All Creatures of the Middle Realm March to War, and I, the Emperor, Scavenge on the Battlefield

Wang Hao stood outside the ruins of the Sun Holy Land, gazing at the countless battle flags converging in the distance, his expression grave.

This was a true war.

Not the schemes and infighting between holy lands.

Not a conflict of interests between Great Xia and the Central Continent.

This was a battle for survival between the entire Central Continent and a Level Ten Aberration.

Yin Jiuyou said in a low voice, “Your Majesty, every faction has entered the fray.”

“What should we do?”

Wang Hao looked at the ancestral flame within the ruins of the Sun Holy Land, which had yet to die out completely.

Then he looked toward the increasingly powerful aura of Ji Wushang in the distance.

He fell silent for a moment.

Then he said, “Keep going.”

Yin Jiuyou blinked.

“Keep doing what?”

Wang Hao replied, “Keep scavenging.”

Everyone fell silent.

Wang Hao’s expression was solemn.

“Once the battle begins, the battlefield will be littered with abandoned resources, damaged ancestral artifacts, and the corpses of aberrations.”

“Ji Wushang can devour them.”

“Why can’t I pick them up?”

“He grows stronger by eating people. I strengthen the nation by scavenging.”

“That’s called strategic hedging.”

The New Emperor Sword shone excitedly.

“Master is wise!”

“I can already smell so many delicious things!”

Wang Hao glanced at it.

“Remember.”

“Pick up whatever we can.”

“Steal whatever we can.”

“Rescue whatever can be salvaged.”

“If we can’t beat them, run.”

Yin Jiuyou asked solemnly, “And what if someone calls us shameless?”

Wang Hao replied calmly, “Tell him to go curse Ji Wushang first.”

“If he wins, I’ll apologize to him.”

Somehow, everyone felt that this made perfect sense.

In the distance.

After devouring the Sun Holy Land’s final wisp of ancestral flame, Ji Wushang slowly raised his head.

He sensed the hostility of the entire Central Continent.

Countless battle flags.

Countless cultivators.

Countless living beings.

They were all closing in on him.

In Ji Wushang’s damaged, sinister eye, a strange excitement suddenly appeared.

He opened his enormous mouth.

But he did not speak.

Instead, he let out a low, rhythmic howl.

“Wooo—”

The sound was not loud.

Yet it pierced through the mountains and rivers.

Through the void.

Through the earth’s veins.

Through every dark, damp place filled with death and resentment.

Wang Hao’s expression changed.

At that moment, the Sign-In Intelligence System trembled faintly.

[Intelligence Update: Level Ten Aberration Ji Wushang is issuing a sinister summons.]

[All aberrations below Level Nine within the Central Continent will be forcibly influenced by him and gather in the Main Aberrant Domain.]

[The Level Ten Aberrant Domain is entering a state of war.]

Wang Hao’s pupils contracted.

The next moment.

Throughout the Central Continent—

Graveyards split open.

Blood erupted from ancient wells.

In ruined cities, hanging corpses opened their eyes.

In the barren mountains, monsters wearing human skin crawled out of the mud.

In the depths of great rivers, drowned corpses floated to the surface.

In the dungeons of imperial dynasties, sealed aberrations smashed through their iron chains.

Countless aberrations turned their heads at the same time.

They gazed toward the place where Ji Wushang stood.

They had heard the call of their king.

Wang Hao drew a deep breath.

“This is going to be troublesome.”

The New Emperor Sword asked excitedly, “Master, does that mean a lot of things we can eat are coming?”

Wang Hao looked at it.

“Yes.”

“But they also think you look delicious.”

The New Emperor Sword fell silent for a long while.

“Then let’s stick to scavenging scraps from the edges.”

Wang Hao nodded.

“You’re learning.”

That rhythmic howl from Ji Wushang was like a funeral bell tolling across the entire Central Continent.

After the howl faded, the heavens and earth changed color.

From the ruins of Purple Sun to the Frozen Profundity Domain.

From the dying flames of the Sun Holy Land to the gates of Profound Heaven Mountain.

From the underground tombs of ancient dynasties to the sealed ancestral shrines of millennia-old clans.

From the depths of the mountains and forests to desolate ancient cities—

Every aberration awakened.

Not one.

Not a group.

But wave after wave.

Like a black tide.

Like a plague.

