Final Incident

"Shut up."

Yun Meng spat out the words coldly.

"Unseal: Stellar Shatter."

Yun Meng did not even make any unnecessary movements; she merely gave her body a slight shake.

Boom!

The hundreds of supposedly indestructible blood-colored chains wrapping around her instantly shattered inch by inch like paper under the terrifying repulsive force of her True Qi, turning into a sky full of blood mist!

Even Ye Hongling, who had been stepping on her wrist, was directly blown away by this terrifying backlash.

Ye Hongling forcefully stabilized her body in mid-air, violently coughing up a large mouthful of blood, her face full of horror.

"This isn't the cultivation technique of the Phantom Sea Immortal Sect at all! What exactly is sealed inside your body?!"

Yun Meng slowly stood up from the ground. She casually tore off the soiled bottom half of her gauze skirt, revealing long, fair legs. At this moment, she didn't look like a righteous path saintess at all. A purple-gold demonic aura surged into the sky around her, and behind her, the phantom avatar of a giant fox with nine heaven-reaching tails faintly emerged!

"A Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox?! You, a righteous path saintess, are actually a remnant of the demon race?!" Ye Hongling screamed.

"That was a shackle my master placed on me to suppress my true nature. I originally thought I wouldn't need to unseal it to deal with you... but you have truly angered me."

Yun Meng's purple-gold eyes stared dead at Ye Hongling.

"Eye of the Heavenly Fox: Infinite Purgatory."

The nine-tailed demonic fox avatar behind Yun Meng suddenly opened its eyes, shooting two beams of purple-gold divine light directly into Ye Hongling's eyes.

"Ah!!!"

Ye Hongling let out an extremely miserable shriek. To the outside world, it was only an instant, but in Ye Hongling's spiritual sea of consciousness, she experienced terrifying illusions of being skinned, having her tendons pulled out, and being torn apart by the abyssal monsters she feared most, countless times over.

Spiritual crushing! This was not a battle at all; it was a one-sided dimensional strike!

Black blood flowed from Ye Hongling's seven orifices simultaneously. Her entire being seemed to have her soul drained, falling from mid-air like a broken rag doll, her protective demonic aura completely dissipating.

"You can't take it already? Didn't you like making people kneel?"

Yun Meng's voice was bone-chillingly cold. Her figure instantly vanished from the spot, and in the next second, she appeared directly above the falling Ye Hongling.

She raised that long, fair leg shimmering with starlight high up like a battle axe.

"Starfall."

Bang!!!

An unadorned downward kick, yet containing terrifying physical strength, viciously smashed into Ye Hongling's abdomen!

Rumble—!

The entire Royal Colosseum trembled violently, as if a magnitude ten earthquake had struck!

The indestructible Magic-Sealing Dark Iron arena completely collapsed and caved in under this strike! With Ye Hongling's landing point as the center, a terrifying giant crater a hundred meters in diameter and dozens of meters deep shockingly appeared! The violent shockwave blew the front-row audience off their feet.

The smoke and dust dispersed.

At the bottom of the giant crater.

Ye Hongling, the demonic sect enchantress who was unbearably arrogant just a moment ago, clamoring to strip others naked, now had all the bones in her body shattered. She was embedded at the bottom of the crater like a puddle of mud, her eyes rolled back, her fate unknown.

Meanwhile, Yun Meng, like an Asura Queen descending to the world, floated barefoot above the giant crater, looking down at Ye Hongling who was like a dead dog. The purple-gold color in her eyes gradually faded, restoring her ancient well-like black eyes, and the nine-tailed avatar behind her also vanished.

She draped a white outer gauze over herself again, restoring her cold and ethereal fairy-like appearance, as if the tyrannical monster that tore everything apart just now wasn't her at all.

The entire venue was dead silent.

There were no wolf whistles, no cheers. Everyone's mouths were wide open, even their breathing had stopped.

Three moves.

Unseal, break defense, instant kill!

This was the true weight of the number one on the Pseudo-Heavenly Secrets Ranking! This was the terrifying foundation of an enraged Phantom Sea Immortal Sect Saintess!

"Fuck... my money!!!"

After an unknown amount of time, a miserable and desperate scream finally erupted from the audience. Immediately after, countless gamblers who had bet on Ye Hongling to win went weak in the knees and collapsed to the ground. The entire colosseum turned into an ocean of wailing.

"Yun... Yun Meng wins! Advancing to the finals! The finals will be held tomorrow," the Chief Eunuch Wei Zhongxian swallowed hard and announced the result with a trembling voice.

In the VIP box.

