hesitation.

Then he shook his head, turned away, and began walking toward the sky prison.

The prison currently held many detainees.

These were not ordinary criminals, but

resurrected remnants

of the Xia Dynasty.

Ever since Imperial Tutor Gao had abruptly revealed himself to be none other than the last emperor of the ancient Xia Dynasty, the Emperor had kept a close eye on such matters.

And the deeper he investigated, the clearer it became. The recent merging of Yin and Yang had not happened on its own. These Xia revivalists had been quietly stoking the fire behind the scenes.

Through ruthless interrogation, the Emperor had uncovered much about the long-buried dynasty.

The Xia Dynasty had begun 30,000 years ago.

Their rituals revolved on sacrifices. Human sacrifices, to be precise.

And the Archon Star back then, whatever ancient entity it was, had a unique power to

store

souls.

That’s how Xia She’s soul had survived all these millennia. The Archon Star preserved it, and when that soul found its way into Imperial Tutor Gao’s body, the man became Xia She, gaining his powers and memories. Perhaps not in full, but close enough.

And Xia She was not the only one.

At the height of its power, the Xia Dynasty had three cultivators who bore the title of

Sovereign

, the Celestial Sovereign, Terrestrial Sovereign, and Human Sovereign.

And now, the so-called Human Sovereign of the Xia Dynasty was sitting right here, imprisoned in the

Human Emperor’s

own sky prison.

Of course, the guards had stripped him of the lofty title.

They called him the

False Sovereign

.

Even at the height of their power, the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Human Sovereigns were no match for Ji Hu.

In front of Ji Hu, at best, they were merely

lesser

monarchs.

Clank!

A harsh metallic clatter echoed from the iron chains at the gate of the sky prison.

The door swung open.

The Human Emperor stepped inside, casting a calm gaze over the prisoners, remnants of the Xia Dynasty, each undergoing interrogation.

Some were ordinary folk, and for them, the punishment was simple flogging.

But as for one such as the False Sovereign, only his severed head remained, suspended in a vat of alchemical toxin.

The fluid was a volatile cocktail of high-ranking, high-potency poisons, carefully brewed to force his body into constant resistance. It kept him alive, but paralyzed, unable to regenerate or escape.

The Human Emperor walked up to the crystal tank where the False Sovereign was imprisoned and lifted the heavy black cloth draped over it.

Inside, the head slowly opened its eyes. Calm. Even surrounded by venom, sealed in that glass tomb, he looked serene. Impossibly, he even smiled.

The Emperor unlatched the lock on the tank and reached in with one hand, pulling the head out.

The moment it left the fluid, flesh began sprouting rapidly from the severed neck, bones extending, skin knitting. In mere moments, the man had fully regrown.

The Emperor tossed him a robe.

The False Sovereign caught it and, instead of lashing out or panicking, gave a soft chuckle.

“Lately I’ve been reflecting,” he said, slipping into the robe.“And I have to say... After all these tens of thousands of years, I’m amazed someone like

you

still managed to emerge.”

Following orders, an attendant brought in a fresh pot of tea, along with two plates of candied fruits and three of sliced fruit.

The Emperor and the False Sovereign sat across from one another, sipping tea like old friends, conversing as if they hadn’t just come from torture chambers and blood-soaked interrogation rooms.

By now, savagery and intimidation were meaningless between them. One glance, one word, and they understood each other completely.

So why not sit, speak plainly, and have a real conversation?

The False Sovereign clearly didn’t fear death. After all, he’d already died once. Everyone in the sky prison’s inner circle knew the truth. These people didn’t truly die. They

returned

.

So, the harshest torture wasn’t aimed at him. It was for those who still feared pain, who would break under a whip or the sight of blood.

But the False Sovereign? You could shatter him to dust and he wouldn’t flinch, wouldn’t scream. That kind of unshakable pride, that was the hallmark of the prodigies from his era.

As he slowly sipped his tea, he said, “There’s no one in the world now who could surpass you. Your strength is likely the only one in the last 30,000 years to reach the second rank.

“As for what level within second rank you stand,” he added, “I can’t quite judge. But it must be...formidable.”

The Human Emperor replied, “Tell me about your master.”

“Why would I?” The False Sovereign smiled.

“Because you’re out of time.” The Emperor’s voice was quiet.

“You misunderstand,” the False Sovereign said, amused.

The Emperor replied, “At my level, the veil is beginning to lift. I can sense the tides of fate shifting. There’s only one chance left. When you die again, you may not wake a second time.”