Like rotting pus and blood squeezed out from the shadows of heaven and earth.

In an abandoned ancient city in the northern Central Continent, the city gates opened on their own.

A hundred thousand headless corpse soldiers marched out in perfect formation.

They had no eyes, yet every one of them gazed toward the place where Ji Wushang stood.

In the east, the surface of Bone Lake exploded.

A bone dragon formed from countless corpses soared into the sky. The cries of thousands upon thousands of infants echoed from within its belly.

In the Southern Ridges, every bamboo leaf in the Hundred-Ghost Bamboo Grove transformed into human skin.

A female aberration in a red bridal gown emerged from the woods step by step, holding a black umbrella.

In the western regions, beneath a certain Buddhist temple, the Smiling Flesh Buddha, which had been bound by golden chains for three thousand years, split open its mouth and tore itself free of the ground along with its chains.

They were all converging on Ji Wushang.

A Level Ten Aberration was the source of calamity among aberrations.

It was not merely powerful.

It could also command lower-level aberrations.

Or perhaps more accurately, lower-level aberrations instinctively submitted before it.

The Central Continent’s allied forces had only just assembled. Before they could form a complete battle formation, they were struck by the first wave of the aberrant horde.

The ancient Qin dynasty’s warships formed a formation stretching for a thousand miles.

Golden battle flags snapped in the wind.

An old ancestor of the dynasty stood at the bow of the flagship, clad in black-and-gold dragon armor. His voice boomed like thunder.

“Form ranks!”

“Prepare the ballistae!”

“Ignite the Suppression Talismans!”

Tens of thousands of rune-powered giant crossbows lit up at once.

The next moment, a black tide surged from the edge of the horizon.

There were more aberrations than anyone could count.

Human-skin lanterns floated through the air.

Children with limbs twisted backward crawled across the ground.

Huge heads rolled over the hills, chewing on the severed limbs of martial artists.

Black coffins flew through the sky, with countless hands reaching out from every one of them.

Boom!

The rune-powered ballistae fired in unison.

Countless golden bolts tore through the black tide.

Large numbers of aberrations exploded on the spot.

Yet the shattered remains that fell to the ground soon turned into black water, then reassembled themselves into even more twisted forms.

The ancient Qin ancestor’s expression darkened.

“Use solar fire!”

“Hold nothing back!”

Fire poured down from the warships.

Countless aberrations were burned to ash.

But even more came surging forward.

The war had officially begun.

Elsewhere.

The monks of Myriad Buddha Temple formed a Vajra Formation.

A hundred thousand monks chanted sutras.

Buddha-light spread like an ocean.

The phantom image of a golden Buddha suppressed the heavens.

However, after the Smiling Flesh Buddha descended, the golden Buddha phantom began sprouting tumors.

An old monk’s expression changed drastically.

“Don’t look at its smile!”

“Close your eyes and keep chanting!”

But it was already too late.

Several thousand monks simultaneously revealed eerie smiles, turned around, and pounced on their fellow disciples.

In the direction of Monster Mountain, countless demons roared.

The Azure-Scaled Giant Serpent, the Flame-Winged Divine Eagle, the White Tiger Demon King, and the Black Tortoise Ancestor attacked together, battling the horde of aberrations pouring out of the wilderness.

Demon blood and black blood stained the earth red.

The sword cultivators of the Eastern Wilderness Lin Clan rode upon ten thousand swords, forcibly cutting a path through the black tide.

But after the sword cultivators died, their shadows crawled to their feet and continued wielding swords against the living.

The entire Central Continent had become a battlefield.

Warships and ghostly shadows filled the skies.

Beneath the ground, spiritual veins and aberrant energy struggled for supremacy.

Mountains and rivers collapsed.

Rivers and seas surged backward.

One city after another was forced to activate its defensive formations.

Countless commoners knelt in temples and prayed.

They did not know how powerful the Transcendence Realm was, nor did they understand what a Level Ten Aberration meant.

They only knew one thing.

The sky had grown dark.

And it was so dark that it seemed as if daylight would never return.

Wang Hao stood aboard the Great Xia spirit vessel, gazing across the vast battlefield. His expression was unusually grave.

A war on this scale was no longer something that a single dynasty or holy land could control.

This was a calamity descending upon the world.

If Great Xia remained in the Eastern Wilderness, it would inevitably be drawn into the conflict sooner or later.

