Drained Dry

“Interesting.”

The ancient corpse looked down at the thin strand of golden blood splattered across his own finger, his smile growing colder.

“So you’re not the kind of trash who climbed up here on luck alone.”

“Too bad. Still too green.”

He suddenly clenched his five fingers.

Boom!

The entire bronze coffin exploded into countless fragments, then reassembled in the void, forming a pitch-black ancient war halberd that dropped into his grasp.

“My name was erased from the annals of time long ago.”

“But there’s one thing you can remember.”

“The one who nailed me into this place — his surname was Ji.”

The moment those words left his mouth, the powerhouses watching from above first froze in disbelief, then erupted into chaos.

“Surname Ji?”

“The ancient Ji clan?!”

“Impossible! The Ji clan vanished ages ago!”

“And how could anyone surnamed Ji seal a being like this into the Abyss of Ten Thousand Graves?”

Wang Hao’s eyes flickered with a sharp gleam.

The Ji surname?

The ancient imperial clan?

Just then, the system notifications began flashing frantically once more.

[Intel update: Fragment of the ancient, incomplete name ‘Ji Wushang’ detected.]

[Intel update: Trail of the true name behind ‘Imperial Fall’ unlocked.]

[Warning: The target ancient corpse is directly linked to the ‘Imperial Fall Incident.’ If you seize the ‘Imperial Fall Nameplate’ sealed within its sternum, you may unlock a portion of the ancient truth.]

Wang Hao’s gaze sharpened abruptly.

The Imperial Fall Nameplate?

So that’s how it is.

This ancient corpse really did carry the true name of the Imperial Fall within it.

Which meant — if he took it down, the first crack in the mystery of who died, who lived, and whose name was wiped from history would finally split open.

Wang Hao slowly raised his hand. The calm in his eyes had been utterly crushed, replaced by a bone-deep, glacial killing intent.

“So you’re called Ji Wushang.”

The ancient corpse’s pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.

“How do you know that name?”

Wang Hao didn’t answer. He only said flatly:

“You don’t need to know how I know.”

“All you need to know is that I didn’t come here today for pleasantries.”

“I want what’s inside your sternum.”

“And I want you on your knees.”

Ji Wushang’s face finally turned completely cold.

“On my knees?”

“Do you know what happened to the last person who said those words to me?”

Wang Hao answered word by word:

“He died.”

Ji Wushang laughed, but the laugh was venomous to the bone.

“Correct.”

“He died.”

“And he died miserably.”

“Since you’re so desperate for the truth, I’ll break your bones first, then tear you apart piece by piece, and let you see what real imperial cruelty looks like!”

Boom!

Before the words even faded, the war halberd in his hand had already struck.

The strike was too fast to describe.

No fancy techniques. No superfluous visions. Just a single, utterly pure arc of black light — like a line of death hewn from the depths of some ancient battlefield — slicing straight through the void in front of Wang Hao.

Wang Hao’s pupils shrank. His body dodged on pure instinct.

But he was half a beat too slow.

Rip!

The armor at his shoulder split open. A line of blood appeared, crimson seeping out.

The golden-threaded soft armor that had accompanied him through countless wars was ruined in an instant.

The wound wasn’t deep. But this was the first time since stepping into the Southern Sea that someone had actually pierced his flesh.

The sky above went dead silent.

“He’s wounded?”

“The young emperor is wounded!”

“That ancient corpse’s single strike actually broke through his defense!”

The assembled experts from the Central Plains were struck with sheer terror.

But Wang Hao himself merely glanced down at the bloody gash on his shoulder. His expression only grew colder.

“Good.”

“You finally look like a real opponent.”

Ji Wushang sneered: “Brazening it out at death’s door?”

Wang Hao lifted his head, the golden light in his eyes suddenly flaring.

“I told you.”

“I came here today to force every last card you have onto the table.”

“If this is all you’ve got, then you’re not even enough to warm me up.”

With that, he flipped his palm, and a talisman of pure crimson gold appeared in his hand.

The moment that talisman appeared, the entire ruined grounds of the imperial array seemed to recognize some familiar presence, letting out a low, prolonged hum.

