"No."
Wang Hao's voice was low.
Yet in this Abyss of Ten Thousand Graves, a place torn in two by black-gold and ashen-white, it pierced into everyone's hearts like an ice-cold needle.
The Demon Lord's head shot up.
Ghost Granny's eyelids twitched wildly.
Yue Ji's face went pale, and she forced herself to ask, "Your Majesty, what's wrong?"
Wang Hao did not answer.
His gaze was locked dead on that ashen-white palm print.
The palm print had indeed cracked.
The Four Manifestations of the New Emperor Sword's sword-slave were, in truth, absurdly overpowered.
After four half-transcendent ancient corpses were forged into sword-slave phantoms, the four powers—spirit, slaughter, flesh, and dead-domain—formed a closed loop in an instant.
Such power, deployed on any battlefield in the current age, would be enough to topple a top-tier faction.
Even a peak Martial God would turn and flee on sight.
But that was exactly the problem.
That palm print had cracked too easily.
The moment the cracks appeared, the ashen-white palm print showed not the slightest sign of weakening.
Instead, it was as if something sleeping had been gently peeled open, shell by shell.
An extremely ominous feeling rose in Wang Hao's heart.
The palm print wasn't about to shatter.
It was that the real thing inside it was about to come out.
High above, the New Emperor Sword clearly hadn't noticed this.
Or rather, it had noticed, but refused to admit it.
It had just evolved.
Rank eighty-nine.
Half-transcendent combat power.
Its artifact spirit fully solidified.
It had devoured four half-transcendent ancient corpses.
And in front of everyone, it had just clashed head-on with a palm strike from a transcendent Emperor Corpse.
At a moment like this, how could it back down?
It wasn't just refusing to back down—
It even believed it was about to make history.
From today onward, a legend would spread across all the heavens and myriad worlds.
A newly evolved demonic artifact, at half-transcendent level, cutting down a transcendent Emperor Corpse in defiance of all logic.
What did that make it?
A sword-path myth.
A chosen protagonist of fate.
This was—
"I truly am the chosen one!"
The New Emperor Sword's maniacal laughter shook the sky.
It stood atop a river of black-gold sword light, the four ancient corpse phantoms behind it blazing ever more fiercely.
The spirit corpse spread countless bizarre grinning faces. The slaughter corpse swung a broken, shattered spear. The flesh corpse lifted both arms as if holding up the heavens. The dead-domain corpse unfurled a boundless sea of netherworld.
Four manifestations merged as one.
Black-gold sword light pressed down across the abyss.
Countless shattered mountain ranges in the Abyss of Ten Thousand Graves were swept by the sword qi, flattened from the earth as if by the hand of an ancient god.
The Great Xia soldiers lay pressed against the ground, watching with boiling blood.
Even though they really didn't want to admit it—
This sword was genuinely strong.
Strong beyond words.
Strong enough to make them forget that, moments ago, it had been shouting "Haozi."
"Master Sword, mighty!"
Some soldier, still buried in the dirt, let his bloodrush get the better of him and yelled it out.
The next instant.
Dead silence.
That soldier's face went instantly white.
Oh no.
His mouth had slipped.
Wang Hao slowly turned his head and looked at him.
"Who are you calling 'Master'?"
That soldier nearly burst into tears.
"Your Majesty, this subject... this subject's head got scrambled from being buried."
Wang Hao nodded.
"I understand."
The soldier had just begun to breathe a sigh of relief when Wang Hao added, "When we get back, dock three months of military pay, and go scrub toilets for a year to clear your head."
That soldier: "..."
Your Majesty.
This subject feels like being buried alive would've been kinder.
The New Emperor Sword, hearing someone call it "Master Sword," only grew more inflated.
It looked down at the Emperor Corpse from on high, arrogance practically dripping from its face.
"See that?"
"That's the will of the people!"
Wang Hao sneered.
"You call one mouth-slip 'the will of the people'?"
The New Emperor Sword replied with complete confidence.
"How is it not?"
"The will of the people starts from little things, building up one by one."
Wang Hao said, "Well, me docking his pay is also helping you purify that 'will of the people.'"
The New Emperor Sword: "..."
It suddenly realized that even though its combat power had gone up, it still hadn't won a single argument.
This was utterly unreasonable.
I'm half-transcendent now!
Why can't I still out-argue a Martial God at the second layer?
Was there some cultivation realm suppression on being a smart-mouth too?
Just as it was distracted for a single instant—
The cracks on that ashen-white palm print fully spread.
Crack.
A faint sound.
Yet it made everyone's hearts stop at the same moment.
The ashen-white palm print did not shatter.
It split open.
Within the split palm print, a deeper, more ancient, more frigid flow of ashen-white light slowly seeped out.
It wasn't power.
It was more like the remnant of some "Dao."
Like a sigh left behind by a dead emperor, ten thousand ages ago.
When that sigh falls upon the mortal world, the mortal world must kneel.