For now, however, the Central Continent had taken the first blow on behalf of the world.

Yin Jiuyou swallowed nervously.

“Your Majesty, there are far too many of them.”

“Are we still scavenging?”

Wang Hao replied indifferently, “Of course.”

Yin Jiuyou was stunned.

“We’re still scavenging even in this situation?”

Wang Hao looked at him.

“The more chaotic things become, the more important it is to scavenge.”

“In troubled times, who can survive to the end? Besides strength, you also need resources.”

“These holy lands, ancient clans, and imperial dynasties usually carry themselves so high above everyone else. Now the eerie creatures have beaten them until they barely have their underwear left.”

“They don’t have time to pick anything up.”

“We’ll pick it up for them.”

Yin Jiuyou fell silent for a moment.

“Your Majesty, your logic is remarkably complete.”

Wang Hao nodded.

“I have always been reasonable.”

The Demon Lord’s lips twitched.

Your reasoning is the reasoning of a bandit.

But he kept that thought to himself.

Because Wang Hao was not wrong.

Across the battlefield, countless eerie corpses, damaged spirit treasures, fragments of ancestral artifacts, rare materials from the holy lands, and wreckage from warships were constantly falling everywhere.

If no one collected them, they would either be contaminated by the Eerie Domain or devoured by Ji Wushang in the end.

By taking them away, Great Xia could indeed weaken the enemy a little.

Although the main reason was obviously to get rich.

But getting rich and resisting the eerie creatures were not mutually exclusive.

Wang Hao was very good at combining the two.

Great Xia’s spirit ark did not charge into the main battlefield.

Wang Hao knew his own limits.

The Central Continent’s allied army was clashing head-on with the horde of eerie creatures. It was a meat grinder where Martial Gods fell like rain and Transcendents fought like thunder.

If he led his people in there now, it would not be called joining the battle.

It would be called feeding themselves to the enemy.

So he chose the peripheral battlefields.

Wherever a small group of eerie creatures had been scattered, wherever a damaged warship had crashed, wherever fragments of a holy land’s treasury had flown out, he headed straight there.

The New Emperor Sword was so excited that it was like a mad dog.

“Master! To the left!”

“There’s a seventh-level eerie creature over there!”

Wang Hao glanced over.

It was a giant wolf wearing human skin, currently devouring several ancient-clan warriors.

Wang Hao raised his hand.

The gate on the eighth level of the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Pagoda opened.

A thunder phoenix let out a long cry.

Boom!

Purple-red lightning and flames came crashing down.

The human-skinned giant wolf shrieked as the thunder phoenix burned its body black.

The New Emperor Sword immediately charged out.

“Mine!”

It plunged straight into the giant wolf’s head.

Devouring black light surged forth.

A moment later, the human-skinned giant wolf had withered into a tattered sheet of skin.

The New Emperor Sword let out a satisfied belch.

“Not bad.”

“Had a bit of chew to it.”

Wang Hao kicked its hilt.

“Don’t just focus on eating.”

“Go pick things up.”

The New Emperor Sword sounded aggrieved.

“Master, I’m a sword.”

Wang Hao replied:

“You’re also a spirit.”

“A spirit should know how to work.”

The New Emperor Sword muttered under its breath:

“I feel less like an eerie artifact and more like a laborer.”

Yin Jiuyou passed by and said gloomily:

“You should be grateful.”

“I’m not even a laborer.”

The New Emperor Sword asked:

“Then what are you?”

Yin Jiuyou thought for a moment.

“An auxiliary bait candidate.”

The New Emperor Sword immediately felt much better about itself.

The people of Great Xia grew more and more coordinated.

Han Shanyue was responsible for suppressing enemies head-on.

Xue Wuhen led people in swiftly killing wounded eerie creatures.

The Demon Lord used demonic energy to obscure the heavenly secrets, preventing the experts on the main battlefield from noticing them.

Yin Jiuyou was responsible for scouting out where they could pick things up and where they absolutely could not go.

The New Emperor Sword was responsible for devouring the corpses of eerie creatures and gnawing through sealed restrictions.

Wang Hao stood at the highest point.

He had the clearest view of where danger lay.

He also had the clearest view of what was valuable.

Before long, they discovered a fallen warship belonging to the Starry Holy Land.

