It Will Come Out Naturally

An unnatural flush appeared on Wang Hao’s pale face.

Xuanming understood at once.

“You’re using Blood Rakshasa’s origin essence.”

“To restore your own vitality.”

“The treasury’s resources.”

“Sometimes, it’s acceptable to make an internal advance.”

“Aren’t you afraid of becoming a second Blood Rakshasa?”

Wang Hao paused.

“I have stronger self-control.”

“And besides, I’m not ready to die.”

As soon as he finished speaking—

Xuanming’s twelve pairs of Immortal Aberration wings burst open.

Between each pair of wings,

a rift of silver and black intertwined space appeared.

Twenty-four eyes reflected different starry skies.

Some of those skies had already gone dark.

In some, countless corpses drifted through the void.

And in another—

a starry sky was burning.

The flames were not red,

but a pale white.

Dead stars slowly revolved behind the rifts.

The Dragon-Slayer raised his head.

For the first time, his expression truly turned grave.

“Don’t let him escape.”

“Xuanming’s Immortal Aberration wings can shift between realms.”

“Those twenty-four eyes…”

“are twenty-four sets of coordinates.”

“As long as even one eye gets away,”

“his origin can transfer along with it.”

Wang Hao asked,

“So we just cut them all off?”

“Yes.”

“Senior, do you still have the strength?”

The Dragon-Slayer lowered his head

and glanced at the half-broken firewood knife in his hand.

“This old man still has one hand.”

“Just now, you said you could still make one strike.”

“I still can.”

“Then why say you only have one hand?”

“To remind you.”

The Dragon-Slayer’s face remained expressionless.

“This old man’s injuries are severe.”

“When we split the spoils, give me a little more.”

Wang Hao nodded.

“That can be considered as appropriate.”

“What’s the difference between that statement”

“and simply refusing to give me any?”

“It’s different.”

“At least there’s hope.”

The Dragon-Slayer felt

that he never should have opened his mouth.

In the depths of the void,

Xuanming’s twelve pairs of wings flapped at once.

The shattered immortal domain immediately let out a deafening groan under the strain.

Layers upon layers of space began to fold.

The fallen stars in the distance were forcibly stretched thin.

A million-mile rift

turned into strands of silver-black thread,

wrapping around Xuanming’s body.

He was not merely fleeing.

He was preparing to relocate his very existence,

together with the surrounding space,

to one of the twenty-four starfields.

That way,

even if Wang Hao possessed Xuanming’s origin blood,

he would only be able to sense twenty-four locations

and would have no way of telling which was real.

Xuanming cast one final glance at Wang Hao.

“You cannot keep this immortal here.”

“Perhaps.”

Wang Hao raised his hand.

The Immortal-Sealing Altar flew forth on its own.

Inside the altar,

five drops of immortal-grade origin blood trembled at once.

Among them, the half-silver, half-black drop of Xuanming’s origin blood

suddenly split into twenty-four phantoms.

Each phantom

connected to an eye upon the wings.

The Myriad Pact Same-Origin Seal emerged.

Dark pact patterns rapidly spread along blood-red threads.

But the instant they neared the Immortal Aberration wings,

all twenty-four threads snapped apart at once.

Xuanming spoke coldly.

“This immortal has no single true body.”

“This immortal’s heart”

“can exist within any one of those eyes.”

“The origin blood in your possession”

“cannot find this immortal.”

A system notification appeared.

【Special Check-In Location Updated!】

【Check-In Location: Xuan Ming the Immortal Aberration · Burying Star Heart Realm!】

【Target Description: The Burying Star Heart Realm does not exist in a fixed location. It will shift along with Xuanming’s twenty-four Immortal Aberration hearts!】

【Current Distance: 240,000 li!】

The next instant,

the notification changed.

【Current Distance: 9.7 million li!】

【Current distance: thirty thousand li!】

【Current distance: impossible to determine!】

【Current distance: twelve billion li!】

The distance kept jumping.

With no pattern whatsoever.

Wang Hao narrowed his eyes slightly.

Xuanming had not lied.

At least—

not entirely.

