The Imperial Dao River.
It stretched across the shattered Immortal Domain.
One hundred and seven black-gold warships.
Flying the Great Xia dragon banner.
Their holds were crammed with the countless treasures of the Third Secret Treasury.
They sailed mightily toward the Nine Provinces.
Spirit stones filled the cargo holds.
Divine weapons were stuffed into the compartments.
Even the exteriors of the warships
were tied with the corpses of Martial Gods.
From afar,
they looked less like a victorious fleet returning home
than a band of star-faring brigands who had just raided a merchant alliance.
Naturally,
Wang Hao did not agree with that assessment.
These were all state assets lawfully confiscated.
At the very front of the fleet,
the silver-haired youth squatted at the prow.
In his left hand, he held some lunar-corroded gold.
In his right, a fragment of a Ninth-Realm copper coin.
Bite by bite,
he ate them, sparks flying with every crunch.
Each time he bit down,
the new Son of Heaven Sword behind him trembled.
Strands of black-silver patterns
lit up from deep within the blade.
Its strange aura rose without end.
Halfway through his meal,
the silver-haired youth suddenly looked up.
“Master.”
“If I die in battle within the next twenty years,
will you still deduct my wages afterward?”
Wang Hao replied,
“Yes.”
The silver-haired youth’s eyes widened.
“But I’ll be dead!”
“The sword will still be here.”
“And if the sword breaks too?”
“Sell the fragments to pay off the debt.”
The silver-haired youth fell silent.
He lowered his head and looked at the Ninth-Realm materials in his hands.
All at once,
they no longer seemed appetizing at all.
Beside him,
the Dragon-Slayer lay inside a coffin.
The coffin
was a healing artifact lent to him by the Crone of Hundred Burial Mountain.
Its lid had not been fully closed.
Hearing their exchange,
the Dragon-Slayer quietly folded up his IOU
and tucked it into his robes.
After living for so many years,
this was the first time he had felt grateful
that he was not a sword.
At the very least, once a person died,
they probably would not have to keep working.
At the center of the black warships,
A-Li stood on the deck.
Several thousand World-Pickers
were counting the casualties.
The great black vessel had been destroyed.
Uncle Shi was dead as well.
Of the World-Pickers who had originally entered the secret treasury with them,
only six thousand seven hundred and twenty-one remained.
Nearly half of them were wounded.
Yet
the chains around every one of their ankles
had already been cut away.
They were no longer anyone’s slaves.
No longer merchandise in anyone’s eyes.
But the Great Xia that lay ahead
was still a foreign land to them.
One World-Picker asked softly,
“Sister A-Li.”
“Are we really going to Great Xia?”
A-Li held half of the ship’s wheel Uncle Shi had left behind.
She nodded gently.
“Great Xia saved us.”
“But once we get there,
what can we do?”
Another World-Picker gave a bitter laugh.
“We know nothing except how to scavenge the wreckage of worlds.”
A-Li was silent for a moment.
Then she looked toward Wang Hao
at the head of the fleet.
“He said
that as long as we’re willing to work,
we won’t go hungry.”
Their expressions turned complicated.
That promise
did not sound particularly grand.
It even sounded somewhat like the words merchant alliances used
when recruiting laborers.
But when Wang Hao had said it,
he had not required them to sign contracts of servitude.
Nor had he put new chains around their ankles.
He had merely instructed the Ministry of Revenue to record everyone’s name.
Once a person had a name,
they were no longer an object to be bought and sold at will.
Boom!
The Imperial Dao River suddenly shook violently.
All one hundred and seven warships
came to a halt at once.
Ahead on the river,
the waters, once golden,
were being swallowed by a mass of black thunderclouds.
Deep within the storm clouds,
an ancient stone platform
slowly emerged.
The platform spanned hundreds of thousands of zhang.
Its entire body was formed from fragments of world membranes.
