At the Very Bottom of the Dark Sky, Check In to the Destiny Tax Ledger

The hidden passage was extremely narrow.

So narrow that it hardly seemed made for people to walk through.

It looked more like a tunnel for the dead to crawl through.

There were no bricks or stones in the walls on either side—only layers of dark-red flesh membrane.

Beneath the membrane, black patterns like veins writhed faintly.

Every few dozen zhang, there was a bone lamp.

Its wick was not a flame.

Instead, it was a cluster of shrunken human souls.

Those souls had been compressed to the size of soybeans, suspended in the center of the bone lamp. Their eyes still moved, and their mouths continued opening and closing soundlessly.

Yin Jiuyou followed behind Wang Hao, his voice low.

“Your Majesty, the yin energy here is too heavy.”

“This isn’t an ordinary place of secluded cultivation.”

Xue Wuhen gripped his blood saber, his expression solemn.

“It resembles some kind of… living tomb.”

Han Shanyue carried more than a dozen storage bags on his back, walking with extreme caution.

Every step he took made the storage bags clatter.

The sound was especially jarring in the eerie passage.

Zi Yuan couldn’t help glancing at him.

Han Shanyue immediately became wary.

“What are you looking at?”

“This is the imperial treasury.”

“Personally sealed by His Majesty.”

The corner of Zi Yuan’s mouth twitched.

This was the first time she had ever seen someone carrying a stolen private treasury while radiating such an air of loyal devotion to the throne.

Wang Hao, on the other hand, remained calm.

As he walked, he observed the formation patterns on both sides of the passage.

The eye of the Black Heaven Submerging City Formation had been destroyed.

Black Heaven City had stopped sinking.

But the depths of the city still resembled a monster that had slumbered for countless years, slowly awakening.

The ground trembled.

The ceiling was collapsing.

The thunderous clashes of the Martial Gods battling in the distance traveled through the earth veins.

It sounded as though countless giants were beating war drums beneath the ground.

Every boom made their hearts tighten.

The Demon Lord walked beside Wang Hao.

His face was pale, and his aura was unsteady.

He had been badly injured after forcibly confronting Old Man Heitian.

Yet the demonic intent in his eyes still burned fiercely.

“Wang Hao.”

“You really intend to continue?”

Wang Hao glanced at him.

“We’ve come this far.”

“If we don’t go in and take a look, wouldn’t that be letting the two thunder dragons we spent earlier go to waste?”

The Demon Lord fell silent for a moment.

“So you’re not doing this for the sake of all the common people under Heaven.”

Wang Hao answered earnestly, “The common people under Heaven are important.”

“But thunder dragons are expensive too.”

The Demon Lord suddenly had no idea how to respond.

This Young Emperor’s thought process was sometimes even more demonic than the demonic path itself.

Zi Yuan suddenly spoke.

“Up ahead is Old Man Heitian’s true place of seclusion.”

“Only the successive chief stewards of Black Heaven City have known about this passage.”

“But even I have never entered.”

Wang Hao asked, “Why not?”

Zi Yuan’s voice grew somewhat cold.

“Everyone who entered never came back out.”

“That includes the previous chief steward.”

Han Shanyue swallowed.

“Then how did he hand over his duties?”

Zi Yuan looked at him.

“Before he died, he peeled off his own face and pasted it onto my door.”

Han Shanyue fell silent.

Then he quietly moved two steps closer to Wang Hao.

Wang Hao said flatly, “That’s rather improper.”

Everyone looked at him.

Wang Hao continued, “A proper handover requires written documentation.”

“What does pasting on a face count as?”

“There’s no sense of procedural discipline.”

Zi Yuan: “…”

Yin Jiuyou: “…”

The Demon Lord: “…”

To think he could still comment on procedures at a time like this.

As expected of an emperor.

And one who was exceptionally skilled at auditing accounts.

The passage continued downward.

The farther they went, the colder it became.

But it was not an ordinary chill.

It was a deathly silence that froze even the soul.

It felt as if they were walking toward the underside of the world—

toward the deepest shadow in all of the Nine Provinces.

Suddenly—

Wang Hao stopped.

At the end of the passage ahead stood a bronze gate.

The bronze gate was a hundred zhang tall.

There was no lock.

Only countless contract characters covered its surface.

Each character resembled a twisted black serpent embedded in the gate.

At the center of the gate were four ancient characters:

Black Heaven Never Dies.

The words had not been carved with a blade.

They looked as though they had been clawed out bit by bit with countless human fingernails.

Every stroke seeped with dried soul-blood.

The instant Wang Hao saw the gate, the system’s voice suddenly rang out in his mind.

[Special location detected: Old Man Heitian’s place of secluded cultivation for eight hundred years—the Black Heaven Ancestral Nest.]

