The Fifth Venerable, Don't Be in a Hurry to Leave

Wang Hao smiled.

The Blood Luo Immortal Lord saw that smile.

For the first time, a sense of foreboding rose in her heart.

“What are you laughing at?”

Wang Hao released his right hand.

Allowing Blood Rakshasa’s will to retreat back into the sea of blood.

Then he took out the Immortal-Sealing Altar.

Inside the altar—

that drop of crimson origin blood was trembling violently.

Wang Hao brought two fingers together like a sword.

And thrust them into his own chest.

From his already shattered heart,

he forcibly squeezed out a drop of pale-golden Imperial Blood.

The Imperial Blood fell upon the Primordial Blood Edict.

An ancient, blood-colored inscription

appeared upon the Immortal-Sealing Altar.

“Using Imperial Blood as the guide.”

“By decree, confer upon the primal source.”

“All blood—”

“Return to the covenant!”

The sealed drop of Blood Rakshasa origin blood

suddenly burst forth with a blinding scarlet radiance.

The entire sea of blood

froze in that instant.

The Blood Luo Immortal Lord lowered her head to look at her body.

She discovered

that her blood was slipping beyond her control.

Not a single drop.

Not a single patch.

But the entire sea of blood.

Above the Nine Provinces of Great Xia,

the scarlet blood rain that had been falling suddenly came to a halt.

Drop after drop of bloodwater flowed backward into the heavens.

Within the bodies of the corrupted soldiers,

Blood Rakshasa’s blood flew out through their pores.

The bloody color in the soldiers’ eyes rapidly faded.

One soldier dropped to his knees,

gasping for breath.

An old veteran threw down his spear

and quickly helped him up.

“You’re alive?”

The soldier touched his chest.

“Looks like…”

“I’ve been spared having my house confiscated.”

Above the imperial capital,

hundreds of millions of droplets of blood gathered into a river

and flowed back toward the shattered Immortal Domain.

Across every province and every city,

all Blood Rakshasa Immortal Blood simultaneously departed from the Nine Provinces.

Even the blood

that had previously stained Xuanming’s wings

was forcibly drawn away.

Xuanming immediately realized what was happening.

His twelve pairs of Immortal Fiend wings spread wide.

He opened his mouth and swallowed a vast expanse of the sea of blood.

Since Blood Rakshasa’s origin had gone out of control,

he might as well seize the chance to devour it.

The Blood Luo Immortal Lord let out a furious roar.

“Xuanming!”

“Get lost!”

Xuanming’s right eye-mouth snapped shut.

In one gulp, it swallowed a sea of blood stretching hundreds of thousands of miles.

But in the next instant,

the shattered starry sky in his chest violently shook.

Within the sea of blood he had swallowed,

Taiyi’s karmic tribulation fire, Corpse Liberation’s corpse poison, and Heaven-Deficient’s sword intent suddenly erupted.

The three Immortal-level origins Blood Rakshasa had previously devoured

all lost control at this moment.

They exploded within Xuanming’s body.

All twelve pairs of Xuanming’s wings stiffened at once.

The wound in his chest, which had only just closed,

was ripped open again.

That half-silver, half-black heart

was completely exposed.

Seeing this, Wang Hao

took the time to add an entry to his ledger.

Xuanming: Unauthorized consumption of national treasury assets. Additional fine imposed.

The teeth within Xuanming’s right eye spun wildly.

“Wang Hao!”

“She ate the blood herself!”

“I don’t care.”

“Anything that enters Great Xia’s battlefield

must be registered.”

For the first time, Xuanming felt the urge to leave.

He felt that

continuing to speak with Wang Hao

was more damaging than injuring his Immortal Fiend core.

In the depths of the sea of blood,

the Blood Luo Immortal Lord no longer had the leisure to worry about Xuanming.

The summons of the Primordial Blood was growing ever stronger.

The boundless sea of blood was being compressed madly.

A hundred million miles.

Ten million miles.

One million miles.

At last, it condensed into an enormous sphere of blood ten thousand miles in diameter.

The Blood Luo Immortal Lord’s true consciousness

was forcibly driven into the center of the blood sphere.

“Stop!”

“Wang Hao!”

“This Immortal can submit!”

“This Immortal can give you the Blood Sea Great Dao!”

“This Immortal can grant every soldier of Great Xia an undying body!”

Wang Hao stood outside the blood sphere.

His body was in ruins.

Only his right arm remained.

His heart had been pierced through.

Nearly all the blood in his body had been drained away.

Yet behind him,

the river of the Imperial Dao still surged onward.

The golden dragon of destiny raised its head.

He let out a roar that shook all Nine Provinces.

“My Great Xia soldiers.”

“They may die in battle.”

“But they must never become another face in your sea of blood.”

Wang Hao drew out the shattered fragment of the Taiyi Immortal Bell’s clapper.

He suspended it above the sphere of blood.

Then he brought out fragments of the Heaven-Deficient Left-Eye Sword.

The three fragments transformed into three gray sword lights.

They sealed off the void around the blood sphere.