The colossal corpses of beings dead for untold ages
knelt around the platform.
They held up the heavens with both hands.
Black stone pillars pierced through their backs.
Upon every pillar—
Everywhere, pale bone lanterns hung.
Their flames flickered,
lighting the four ancient characters at the center of the stone platform:
Burial Realm Ancient Ferry!
The Crone of Hundred Burial Mountain saw the platform.
Her expression shifted.
“How did we end up here?”
“The Burial Realm Ancient Ferry.”
“It is one of the oldest starry-sky crossings in the shattered immortal domain.”
“Legend has it that before the immortal domain was shattered,”
“every world sentenced to execution”
“had to pass through here.”
The young man from the Shattered Star Hall looked up at the thunderclouds.
“This place has been sealed for a hundred thousand years.”
“Why has it suddenly appeared today?”
Before Wang Hao’s eyes,
a system notification appeared.
【Special sign-in location detected: Burial Realm Ancient Ferry!】
【This location has not yet been signed in at!】
【Sign in?】
Wang Hao silently said,
“Sign in.”
【Sign-in successful!】
【Obtained one-time special item: Heaven-Deceiving Realm Banner!】
【Heaven-Deceiving Realm Banner: When unfurled, it can conceal the coordinates of a large world for three days, blocking all tracking, divination, and location-finding by those at the Martial God Realm or below!】
【Sign-in intelligence updated!】
【Intelligence 1: The Lifeless Merchant Alliance has inscribed the Ten-Thousand Merchants’ Mother Contract into the core of every Blackgold Warship. Once a warship enters an intact world, it will automatically record that world’s coordinates!】
【Intelligence 2: The Ten-Thousand Merchants’ Mother Contract has been activated by Lu Qianjin!】
【Intelligence 3: Lu Qianjin is hiding in the power compartment beneath Warship No. 37!】
【Intelligence 4: In thirty breaths, all 107 warships will self-destruct simultaneously. The resulting world coordinates will be transmitted directly to the Lifeless Merchant Alliance’s headquarters!】
Wang Hao looked toward the middle of the fleet.
“Warship No. 37.”
“Seal it off.”
A-Li immediately turned around.
“Realm Gatherers!”
“Follow me!”
Hundreds of Realm Gatherers charged toward Warship No. 37.
They had survived for years among the ruins of worlds.
Finding hidden compartments
was what they did best.
In less than three breaths,
they were beneath the warship.
A section of blackgold plating that looked perfectly intact
was forcibly pried open.
Behind it,
Lu Qianjin’s body
had almost fused with the warship’s core.
His severed arm had not grown back,
but half his face was covered in golden coin-like markings.
Countless tiny blood vessels
ran deep into the warship’s formation.
Lu Qianjin grinned.
“Too late.”
“The Ten-Thousand Merchants’ Mother Contract has already awakened.”
“All 107 warships”
“are the Merchant Alliance’s property!”
“No one can take what belongs to the Merchant Alliance!”
A-Li tightened her grip on the short blade in her hand.
Just as she was about to strike,
Wang Hao’s voice
came from the Imperial Dao River.
“Keep him alive.”
“The Ministry of Revenue still needs to interrogate him.”
Lu Qianjin’s grin froze.
In the next instant,
all the Blackgold Warships
let out a piercing roar at once.
The Lifeless Merchant Alliance flags that had already been torn down
reappeared in midair.
Golden chains shot out
from the warship cores,
locking down every formation.
Inside the holds,
mountains of spirit stones began to burn at a furious pace.
An aura of destruction
enveloped the entire fleet.
【Warships will self-destruct in thirty breaths!】
【Twenty-nine!】
【Twenty-eight!】
The countless warriors paled.
The self-destruction of a single Blackgold Warship
could severely injure an eighth-realm cultivator.
If all 107 exploded at once,
the entire fleet
would be blasted out of the Imperial Dao River.
Even a Martial God
might not survive.
