Mo Fan at his best – Versatile Mage

The Nine Bridges of Death and One Bridge of Life began to collapse. The ancient jade used to construct the bridges fell into the deep abyss before it was shattered into pieces by the black gust. One bridge after another broke apart until only one remained, the final bridge leading to the altar of the tomb.

The altar was covered in pitch black darkness on a platform that seemed to be floating in the dark for eternity.

The altar had the shape of an ice cap. The stone stairs at the bottom were incredibly huge. Each stair was a few times taller than a human. It felt like they had not been built for men at all, but for giant deities from a dead age.

From afar, red ribbons seemed to hang from the upper corners of the altar. Yet after Zhang Xiaohou drew closer, he realized they were not ribbons at all, but thick blood pouring down the steps like waterfalls.

The top corners of the altar had been carved into dragon heads. The blood poured from their mouths from a terrifying height, rumbling through the darkness.

Zhang Xiaohou remembered the same dragons spitting rainwater from the rooftop of the museum inside the inner city. But the dragons here were different. They were ancient, oppressive, and eerie to the extreme. It was impossible to tell whether the red liquid was real blood or some ancient substance left flowing for over two thousand years.

Behind him, the Nine Bridges were no more.

Ahead of him, only the altar remained.

Zhang Xiaohou drew a deep breath and stepped onto the final stairs alone.

Every step forward made the altar seem to shrink, yet the pressure it released only grew heavier. The path gradually narrowed the higher he climbed. The width of each stair became only about the same as a person’s long stride. The darkness on both sides felt endless, as if one wrong step would send him into a place without return.

But Zhang Xiaohou did not hesitate.

Brother Fan was still in the Space of Death, still fighting, still buying him time with his life.

Millions of people were still waiting.

How could he stop here?

At last, he reached the top.

At the center of the white jade altar stood a huge red transparent jadeite with rising edges, looking like a throne forged from blood and crystal, with countless sword like projections rising around it.

The Blood Emperor Throne.

The person sitting upon the throne must have been the Ancient King, Ying Zheng.

Zhang Xiaohou’s breathing slowed.

There was indeed someone sitting on the throne.

The figure wore a black armored battle robe. It was obviously a historical artifact, yet it still emitted an icy glow. As Zhang Xiaohou drew closer, the robe reflected his own face clearly, as if the armor itself were a mirror that had never rusted with time.

The figure sat on the throne, one hand supporting his jaw, body leaning slightly to one side. The shadow of the crown concealed most of the face, yet the light from the altar flames revealed the lower jaw and the faint curve of an evil smile.

He looked as if he were either napping or deep in thought.

He did not look dead at all.

Cold sweat instantly covered Zhang Xiaohou’s forehead.

He had never thought that an emperor who died over two thousand years ago could still release such pressure. In his mind, the figure could stand at any second, raise his head, and shatter his soul with a single glance.

At the same time, the Ancient King’s armored robe harbored a boundless, vast energy, like staring directly into a black ocean, profound and unfathomable, eternal and indestructible.

In that instant, Zhang Xiaohou was momentarily dazed.

Standing before the armor, he felt incomparably tiny, as if he had become a drifting speck in an endless Nethersea. One wrong move, and he would be overturned completely.

Buzz...

Within his spiritual world, both his Wind Nebula and Earth Nebula resonated violently. Yet among the two, it was the Earth Nebula that reacted the strongest. The orange brown stars inside it trembled wildly, as if they had suddenly encountered a mountain far too ancient and vast for them to comprehend.

The armored robe moved.

Its black gold scales slowly unfurled with a soft shhhhh sound.

Then a voice echoed directly into Zhang Xiaohou’s ears.

“I have been sealed for countless ages and now behold my successor. He who ascends the throne and dons my armored robe shall inherit my power and all that I possess.”

The voice was ancient, vast, and overflowing with temptation.

Any ordinary person would have fallen into a trance at once.

But Zhang Xiaohou’s eyes tightened.

The first thing he thought of was not power.

It was Mo Fan.

It was the city.

It was the mission.

The next instant, his expression changed and he shouted with absolute certainty, “You are not him!”

The armored robe suddenly froze.

The voice inside paused.

Zhang Xiaohou stared directly at it and said in a cold voice, “The Ancient King ruled an empire. If he wanted a successor, he would not use this kind of filthy trick to devour a living soul. You are only a remnant left behind in the armor!”

For a brief moment, the altar fell into a dead silence.

Then the armored robe trembled violently.

A twisted black smoke began to seep out of the gaps in the armor.

The remnant soul had been exposed.

It had assumed Zhang Xiaohou would be an easy target. After all, he was only a young mage. Yet what it met was not greed, but a soul that was steady, loyal, and difficult to shake.