[Would you like to check in?]

Wang Hao’s eyes shifted slightly.

As expected.

There was something here.

He did not hesitate.

“Check in.”

[Check-in successful.]

[Congratulations, host. You have obtained: Fragment of the Heavenly Mandate Tax Ledger.]

[Fragment of the Heavenly Mandate Tax Ledger: A remnant of the artifact used by the ancient Heavenly Court to collect the fortune of the myriad worlds. It can record the origin aura of debtors and pursue them through karma. Due to its severe damage, it can currently record only three targets at or above the Martial God realm. If those recorded owe the host karma, fortune, wealth, imperial taxes, or anything else, their fortune will be continuously weakened.]

[Hint: This item shares the same origin as the Myriad Contracts and has an extremely high compatibility with the Contract Seal.]

[New intelligence obtained from this check-in.]

[Intelligence One: The Black Heaven Ancestral Nest contains the shed corpse-skin of Old Man Heitian’s first life. This corpse-skin once touched the threshold of Transcendence and was refined by Old Man Heitian into the source of his second life.]

[Intelligence Two: Old Man Heitian is not a true human martial artist. His original body was a wisp of “Black Heaven Tribulation Aura” born within the Black Abyss. He later devoured human souls and took human form.]

[Intelligence Three: Every chief steward of Black Heaven City is ultimately sacrificed to the Ancestral Nest, becoming the skin Old Man Heitian uses to stabilize his human form.]

[Intelligence Four: A Black Heaven Contract Seed has been buried inside Zi Yuan’s body. Once Old Man Heitian calls her true name, Zi Yuan will be forcibly skinned and transformed into Old Man Heitian’s new skin.]

[Intelligence Five: Deep within the Black Heaven Ancestral Nest lies the final fragment of a map suppressing the remnant of the Nine Provinces’ dragon vein. If Old Man Heitian devours it, he will be able to use the dragon vein’s resentment to briefly return to the Half-Step Transcendent realm.]

Wang Hao’s eyes darkened slightly.

The Fragment of the Heavenly Mandate Tax Ledger.

The name alone sounded like something perfectly suited to Great Xia.

Especially the words “pursue through karma.”

They had tremendous vision.

A strong sense of order.

It was exactly the kind of thing needed to build a law-governed dynasty.

He raised his hand.

A gray-gold fragment silently appeared in his palm.

It was impossible to tell what material the fragment was made of.

It resembled neither paper nor beast hide.

It was more like a thin sheet condensed from the laws of Heaven itself.

There were only three blank lines on it.

Beside each line was a tiny ancient seal-script character.

Tax.

The more Wang Hao looked at it, the more satisfied he became.

The thunder dragons were gone.

But now he had obtained a tax ledger.

It might not be a combat-oriented treasure,

but in Wang Hao’s eyes, this thing was even more sinister than a thunder dragon.

A thunder dragon could strike only once.

The tax ledger could pursue someone indefinitely.

Lightning someone was satisfying for a moment.

Collecting taxes was satisfying for a lifetime.

The New Emperor Sword leaned over.

“Master, what is that?”

Wang Hao replied indifferently, “The light of civilization.”

The New Emperor Sword looked utterly confused.

The Demon Lord, however, narrowed his eyes.

He could sense an extremely ancient karmic aura radiating from the fragment.

That aura was unlike a martial technique or a strange artifact.

It was more like a fragment of some primordial order.

“What did you get this time?”

Wang Hao put the fragment away, his expression unchanged.

“Nothing.”

The Demon Lord sneered.

“You think I’m blind?”

Wang Hao said, “Do you want to hear the truth?”

The Demon Lord looked at him.

Wang Hao answered seriously, “I just picked up a piece of scrap paper.”

The Demon Lord let out a derisive laugh.

“Scrap paper?”

Wang Hao nodded.

“It has a debt-note template written on it.”

The Demon Lord: “…”

He suddenly felt that he should never have asked.

Because asking would only make him angrier.

Zi Yuan stood before the bronze gate, her face growing paler by the second.

She stared at the contract characters on the gate, her body trembling faintly.

Wang Hao glanced at her.

“You recognize these characters?”

Zi Yuan’s lips were dry.

“I recognize some of them.”

“These are the oldest contract characters of Black Heaven City.”

“Every time a new chief manager takes office, they study in the secret chamber.”

“At the time, I thought it was merely a record of the secrets governing Black Heaven City.”

“But now…”

Her voice faltered.

Wang Hao finished for her.

“Now it seems it was a manual on how to skin people.”

Zi Yuan closed her eyes.

Her face grew even paler.

Han Shanyue sucked in a sharp breath.

“Old Man Heitian is truly vile.”