For the first time, Ji Wushang’s expression shifted slightly.

“How do you have that?”

Wang Hao didn’t answer. He simply crushed the talisman between his fingers.

Boom —!

A wave of ancient imperial might — belonging to no era of the present — exploded from the shattered talisman.

The moment that imperial pressure emerged, countless residual runes at the heart of the array lit up simultaneously, as if answering the call of some long-vanished former master.

Above the abyss, every sect elder’s face changed dramatically.

“That… that’s an ancient imperial edict?”

“How does Wang Hao possess something like that!”

“No wonder he dared to charge straight in!”

And at the very bottom of the Abyss of Ten Thousand Graves, Ji Wushang’s expression finally showed visible turmoil for the first time.

He stared at the golden imperial shadow rising from the shattered talisman, his gaze so dark it seemed to freeze over.

“So that’s it…”

“The imperial aura on you isn’t a coincidence.”

“You actually obtained a fragment of that man’s residual seal.”

Wang Hao ignored his shock. He only clenched his fist and took one slow step forward. If the system hadn’t granted him this item through daily check-in, he wouldn’t have dared to come here for a head-on clash.

“Scared now?”

Ji Wushang heard this and suddenly laughed.

“Scared?”

“I’ve been buried here for countless eons. I forgot what that word means long ago.”

“But since you’ve brought out that man’s relic, I can’t disappoint you.”

He slowly raised his head. The pitch-black ancient nail mark on his brow suddenly blazed with a light so red it bordered on the insane.

The next instant, the entire Abyss of Ten Thousand Graves began to tremble.

Not the imperial array trembling.

No — from the deepest depths below, as if another, even vaster seal was being violently torn open by his will.

Wang Hao’s expression shifted drastically.

“There’s something even deeper?”

Ji Wushang’s voice sank low, carrying a near-maddened chill.

“You think I’m all that’s buried here?”

“You think this imperial array was only meant to seal me?”

“You underestimate the ancient era.”

“What the Abyss of Ten Thousand Graves truly buries is not a single secret.”

“It’s a tomb.”

“And now —”

“The tomb is opening.”

The instant those words fell, a thunderous roar erupted from the absolute bottom of the abyss.

Rumble —!

Slabs of stone shattered. Ancient bone runes surfaced from the earth. A sacrificial altar — older, more decayed, and far more sinister than the ruined imperial array — slowly rose from beneath the ground.

Upon the altar sat nine bronze coffins, weathered by an eternity of age.

And at the center of those nine coffins stood a broken stone stele, its inscriptions so worn as to be nearly illegible.

At the top of the stele, only two ancient characters remained, barely recognizable.

— Imperial Fall.

Wang Hao stared at those two characters, his pupils contracting sharply.

At last, he understood why the system had spoken of a “true name behind the Imperial Fall.”

Because what was buried here was not merely some ordinary ancient corpse.

It was a fragment of the truth behind that ancient war of the fallen emperor.

Nine coffins guarding a stele.

Imperial Fall, etched in name.

Wang Hao slowly exhaled. The battle intent in his eyes surged like a vast ocean.

“Good.”

“Now this looks like something worth fighting.”

“Let’s see who breaks first, then — whether you tear me apart, or I rip your true name right off that stone.”

Ji Wushang, war halberd in hand, stood before the nine coffins, his black hair whipping wildly in the wind as a smile of near-cruel amusement crept slowly across his lips.

“Then come.”

“Let me see just how capable you, the new emperor, truly are.”

The abyss shook, the imperial formation revived, and the nine coffins sang in unison.

A life-and-death battle that would truly unearth the secrets of ancient times had finally been set in motion.

At the very bottom of the Wanxu Abyss, the half-step tenth-rank aberration—the one that had once struck terror into the entire Southern Sea battlefield and nearly shattered the border formation of the Central Province—was now enduring the most brutal dismemberment the world had ever seen.

“ROAR—!!!”

A ghastly, needle-piercing scream erupted as a tangible black sonic wave, causing massive slabs of rock to peel away from the cliff walls on both sides of the abyss. The colossal mass of black flesh, like a mountain of meat on the verge of collapse, was pinned firmly before the altar by the Town-Spirit Ancient Nails.