Empress Dowager Sun and Princess Wang Rou were also dumbfounded, but soon, Wang Rou jumped up excitedly: "Well fought! Beat that shameless demonic sect vixen to death! Fairy Yun Meng is so cool!"

Wang Xuan muttered softly, "Yun Meng is the real vixen, isn't she?"

At this time, Wang Hao had long since put away his drooling, perverted expression.

...

The noisy colosseum semifinals had concluded, but the frenzy in the entire capital had just begun. Countless gamblers, cultivators, and aristocratic families were frantically raising funds for tomorrow's grand finale.

And right now, Wang Hao, the Emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty and the biggest bookmaker of this monstrous gamble, was leisurely leaning back on his red sandalwood dragon throne, humming a little tune, calculating how to strip all the hidden sects in the world down to their underwear tomorrow.

Right at this moment, the cold and mechanical system notification sound in his mind exploded without warning.

Ding! Intel updated!

Intel 1: Because the host previously forcefully killed the Child of Destiny Ye Chen, and used this as an opportunity to drastically enhance the national destiny of the Great Zhou, severely interfering with the predetermined fate of other Children of Destiny, the trajectory of the Heavenly Dao's operation has been reversed.

Intel 2: In order to return the future to its original predetermined trajectory, the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, which claims to follow the Mandate of Heaven, will personally lead top experts from hidden sects to launch a decapitation strike against the host during tomorrow's grand finale! They attempt to overthrow the Great Zhou Dynasty and reshuffle the world's fortune by killing the host!

Additional High-Risk Intel: The enemy's assassination lineup this time is extremely luxurious, including three Demi-God Realm supreme mighty figures, including the Pavilion Master of the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion, as well as nine Peak Sky-Soaring Realm Supreme Elder-level experts! Their target is pointed directly at the royal foundation and the host's head. Host, please prepare for battle immediately!

After listening to this long string of terrifying intel that was enough to make any monarch of a dynasty pee their pants in fear, Wang Hao didn't jump up and call for guards. Instead, he picked up the premium Da Hong Pao tea on the table, slowly blew on the tea leaves, and took a gentle sip.

"Heavenly Secrets Pavilion? Following the Mandate of Heaven?"

A hint of mockery flashed across Wang Hao's narrow eyes.

"This bunch of fraudsters who hide in the deep mountains and old forests playing god every day are really tired of living. I didn't go looking for trouble with them, yet they took the initiative to deliver themselves to my door as experience packs?"

If it were just after he had transmigrated, hearing that three Demi-God Realms and nine Peak Sky-Soaring Realms were coming to assassinate him, Wang Hao would definitely pack up and run without a second word.

But now, Demi-God Realm sounded intimidating, carrying the word God, but in the end, they were just mortals who had touched upon a little bit of the surface of the laws! As long as they hadn't truly taken that step and ignited their divine fire, they were still flesh and blood!

And what was the trump card held in Wang Hao's hand?

The Leiyuan Demon-Suppressing Pagoda! Sealed inside was a genuine, full-powered strike of a true Martial God!

A true god against a demigod was not a battle; it was a father beating his son. It was an absolute dimensional strike!

Not to mention, the Wang family did not secure their empire in this cannibalistic high-martial world by winning people over with virtue. His great-grandfather, Wang Wudi, known as the stabilizing pillar of the Great Zhou Dynasty, was no ordinary demigod. That old geezer had more schemes in his heart than a honeycomb briquette had holes.

"Let those fools from the Heavenly Secret Pavilion come, the more the merrier. If these three demigods and nine Sky-Soaring Realm experts die in the capital, would the sect treasuries behind them not be throwing their doors wide open for me?" Wang Hao frantically calculated in his mind, unable to suppress the greedy, capitalist-like smirk on his lips.

Ding! Today's Colosseum sign-in is successful. Reward issued: Heart of the Cursed Artifact!

Item Description: A wondrous object formed by the fusion of the world's resentment and fragments of laws. It can forcibly merge any item with high-tier cursed materials to forge a Cursed Artifact that defies common sense! The higher the grade of the input items and materials, the higher the ranking of the resulting Cursed Artifact, and the more bizarre and unpredictable its abilities will be!

"Oh? A new toy?"

Wang Hao's eyes lit up. Compared to those boring assassins, he was obviously much more interested in this newly dropped Heart of the Cursed Artifact.

With a thought, a bizarre heart that looked like black glazed glass, containing countless swirling nebulas and beating faintly, appeared in his palm. The moment it appeared, the temperature in the imperial study plummeted to the freezing point, and even the surrounding space let out a wail of overwhelming burden.

"Fusing items and cursed materials... The one thing I do not lack right now is good stuff."

