Chapter 396. To Improve and Rectify One’s Wrongs (1)

"I... won't deny it," said Nangong Shanxu in a barely squeezed-out voice. "Guan Huqing, it is as you say. The

murim

is rotten. In this society, no one will listen to you if you lack strength and if your attainment in cultivation is poor. And some of us will look away while justifying it with some pleasant-sounding words, like how it cannot be helped."

Guan Huqing cried out, "You get it! Then, why?!"

"Even though that's all true, it does not justify your actions!" Nangong Shanxu tightened his grip on the sword. "Resorting to violence just because others don't want to listen to you? That makes you no different from those you've been criticizing!

"You're basically saying you'd use martial arts to beat up everyone since you didn't get what you wanted. Isn't that... How little kids act?"

"Little kids?" Guan Huqing's expression distorted like a hideous demon. "Did you just call me a little kid?!"

CLAAANG!

He took one step forward while slapping Nangong Shanxu's sword away. He continued on with fierce momentum and rained down sharp sword strikes on Nangong Shanxu.

CLANG! Clang, clang, clang!

"I'm trying to fix this broken world! A world where people with poor backgrounds are routinely ignored! A world where the weak have no voice! So why do you say I'm in the wrong?!"

Their swords clashed again and again. The deflected blades swiftly returned to their original spots to block the next flurry of attacks.

Nangong Shanxu cried out, "You already know your method is wrong!"

"No! There is no other way!"

Grit!

"Did you have to go this far? By joining hands with the monstrous villainous organization?!"

Nangong Shanxu's roar grew louder and louder.

"The Dark Heavens Association is not a group of men who wish to reform the

murim

!"

Guan Huqing bit down on his lip while listening to Nangong Shanxu.

"Indeed, they are villains who use their forked tongues to entice others and turn the righteous ideals and beliefs into convenient tools! In the end, they are after power! They will use violence to trample on the innocents to get what they want!"

***

Liu Shao screamed, shouted, and yelled loudly enough to almost rupture his vocal cords, yet his commands couldn't reach their intended targets. The Dark Heavens Association army's chain of command had completely broken down, after all.

Flanks were one thing, but the real trouble was in the central portion of the alliance forces. Liu Shao simply had no allies strong enough to deal with one of the Six Empyrean Overlords, the Domination God Monarch. All he could do was watch the scores after scores of the Seven Stars Division warriors get swept aside like fallen leaves.

"Domination God Monarch! It's still not too late!" Liu Shao urgently cried out toward the Domination God Monarch. "Join the Dark Heavens!"

The Present Darkness desperately racked his brain. He searched for an opportunity, just one chance, to turn this situation around.

"Our master is a gracious, generous person! Even though you have interfered with our grand plan, our master will definitely forgive a top expert such as yourself!"

While dashing forward with his posture kept low, Zhou Xuchuan moved his right arm behind to extract three arrows from the quiver, each arrow gripped between his fingers. He caught sight of five First Class realm Seven Stars Division warriors ahead of him.

With that, he nocked all three arrows simultaneously. His left arm, now extended forward, rotated diagonally. As for the three arrows that had become one with the bowstring, they were pulled back. His firm yet supple biceps and triceps hidden under his clothes bulged and contracted. His qi swiftly traveled in his meridians and reached the arrows.

Pah-ba-bat!

All three arrows left the bowstring simultaneously. The storm winds couldn't affect their projectiles' trajectories. As expected of a technique belonging to the god of archery! The Eclipse Divine Archery Art remained scarily accurate every single shot.

Squelch!

"

Euhk?!

"

"

Keh

-

heck!

"

Out of the five enemy warriors, three collapsed with arrows sticking out of their heads, throats, and hearts. They would never stand up again.

None of them could hear the sounds of the arrows in flight. They were soundless terrors, the impending death itself! However, despite three of their peers falling before their eyes, the Seven Stars Division warriors protecting Liu Shao didn't react. They paid no heed and only glared at Zhou Xuchuan.

Their reactions made perfect sense. Their enemy was an absolute expert considered one of the Empyrean Overlords, after all. Getting distracted was not an option here. The Seven Stars Division warrior nearest Zhou Xuchuan thrust his sword forward.

Whoosh!

The noise of the blade piercing the air sounded chilling. Any average martial artist would be genuinely impressed by how clean and swift that thrust was. However, it was as if time itself had slowed to a crawl in Zhou Xuchuan's eyes.

