The Emperor Corpse paused for the first time.
Not because of pain.
But because a strand of death power within its body had been forcibly torn away.
Just one strand.
But for a flawed existence like the Emperor Corpse, this act of devouring was one of destruction.
Ji Wushang's expression shifted drastically.
"Stop!"
Wang Hao laughed.
"Worried?"
This was exactly the moment he had been waiting for.
Ji Wushang had no choice but to divert his focus to stabilize the Emperor Corpse.
And the moment he diverted his focus, a flaw would appear in the crystal core at his chest.
Wang Hao suddenly raised his left hand.
The Heaven-Sealing Earth-Crushing Palm, first strike, again!
Not all nine strikes at once.
Just one palm pressing down on the Emperor Corpse.
At the same time, the black thunder of the seventh floor of the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower transformed into chains, wrapping around the Emperor Corpse's arm.
The New Emperor Sword continued to devour.
Three forces suppressed the Emperor Corpse simultaneously.
Ji Wushang had no choice but to activate the crystal core, forcibly maintaining the Emperor Corpse's stability.
In that instant.
Wang Hao vanished.
A flash of thunder.
He no longer stood before the Emperor Corpse.
Instead, he appeared high on the altar, three zhang away from Ji Wushang.
Ji Wushang's pupils constricted.
So fast!
No.
Not merely fast.
It was Wang Hao using the thunder channel of the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower to forcibly shift the battlefield.
Wang Hao grinned.
A smile utterly chilling.
"Ji Wushang."
"Your Emperor said."
"It's your turn soon."
His right hand grasped the New Emperor Sword.
The New Emperor Sword was still chattering away.
"Master! The Emperor Corpse isn't fully devoured yet!"
Wang Hao said coldly, "Cut this one first."
The New Emperor Sword immediately grew excited.
"Cut the black egg on his chest?"
Wang Hao replied, "Yes."
Ji Wushang roared in fury, thrusting both palms forward.
Corrupted power surged forth in the shape of a ferocious, monstrous beast, lunging toward Wang Hao.
Wang Hao did not dodge.
Imperial dragon qi shielded his body.
Thunder curtains cascaded down from the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower.
He endured the corrupted beast head-on and struck out with his sword.
The Nine Swords of Heaven's Opening.
First sword.
Mountain Splitter!
The sword light was like a thread of the heavenly river.
Black-gold sword qi and imperial true essence intertwined, slashing fiercely against Ji Wushang's chest.
Clang!
A clash of metal rang out.
The crystal core at Ji Wushang's chest exploded with black light, blocking the blade's edge.
Wang Hao's eyes narrowed slightly.
Hard.
But the New Emperor Sword trembled with excitement.
"Master!"
"This thing is nourishing!"
Wang Hao sneered.
"Then let's keep going."
Second sword.
River Breaker!
Third sword.
Sea Splitter!
Fourth sword.
Peak Cleaver!
Each sword light was fiercer than the last.
Ji Wushang was forced back three steps.
With every step he retreated, a deep crater exploded out from the altar.
All trace of composure vanished from his face.
Wang Hao's sword was not just powerful in technique.
What was even more terrifying was that the New Emperor Sword was devouring.
Every single clash, the New Emperor Sword forcibly tore a little bit of corrupted power from the surface of the crystal core.
That little bit wasn't much.
But drops of water will wear through a stone.
For the first time, Ji Wushang felt his core being gnawed at.
By a sword with a flapping mouth, at that.
This was more revolting than being wounded.
Ji Wushang bellowed, "Get lost!"
The black crystal core on his chest erupted with a terrifying tide of darkness.
Wang Hao was knocked back half a step.
But as soon as he retreated, he smiled again.
Because over at the Emperor Corpse, things were spiraling out of control.
Without Ji Wushang's full control, the Emperor Corpse was being disrupted by the black thunder chains, the prison heaven palm force, and the residual devouring power of the New Emperor Sword all at once.
It abruptly turned its head.
Its pitch-black eyes were now fixed on Ji Wushang.
Ji Wushang's face truly changed.
Wang Hao's smile widened.
"Seems your dead man isn't listening too well."
Ji Wushang gritted his teeth.
