Immortal Martial Emperor

SWISH!

A black ray of light shot toward his heart.

This black light had actually been spat from Li Yuancang's mouth. It was impossibly fast, making it almost impossible to defend against.

The moment the black light struck, Hong Yu felt the aura of death wash over him. A chill ran down his spine, and his back was instantly soaked with cold sweat.

"This is a Treasure I acquired when I received my Ancient Inheritance. It's a Primordial Weapon Fragment made of a special material that even a Sixth-Grade Primordial Weapon would struggle to damage. I refined it into a Hidden Weapon and have kept it hidden in my mouth, waiting for a moment just like this to catch my opponent off guard."

Li Yuancang roared with laughter as if Hong Yu's fate was already sealed. "This is the price for daring to provoke me!"

His face was a mask of smugness and ferocity.

He watched with eager anticipation, imagining the black light piercing Hong Yu's heart in a spray of blood.

Unfortunately for him...

He was destined for disappointment.

At the last possible second, Hong Yu's figure suddenly vanished. He had unleashed Electric Flash.

He swapped his position with Li Yuancang's.

His strength had surged to the Peak of the Primordial Embryo Realm, and with his Spiritual Power now mighty enough to rival a Late-stage Primordial Spirit Realm expert, Hong Yu's Electric Flash had naturally evolved.

It had reached the level of Spatial Transfer!

"Ah? Wh-what's happening?"

Li Yuancang felt an icy sensation in his chest as his life force slowly drained away.

He stared down in a daze at the bloody hole in his chest, his clothes slowly turning red. He raised his hands, trying to clutch the wound.

But thick, hot blood still gushed out from between his fingers.

"N-no, I don't want to die..."

"H-how could this happen..."

"I don't want to die!"

Li Yuancang wailed in agony.

He felt his body grow colder and colder, as if he'd been plunged into an ice pit.

In that moment, for the first time, Li Yuancang felt regret. A single question screamed in his mind: 'Why?'

'Why did I listen to Venerable Xiahuang and Bai Luoxue?'

'Why did I have to provoke a monster like Hong Yu?'

But alas, there was no medicine for regret in this world!

With a final roar of unwillingness and remorse, Li Yuancang's vision went black, and he collapsed to the ground with a THUD.

GASP!

A wave of shocked cries erupted like a clap of thunder.

The crowd of experts, who just moments ago had been confident that Li Yuancang would kill Hong Yu, now had their faces pale with terror.

Staring at Li Yuancang's body on the ground, the muscles in everyone's faces went rigid.

"Th-this is impossible!"

"Li Yuancang was an Unparalleled Genius! How could a mighty Unparalleled Genius just die like that?"

"Heavens, just how strong is this Hong Yu?"

A clamor of discussion rose and fell.

In all the True Dragon Wars of the past, the Unparalleled Geniuses had been lofty, god-like beings.

No matter how brutal the fighting, no matter how dazzling a dark horse appeared, the fall of an Unparalleled Genius was exceedingly rare. In fact, it hadn't happened in the last several True Dragon Wars.

But today...

A mighty Unparalleled Genius had died right before their eyes.

It was a violent shock to their deep-rooted belief that "Unparalleled Genius" meant invincible. It even shattered their faith.

At this moment, they were somewhat dazed. So, an Unparalleled Genius could be defeated. They could die!

"Hong Yu, Hong Yu..."

"This man is destined to stir up a storm of blood in the True Dragon Battlefield!"

"He's only eighteen! Heavens, what kind of Demon Fiend is he...?"

The crowd's gazes toward Hong Yu were filled with a mixture of confusion and awe.

Hong Yu gazed at Li Yuancang's body on the ground, took a deep breath, and had Xingtian use the Devouring Demon Tree to absorb Li Yuancang's soul, turning it into an Execution Corpse Spirit Fruit.

He couldn't help but sigh with some emotion.

'Unparalleled Genius!'

'Not long ago, those two words represented something invincible to me, something I was barely even qualified to face head-on.'

'They were the geniuses at the absolute peak, the true Demon Fiends of this land.'

'But...'

'How much time has passed? And now I already possess the power to stand against an Unparalleled Genius as an equal.'

'I've even killed an Unparalleled Genius with my own hands.'

"So this is all an Unparalleled Genius amounts to!"

Hong Yu took a deep breath as the image of Hai Cangtian appeared in his mind. He vaguely remembered that day at the Cyan Nether Sword Sect, how he had been utterly powerless before Hai Cangtian.

If Xiahuang Shang hadn't appeared at the critical moment, both he and the entire Cyan Nether Sword Sect would have fallen into Hai Cangtian's demonic clutches.

Even Beichen Celestial Frost had been severely wounded, nearly dying, just to protect him.

Hong Yu would never forget the powerlessness and despair of that moment.

It felt like an ant facing a giant elephant—powerless, able only to look up, without a shred of strength to resist.

But now...

"Hai Cangtian, it won't be long now. I will personally twist your head from your shoulders and avenge Tianshuang!" Hong Yu took a deep breath, his eyes erupting with a terrifying light, as if they contained the sun and moon—profound and eternal.

He slowly turned to face the thousand surviving experts who had sided with Venerable Xiahuang.

BZZZT!

All one thousand of them felt as if they had been struck by a bolt of cold lightning.

They all froze in place, not even daring to swallow. Their terrified and fearful gazes couldn't meet Hong Yu's.

"You were all trying to kill me just now, weren't you?" Hong Yu asked faintly.

"Huh? No, absolutely not."