Actually, he didn't even need to see the strike unfold. Just a brief glimpse of the enemy initiating the attack was enough for him to guess the style of the strike and its trajectory, after all.

His gaze remained fixed to his front, his irises not deviating once. Instead, he spun his body halfway to easily dodge the thrust.

The enemy's blade brushed past Zhou Xuchuan's sleeve. Although it looked like a near-miss, it was well within his calculation. That wasn't all, either; in the midst of dodging, he even expertly pulled out the last remaining arrow from the quiver and nocked it on the bow.

"...!"

The Seven Stars Division warrior panicked when his strike, which was aimed at the fatal spot, grandly missed its intended target. He urgently tried to turn around but couldn't. Zhou Xuchuan hadn't brushed past the panicking warrior, after all.

No, he simply pushed his back against this warrior while firing the arrow.

Pang!

The arrow shot forward while rotating in the air, its fletching flapping like wings. The arrowhead also rotated during flight but remained true to its trajectory, regardless of all the winds and rain slamming into it.

The projectile drew a straight line with nary a single deviation until finally reaching the lower torso of its intended victim.

Staaab!

With the arrowhead as the center, the victim's clothes twisted and crumpled. Even the victim's well-trained stomach muscles tumbled and roiled as if they were getting sucked in before collapsing and turning into a large hole.

The victim's skin vaporized before his flesh and powerful muscles were torn apart. The hole revealed his internal organs, and blood gushed out of the wound.

"

Kuh-huhk?!

"

The Seven Stars Division warrior's eyes opened wide in shock and disbelief. He slowly toppled over while clutching at the arrow sticking out of his gut. And then, the slowed-down time in Zhou Xuchuan's perspective returned to normal speed.

"You want me to join the Dark Heavens?" Zhou Xuchuan asked rhetorically while using his now arrow-free right hand to grab the arm of the Seven Stars Division warrior behind him.

Cruuunch!

"

Wuuuuhhaaaahk

?!"

WHOOSH!

Zhou Xuchuan's grip strength alone was enough to crush the warrior's bones, but the latter didn't get the chance to suffer in agony, as he was swiftly blasted into the skies and spun around like a toy.

The figure of the warrior helplessly flew right past Liu Shao and slammed into the river behind him.

Boom!

A huge splash of water erupted.

Gulp!

Someone among the Seven Stars Division noisily gulped a mouthful of their saliva. Drops of water that could be either rain or sweat tumbled down their foreheads. The explosion couldn't have come from a person being thrown around. No, the scale of the explosion or the impact seemed to say that it was coming from a huge boulder fired by a catapult!

"That's right! If an absolute expert on your level joins us, our gracious master will personally grant you any wish you have!"

Liu Shao shouted while thinking that this could be his chance.

"Whether it's the supreme divine cultivation manual, a beautiful maiden capable of bewitching a nation, or untold riches! It doesn't matter what, we will give it to you!"

Liu Shao extended his hand toward the Domination God Monarch.

"Or, if you desire to transform this society called

the murim

, let us do so! Together! We, the Dark Heavens Association, are where your wants and needs will come true!"

"

Hahaha...

" Zhou Xuchuan laughed in dismay. "It sounds like you're mistaken about something."

Then, his laughter disappeared.

"I didn't become your enemy in the hope of acquiring something."

He tossed aside the empty quiver. After slinging the bow on his back, he began walking toward Liu Shao as if it was time to prove why he deserved the title of the Domination God Monarch. Bone-chilling aura reminiscent of a snowstorm leaked out of his glaring eyes.

"I simply detest the Dark Heavens."

When those words left his lips, the world suddenly changed in his view. All colors drained out of the world, turning everything either black or white. Memories of the past overlaid on top of today's spectacle.

The

murim

was taken advantage of by a shadowy group called the Dark Heavens Association during the Seven Swords War... No, even before that. Completely unaware of their manipulation, this land danced on the palm of that dastardly organization.

The Dark Heavens poured fuel into people's greed and made them kill each other and hate one another, all the while transforming ideals meant to do good into tools of war. People died yesterday, and more people died today; people would die tomorrow as well.

Zhou Xuchuan used to remember a certain sight every now and then. The memories of corpses piling up like mountains, while blood flowed like rivers! Everyone was on the ground, unmoving.

"Why?!" Liu Shao asked, his teeth gnashing. He simply couldn't understand it.