This was not a battle. This was a one-sided “feast.”

The ruins of the ancient imperial formation, having absorbed Wang Hao’s Martial God True Blood and been further provoked by Ji Wushang’s archaic aura, had completely transformed into a ravenous beast that had awoken after ten thousand years of slumber.

Countless pale formation patterns, like solidified tentacles, blades, and blood vessels, pierced densely into the body of the half-step tenth-rank aberration.

Before anyone’s very eyes, the mountain-like body of the aberration began to wither and shrink.

Those aberrant black fluids—capable of devouring heaven-and-earth spiritual energy and corrupting the laws of reality—were forcibly refined and shredded the moment they touched the imperial formation patterns, converted into the most primal energy, and channeled downward into the nine-coffin altar buried deep beneath the earth.

“Gulp… gulp…”

From the depths of the abyss came a bone-chilling sound of swallowing.

High above, the gathered experts of the Sixteen Holy Lands of the Central Province stared fixedly at the scene below, and all of them involuntarily shivered.

Reverend Bai Xuan of the Heavenly Wheel Holy Land was pale as death, his horsetail whisk trembling slightly in his grip.

“It… it’s been drained dry?” A Martial God realm elder spoke with a hoarse voice, as though trapped in a dream. “That was a half-step tenth-rank aberration! Even a half-step Transcendent ancestor wielding a sacred sect weapon couldn’t have killed it so effortlessly. What in the world is this imperial formation?!”

“It’s not the formation killing it—it’s the formation using it as a sacrifice!” Reverend Bai Xuan suddenly realized, his eyes locking onto the nine-coffin altar rising from the deepest part of the abyss. Despair flickered in his gaze. “Wang Hao is mad! He lured that monster in there not to use the formation to kill it—he used the monster as nourishment to force open the ‘grave’ at the very bottom of the Wanxu Abyss!”

As Reverend Bai Xuan had predicted, the half-step tenth-rank aberration let out one final despairing cry as the last wisp of its origin black qi was drained dry by the Town-Spirit Ancient Nails.

Its enormous body exploded into swirling ashes that scattered silently across the abyss.

An era-defining calamity that had made the world tremble was now reduced to nothing. Not even a single bone or drop of blood remained.

Meanwhile, having absorbed this tremendous power, the nine-coffin altar erupted with a blinding burst of blood-red light.

Standing before the altar, Ji Wushang’s pale, handsome face showed a sickly expression of pleasure.

He inhaled deeply the residual power lingering in the air, then slowly opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on Wang Hao like one would look at a corpse.

“Thank you for the offering,” Ji Wushang said, a trace of mockery curling at the corner of his lips. “That creature’s origin power is just barely enough to lubricate the rusted formation lines of this altar.”

Wang Hao stood with his hands behind his back, his dragon robe snapping loudly in the surging winds. He watched the aberration turn to ash, and not only did his face betray no fear—a profoundly cunning, sly smile spread across it.

“No need for thanks,” Wang Hao said calmly. “I am, as always, a man of business. Since I’ve given you such a generous gift, I naturally intend to collect with interest. Those nine shabby coffins of yours look vaguely worth a bit of money—maybe if I chop them up for firewood, they’ll cover my losses.”

“Arrogant!”

Ji Wushang’s eyes sharpened, and his black-gold war halberd slammed heavily into the ground.

“BOOM!”

The entire Wanxu Abyss shook violently once more. The worn stone stele inscribed with the words “Emperor’s Fall” erupted with monstrous killing intent.

Immediately after, the four bronze coffins positioned at the outermost edge of the altar began to emit a grating, teeth-aching scraping sound.

“Creeak… creeak…”

The heavy bronze coffin lids, to the horror and disbelief of every onlooker, slowly slid backward.

In that instant, four immensely ancient, immensely terrifying pillar of energy—thick with corpse qi and the supreme true meaning of martial arts—blasted into the sky, shredding the remaining clouds above the abyss into tatters.

Each of these four auras was at the absolute pinnacle of the Martial God realm!

“Pinnacle Martial Gods!”