Finally,

the tattered skin of a Corpse Liberation Immortal unfurled in the wind.

It wrapped around the entire sphere of blood.

The Taiyi bell clapper

suppressed the will of the blood sea.

The Heaven-Deficient sword fragments

severed the blood sea’s karmic paths of escape.

The Corpse Liberation Immortal skin

cut off every drop of blood from its connection to rebirth.

Relics left behind by three dead ancient immortals

became Blood Rakshasa’s coffin

in Wang Hao’s hands.

The Blood Luo Immortal Lord charged madly against it.

The Corpse Liberation Immortal skin swelled again and again.

Cracks spread rapidly across its surface.

It looked ready to burst apart completely.

Wang Hao raised his right hand.

“Heaven-Imprisoning, Earth-Overturning Palm!”

The first palm descended.

The blood sphere, spanning ten thousand li, caved in.

The second palm.

The fragment of the bell clapper let out a thunderous hum.

The third palm.

The Heaven-Deficient sword fragments pierced into the sphere of blood.

The fourth palm.

The Corpse Liberation Immortal skin contracted.

The fifth palm.

Blood Rakshasa’s countless millions of faces shattered at once.

The sixth palm.

The bones in Wang Hao’s right arm broke inch by inch.

The seventh palm.

The river of imperial destiny poured into his palm.

The eighth palm.

A golden dragon of fortune coiled around the blood sphere.

The ninth palm!

Behind Wang Hao,

the figures of Great Xia’s countless people emerged.

No one knelt.

No one prayed.

They stood atop city walls.

They stood in the fields.

They stood in blacksmiths’ workshops.

They stood amid the military formations at the frontier.

They stood in one home after another, homes that had only just been preserved from the immortal calamity.

“Overturn the Earth!”

Boom!

The power of all nine palms erupted at once.

The Corpse Liberation Immortal skin, along with the ten-thousand-li sphere of blood,

was crushed down to the size of a fist by that single strike.

The last trace of the Blood Luo Immortal Lord’s consciousness

was sealed within it.

It was a woman’s face without skin.

She still was not dead.

So long as blood remained,

she could be reborn.

Wang Hao held the Immortal-Sealing Altar in his palm.

The Primordial Blood Edict shone once more.

The fist-sized sphere of blood

was slowly drawn into the altar’s mouth.

The Blood Luo Immortal Lord struggled desperately.

“If this Immortal dies!”

“Then the path of blood cultivation will also be cut off!”

“The countless cultivators of the Nine Provinces who follow the blood path”

“will all be implicated!”

Wang Hao replied calmly,

“Great Xia has physicians.”

“We have no need for your blood.”

“Wang Hao!”

The Blood Luo Immortal Lord’s voice turned shrill.

“You cannot kill this Immortal!”

“This Immortal can grant you an endless lifespan!”

“You are an emperor!”

“Are you not afraid of death?”

Wang Hao looked at her.

“I am.”

“That is why I must kill you first.”

The Immortal-Sealing Altar slammed shut.

Within it, five drops of origin blood trembled at once.

Taiyi karmic tribulation fire ignited.

Corpse Liberation corpse poison spread.

Heaven-Deficient sword intent descended.

The Xuanming immortal aberration origin blood, driven by the Myriad Pact Same-Origin Seal,

also transformed into a silver-black chain.

Four immortal-grade powers

struck the Blood Luo Immortal Lord’s final consciousness at the same time.

“No—”

The Blood Luo Immortal Lord’s scream came to an abrupt end.

Outside,

all the backward-flowing blood lost its vitality.

Drop after drop of blood solidified in midair,

turning into crystalline blood-red gems.

Like a storm of red hail,

they rained down across the shattered immortal domain.

【The Blood Sea’s origin has been exhausted!】

【The path of rebirth through myriad blood has been severed!】

【The Blood Luo Immortal Lord’s final consciousness has been obliterated!】

【Immortal-grade lifeform: Blood Luo, confirmed dead!】

Wang Hao reached out

and caught the largest blood-red crystal core.

At its center,

a miniature blood sea, now utterly devoid of consciousness, lay sealed away.

The Demon-Suppressing Thunder Abyss Tower flew over to his side.

Its body gave a soft tremor.

Wang Hao glanced at it.

“You just brought down a Thunder Dragon.”

“Credit where credit is due.”

“At most, you get half a percent.”

The Black Tower shook violently.

“Half a percent is plenty.”

The shaking grew even more intense.

“Corpse Liberation, Taiyi, and Heaven-Deficient all contributed.”

“They aren’t alive anymore.”

“The dead still get their share.”

All nine gates of the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower slammed shut at once.

It decided to ignore Wang Hao for three days.

Wang Hao put away the blood-red crystal core.

Then he gathered up the scattered fragments of immortal skin, broken pieces of the bell’s clapper, and shards of the Heaven-Deficient Sword one by one.

Finally—

He took out his ledger.

Beside the name Blood Luo Immortal Lord,

he drew a heavy line.

“The fourth one.”

“Entered into storage.”