"Wang Hao, do you really think you can win like this?"
Wang Hao raised his sword.
Its tip pointed straight at the crystal core in Ji Wushang's chest.
His voice was not loud, yet it drowned out the thunder that filled the sky.
"We'll know whether I can win or not when the fight is over."
"But there is one thing I'm absolutely sure about right now."
Ji Wushang said coldly, "What?"
Wang Hao laughed brilliantly.
"You've been putting on airs this whole time."
"You're only at Half-Step Transcendence."
"Still not enough to make me run."
The New Emperor Sword immediately chimed in.
"The great master is wise!"
"A mere Half-Step Transcendence isn't even worthy of shining the master's shoes!"
Wang Hao shot it a glance.
"That's not what you were saying when the Emperor Corpse beat you crying earlier."
The New Emperor Sword instantly turned serious.
"Master, that was tactical retreat."
Wang Hao sneered.
"It better have been."
Ji Wushang's chest heaved, his eyes utterly gloomy.
The Emperor Corpse was struggling.
The crystal core was being damaged.
Wang Hao's time was running out.
All three were battling for survival.
In the abyss, thunder light, death qi, imperial dragon qi, and corrupted black tides crashed against one another madly.
This battle was no longer a simple fight between martial gods.
It was a living emperor of the mortal world, a Half-Step Transcendence puppet master, and an incomplete awakened Transcendence Emperor Corpse, all fighting for their last shred of survival in the Abyss of Ten Thousand Ruins.
Wang Hao took a deep breath.
He could feel the power of the Examination Card ticking down, second by second.
Couldn't delay any longer.
He raised his left hand.
The Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower rumbled once more.
In his right hand, the New Emperor Sword's black-gold sword light blazed.
Nine imperial dragon qi spiraled around his entire body.
Wang Hao locked his eyes on Ji Wushang, murderous intent razor-sharp in his gaze.
"Ji Wushang."
"The next sword will cut through your turtle shell."
"The next palm, I'll send you and your corpse of a father back into the coffin together."
Within the Abyss of Ten Thousand Ruins, thunder light raged like an ocean.
The broken nine-coffin altar hung above the sea of death qi, resembling a grave mountain abandoned by the heavens.
The Emperor Corpse struggled.
Ji Wushang glared furiously.
Wang Hao stood tall with his sword.
Between the three, aura interlaced, like three broken great suns crashing into the abyss at once, pressing down on the people of the Great Xia so hard that even breathing became difficult.
Wang Hao could clearly feel the power of the Transcendence Examination Card draining away.
The sensation was subtle.
Like a heavenly furnace ignited within his body.
The furnace was still there.
But its flames were on a countdown.
Once the fire died, this humble War God Stage Two body of his would instantly drop from "temporary half ascended emperor" back to reality.
Reality is cruel.
And right now, reality meant his chest was still caved in.
His meridians still ached.
His spiritual soul was still numbed from the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower's shock.
If neither Ji Wushang nor the Emperor Corpse was dealt with by the time the Examination Card ran out, Wang Hao felt he might as well start drafting his posthumous edict.
Of course.
The contents of that edict would be something like—
"Your Emperor didn't lose because he was weak. It was because the trial card expired."
Very reasonable.
Very dignified.
But Wang Hao didn't like losing.
He especially disliked having to explain to others why he had lost.
He preferred to rip off his enemy's head first, and then slowly explain why he had won.
Wang Hao raised the New Emperor Sword.
Black-gold sword light flowed along the blade, like a dark river devouring all spirits.
Within the sword, the New Emperor Sword's spirit trembled with excitement.
"Master!"
"Cut him!"
"Cut the black egg on his chest!"
"Your blade can already smell an upgrade!"
Wang Hao said flatly, "Can you show some restraint?"
The New Emperor Sword straightened in righteous indignation.
"Master, I, little sword, do this for the future of the Great Xia!"
"If we devour this black egg, little sword's ranking is bound to soar!"
"Then when our master uses little sword to cut enemies, not only will it be more effective, the posture will be more imposing too!"
Wang Hao sneered.
"Just say you want to level up."
The New Emperor Sword went silent for a moment.
