Chapter 263. The Northern Death Guardian (1)

The Martial Alliance was divided into three armies.

The Left Army and the Right Army both numbered two thousand, while the Main Force in the center numbered three thousand.

If everything had gone as planned, the divided forces should have fought separately. However, the Demon Cult disregarded all logic and launched a direct assault with their entire ten-thousand-strong force.

To make matters worse, they attacked the Main Force at the center.

The Left and Right Armies could be seen returning to the Main Force in confusion.

“Hahaha.”

Behind the ten thousand cultists stood a man on a hill, looking down at the scene with arrogant laughter.

His cloudy gray hair, which had grown out haphazardly, barely covered his neck. He had a sinister smile on his lips.

His face held the dignity and majesty of royalty, yet the whites of his eyes were dark, and his pupils glowed red.

Whether one looked at him up close or from a distance, he hardly seemed human.

“It’s really happening just as you predicted, Blessed Existence.”

The handsome man chuckled as if amused and turned his head to the side.

“Hmph. Of course it is.”

Blessed Existence snorted, looking down at the battlefield.

"There's no one easier to predict than those ridiculous folks with outdated ways of thinking. They're probably still thinking, ‘But they’re supposed to be lunatics who can't strategize.’”

"Oho. So it's because the heroes of the Righteous and Evil Factions have outdated ways of thinking that they suffered at the hands of the Dark Heavens' Brain?"

Throb.

A vein appeared on Blessed Existence’s forehead.

“You’d better watch your mouth, Heavenly Demon.”

The Heavenly Demon!

One of the Seven Empyrean Overlords and the leader of the Demon Cult!

The master and ruler of the Ten Thousand Great Mountains!

“Hahaha, don’t be like that. I may be teasing you, but that doesn’t mean I look down on you."

Heavenly Demon let out a deep laugh and looked ahead.

As if a god was looking down on mere mortals, he looked down at the fierce battle between the Martial Alliance and the Demon Cult.

"Strategy is just another form of power. It's really quite unfortunate that I don't have it. Since the power of the Demon Cult is limited by demonic arts, no matter how much we try to strategize, nothing good ever comes out of it." The Heavenly Demon muttered.

Ultimately, the power that the Demon Cult emphasized so much was pure violence, and the means to easily obtain such power was demonic arts.

That was why they couldn't comprehend things such as strategy. Even if others cursed them as brainless idiots, they couldn't really deny it.

"We would have to reach the Extreme or Unfettered Demon Stages to even begin to control our rationality, but at that point, the question is if something like that is really necessary... really a troublesome endeavor, troublesome indeed," the Heavenly Demon muttered regretfully.

“Anyway, you’ve worked hard, Blessed Existence. Thanks to you, We were able to quickly and safely enter the Central Plains.”

Invading the Central Plains was always a headache. The Demon Cult's command system varied depending on the Cult Leader's capabilities.

If a Cult Leader showed overwhelming authority, the cultists would follow without much thought.

Normal people didn't understand this. They questioned how such a thing was possible only through personal strength.

However, the Demon Cult itself applied such a rule. They couldn’t understand why outsiders thought it was impossible.

In any case, there weren't many cases of absolute authority among the Heavenly Demons throughout history.

Unfortunately, the Heavenly Demon of this era didn't have such power, either.[1]

Because of this, problems often arose.

There would be fights between the cultists because they couldn't control their demonic nature, or they would sneak away from the army to rape and pillage because they couldn't control their sexual desires, or they might even cause all sorts of accidents because they couldn't control their emotions.

By the time the Demon Cult's forces reached the Central Plains, their followers had decreased, and problems inevitably arose due to poor management of supplies and weapons.

Someone had to know how to manage these things thoroughly, but no one could do so.

Even if they hired scholars, they would quickly be slaughtered, tortured, or raped by the cultists. They were truly a hopeless group.

Still, since the only doctrine they followed was the law of power, it wasn't strange for something like this to happen.

However, this time, thanks to Blessed Existence mobilizing the Seven Stars Division soldiers to help in different ways, they were able to arrive without any issues.

“You really are incomprehensible beasts.”

If anyone had heard this, they would have been shocked and would call Blessed Existence was crazy.

Who was Heavenly Demon?

He was the ruler of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, the leader of the Demonic Path, and a monster more vicious and evil than anyone else.

Calling someone like him a beast was no different from begging to be slaughtered.

"That's something that I, no, we, should be saying."

Yet, instead of getting angry, the Heavenly Demon only chuckled darkly.