Wang Hao grinned and casually pulled out a glittering longsword radiating righteous energy from his storage ring. This was the Emperor's Sword passed down from the founding emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. It was a low-grade Saint Rank weapon, sharp enough to cut a falling hair, and possessed extreme restraining power against evil spirits.

Next, as if dumping trash, he poured out a massive pile of top-tier cursed materials he had embezzled from the royal treasury: the eyeballs of a ten-thousand-year-old Zombie Emperor, sunken sand from the Netherworld Blood Sea, the reverse scale of a Nine Nether Demonic Wyrm... They were all extremely dark and evil items that were priceless and unavailable in the outside world.

"System, fuse them for me!"

Ding! Detected the low-grade Saint Rank weapon Emperor's Sword and thirty-six high-tier cursed materials. Fusion commencing! Host, please inject a drop of your own lifeblood as a medium!

Wang Hao forced out a drop of lifeblood and flicked it inside.

In an instant, the black Heart of the Cursed Artifact erupted with a terrifying suction force, instantly swallowing the Emperor's Sword and all the cursed materials! Immediately after, a visible black whirlwind blew up inside the imperial study.

However, right at this moment, a sudden mutation occurred!

Warning! Because the Heart of the Cursed Artifact has resonated with the host's lifeblood, it is frantically absorbing the negative emotions in the host's subconscious to shape its form!

Wang Hao froze, only to feel the series of extremely treacherous and dark thoughts in his mind about how to scam money, how to set traps, how to squeeze the last drop of blood from all the cultivators in the world, and the self-cultivation of a swindler being sucked into the black light like a bursting dam!

"Holy crap! You are even absorbing my commercial secrets? Leave me some bottom line!" Wang Hao exclaimed.

An incense stick's time later, the black light dissipated.

Hovering in mid-air was a brand new longsword. The blade was slender and entirely pitch-black like ink, with bizarre dark gold patterns flowing along its edge. Even though it was a sword, it exuded a chilling, sinister, and cunning aura akin to that of an old fox.

Ding! Congratulations to the host for a successful forging! Obtained the 543rd ranked Cursed Artifact: The New Emperor's Sword!

Cursed Artifact Ability 1: Devour and Evolve. It can evolve and improve its ranking by devouring other bizarre creatures.

Cursed Artifact Ability 2: Artifact Shapeshifting. Because it absorbed the host's extremely massive and pure dark side personality, this Cursed Artifact has birthed a humanoid artifact spirit that can participate in battle independently!

Cursed Artifact Side Effect: Because its power is too bizarre and heaven-defying, every time the sword is drawn or the artifact spirit is summoned, the user will irreversibly lose a small patch of scalp hair follicles. In layman's terms: every time it is used, the hairline recedes by one centimeter...

Wang Hao looked at the blood-red system prompt in front of him and turned entirely to stone.

A full half a minute later, a mournful and furious roar erupted in the imperial study.

"System, are you freaking kidding me?! A receding hairline?! I am the majestic face of the Great Zhou Dynasty, the supreme ruler, the dream lover of thousands of harem beauties! You are making me go bald?! How the hell is this a side effect? This is a crime worthy of exterminating nine generations! Believe it or not, I will throw this broken sword into a cesspit and suppress it for ten thousand years right now! Weren't the side effects of the Cursed Artifacts from previous sign-ins ineffective against me?"

"Ding, host, please watch your phrasing. The ellipsis after the Cursed Artifact's side effect explanation meant except for Wang Hao."

Oh, great, now even a system dared to make fun of its host? Wang Hao was instantly enraged.

As if sensing Wang Hao's fury, the pitch-black New Emperor's Sword trembled slightly. Immediately after, a cloud of black mist drifted out from the blade, landed on the ground, and transformed into a human figure.

It was a young man wearing a black and gold robe. His facial features were seventy percent similar to Wang Hao's, but his aura was extremely sinister, and a faint, mocking sneer permanently hung on the corners of his mouth.

The artifact spirit opened his eyes, sized up Wang Hao, and then rolled his eyes in an incredibly vivid manner. His very first sentence almost made Wang Hao lose his composure:

"Save it, my original body. You cannot blame others if you do not understand the instruction manual yourself. Besides, do you think I do not know what you are thinking? As long as the profit reaches three hundred percent, you would even sell your own father, let alone a few measly strands of hair. Once we slaughter those old geezers from the Heavenly Secret Pavilion tomorrow and ransack their treasury, never mind a hair transplant, you could use a Ten-Thousand-Year Meat Ganoderma to plant a lush green prairie on your head. Talking about feelings hurts money; let us just skip straight to discussing how we divide the spoils tomorrow."