Then, with complete sincerity, it said, "Master, little sword wants to level up."
Wang Hao: "..."
This sword may have no shame, but at least it was honest enough that it was hard to scold.
Ji Wushang's black crystal core spun slowly at his chest.
Within the crystal core, the phantom of the half section of the Imperial Fallen Stele released ring after ring of corruption ripple waves.
With every ripple that spread, the deathly energy in the Myriad Abyss Depths was pulled and guided back toward the Emperor Corpse.
The arm of the Emperor Corpse, bound by chains of black lightning, began to tremble violently.
The palm force left behind by the Heaven-Sealing Earth-Covering Palm was also collapsing.
The crack that the New Emperor Sword had just gouged out was being patched up by the gray-white deathly energy.
Ji Wushang sneered.
"Wang Hao, you don't have much time left."
Wang Hao's eyes flickered slightly.
This bastard could see it.
As expected of an old schemer who had lurked behind the Nine Coffin Sacrificial Altar for so long.
Say what you will, his eyes were sharp.
But Wang Hao wasn't panicking.
Just because the enemy had spotted your weakness didn't mean he'd live long enough to exploit it.
Wang Hao grinned.
"Ji Wushang, do you know who I hate the most?"
Ji Wushang narrowed his eyes.
Wang Hao said, "I hate people who remind me I don't have much time left in the middle of a fight."
"Because it makes me think of a very real problem."
Ji Wushang said coldly, "What problem?"
Wang Hao's grin grew even wider.
"That I need to beat you to death even faster."
The moment those words left his mouth.
Wang Hao took a single step forward.
Boom!
Nine imperial dragon essences roared at once.
Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower rained down ten thousand chains of lightning, instantly propelling Wang Hao right in front of Ji Wushang.
Not flight.
Not footwork.
But forced teleportation through a lightning channel.
One instant, three zhang.
Three zhang was like a moat between heaven and earth, yet in that flash of thunderlight, Wang Hao crushed it with a single step.
Ji Wushang clasped his palms together, and a tide of black polluted energy congealed into a massive stele shadow before him.
The stele shadow was ancient and broken, its edges riddled with cracks, yet it exuded a cold, sinister aura of burying ten thousand ages.
The Emperor's Fall Stele!
Even if it was just a phantom, it instantly drained the color from the faces of the Da Xia crowd.
Ghost Granny trembled all over and rasped, "Don't look at that stele!"
"That thing will corrupt your soul!"
Han Shanyue and the others quickly averted their gaze.
But even a glimpse from the corner of their eye sent countless whispers burrowing into their minds.
"Return..."
"Sink..."
"Turn to the strange..."
"Eternal life..."
The voices were faint but suffocatingly thick, like icy hands clawing their way out from the depths of consciousness.
The Demon Lord let out a cold snort, and demonic energy swept outward, shielding everyone.
"Guard your hearts!"
"People of Da Xia, don't embarrass yourselves before His Majesty!"
Everyone gritted their teeth and held on.
But they all knew deep down that this level of corruption was beyond their ability to interfere.
All they could do was stand their ground.
Stand alive.
And watch Wang Hao smash through everything.
Wang Hao faced the Emperor's Fall Stele phantom head-on, his eyes showing not the slightest ripple.
The corrupting whispers drilled into his sea of consciousness.
The next instant.
The imperial dragon essences roared in fury.
The will of countless citizens surged like a golden ocean, forming a thin membrane of light around his soul.
That membrane wasn't dazzling, but it was warm, heavy, and inviolable.
It was the unwavering faith of the billions of Da Xia subjects.
The awe, expectation, resentment, worship, and the complex emotions of the few who secretly cursed the tyrant every day without daring to say it aloud.
Wang Hao felt that this mixture was rather complicated.
But it worked.
And that was all that mattered.
"The Emperor's Fall Stele?"
Wang Hao sneered.
"A half-broken slab of stone, and you dare posture before me?"
He swung his sword.
The fifth strike of the Nine Heavens Cleaving Swords.
Star Breaker!
The sword light suddenly contracted.
No longer vast as a river, but condensed into a single line.