The voice turned shrill and furious.

“I rule by the Mandate of Heaven! Who dares defy me? I sentence you to death!”

The black gold armor suddenly sprang up from the throne and lunged at Zhang Xiaohou, attempting to forcefully seize his body and soul through spiritual possession.

A terrifying pressure crashed into his spiritual world.

Zhang Xiaohou’s vision darkened.

For an instant, he saw mountains of corpses, rivers of blood, cities swallowed by death, and endless undead kneeling before a throne that towered over the world.

It was overwhelming.

Too overwhelming.

But then another image rose in his mind.

Mo Fan standing in the Space of Death.

Mo Fan facing ten thousand skeletons alone.

Mo Fan buying him this chance with his own life.

Zhang Xiaohou clenched his teeth so hard blood seeped from his gums.

He could kneel to no one here.

Not while Brother Fan was still fighting.

Not while the city was still burning.

The armored robe crashed into him.

Yet at the same time, the blood waterfalls around the altar suddenly trembled, and the entire platform shook.

The final surviving bridge behind him lit up with strange ancient runes.

Then the other nine collapsed bridges, though already shattered, began to glow in the abyss below.

One after another, ancient symbols rose out of the darkness.

Bridge of death.

Bridge of life.

Judgment.

Inheritance.

Throne.

King.

The ten bridges had not only tested courage.

They had recorded choice.

And among all those choices, Zhang Xiaohou alone had reached this place not for greed, not for power, but because someone else had entrusted the lives of millions to him.

The abyss answered him.

The altar answered him.

Even the throne answered him.

Boom!

A violent nether force suddenly erupted from the Blood Emperor Throne and flooded into Zhang Xiaohou’s body.

The remnant soul screamed.

It had wanted to possess him.

Instead, it was being crushed by the true inheritance law of the altar itself!

A tall shadow rose behind Zhang Xiaohou.

It was not fully clear, not yet whole, but the shape was enough to make the armored robe tremble.

It was the outline of a king seated upon darkness, with dragons and death bowing beneath him.

The remnant soul let out another scream and was directly ripped out of the black gold armor as a mass of black smoke.

Before it could escape, the bloodfalls on the altar twisted violently and formed chains of crimson light, wrapping around the remnant soul and crushing it on the spot.

Its scream echoed once.

Then vanished forever.

The black gold armor dropped to the ground motionless.

But the immense origin force contained within it remained untouched.

It no longer resisted.

It was waiting.

Waiting for a true successor.

Zhang Xiaohou’s breathing had already become ragged. The nether force pouring into him was far too vast. To an ordinary mage, this would have been a disaster, enough to lose control and fall into corruption. Yet just as his spiritual world began to shake, the Earth Nebula inside him suddenly burst with dazzling light.

The entire Earth Nebula surged violently.

The barricade around it, which had been restricting him for so long, cracked open all at once under the terrifying pressure of the inheritance.

The forty nine stars rammed forward together.

Cracks spread.

The Nebula expanded.

Then exploded outward into something far greater.

Zhang Xiaohou’s Earth Element broke through to the Advanced level!

Behind him, an enormous orange brown Star Constellation spread open one after another, interweaving like ancient mountain veins across the darkness. Three hundred and forty three stars lit up in sequence, shining with a heavy, grounded brilliance.

Breakthrough.

Earth Element Advanced level!

The power did not stop there.

As his Earth Galaxy formed, the nether force finally found an anchor. The altar’s inheritance no longer surged through him chaotically. It began to flow steadily, sinking into his body, his bones, his blood, and his soul.

The black gold armored robe slowly rose from the ground.

Then, piece by piece, it began to move toward Zhang Xiaohou.

First the battle robe.

Then the armored scales.

Then the shoulder guards.

Then the crown.

Each part attached itself to him with a deep metallic resonance, yet instead of feeling cold, the armor felt ancient and immeasurably heavy, like putting an empire on his back.

At the moment the crown settled into place, the entire altar shook.

The bloodfalls grew louder.

The darkness below roared.

The countless undead in the abyss seemed to sense something and began to howl in unison.

Zhang Xiaohou slowly opened his eyes.

They were no longer the same.

There was still fear in them, still humanity, still the same loyal boy who had followed Mo Fan all the way here.

But there was also something else now.

Authority.

Ancient authority.

The authority to command death itself.

The Blood Emperor Throne behind him lit up and endless black radiance spread outward.

It was no longer waiting for a master.

Its new master had already arrived.

Zhang Xiaohou slowly turned around and looked at the throne.

Then he sat down.

The moment he touched the throne, the entire Dark Abyss shook as if a sleeping empire had finally awakened.

The kingdom of undead had a new Ancient King.