Above the Burial Realm Ancient Ferry,
black thunderclouds churned.
An enormous golden balance,
vast enough to blot out the sky,
slowly emerged.
A broken star rested
on the balance’s left pan.
On the right—
Billions upon billions of living corpses lay strewn about.
An old man in a black-and-gold robe stood at the center of the balance beam.
His body was gaunt and withered.
Yet his eyes were a pair of golden abacuses that spun without cease.
Within every bead of those abacuses,
a living being wailed in agony.
The pressure of a peak Ninth-Realm expert
crossed countless stretches of space and bore down upon the River of Imperial Dao.
“Wang Hao.”
“This old man is the First Vice Alliance Master of the Lifeless Merchant Alliance.”
“Heavenly Lord of the Scales.”
“You killed the Lord of Wealth.”
“Seized the Alliance’s merchant vessels.”
“Raided the Third Secret Treasury.”
“And now, you have stolen one hundred and seven black-gold warships.”
“Do you know your crimes?”
Wang Hao looked up.
“The Third Secret Treasury is the Great Xia treasury.”
“The merchant vessels and warships
are all spoils of war.”
“As for the Lord of Wealth—
he resisted arrest.”
“He died during law enforcement.”
The abacus beads in Heavenly Lord of the Scales’ eyes
all came to a stop at once.
“Resisted arrest?”
“Who was going to arrest him?”
“I was.”
“By what right?”
Wang Hao replied calmly,
“By the fact that I caught him.”
Heavenly Lord of the Scales fell silent for a moment.
Then the hundreds of thousands of abacus beads
began spinning madly once more.
“Sharp-tongued indeed.”
“Do you truly think
that killing one Lord of Wealth
means you can stand against the Lifeless Merchant Alliance?”
“This old man will give you one final chance.”
“Hand over all your treasures.”
“Release Lu Qianjin.”
“And surrender the coordinates of the world behind you.”
“The Lifeless Merchant Alliance may then permit Great Xia
to become an affiliated state of the Alliance.”
Wang Hao asked,
“What benefits does an affiliated state receive?”
Heavenly Lord of the Scales answered,
“The Alliance’s protection.”
“The right to trade with three thousand six hundred worlds.”
“Every hundred years,
you need only hand over ninety percent of your national treasury’s revenue.”
Within the River of Imperial Dao,
the elderly official from the Ministry of Revenue abruptly rose to his feet.
“Ninety percent?”
“Why doesn’t he just rob us outright?!”
A minor official beside him murmured,
“My lord,
that is exactly what he is doing.”
The old official grew even more enraged.
“He’s robbing us, and still dressing it up so nicely!”
Wang Hao considered it seriously.
“Ninety percent is too little.”
The abacuses in Heavenly Lord of the Scales’ eyes stopped.
“Too little?”
“I’ll give you one hundred percent.”
“But you will have to come collect it yourself.”
Heavenly Lord of the Scales sneered.
“Since that is your choice,
then let these warships
serve as your funeral escort.”
【Twenty breaths!】
【Nineteen!】
【Eighteen!】
At the core of the warships,
the destructive fluctuations grew ever more violent.
One World-Scavenger after another frantically dismantled the formations.
But the Myriad Merchants Mother Contract had already fused with the warships themselves.
To stop the self-destruction,
they would have to completely destroy the control cores of all one hundred and seven warships
within a dozen breaths.
If they did that,
these hard-won captured warships
would all be rendered useless.
The silver-haired youth rushed to Wang Hao’s side.
“Master.”
“I can eat all the cores.”
“Would there be enough time?”
“Eat three ships.”
The silver-haired youth calculated earnestly.
“If I don’t chew,
five ships.”
Wang Hao shook his head.
He raised his regenerated right hand.
The River of Imperial Dao
roared into a boil.
“Proclaim the decree.”
“All things that enter the River of Imperial Dao
are subject to the laws of Great Xia.”
