That Is Not Immortal Blood

The silver-haired youth suddenly understood.

“So you’re worried about money.”

Wang Hao looked at him.

“And people.”

The silver-haired youth was slightly surprised.

Wang Hao continued:

“Everyone is dead.”

“Who will pay taxes in the future?”

The silver-haired youth nodded.

“That makes sense.”

Forty-two realm gates.

Opened at the same time.

The Great Xia fleet.

Once again crossed the starry sky.

But this time.

The enemies they encountered.

Were completely different from before.

At the twentieth branch treasury.

There were no guards.

No treasurer.

Only an entire empty city.

Millions of people in the city.

Were all kneeling in the streets.

Facing a white statue of a god.

Strange smiles hung on their faces.

Their hands kept tearing open their own chests.

Pulling out their hearts.

And placing them before themselves.

Even after their hearts had left their bodies.

They still did not die.

Their blood vessels were like countless fine threads.

Connecting their hearts to their bodies.

Their hearts continued to beat.

As they chanted:

“Immortal Immaculate.”

“Immortal Undying.”

A-Li entered the city.

She only took one look.

Then immediately ordered the city sealed.

One World-Picker asked:

“There are still living people inside.”

“Shouldn’t we open the gates and save them?”

A-Li tightened her grip on the helm Uncle Shi had left behind.

“They have already seen the immortal statue.”

“Wait for His Majesty first.”

When Wang Hao arrived.

The entire city was shrouded in white mist.

Within the mist.

Countless human silhouettes.

Moved back and forth.

But the people on the ground.

Were all kneeling.

Those moving through the mist.

Were the souls torn from their bodies.

Wang Hao raised a hand.

Golden Imperial Fire.

Descended from the heavens.

The white statue.

Quickly melted in the flames.

From inside the statue.

A mass of black flesh was revealed.

Its surface.

Was covered in densely packed eyes.

Every eye.

Looked toward Wang Hao at the same time.

“Mortal King.”

“Kneel.”

The voice rang out directly within the depths of his imperial soul.

Boom!

Wang Hao’s imperial soul.

Suddenly sank.

The power of the third level of Transcendence.

Was actually forced to develop fine cracks.

By a single word.

The willpower of countless people.

Automatically gathered.

Yet it did not form a shield.

Because this was not a lethal attack.

It was a command.

An immortal edict that made all living beings instinctively submit.

On the streets.

Millions of people.

Had already pressed their foreheads to the ground.

A-Li’s legs bent slightly.

Behind her.

The World-Pickers fell to their knees one after another.

It was not that they wanted to kneel.

Their bodies and souls.

Were both telling them.

That before a life-form of such a level.

Kneeling was the correct choice.

The Dragon-Slayer braced himself with his sword.

His knees made cracking sounds.

He clenched his teeth.

“In this old man’s entire life.”

“Other than the dead.”

“I have never knelt before anyone!”

Behind the Crone of Hundred Burial Mountain.

Tens of thousands of corpses knelt simultaneously.

Only she herself.

Continued struggling to stand.

The silver-haired youth was the most direct.

He transformed into the New Emperor Sword.

And plunged himself into the ground.

“I don’t have legs!”

“Let’s see how you’re going to make me kneel!”

Wang Hao raised his head.

And looked toward the inside of the statue.

“You want Me to kneel?”

All the eyes on the mass of black flesh blinked together.

“Kneel.”

The second immortal edict descended.

The entire city.

Collapsed by a hundred zhang in an instant.

Both legs of Wang Hao’s imperial soul.

Were covered in cracks.

Yet he still stood.

“In Great Xia.”

“Forcing the Emperor to kneel.”

“Is treason.”

“According to the law.”

“Your entire clan will be executed.”

The black flesh visibly paused for a moment.

As though it could not understand.

Why a mortal.

Dared to pass judgment on an immortal.

Wang Hao raised his right hand.

“Heaven-Imprisoning Earth-Covering Palm.”

“First Palm.”

A golden palm print.

Struck the statue.

The statue shook violently.

“Second Palm.”

Hundreds of eyes on the surface of the black flesh.

Exploded at the same time.

“Third Palm.”

The souls torn from their bodies within the white mist.

Began returning to their flesh.

“Fourth Palm.”

The immortal edict covering millions of people.

Was forcibly lifted by Imperial Power.

“Fifth Palm.”

The Great Xia dragon banner.

Rose from all four sides of the city.

“Sixth Palm.”

The Lights of Ten Thousand Homes.

Illuminated the white mist.

“Seventh Palm.”

The Imperial Path River.

Pierced through the entire city.