Wang Hao's pupils shrank.
"Withdraw!"
The word had barely left his mouth—
Too late.
The Emperor Corpse sat within the main coffin, expressionless.
It hadn't even truly made a move.
Just as the palm print split open, the wisp of ashen-white Dao-mark within it curled lightly outward.
The four sword-slave phantoms all froze at once.
The spirit corpse's bizarre grins snapped to a halt.
The slaughter corpse's broken spear crumbled to dust, inch by inch.
The flesh corpse's colossal body withered as if drained dry by the passage of ages.
The dead-domain corpse's boundless nether sea silently receded, its waters turning to ash.
The New Emperor Sword's expression finally changed.
"Impossible!"
It roared, both hands slamming together.
"Return!"
The four sword-slave phantoms struggled to resist.
But the ashen-white Dao-mark merely drifted past.
No explosion.
No thunderous clash.
No earth-shattering confrontation.
The phantom of four ancient corpses scattered like paper ash in the wind, gone without a trace.
Completely gone.
The New Emperor Sword's body shuddered.
The four corpse patterns along its blade dimmed all at once.
For the first time, true shock appeared in its eyes.
"His... His blade's four manifestations..."
"Gone?"
Wang Hao looked at it with undisguised disdain.
"Weren't you just being arrogant a second ago?"
The New Emperor Sword whipped around.
"Wang Hao, shut up!"
Wang Hao said coolly, "I'm just helping you recall your moment of glory."
"Save you from lacking material when you brag later."
The New Emperor Sword was so furious it nearly coughed blood.
If it even had blood.
But this wasn't the time for bickering.
After destroying the four manifestations, that wisp of ashen-white Dao-mark didn't stop. It continued drifting toward the New Emperor Sword.
Very slowly.
Slow as a single falling feather.
Yet the entire body of the New Emperor Sword trembled violently with sword light.
It finally understood.
This wasn't mere power.
It was the erasure of existence itself.
Not cutting off sword qi.
Not breaking the blade.
But erasing, from the very root, the power it had devoured.
It had swallowed four corpses, forged four manifestations.
But with a single wisp of Dao-mark, the Emperor Corpse had carved those manifestations away from its power system entirely, as if they had never existed.
This was the true horror of the Transcendent realm.
Not a stronger Martial God.
Not half-transcendent taking one more step up.
But an entirely different level of existence.
No matter how strong a Martial God was, they still stood within the mortal world.
The Transcendent realm had already begun to break away from mortal rules.
Even in death.
Even corrupted.
Even reduced to a single Emperor Corpse—
It was still beyond the reach of mere half-transcendent ambition.
The New Emperor Sword gritted its teeth.
"I don't believe it!"
It gripped its blade with both hands, black-gold-purple tricolor sword light erupting madly from within its body.
The entire sword blazed like a monstrous, aberrant sun, illuminating the abyss.
"I swallowed four corpses, broke the killing formation, ranked eighty-nine!"
"I am the future king of demonic artifacts!"
"Just one wisp of death-Dao dares to oppress me?"
"Give me—"
Before it could finish—
The ashen-white Dao-mark landed on its chest.
Boom.
The New Emperor Sword's artifact spirit folded over instantly, bent like a shrimp.
The next moment.
It, along with its physical blade, came crashing down from the sky.
Crash!
The altar was smashed through.
The ground collapsed a thousand fathoms deep.
A terrifying rift tore across the center of the Nine Coffin Altar, spreading outward like the maw of some primordial beast gaping open into the abyss.
The New Emperor Sword was embedded at the rift's end, its blade trembling violently.
The sword spirit lay sprawled on the ground, unable to get up for a long moment.
Everyone was silent.
Ghost Granny swallowed hard.
"This... should have sobered it up by now, right?"
Yin Jiuyou lay sprawled in the dirt, struggling to say, "Hard to say."
Xue Wuhen muttered, "Given how stubborn its mouth is, this might just be a warm-up."
Wang Hao sneered.
"If it can still run its mouth after that, I'll acknowledge it as a fine sword."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a weak yet defiant voice came from the end of the rift.
"Just now... this one was merely careless..."
Everyone: "..."
Wang Hao's face was expressionless.
"Fine."
"I take back what I just said."
"It's not a fine sword."
"It's shameless to an absurd degree."
The New Emperor Sword was enraged.
It climbed out of the rift.
The sword spirit's black-gold robe was tattered, its left cheek swollen even more, and a gray-white mark sat on its chest.
The mark continuously corroded its spirit body.
It winced in pain, yet still forced itself to lift its head.
"This one can still fight!"
Wang Hao said, "I suggest you fix your face first."
The New Emperor Sword touched its crooked mouth and immediately flew into a rage.
"Emperor Corpse!"
"How dare you strike this one's face!"
The Emperor Corpse remained devoid of emotion.
It simply sat in the main coffin, its third finger slowly rising.