A thin thread of black-gold sword light, like the first ray of light hewn from primordial chaos, slashed directly onto the phantom of the Emperor's Fall Stele.
Clang!
The Myriad Abyss Depths shook.
Black sparks exploded across the surface of the stele phantom.
Ji Wushang let out a muffled groan, and the shattered stones of the sacrificial altar under his feet turned to dust.
But the stele phantom didn't shatter.
Wang Hao's gaze didn't waver.
The sixth strike.
Heaven Splitter!
The sword momentum suddenly soared.
The New Emperor Sword let out a piercing shriek.
Black-gold sword energy tore through the void, descending from above the stele phantom, as if it sought to cleave the entire sky in two.
Ji Wushang roared in fury, and the black light of the crystal core in his chest erupted.
The Emperor's Fall Stele phantom suddenly solidified.
Boom!
The sixth strike fell.
A deep rift split open across the stele phantom.
From within the rift, corruptive miasma like black blood surged out wildly.
The New Emperor Sword shouted in excitement.
"It's open!"
"Master! Its shell is open!"
"Like a crab!"
The corner of Wang Hao's eye twitched.
"You've eaten crab before?"
The New Emperor Sword said with complete confidence.
"Never eaten it, but I've watched you eat it."
Wang Hao: "..."
Ji Wushang's face darkened to its absolute limit.
The exchange between Wang Hao and this cheap sword might not have done as much damage as the sword qi, but the humiliation was absolutely maxed out.
He was a half-step Transcendent.
He had schemed for ages in the Myriad Abyss Depths.
Refined the pollution source of the Emperor's Fall Stele into his body.
Controlled the Emperor Corpse.
Planned for eternal life.
And yet, in the mouths of this master-servant pair, the core in his chest was a black egg, and the Emperor's Fall Stele phantom was a crab shell.
This was harder to bear than being wounded.
"Wang Hao!"
Ji Wushang roared.
"You really think I'm afraid of you?"
Wang Hao didn't answer.
Because the seventh strike was already coming.
The seventh strike of the Nine Heavens Cleaving Swords.
Burial of the Sun!
The moment this sword was unleashed, even the thunderlight seemed to dim.
Within the black-gold sword light, the phantom of a falling sun appeared.
The sun plummeted.
Its radiance collapsed.
This wasn't just an ordinary sword technique, but an extremely overbearing martial will.
Even the sun could be buried.
So why not your broken stele?
Boom!
The Emperor's Fall Stele phantom finally couldn't take it anymore.
Crack!
A crisp sound echoed throughout the abyss.
The stele phantom split down the middle.
Ji Wushang retreated at speed, the crystal core in his chest flickering violently.
The New Emperor Sword seized the moment and bit down.
Of course, it had no mouth.
But its devouring power was far more vicious than any bite.
Black-gold light coiled around the edge of the crystal core, forcibly tearing a wisp of polluted origin essence from the surface of the black crystal.
Ji Wushang's face changed drastically.
That wasn't ordinary power.
That was one of the pollution sources of the Emperor's Fall Stele that he had refined into his body.
It was his foundation!
"Get off!"
Ji Wushang struck a palm at the New Emperor Sword.
Wang Hao raised his hand and slapped back.
Heaven-Sealing Earth-Covering Palm!
First palm!
A giant heavenly palm condensed and directly dispersed Ji Wushang's strike.
Wang Hao said coldly, "My sword. Only I get to hit it."
The New Emperor Sword was moved to tears.
"Master!"
"You're too good to little sword!"
Wang Hao's face was expressionless.
"You owe me a debt, and we haven't settled the books yet. I can't let others smash it to pieces."
The New Emperor Sword: "..."
The moment of emotion came to an abrupt end.
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?!
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
tions: attribute allocation, analysis, proficiency, and simulation. Specializing in mechanical alchemy, from crafting sorcerous battle armor to handcrafting mechanical maidens, his mechanical legion conquers endless realms... Relying on his wits, he begins with a student-teacher romance, wins over a female director, enslaves a female assassin and a underworld queen, becoming the husband of a Grand Duchess... He enslaves the Goddess of Magic from the divine realm, developing his power simultaneously in both the Wizard World and the Realm of Gods...
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!