His heart truly was shifting between those twenty-four eyes.

Just then,

the outermost pair of Xuanming’s wings beat violently.

One of the eyes opened a gigantic mouth.

It did not bite toward Wang Hao.

Instead,

it bit into the passage connecting the shattered Immortal Domain and the Nine Provinces.

Crack!

A piece of the sky was torn away.

The Nine Provinces of Great Xia shook violently.

The Northern Frontier.

A fissure stretching a thousand li

spread from the end of the mountain range

all the way to the foot of the city walls.

Countless civilians rushed out of their homes.

They saw the sky tilting.

It was no illusion.

Rather, the edge of the Nine Provinces

was being dragged by Xuanming toward another deathly starfield.

Wang Hao looked up.

“You said you would leave the Nine Provinces.”

Xuanming’s voice remained calm.

“This Immortal is indeed leaving.”

“It is only that, while departing,”

“I need to take some blood-food with me.”

“The Nine Provinces are so vast.”

“If one province is missing,”

“it should not affect your reign as emperor.”

Wang Hao nodded.

“That makes sense.”

Xuanming’s heart beat once more.

He could not understand

why Wang Hao could always,

at moments like this,

say “that makes sense” so calmly.

Wang Hao put away his ledger.

“Then when I beat you to death,”

“taking all of your corpse”

“should not affect your journey either.”

Boom!

The River of Imperial Dao surged from the shattered Immortal Domain into the Nine Provinces.

The golden river pierced through the heavens.

One end connected to Wang Hao.

The other

split into countless golden tributaries

that descended upon every city across the Nine Provinces.

“All provincial prefectures,”

“stabilize the borders.”

“I will not borrow your power of faith,”

“nor do I need you to fight on my behalf.”

Wang Hao’s voice resounded throughout Great Xia.

“Do only one thing.”

“Stand your ground.”

A border city in the Northern Frontier.

Its walls had already cracked beneath the pull of distorted space.

An old general at the Martial God realm

drove his spear into the earth.

His Martial God avatar rose from the ground,

its hands bracing the tilting heavens.

“Northern Frontier Army!”

“Form the Mountain-Stabilizing Formation!”

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers stamped their feet in unison.

The blood-qi of the army formation

became a crimson mountain,

pressing down upon Great Xia’s northern border.

The Western Wasteland.

The soldiers who had only just survived Blood Rakshasa’s corruption

were still kneeling on the ground, gasping for breath.

Yet a terrifying pull descended once again from the sky.

An old soldier drew his spear.

The other soldiers, swaying unsteadily, also rose to their feet.

“Can you still fight?”

the old soldier asked.

The young soldier spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm.

“His Majesty didn’t tell us to fight.”

“He only told us to stand firm.”

“That’s easy.”

“Standing guard is what I do best.”

The two men drove their spears into the ground together.

Behind them,

rank after rank of Great Xia soldiers formed up.

No one attacked the heavens.

They merely stood there.

Yet they were like nail after nail,

pinning Great Xia’s territory

firmly in place.

The imperial capital.

The National Guardian Grand Formation was activated in full.

The bells of the Imperial Ancestral Temple rang out.

Plaques bearing the names of past emperors trembled softly.

Ministry of Works officials rushed onto the city walls,

reactivating every formation node

that had only just been repaired halfway.

One of them twitched in pain at the thought of the cost.

“Take it slower!”

“That’s all spirit stones!”

A military commander from the Ministry of War kicked the formation disk.

“The heavens are about to be dragged away!”

“And you still care about spirit stones?”

The Ministry of Works official snapped:

“What the hell do you know?”

“If the sky gets dragged away, we can find another one!”

“But when the treasury falls into debt,”

“the Ministry of Works has to pay it back in the end!”

For all their shouting,

every formation

was still lit within a single breath.

Golden formation patterns spread across the Nine Provinces.

The Imperial Dao River stabilized at once.

Xuanming’s movement of dragging the Nine Provinces away.

For the first time, faltered.

He lowered his head and looked toward the mortal world.

Within his twenty-four eyes.

Confusion surfaced in all of them at once.