The False Sovereign narrowed his eyes. “Why is it the last chance?”

“You can choose to believe me, or not. But I don’t keep useless people around,” the Emperor said. “If you’re willing to talk, I’ll take you out of this place. I’ll grant you a degree of freedom. But if you stay silent, if you close your eyes today...you may never open them again.”

The False Sovereign fell silent.

After a long pause, he finally spoke. “Northern Dipper... My master is the Northern Dipper Archon Star. Though now...it has become an Outerborn.”

The Human Emperor asked, “The Ghost Lake is the Northern Dipper?”

The False Sovereign hesitated, then replied, “Yes and no. More precisely, the Ghost Lake is the gate through which the Northern Dipper returns from its slumber. It is a part of Northern Dipper, and yet...it is also the

only

part of the Northern Dipper that can manifest here in the ancestral lands. It’s not unlike your Dragon Vein.”

The Human Emperor asked, “And in your eyes, what

is

the Dragon Vein?”

The False Sovereign looked at him, a shadowed smile playing on his lips. “It is the gate through which your own Archon Star returns. A part of the star. And also—”

The Emperor raised a hand, cutting him off mid-sentence.

Without warning, he casually yanked off the False Sovereign’s head and lowered it back into the crystal tank filled with venomous solution. He watched calmly as the man’s features froze, submerged once again in the swirling toxins.

“You’re still not being honest,” the Emperor said quietly. “I’ll come back in a few days.”

He pulled the black cloth back over the tank and turned to leave without another word.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Deep winter, near the end of the year.

At Moon River Beach in Stellar Sea Province, numerous fifth and even fourth rank martial artists were lying in wait, hiding their presence.

Starlight scattered across the sea, reflected in the shifting ocean currents. Waves lapped rhythmically against the shallows, their echo ringing out across the night in a strangely ethereal cadence.

At midnight, a thick mist began to rise from the surface of the sea.

Then, without warning, something vast broke through the empty sky above, the sharp prow of a massive ship appeared from the clouds.

An instant later, the entire vessel emerged, hovering fully in view. The airship was colossal, otherworldly in its design, its carvings impossibly intricate, as though it didn’t belong to the human realm at all. It was breathtaking and terrifying.

At the front of the ship stood a woman in golden robes, hands clasped behind her back. Her eyes were piercing, and her presence as sharp and dangerous as a divine blade. An aura of unstoppable force radiated from her, impossible to hide.

To those from the Central Plains’ metal element sect, the Mystic Gold Monastery, that aura was unmistakable. No, to be precise, what this woman wielded wasn’t just mystic gold power. It was something beyond. Something greater.

With her appearance, many of the cultivators who had still harbored doubts finally exhaled in relief.

This...this looked like someone from a true transcendent faction.

One of the exiled elders from the old Mystic Gold Monastery, afraid this rare opportunity might slip away, stepped out quickly. He clasped his hands and bowed deeply.

“Elder Jin Mu of the Mystic Gold Monastery greets the senior.”

The golden-robed woman gave him a strange look like she was trying to see through him entirely.

Elder Jin Mu felt a chill crawl down his spine under that gaze, though he couldn’t understand why.

Fortunately, the woman only glanced at him, then lowered her eyes and returned the bow.

“Board the ship,” she said.

Jin Mu was stunned, pleasantly so. He hadn’t expected to be acknowledged at all, much less invited aboard. Without asking further, he flew up and landed on the deck.

Soon after, someone else stepped out, not from the Mystic Gold Monastery, but from one of the water element sects, a white-robed woman from the Moon Reflection Tower.

She stepped forward and called out, “Junior Bai Moruo of the Moon Reflection Tower. Senior, may I ask...does the Immortal Domain include any transcendent factions associated with our tower?”

The golden-robed woman replied without hesitation, “It does. Board the ship.”

The cultivator from Moon Reflection Tower, Bai Moruo, bowed once more and asked respectfully, “May I ask, Senior, why you are willing to take us in? And once we are taken to the Immortal Domain, what awaits us there?”

Her question gave voice to the doubts and suspicions on everyone’s minds.

The golden-robed woman replied plainly, “Once you enter the Immortal Domain, you’ll normally be assigned to a corresponding sect, then sent to a spirit town for cultivation.”

She paused for a moment, as if weighing her words, before continuing, “As for

why

we’re accepting people? First, it’s to honor the terms set by a certain senior. And second...the Immortal Domain is expanding. We need new disciples.”