Blood-red crystal rain

still drifted down through the shattered immortal domain.

Every blood crystal

had once been part of the Blood Luo Immortal Lord.

Now, however, all consciousness had been completely erased.

All that remained was the purest essence of blood-path power.

At a glance,

it seemed as though the entire starry sky had borne crimson fruit.

Wang Hao extended his only remaining right hand

and caught another blood crystal.

Only after confirming that no trace of Blood Rakshasa’s will remained within

did he place it in the national treasury.

No matter how small the gain, it was still a gain.

And this was an immortal.

Just then,

the sound of beating wings came from afar.

Xuanming’s twelve pairs of immortal-phantom wings

were slowly folding shut.

The eyes growing across those wings

closed one after another.

There was no hostility.

No roar.

And certainly no sneak attack.

Xuanming was merely retreating.

He intended to leave.

Four decayed ancient immortals had already fallen.

The corpse poison of Corpse Liberation,

Taiyi’s karmic tribulation fire,

Heaven-Deficient’s sword intent,

and the power of Blood Rakshasa’s out-of-control sea of blood

were all now violently clashing within Xuanming’s body.

His chest had already split completely open.

The broken starry sky around him kept collapsing.

That half-silver, half-black immortal-phantom heart

splashed great torrents of foul blood with every beat.

Yet even so,

Xuanming had not lost his ability to fight.

On the contrary,

his aura was becoming ever more bizarre.

On the silver side—

holy.

Ethereal.

As though he stood above all beings across the myriad realms.

On the black side—

filthy.

Twisted.

Every blood vessel was crammed with struggling faces.

Immortal and phantom—

coexisting within him,

yet devouring one another all the while.

As Xuanming retreated,

he looked toward Wang Hao.

“You killed Blood Rakshasa.”

“But you’ve also reached your limit.”

His voice was calm.

He possessed none of Blood Rakshasa’s madness,

none of Heaven-Deficient’s arrogance,

and none of Taiyi’s absolute confidence in his own Great Dao.

Of the five ancient immortals,

he was the one who best understood how to judge the situation.

If he could win, he devoured.

If he could not, he left.

Living a long life

was itself the greatest victory.

Wang Hao lowered his head and looked at himself.

His left arm was gone.

His chest had been pierced through by Blood Rakshasa.

More than half his heart had shattered.

Less than twenty percent of the blood in his body remained.

The corpse-path markings left behind by Corpse Liberation

had begun crawling back toward his heart.

The ninth floor of the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower was completely empty.

The new Son of Heaven Sword was still dormant.

The Dragon-Slayer had only one hand left,

along with half a hilt that could no longer really be called a blade.

His situation truly was dire.

Wang Hao nodded.

“You have a point.”

The teeth within Xuanming’s eyes stopped turning.

“In that case,”

“between you and me,”

“we can call a temporary truce.”

“You take the remains of the four immortals.”

“This immortal will leave Jiuzhou.”

“From this day forward,”

“we shall not violate one another’s borders.”

Wang Hao opened his ledger

and examined it carefully.

“A truce is possible.”

The heart in Xuanming’s chest steadied somewhat.

Wang Hao continued:

“Settle your outstanding debt.”

“I will personally escort you out of the country.”

Xuanming fell silent for a moment.

“What does this immortal owe you?”

“Unauthorized entry into Great Xia territory.”

“Destroying the firmament.”

“Attacking me.”

“Devouring the assets of the imperial treasury.”

“You even consumed a blood sea stretching hundreds of thousands of li.”

Wang Hao began calculating with his brush.

“Then there are the costs of dealing with the Immortal Calamity.”

“The costs of repairing the territory.”

“The people’s compensation for mental distress.”

“And the venue rental incurred during your stay in the Nine Provinces.”

“All things considered…”

“It isn’t that much.”

Xuanming did not answer.

Because he knew.

When this mortal said something was not much,

it was often very different

from what ordinary beings understood as “not much.”

Wang Hao closed the ledger.

“Leave behind twelve pairs of wings.”

“Leave behind your heart.”

“Leave behind the origin of your Immortal Weirdness.”

“Then you may leave.”

The eyes behind Xuanming

opened simultaneously.

Twenty-four beams of light

illuminated the shattered Immortal Domain.

“You’re stalling for time.”

“Yes.”

Wang Hao admitted it without hesitation.

Xuanming was instead slightly taken aback.

Wang Hao broke off a small piece of the blood-red crystal core.

Then he stuffed it into the wound in his chest.

The instant the blood crystal touched his shattered heart,

it immediately melted into scalding blood.

It surged toward every limb and bone.

This was not Wang Hao’s own blood.

It was the origin of the blood sea,

which had already lost consciousness.

If it had been anyone else,

even a powerful expert in the Martial God realm

would have been blown apart by the blood-path laws

that still lingered within it.

But inside Wang Hao’s body,

the Great Dao River of the Emperor

roared into motion.

Pale golden imperial blood surged forth,

suppressing the blood sea’s origin layer by layer.

His heart could not be repaired.

But his blood was replenished somewhat.