"A misunderstanding! This is all a misunderstanding!"

"Lord Hong, great sir, ancestor! Please, just let us go as if we were a fart in the wind!"

The thousand-plus men pleaded desperately, hoping Hong Yu would spare their lives.

Ordinarily, Hong Yu might not have slaughtered so many people at once.

But this True Dragon War was too important. It determined whether he could go to the Desert North Wilderness, whether his family could be reunited.

So...

"Sorry. You can only blame yourselves for following the wrong person!" Hong Yu took a deep breath.

His killing intent surged—tinged with helplessness, but mostly with resolve.

Mercy to the enemy is cruelty to oneself.

"Damn you, Hong Yu! We begged you, and you still want to kill us all! Brothers, let's get him! Kill this bastard!"

"I don't believe this many of us can't kill him!"

"We're dead either way! Charge!"

Spurred on by someone in the crowd, the thousand men drew their weapons and charged forward, their killing intent palpable.

A trace of contempt flickered in Hong Yu's eyes.

'This is human nature!'

"Flying Thunder Divine Skill!"

He uttered the words, and the sound of WHOOSHING blades surrounded him.

With the Nine Feather Flying Knives as their core, seventy-two Primordial Weapon Flying Knives materialized in the air. Amidst a blue glow, they fell like a meteor shower, like raindrops piercing the sky.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The Flying Knives were as fast as lightning.

They howled through the air. Wherever the knives passed, it was a scene of absolute slaughter.

Blood sprayed like fountains, and heads flew into the air, falling amidst a rain of gore.

In just five minutes.

All one thousand men were buried by Hong Yu's Flying Knives. With a twitch of his left eye, a blue light transformed into an invisible hand that shot forward.

He used his Spiritual Power to control and arrange the corpses.

Looking at his handiwork, the corners of Hong Yu's mouth curled into a playful smirk. "When Bai Luoxue and the others arrive and see this, I bet they'll be so angry they'll be fuming from all seven orifices!"

With everything taken care of, the Little Extinction Array faded back into invisibility, returning the area to calm.

Hong Yu didn't deactivate it. Instead, he reset the Array's trigger mechanism. Once that was done, he activated his Divine Demon Wings and soared into the sky.

According to the True Dragon War God, the time before the True Dragon Ancient Hall appeared was for maneuvering and hunting one another, a process to improve one's own strength.

He needed to find his own opportunities.

「About ten minutes later.」

A group of experts arrived, treading through the air. They flew in a neat formation, their presence immense, like a dark cloud obscuring the sun.

The vast, imposing aura they exuded silenced all of creation.

Leading the charge were the Unparalleled Geniuses Bai Luoxue and Long Qingfeng. They flew side-by-side, followed by a contingent of three thousand people.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

Bai Luoxue and Long Qingfeng were the first to land.

They had seen the mountain of corpses and sea of blood from afar, and up close, their expressions turned even fouler.

Hong Yu had arranged the one thousand-plus corpses to form seven large words: THOSE WHO AID A TYRANT SHALL DIE!

"Good, good, good... What a Hong Yu. What ruthless methods..."

Bai Luoxue trembled all over, his fists clenched so tightly they were dripping blood.

Long Qingfeng's eye twitched, and he felt a chill rise in his heart. "What a powerful Spiritual Power technique from Hong Yu. Li Yuancang's strength was only average among the Unparalleled Geniuses, but he was by no means weak, and he had a thousand experts assisting him. Even you or I would have had trouble dealing with that. For them to be completely wiped out here... This Hong Yu is even more difficult to handle than we imagined!"

Bai Luoxue's face was as cold as frost. He spoke with a chilling tone, "No matter how difficult he is to deal with, I will kill him. I must kill him."

"Then what should we do with these... people?" Long Qingfeng asked.

Bai Luoxue glanced at them and said indifferently, "A bunch of trash. Disgracing us even in death. Destroy them all."

With that, he thrust out a palm.

SWISH!

The surging power completely obliterated the thousand corpses, crushing them into fine dust.

After destroying the evidence, Bai Luoxue prepared to leave with his men.

But just then...

Beneath the corpses he had just annihilated, a stone used as the Array's trigger suddenly shattered. As the stone broke, the hidden Little Extinction Array was instantly activated.

RUMBLE!

Ten pillars of light shot into the sky.

Ice, Fire, Thunder...

All sorts of attacks suddenly erupted within the Array. Caught completely off guard, three hundred of the three thousand men Bai Luoxue had brought were annihilated in the first wave.

"Don't panic! Work together and break the Array!"

Bai Luoxue and the others scrambled to respond. Their numbers were simply too great; even the Little Extinction Array couldn't hold for long. In just five minutes, they broke through the Array and escaped.

Bai Luoxue and Long Qingfeng were disheveled and covered in grime.

One of them had been hit by dozens of ice spheres, the other by more than ten bolts of lightning and fireballs. Though not fatal, the attacks left them in a pathetic state.

They looked back at their battered contingent, which looked like a defeated army and now numbered only a little over two thousand three hundred. They trembled with rage, their auras shuddering.

"Bastard! You bastard...!"

"Hong Yu, you son of a bitch, you dare to trap me! I, Bai Luoxue, swear that I will kill you..."

"I will eat your flesh and blood and exterminate your entire clan...!"

Bai Luoxue roared at the sky, his fury uncontrollable.

He unleashed an incomparably terrifying killing intent.

「Meanwhile.」

Hong Yu was already hundreds of kilometers away, where he had just encountered a peculiar existence...