The terms of a senior?

Bai Moruo blinked, puzzled. “Might I ask, who is this senior? And what terms did he set?”

The golden-robed woman glanced around. She could tell there were still plenty of people hiding among the trees.

“The senior’s surname is Xia,” she said. “As for the rest...it’s not for me to say. His only condition was that we take in his

friends

. And anyone who’s here now, willing to board this ship, must be his friend.”

“...” Bai Moruo fell silent.

Everyone still hiding in the trees were stunned too.

At that moment, a man in red flew out from the woods and landed with a cupped-fist salute.

“Then, Senior, what if someone

isn’t

that Xia senior’s friend?” he asked. “What happens then?”

The golden-robed woman replied coolly, “Then don’t get on the ship.”

The man clenched his jaw. “And what if someone boards...but is later discovered not to be?”

The woman in golden robes. Her name was Dugu Xuanjin, the true power behind the Mystic Gold Monastery, an elder of the Arcane Supreme Sect, who once every five hundred years returned to reap a generation of

disciples.

Truthfully, before the airship even arrived, Dugu Xuanjin already knew the full story. She knew the terrifying power of the senior in question, and she knew his intent.

The mysterious envoy of the Outerborn had made it clear. The senior’s surname was

Xia,

which aligned perfectly with what the hall masters had long suspected.

He was a god from tens of thousands of years ago, a god recently awakened from slumber. And it was very likely he came from the imperial bloodline of the Great Xia.

After all, most of those entombed in the Deathless Tomb were the elite of the Great Xia’s royalty.

In later dynasties, especially during the Shang era, such beings became exceedingly rare. And even those few ended up joining the Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain, only to perish in that great upheaval.

As for the cause of the upheaval, it wasn’t complicated.

Some of the old ones had the foolish idea of returning to the Deathless Tomb.

That sort of delusion was suicide.

Everyone knew: resources were finite. That was why the ancestors of the Deathless Tomb had created the Immortal Domain in the first place, through the great ritual of severing Yin and Yang.

But now that the fruit had ripened, there was no need to wake the trees.

After all, there were only so many fruits. The more mouths at the table, the less each person got.

Still, everyone in the Immortal Domain understood one thing clearly.

Eventually, some in the Deathless Tomb

would

wake up. And those who did would see the Immortal Domain as traitors.

Now, such a one had indeed awakened. But no one believed he would obediently board the ship like the rest.

Neither the Arcane Supreme Sect nor the Five Spirits Institute had any illusions about that.

But it seemed this awakened one possessed a strange and extraordinary skill, which was Mortal World Transformation.

In other words, he could take on any appearance he wanted.

And so, the condition he gave to

take in his friends

made perfect sense.

Because the senior surnamed Xia, that ancient god from ten thousand years ago, was planning to slip into the Eastern Sea’s Immortal Domain unnoticed, disguised as one among many.

He would start from the bottom. As just another ordinary disciple. Hidden in plain sight.

And that was the brilliance of it.

No grand entrance, no divine thunderclaps announcing his return, just a quiet insertion into the ranks of nobodies.

Because once he was inside, who would know?

By then, the gatekeepers would have already opened the door for him with both hands.

Dugu Xuanjin and her fellow Immortal Domain elders were fully aware of this possibility. But none of them dared resist. Not when they knew the kind of being they were dealing with.

Xia

wasn’t just a surname. It was a relic from an era long buried, the bloodline of an empire that predated the rise of the current order. An empire whose dead still slumbered beneath the earth, waiting.

In the Deathless Tomb, where only the most brilliant of the Great Xia were entombed, their gods hadn’t

died.

They were simply

resting

. And now, one of them had stirred.

The people of the Immortal Domain knew full well. The moment the old gods awoke, they would not forgive those who had profited from their slumber.

But what could they do? Refuse him? Impossible. He was already here, already watching, already...among them.

And so, this ritual, this open invitation to

friends of Senior Xia

, was nothing more than a polite mask. A way to let the god walk through the front gate without anyone losing face.

Everyone understood it.

No one would say it out loud.

And yet, one by one, they came forward. The cultivators hidden in the forest slowly emerged, each claiming, truthfully or not, to be a friend of Senior Xia.

Because how could they not be?

In a game where the pieces included ancient gods, slumbering emperors, and the last breaths of dynasties past...what was one little lie, whispered just loud enough to be heard?

In the end, it was safer to call themselves a friend. It was much safer than discovering, too late, that they were on the wrong side of history.