"The

mu

in

murim

is essentially power anyway.[2] In a society where power proves itself, what’s strange about placing value on power?”

Still laughing, Heavenly Demon jumped off the cliff.

"After all, I am here because I, too, surrendered to power."

***

Using the Shadow Scattering Art at full force, the Domination God Monarch, no, Zhou Xuchuan, ran as hard as he could from Hubei.

Since Little Ghost wouldn't be able to keep up with him, he promised to meet up with her later and ran forward alone.

Defeated in the first clash...

He heard the news about the Great War of Good and Demonic through the Phantoms, the Failed Phantoms, the Gold Will Merchants, and the Xia Wu Sect.

Thanks to his intelligence network, information moved extremely quickly. It was only natural, considering he was using not one, but four intelligence groups.

While the journey from Hubei to Qinghai wasn’t halfway around the world, it was still a considerable distance—far too long to cover in just a day or two.

Even though he was an Absolute Master who had surpassed human limitations, not being a god, he still had physical limitations.

To get to Qinghai, he had to go through Hubei, then Shaanxi, and then Gansu. It was extremely far.

Even with his lightness technique pushed to its extreme and cutting out breaks, it still took time.

The future is uncertain.

He didn't know how the Great War of Good and Demonic would end.

It wasn't that there hadn't been a Great War of Good and Demonic in his previous lifetime.

It was just that at that time, the scale of it wasn't as large as the war now because the Demonic Path War had weakened the Demon Cult first.

Did the Heavenly Demon get involved?

A handsome man, seemingly in his late twenties, came to mind. It had been so long ago that he couldn't remember the man's face clearly.

However, as expected from the Demon Cult Leader, his cultivation was truly terrifying.

The number of Righteous Faction masters who had lost their lives at his hands was countless.

I'm worried about Mount Hua.

He desperately hoped they wouldn’t let revenge blind them into making reckless moves. He had to prevent the worst from happening.

“Wait for me a little longer...!”

As Zhou Xuchuan floated in mid-air, just about to land, he sensed something.

Twisting his body mid-air, he turned sharply.

Woosh!

Daggers shot in from both sides, narrowly grazing his waist as they passed. He could faintly smell poison in the air.

Assassins?

Hidden weapons flew in not from the front but from his sides.

Zhou Xuchuan stopped and looked around, wondering what was going on.

"You really are doing all sorts of things to stand in my way," Zhou Xuchuan muttered in irritation.

"I, the Great Hero, am a bit busy. Moreover, I'm not in a good mood. I'll let you go if you leave right now."

“Domination God Monarch. How arrogant.”

Swish.

Men clad in black appeared.

One or two might not have been a concern, but there were far more. Even at a glance, there were at least thirty of them.

"Ha..."

Zhou Xuchuan sighed. His journey was already long, and now this?

While members of the Evil Valley pursued him, he was relieved that he’d managed to shake them off after running as hard as he could.

So, just when did they get on his trail again? He was starting to get annoyed.

"Did you start practicing your lightness techniques from birth? Just how did you catch up to me?"

“No matter how fast you are, you're still just a person. How can you be faster than a bird?”

“...I see”

He understood it now.

If the pursuer gave up halfway through the chase and made sure to roughly estimate the direction he was heading to, all they had to do was send a homing pigeon in advance.

Since people would then be stationed at points along the expected path, all they had to do was wait and check the target's position to determine where the target was going.

They simply had to call an assassin from another region to lie in wait. It seemed they had used their brains.

Normally, I would pass through areas with few people, making it difficult to track me, but I must’ve been careless because I was in such a hurry.

It was his fault.

𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

“Did the Melody Gate send you?”

They called him the Domination God Monarch, not Zhou Xuchuan. While he didn't know about the latter, there weren't many people who hated him enough to commission an assassin force.

"No..."

While he thought it would have been the Melody Gate, upon thinking about it carefully, it couldn't be. Considering the target was one of the Seven Empyrean Overlords, that was too dangerous for a force like theirs.

"Dark Heavens Association?”

“...!”

The black-clad men, the Seven Stars Division soldiers, trembled slightly. Although it was only for a moment, Zhou Xuchuan didn't miss their reaction.

"Who the hell are you?"

“Pure Faith, Shao Leijin.”

“Capture him!”

An absurd order was given.

Capturing one of the Seven Empyrean Overlords. It wasn’t possible.

When he sensed the hesitation of his fellow assassins, their leader changed his orders.

"Just kill him!"