“Enemy military equipment,
when seized on the battlefield,
belongs to Great Xia
from the moment of its capture.”
The elderly official from the Ministry of Revenue immediately took out a blank imperial edict.
Lifting his brush, he asked,
“Your Majesty,
from what moment is the seizure to be deemed effective?”
Wang Hao said,
“From the moment the Lord of Wealth first conceived the intention to rob the national treasury.”
Inside the Ministry of Revenue hall,
every official fell silent.
This decree
was, to some extent, rather unreasonable.
But on second thought,
trying to reason with the Lifeless Merchant Alliance
seemed even more unreasonable.
The old official decisively stamped the seal of the Ministry of Revenue.
“This subject obeys the decree!”
Boom!
The imperial decree merged into the River of Imperial Dao.
The faith and aspirations of nearly a billion living beings
transformed into streams of golden laws,
binding all one hundred and seven warships.
Two sets of laws
began to clash head-on.
The Myriad Merchants’ Mother Contract
ruled that the warships belonged to the Lifeless Merchant Alliance.
The laws of Great Xia,
however, ruled that the warships had long since become state-owned assets.
Amid the thunderous roars,
the flags of the Merchant Alliance and Great Xia’s dragon banners
flickered back and forth across the surface of each warship.
The abacus beads in Heavenly Lord of the Scales’ eyes
erupted with a blinding golden light.
“The Merchant Alliance’s contract
has been passed down for one hundred and twenty thousand years!”
“How can it be overturned by the laws of some mortal dynasty?”
Wang Hao said,
“Was your contract
filed with Great Xia’s Ministry of Revenue?”
“No.”
“If it wasn’t filed,
then it is an invalid contract.”
【Ten breaths!】
【Nine!】
【Eight!】
The warships’ self-destruction sequence
still had not stopped.
Wang Hao took a step forward.
His imperial soul towered between heaven and earth.
His right hand pressed downward.
“Heaven-Imprisoning, Earth-Overturning Palm.”
“First Palm!”
A giant golden hand
slammed into the River of Imperial Dao.
All one hundred and seven warships
sank at once.
“Second Palm!”
The Merchant Alliance inscriptions on the black-gold hulls
shattered one after another.
“Third Palm!”
At the warships’ cores,
all the burning spirit stones were extinguished.
“Fourth Palm!”
Cracks appeared in the golden chains
condensed from the Myriad Merchants’ Mother Contract.
“Fifth Palm!”
The massive golden scales projected by Heavenly Lord of the Scales
suddenly tipped.
“Sixth Palm!”
Heaven and earth turned upside down.
nce】【Lighthearted Comedy】【Ultimate Gentleman's Novel】【Viewer Discretion Advised for Under 16】 The mightiest human hero, Sharen Morian, is resurrected after a thousand years by his wife—the Demon King. This is not your typical hero-vs-demon-king tale.
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
e vast world of cultivation, where he becomes the master of the Heavenly Ruins Sacred Hall, a dying old man with barely a tenth of his former cultivation remaining. He is immediately confronted with a deadly crisis: his subordinates have rebelled, and his protectors are forcing him to abdicate. At the critical moment, the system descends from the heavens: [Ding! The host has been detected facing a life-or-death crisis. The system is now officially activated!] [As a gift, you have received the Supreme Beginner’s Pack and awakened the ultimate cheat: ten thousand years of pure cultivation essence every second!] Yin Tianjue: “Wait… ten thousand years of cultivation every second? That’s six hundred thousand years a minute, and in one day… I can’t even calculate it. Either way, I’m already invincible!” You’re a peerless prodigy rarely seen in ten thousand years? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re an undying ancestor who has guarded a sacred land for countless ages? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re the strongest chosen one, blessed with heaven-defying destiny? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. From this day forth, I have only one thing to say: “I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. Now, how exactly are you supposed to deal with that?”
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