These mortals.

They offered no sacrifices.

Made no pleas.

Nor did they launch futile attacks against him.

They merely stood upon their own lands.

Refusing to move even one step.

Billions upon billions of mortals.

Like countless insignificant grains of sand.

Yet when all those grains of sand joined together.

They became the mountains and rivers of the Nine Provinces.

Xuanming once again beat his wings.

An even more terrifying force of realm-shifting erupted.

Dozens of mountains were wrenched from the earth.

Countless buildings collapsed with a thunderous roar.

Cracks spread through the formations across every province.

Above Wang Hao’s head.

The Thunder Abyss Demon Suppression Tower trembled lightly.

Within the gates of the first eight levels.

Lightning still flickered.

Although the ninth level was empty.

The thunder soldiers in the lower levels had not yet been exhausted.

Wang Hao spoke:

“Get to work.”

The Thunder Abyss Demon Suppression Tower did not move.

“Blood Rakshasa—ten percent for you.”

The black tower still showed no reaction.

“Then I’ll add five percent of Xuanming.”

The gate on the first level slowly opened.

Wang Hao added:

“One-tenth from both of them combined.”

The gate on the first level closed again.

Wang Hao’s expression darkened.

“You’re a cursed artifact.”

“When did you learn to drive such a hard bargain?”

The Thunder Abyss Demon Suppression Tower shook violently.

A vague thought emerged from within the tower.

Learned it from you.

Wang Hao fell silent for a moment.

“Ten percent of Blood Rakshasa.”

“Ten percent of Xuanming.”

The gates of all eight levels of the Thunder Abyss Demon Suppression Tower opened at once.

It agreed with remarkable decisiveness.

Wang Hao sneered.

“So you could negotiate after all.”

The tower stiffened slightly.

It suddenly had an ominous feeling.

Had it agreed too quickly?

Before it could take back its word.

Wang Hao placed his right hand against the tower.

Imperial Dao True Essence poured into it with a roar.

“Open the gates!”

Roar!

From the first level through the seventh.

Tens of thousands of thunder soldiers surged out.

Thunder serpents.

Thunder tigers.

Thunder wyrms.

Thunder rocs.

As well as unarmored celestial soldiers formed from violet-black lightning.

Finally.

The thunder gate on the eighth level trembled.

Three heavily wounded thunder phoenixes.

Let out another shrill cry.

All the thunder soldiers converged together.

Transforming into a thunder spear stretching one hundred thousand li.

Wang Hao gripped the spear in his right hand.

Compared to it.

His body was like a speck of dust.

Yet at this moment.

The entire Imperial Dao River of the Nine Provinces coiled behind Wang Hao.

His figure continued to grow.

Ten thousand zhang.

One hundred thousand zhang.

One million zhang!

A golden imperial phantom with only one arm remaining.

Stood between the Nine Provinces and the shattered immortal realm.

Its right hand gripped the thunder spear.

And thrust it forward with tremendous force!

“You want to leave.”

“Fine.”

“But leave your wings behind!”

Boom!

The thunder spear pierced through the shattered immortal realm.

Striking directly at the outermost eye of Xuanming.

The giant maw in Xuanming’s right eye suddenly opened.

Billions upon billions of razor teeth spun within it.

And bit down on the thunder spear.

Lightning exploded ceaselessly between those vicious teeth.

The other twenty-three eyes of Xuanming.

Shot out silver-black beams of light at the same time.

Within each beam.

A world of death emerged.

Billions of living beings had once inhabited those worlds.

In the end, however, they had all become nourishment for the wings of Xuan Ming the Immortal Aberration.

Twenty-four worlds descended to suppress him.

The imperial phantom behind Wang Hao.

Instantly filled with countless cracks.

The wounds in his chest tore open once more.

Vast amounts of pale golden blood spilled out.

Xuanming’s voice rang out from every world of death.

“You are only at the first level of Transcendence.”

“Even if you possess the complete Imperial Dao.”

“It is still impossible for you alone.”

“To hold up twenty-four worlds of death!”

The veins on Wang Hao’s right arm bulged.