"We've received your orders!"

If they rushed in with the intention of keeping him alive instead of killing him, they had no chance of succeeding. Since it would be dangerous anyway, he changed his order out of desperation.

Thirty assassins surrounded Zhou Xuchuan, their masks hiding all their features except for their eyes.

"Ha!"

Zhou Xuchuan took a deep breath and sucked it deep into his lungs. He drew out his profound qi from his lower abdomen.

There was a reason why masters of sound arts were more likely to be qi masters than ordinary martial artists. Sound arts required a considerable amount of qi.

"RAH!!!"

Dragon Roar!

Having reached the Fifth Stage, it was incredibly loud. It was a sound that couldn't be made with normal human vocal cords.

The dragon’s roar engulfed the enemies that surrounded him.

“...!”

Some of the Seven Stars Division soldiers looked slightly flustered as if they had never expected the Domination God Monarch to know how to use the unorthodox sound arts.

However, that was only for a moment. Befitting their reputation as members of the Dark Heavens Association, they quickly regained their composure.

Ten of the thirty had been frozen, but the remaining twenty quickly recovered from the shock and charged forward.

"Good."

Shing!

Longyuan slipped out smoothly. The sword blade flashed in the sunlight. It truly was an iron beauty.

Zhou Xuchuan moved almost nonchalantly in that short time. He bent his thumb and middle finger and flicked the sword's blade.

Clang!

The finger flick was extremely powerful, and the sword's body rippled like waves.

Flicking Sword Tune.

The waves emitted from the sword's vibrations split into dozens and overlapped, spreading out in all directions and dancing over the black-clad men.

"Ugh!"

"Agh!"

Six of the Seven Stars Division soldiers who had leaped forward fell to the ground, blood pouring from their mouths..

The remaining four didn't look so good, either. Their qi reserves grew low, and blood dripped from the corners of their mouths.

Still, it was commendable how they still held on by leveraging their mental strength and never stopped trying to attack.

“Die!”

A Seven Stars Division soldier, blood dripping from his mouth, lunged at Zhou Xuchuan with a medium-length sword aimed at his neck. Zhou Xuchuan calmly tilted his head to the side, dodging the blade, and extended his fingers.

Ting!

A flash of purple light shot from his fingertips, piercing the soldier’s forehead. The assassin fell lifelessly to the ground.

"Right now..."

The three Seven Stars Division soldiers who were approaching were shocked.

They seemed to know what that violet haze meant.

“You have good eyes," Zhou Xuchuan muttered softly.

"I'll let you die easily."

His sword flashed like lightning. Although he clearly drew it later than they had attacked, somehow, his move seemed faster than theirs.

Their swords, aimed at his shoulders and chest, were deflected effortlessly, the force of his blade reverberating through their wrists.

The complexions Seven Stars Division soldiers, who were already injured, paled as they fell backward, hitting the back of their heads on the ground.

“Kill!” the leader of the Seven Stars Division soldiers shouted desperately.

In an instant, ten of them had died. As expected of one of the Seven Empyrean Overlords.

Since he knew Zhou Xuchuan was dangerous, they had to deal with the swordsman quickly.

Ten swords were aimed at him, standing in the center, ready to strike.

He won't be able to block it!

He must be exhausted from using his lightness technique for so long!

They weren't just attacking without thinking. According to their reports, Zhou Xuchuan had used his lightness technique without stopping from the Evil Valley headquarters.

Even if he was an Absolute Master, he must not have much stamina after running nonstop for several days, and he must have also exhausted a comparable amount of qi.

However, their misjudgment led to tragedy.

“You dare!”

Zhou Xuchuan stomped his feet in irritation.

Boom!

He didn't smash the ground using Thousand Catty Ballast. Instead, he unleashed a barrier of aura from under his feet to block all directions.

Clang, clang, clang, clang!

Though they were all aiming for a single point, not even ten strikes of sword qi would be strong enough to penetrate the defensive qi barrier of a Harmony Realm Master, let alone a master of the Coruscant Realm.

The tips of their swords bent from the impact and shattered like children's toys.

"Ten."

It was a death sentence.

Zhou Xuchuan spun on his heel, his sword tracing an elegant circle in the air.

Squelch!

The ten Seven Stars Division soldiers didn’t even have time to scream as their bodies were cleaved in two, blood spraying across the ground.

1. To clarify, you would need to be able to defeat the entire Demon Cult on your own to have such power. ☜

2. Mu or 武 can mean many things, ranging from martial to war. ☜