At that moment, from the depths of the Ten Thousand Abyss, countless ancient laments echoed forth.
Like the souls of ten thousand races buried at the end of time, their bones trembling with fear at the beckoning of that single finger.
On the Nine Coffin Altar, the remaining formation patterns lit up once more.
But this time, they did not shine for Ji Wushang.
They bowed in submission to the Emperor Corpse.
Ji Wushang stood at the highest point of the altar, his gaze burning with near-mad intensity.
"See that?"
"Wang Hao."
"This is true power. This is the Transcendent Realm. This is what they call a Great Emperor."
"What good is it that your sword devoured four half-step Transcendents?"
"A half-step is still a half-step."
"No matter how sharp the ant's teeth grow, it cannot bite through the heavens."
Wang Hao looked up at Ji Wushang.
"You sure say that pretty smoothly."
Ji Wushang sneered.
"Oh?"
Wang Hao said, "Sounds like you've been bitten by the heavens before."
Ji Wushang's face darkened.
"Even at death's door, you still run your mouth."
Wang Hao said seriously, "I call this staying calm under pressure."
"You wouldn't understand."
Killing intent churned in Ji Wushang's eyes.
But he did not make a move himself.
Because the Emperor Corpse's third finger had already fallen.
This time, it was not gray-white breath.
Nor a palm print.
It was an Emperor's Shadow.
The shadow stepped out from the fingertip.
Clad in an ancient imperial robe, wearing a complete crown, stars rising and falling behind it, the heavens shattering beneath its feet.
The Emperor's Shadow was not complete.
It was merely a lingering trace of dao intent from the Emperor Corpse's living days.
Yet the moment it appeared, the entire Ten Thousand Abyss seemed forcibly dragged back to the ancient day the emperor fell.
Visions appeared before everyone's eyes.
They saw an emperor standing atop a river of stars.
One palm suppressing ten thousand races.
One thought cutting down the gods.
But in the end, that emperor also shed blood before the Emperor Fall Monument, his body plunging into endless darkness, corrupted by the Abomination, imprisoned by time, reawakened by death.
That was not glory.
That was a rotting myth.
A dead imperial authority.
The residual might of bones dragged back into the mortal world by the Abomination.
The New Emperor Sword gritted its teeth and surged skyward.
It was clearly already wounded, yet it refused to retreat.
The black-gold sword light burned once more.
This time, it did not condense the four aspects of the sword slaves.
Instead, it crushed all its power into its own body.
The blade grew dark and heavy.
Like a black-gold abyss that had swallowed ten thousand corpses.
"This one doesn't believe it!"
"This one refuses to accept it!"
"This one just evolved!"
"This one hasn't even started showing off enough!"
"Why can a dead corpse like you suppress this one?"
It roared and slashed at the Emperor's Shadow.
The sword light pierced heaven and earth.
This strike was more extreme than the last.
More frenzied.
It even carried a desperate, burn-everything resolve.
Wang Hao watched it, his eyes shifting slightly.
This sword, for all its sharp tongue.
For all its shamelessness.
For all its malfunctioning brain.
It truly dared to gamble everything.
No wonder it absorbed my dark side.
Wait.
Why does that sound wrong?
Wang Hao's face darkened.
He decided he would settle accounts with the system later.
Boom!
The New Emperor Sword struck the Emperor's Shadow with a single slash.
Black-gold sword light erupted.
The abyss trembled.
Countless mountain ranges were hurled into the air by the shockwave.
But that Emperor's Shadow simply raised its hand.
Two fingers.
Gently clamped down on the blade's edge.
The world fell utterly silent.
The New Emperor Sword's pupils shrank to pins.
"No—"
Crack.
The Emperor's Shadow snapped its two fingers.
A crack appeared on the New Emperor Sword's blade.
The crack was not deep.
But it sent everyone's scalps tingling.
Ranked eighty-nine among Abomination Artifacts.
Half-step Transcendent combat power.
The New Emperor Sword, after devouring four corpses.
Had been cracked by the two fingers of a residual Emperor's Shadow.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ng to die together with you." Lin Xuan is dead, his body thrown into the river by his scumbag lover and her accomplice. She, the president of the Su Group, is decisive, ruthless, and ice-cold. For three days and three nights, she had his body fished out of the river, and without hesitation, she kissed the bloated corpse of Lin Xuan. She laid down beside him in a cold coffin, their fingers intertwined, a smile lingering on her lips as she closed her eyes. The noble and cold-hearted woman, only bending for one man—Lin Xuan. Lin Xuan, with his golden finger, is reborn and returns to the day of his wedding to the treacherous woman. Su Qiang comes to steal the bride. Lin Xuan's eyes light up, eager to pledge his loyalty on the spot, but instead, her kiss transfers a glass of drugged wine into his mouth, causing him to pass out... 【Male Protagonist with Single Female Lead】【Yandere Tycoon】【Action-Packed】【True vs. Fake Heir】
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