Xue Wuhen said coldly, “The Demon Sect refines corpses and souls, but at least they know they’re doing evil.”

“That old bastard hides behind the guise of a neutral black market and treats everyone as merchandise.”

Yin Jiuyou said in a low voice, “Your Majesty, I’m afraid there’s something wrong with Zi Yuan’s body.”

Zi Yuan abruptly raised her head.

“What do you mean?”

Wang Hao did not explain.

He simply raised his hand.

The Myriad Contracts One Source Seal emerged.

Golden contract light shone over Zi Yuan.

In the next instant, a black mark suddenly lit up over her chest.

The mark resembled a piece of human skin curled into a ball.

It slowly began to unfurl.

Zi Yuan groaned and collapsed to her knees.

Her hands clenched tightly around her robes, pain spreading across her face.

“What is this?”

Wang Hao stared at the mark.

“A Heitian Contract Seed.”

“Old Man Heitian planted a skin on you.”

Zi Yuan’s pupils contracted.

At last, she understood.

Why none of the former chief managers had met a good end.

Why she had always felt as though some unseen gaze was watching her.

Why Old Man Heitian, despite trusting no one, had dared to entrust her with so many affairs in the city.

She was not the chief manager.

She was merely a spare skin.

A piece of human skin that had been raised rather well.

Zi Yuan suddenly laughed.

The sound was soft,

yet carried an indescribable bleakness.

“So that’s how it is.”

“I managed Black Heaven City for him.”

“I negotiated with the holy lands and the Demon Sect on his behalf.”

“I handled every illicit transaction.”

“And in the end, even I was just another one of his deals.”

Wang Hao looked at her.

This woman was no kind soul.

To become the chief manager of Black Heaven City, her hands had surely been stained with countless lives.

Yet even she felt an absurd sorrow upon learning the truth.

Everyone in Black Heaven City was engaged in trade.

But none of them knew that they had long since become goods on Old Man Heitian’s shelves.

The Demon Lord said coldly, “Want this lord to dig the Contract Seed out for you?”

Zi Yuan looked up.

“Will I die?”

The Demon Lord replied, “Most likely.”

Zi Yuan gave a bitter smile.

“Then forget it.”

But Wang Hao suddenly spoke.

“I can try.”

Zi Yuan froze.

Wang Hao raised his hand, and the Myriad Contracts One Source Seal slowly descended.

“A Contract Seed is still a contract.”

“And contracts can be altered.”

Zi Yuan’s eyes shifted violently.

“What does Your Majesty want?”

Wang Hao smiled.

“Clever.”

“I like speaking with clever people.”

“You managed Black Heaven City’s accounts for many years. You know a great many secrets.”

“From this day forth, you will provide Great Xia with Black Heaven City’s complete transaction records, its hidden networks, the locations of its treasuries, and the secrets held over the various sects.”

“In return, I will remove the Contract Seed for you.”

Zi Yuan fell silent.

This was not saving her.

It was merely changing masters.

And she was going from Old Man Heitian into Wang Hao’s hands.

The difference was that Old Man Heitian wanted her skin.

Wang Hao wanted her records.

Zi Yuan suddenly felt that this was already an act of immense mercy.

She said quietly, “If I agree, can Your Majesty guarantee that I won’t die?”

Wang Hao shook his head.

“No.”

Zi Yuan’s face stiffened.

Wang Hao continued, “I can only guarantee that I won’t be the one to kill you.”

“As for whether the other holy lands and Demon Sect want you dead, that depends on whether what you confess is enough to buy your life.”

Zi Yuan smiled.

The words were harsh.

But they were far more believable than all those empty promises about protecting the world.

“Deal.”

The light of the Myriad Contracts One Source Seal descended.

A new contract instantly took shape.

The black human-skin mark on Zi Yuan’s chest began to struggle violently.

From deep within the bronze gate, Old Man Heitian’s venomous voice suddenly rang out.

“Zi Yuan.”

“You dare betray this old man?”

At the sound of that single voice, the Contract Seed in Zi Yuan’s chest abruptly split open.

It seemed intent on peeling an entire layer of skin from her body.

Zi Yuan let out a shriek.

Wang Hao’s eyes turned cold.

“Trying to touch My witness in front of Me?”

“Did you ask Me first?”

He pressed his palm down.

The Heaven-Imprisoning Earth-Covering Palm.

First strike!

Boom!

Golden faith power and divine contract light surged into Zi Yuan’s body at the same time.

The black Contract Seed let out a shriek like that of a wailing infant.

Second strike!

Third strike!

Wang Hao did not strike at the enemy.

Instead, he precisely hammered the Contract Seed’s karmic connection.

With every palm that fell, Zi Yuan spat out a mouthful of black blood.

But the human-skin mark on her chest was also being torn away, bit by bit.