Half of the warship had been corroded by eerie power, but the other half still contained a large quantity of star crystals and formation cores.

More than a dozen disciples of the Starry Holy Land were desperately guarding it.

Surrounding them was a horde of ghost-baby eerie creatures.

Those ghost babies were only the size of a palm, yet they moved with astonishing speed. Their teeth could bite through a Martial God’s protective aura.

One of the Starry Holy Land disciples screamed as he was knocked to the ground.

In an instant, only his skeleton remained.

Wang Hao’s eyes turned cold.

“Kill them.”

This time, he was not acting merely to seize some spoils.

There were simply too many ghost babies.

If they were allowed to spread, they would cause tremendous casualties among the lower-level warriors in the rear.

Han Shanyue took one step forward, and his Martial God blood qi transformed into the phantom of a mountain.

Boom!

Large swaths of ghost babies were shattered.

Xue Wuhen moved like a bloody shadow, his blade flashing repeatedly as he struck only at the cores of the ghost babies.

Wang Hao raised his hand and unleashed the Heaven-Imprisoning Earth-Covering Palm.

The first palm.

The second palm.

The third palm.

Three consecutive palms descended.

A gigantic golden palm covered the wreckage of the warship, smashing the surrounding ghost babies into pools of black sludge.

The disciples of the Starry Holy Land had narrowly escaped death, and their faces were filled with excitement.

“Many thanks, Great Xia’s Emperor!”

Wang Hao nodded.

“You may dispense with the formalities.”

The disciple had only just relaxed when he saw Yin Jiuyou and the New Emperor Sword already rushing onto the warship, skillfully dismantling the star crystals.

The disciple’s expression froze.

“Your Majesty… what are you doing?”

Wang Hao replied with a solemn expression:

“The warship has been contaminated by eerie power.”

“I’m helping you deal with it.”

The disciple stammered:

“But that side hasn’t been contaminated.”

Wang Hao glanced over.

“It will be in a moment.”

With that, he raised his hand and waved.

A strand of the Demon Lord’s demonic energy drifted over and stained that section of the formation core slightly black.

The disciple fell silent.

The Demon Lord’s face darkened.

Although it was already dark to begin with.

“You’re using my demonic energy to pin the blame on eerie power?”

Wang Hao said calmly:

“Details aren’t important.”

The Starry Holy Land disciple’s lips trembled.

He wanted to argue.

But Wang Hao had indeed saved them just now.

Besides, the battlefield was in chaos, and they would not be able to escape while carrying those formation cores.

In the end, he could only watch helplessly as the people of Great Xia dismantled half of the warship until nothing remained but its shell.

Before leaving, Wang Hao even patted him on the shoulder.

“Young man, staying alive is what matters most.”

The disciple looked like he was about to cry.

“His Majesty is right.”

Yin Jiuyou whispered:

“He doesn’t sound very sincere.”

Wang Hao replied:

“It doesn’t matter.”

“As long as I’m sincere when I take the loot.”

The battlefield grew increasingly brutal.

Although the Central Continent’s allied army was enormous and possessed profound foundations, the horde of eerie creatures was equally endless.

Most importantly, Ji Wushang continued devouring everything in the center of the battlefield.

Every time a large number of cultivators died, the Eerie Domain expanded a little further.

Every time a powerful eerie creature was killed, part of its remains would also be absorbed by the tenth-level Eerie Domain.

This war had been unfair from the very beginning.

The Central Continent’s allied army had to pay with lives and resources to kill the eerie creatures.

Ji Wushang, however, could draw nourishment from death.

It was like a living millstone of darkness.

It constantly crushed both sides before swallowing everything into itself.

The longer Wang Hao watched, the uglier his expression became.

“This won’t do.”

The Demon Lord said grimly:

“The Central Continent’s allied army may have overwhelming numbers, but if they can’t cut off Ji Wushang’s devouring, it will only grow stronger as the battle continues.”

Wang Hao nodded.

“So these people are still useless.”

Yin Jiuyou whispered:

“Your Majesty, the forces participating this time already represent the entire Central Continent.”

Wang Hao replied:

“The entire Central Continent being useless doesn’t change the fact that they’re useless.”

Yin Jiuyou fell silent.

Those words were extremely arrogant.

But as they watched Ji Wushang grow stronger with every clash, no one felt able to refute him.