His shattered bones.

Crackled repeatedly amid the lightning.

“Who told you…”

“that I was alone?”

Across the Nine Provinces,

billions of living beings raised their heads at once.

No one knelt.

Yet beneath the feet of every single person,

a faint golden light began to rise.

It was not an offering.

Nor was it a sacrifice.

It was merely an intent—

simple beyond all simplicity.

This is our home.

We cannot give it up.

Billions of golden lights converged into the River of the Imperial Dao.

The imperial phantom behind Wang Hao,

which had been on the verge of collapse,

grew solid once more.

The thunderous battle spear advanced inch by inch.

The fangs in Xuanming’s right eye

shattered one after another.

Crack!

That enormous eye

was pierced straight through by the battle spear.

A pair of immortal-weird wings exploded with it.

Silver-black blood splashed across the starry sky.

The Dragon-Slayer moved.

His right hand gripped half a hilt.

There was no blade,

so he made his hand the blade.

With a single step, he entered the shadow cast by Xuanming’s wings.

What others saw were twenty-four worlds of death.

What he saw,

however,

were twenty-four trees.

Some straight, some crooked.

Some thick, some thin.

But no matter the tree,

each had its grain.

Strike along the grain,

and anything could be felled.

The Dragon-Slayer raised his hand

and slowly brought it down toward the second eye.

“This strike…”

“counts as overtime.”

A blade-light that was anything but magnificent flared to life.

It carried no earth-shaking power.

It merely struck with perfect precision

at the weakest point of the wing.

Slash!

The second eye

split down the middle.

For the first time,

the twenty-four immortal-weird wings on Xuanming’s body fell into disarray.

The twenty-four migration coordinates,

which had been stable,

two collapsed completely.

The remaining twenty-two trembled at once.

The system notifications changed violently.

【Current distance: ninety thousand li!】

【Current distance: three thousand li!】

【Current distance: one hundred and twenty thousand li!】

【Current distance: one hundred li!】

Wang Hao’s eyes narrowed.

He had found it.

Every time Xuanming’s heart shifted position,

it passed through the two severed coordinates.

It lasted only an instant,

but that instant

was enough for the Myriad Contracts, Same Origin Seal to lock on.

Wang Hao raised his hand.

From within the Immortal-Sealing Altar,

Xuanming’s source blood flew out of its own accord.

Dark contract runes pierced through the blood,

then nailed it into the River of the Imperial Dao.

“Myriad Contracts.”

“Same Origin!”

Twenty-two blood-red threads

simultaneously emerged from Xuanming’s remaining eyes.

For the first time,

Xuanming’s expression changed.

He immediately folded his wings inward.

He was not fleeing.

Instead, he aimed every eye

at Wang Hao at once.

The enormous maw of his right eye abruptly widened.

From a million zhang,

to ten million zhang,

and then into a boundless black hole

that covered the shattered immortal domain.

“Since you wish to find this immortal’s heart,

then this immortal shall let you enter!”

A terrifying force of devouring erupted.

Within the shattered immortal domain,

countless fragments of stars were hurled backward.

The golden imperial phantom behind Wang Hao

was bitten in half by the black hole.

The River of the Imperial Dao shook violently.

Yet Wang Hao offered no resistance.

He raised his hand and recalled the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Pagoda.

Then he held the Immortal-Sealing Altar protectively before his chest.

He allowed himself to be swallowed by the black hole.

The Dragon-Slayer’s expression changed.

“Wang Hao!”

Wang Hao did not look back.

He merely left behind one final sentence.

“Guard the Nine Provinces.”

The next moment,

his entire figure vanished into the enormous maw of Xuanming’s right eye.

All twenty-four of Xuanming’s eyes

closed at once.

His voice became cold and low.

“Once you enter this immortal’s heart realm,

you will never leave.”

Within the endless darkness,

Wang Hao opened his eyes.

Before him were twenty-four dead stars,

beating at different points in space

like twenty-four hearts.

Wang Hao took out his ledger

and flipped to Xuanming’s page.

“Once the goods have been inspected…”

“I’ll naturally come back out.”