Within the Six Empyrean Overlords... No, even within the entirety of the

murim,

the Domination God Monarch was a complete mystery. Never mind his clan or sect, no one knew his name or his true age. Even his relationships and family history seemed non-existent.

He had only surfaced a handful of times in the

murim,

but whenever he appeared, his name would reverberate across the lands.

At this point, he was easily one of the Dark Heavens Association's worst enemies, someone who had ruined the organization's grand plan as much as Zhou Xuchuan!

"Why! Why go this far?!"

It made sense why Liu Shao couldn't understand this situation. A man with no relation to the organization just showed up out of nowhere to disrupt its plans, after all. The Dark Heavens had not murdered his family or friends, so what could explain that man's hatred? No matter how much Liu Shao tried, he just couldn't figure it out.

"You want to know why?"

Zhou Xuchuan gritted his teeth and began sprinting again. He ran straight and true as mud splashed all around him. Color returned to the black-and-white world.

The land where no one was left standing changed in his view. Corpses still littered the ground, but many people were now standing tall. The Righteous and Evil Faction warriors roared, screeched, unleashed their murderous intent, and desperately fought their enemies.

"S-stop him!" Liu Shao's urgent cry prompted six escorts to step forward. They quickly entered into a six-man formation before pouncing on Zhou Xuchuan.

As if to prove they all belonged to the Warped Valor Star, their martial realms were nothing to scoff at. They were, in fact, at the Transcendent Realm, not Peak. With six of them working together like this, even an expert at the Harmony Realm would face serious trouble.

"You want to know why?!"

Zhou Xuchuan cried out again while closing in on the enemies.

Whoooosh!

The escort at the front chopped his blade down with enough momentum to split mountains in one strike. Zhou Xuchuan, who had been charging toward the enemy's heart, twisted to the right to dodge the attack.

Whooooosh!

He cocked his left arm, focused strength into his midriff and clenched a tight fist before throwing a powerful uppercut.

WHAM!

The resulting noise sounded as weighty as the decision deciding one's fate. That punch slammed into the escort's chin from below.

BOOOOM!

The escort couldn't even scream. The terrifying power of the fist technique, already famed for its strength and ferocity, performed by a Coruscant Expert ensured that no scream could come out of the opponent.

As soon as Zhou Xuchuan's fist made contact with the escort's chin, the escort's head exploded. The man died without knowing how.

Meanwhile, the next closest escort exploited the opening to attack.

Fwhoooosh!

A cry of a sword Zhou Xuchuan had heard far too many times registered in his ears. The air was splitting, but not from an enemy's attack. As if he had been relying on one martial art all along, his movement smoothly led to grabbing and swinging his sword.

South Sea Single Blade Flow!

The sword flew like the wind to slice through the space itself. The upper torsos of four powerful experts at the Transcendent realm separated from their lower halves.

The final remaining escort's expression was dyed in despair. However, he ought to be commended for not backing down.

"But, how...!"

However, his desperate determination didn't last long before morphing into flabbergast.

Whoosh

!

It was all because the man called "Domination God Monarch" had suddenly thrown his sword! Even if he were a warrior following the Evil Path, to think one of the Empyrean Overlords would actually use his sword as a throwing weapon!

The panicking final escort was skewered in the chest by the sword flying in at him like an arrow.

N-no! This can't be!

Liu Shao hurriedly turned around to leave. His mind was already filled with the desire to abandon this battlefield. However, the Domination God Monarch flew toward him at breakneck speed.

Zhou Xuchuan snatched up Liu Shao from behind.

"

Kuh-huuuhk!

"

Liu Shao coughed and gasped for air upon being grabbed by the collar.

"Look at me!"

The roar of the Dark Heavens Association's sworn enemy raucously rocked the surroundings. Liu Shao couldn't even open his eyes properly from all the terror filling his heart.

"I said, look at me, you who came from the Blessed Existence Star!"

Zhou Xuchuan roared. "All for the sake of your goals, you drove wedges between allies, violated others, slaughtered innocents, and made fools of good people, yet you dare ask me why I'm doing this?!"

It was supposed to be obvious. Yes, the reason for his hatred was supposed to be exceedingly obvious!

Whether it was in his past life or this one, the story was the same. For the sake of their conquest, the Dark Heavens Association had trampled and murdered people.

Zhou Xuchuan simply believed that their actions were wrong.

He believed that he had to stop them because...

"Because it's wrong."