“Eighth Palm.”

Wang Hao clenched his five fingers.

Inside the statue.

That mass of black flesh.

Was forcibly crushed.

By the golden giant palm.

Into a ball of flesh.

“I don’t care what you are.”

“Once you enter Great Xia’s jurisdiction.”

“You must obey Great Xia’s laws.”

“For spreading soul corruption without permission.”

“Confiscated.”

Boom!

The black flesh exploded.

Drops of black blood.

Still tried to escape into the void.

The Thunder Abyss Demon-Subduing Pagoda rose into the air.

The gate to the eighth level opened.

Hundreds of thunder phoenixes.

Charged into the city.

A blue-white sea of lightning.

Instantly covered all the black blood.

That bizarre corruption.

Finally let out shrill screams.

Under the most rigid and blazing thunder.

Drop after drop of black blood.

Was burned to ash.

Millions of townspeople.

Collapsed one after another.

Wang Hao ordered people to treat them.

But in the end.

Fewer than one-third awakened.

The souls of the rest.

Had already been hollowed out.

Even though their bodies still lived.

They were nothing more than empty shells.

A mother.

Held her unawakened child in her arms.

Sitting among the ruins.

She did not cry.

She merely kept patting the child’s back.

Just as she had when soothing him to sleep.

“Wake up.”

“It’s daylight.”

“Mother will take you home.”

“Aren’t you most afraid of the dark?”

“Don’t sleep anymore.”

A-Li stood in the distance.

Her grip on the helm.

Tightened more and more.

When Uncle Shi had died.

It had been the same.

His body had been right in front of her.

But no matter how loudly she called.

He would never wake.

Wang Hao gazed at the mother and child for a long time.

He said nothing.

He knew very well.

Not everyone could be saved.

The Imperial Path was not omnipotent.

Neither was the Emperor.

When he saved one world.

He would discover ten more worlds bleeding.

When he severed one chain.

He would see countless more chains.

Deeper within.

What truly drove people to despair.

Was never an enemy’s strength.

It was the fact that no matter how far one went.

The end of suffering remained nowhere in sight.

But he could not allow that despair.

To show on his face.

Because everyone was watching him.

If the Emperor fell into despair first.

Then no one in this dynasty.

Would be able to keep moving forward.

Wang Hao turned around.

“The twentieth branch treasury.”

“Sell off all its assets.”

“Thirty percent of the proceeds.”

“Will be used to treat the survivors.”

An elderly Ministry of Revenue official asked:

“What about the remaining seventy percent?”

“To rebuild this world.”

“Your Majesty.”

The old official hesitated.

“Then what of the treasury’s share…”

Wang Hao said:

“Put it on the books.”

“Once they resume production.”

“They will repay it over three hundred years.”

The survivors nearby.

Had originally felt somewhat moved.

But after hearing the final sentence.

Their expressions immediately became complicated.

The old Ministry of Revenue official, however, smiled.

“Your servant obeys.”

As long as His Majesty still made them repay the debt.

That meant he believed.

They could live for another three hundred years.

The twenty-first branch treasury.

Had likewise been corrupted.

At the twenty-second.

Nothing remained but a field of white bones.

The treasurer of the twenty-third branch treasury.

Refined his own limbs into immortal wings.

When he saw the Great Xia fleet.

He shouted “Ascension!”

Then charged headfirst into the battleship’s shield.

And fell to his death on the spot.

After examining the corpse.

The Ministry of Revenue official gave his conclusion.

“The wings are fake.”

“They can only glide.”

The silver-haired youth asked:

“Then why did he dare to fly?”

“Perhaps it was faith.”

“Can faith make someone fly?”

“No.”

The Ministry of Revenue official replied:

“But it can make someone die with absolute conviction.”

The twenty-fourth branch treasury.

The twenty-fifth.

The Great Xia fleet continued forward.

The closer they came to the sixty-second branch treasury.

The more white statues of gods they saw.

In those branch treasuries.

The Merchant Alliance’s guards no longer protected the treasures.

They crushed spirit stones.

Melted down materials.

And piled them into ascension platforms across the ground.

Then they voluntarily walked into the flames.

They believed they could burn away their mortal bodies.

And ascend to immortality.

But when the flames died out,

only charred corpses remained on the Ascension Platform.

Not a single person became an immortal.

Three days later,

Sub-Vaults Twenty through Sixty-One

were all taken over by Great Xia.

The assets that could be salvaged

amounted to less than forty percent of what was recorded in the ledgers.

The remaining sixty percent

had already been sent to Sub-Vault Sixty-Two.

Even more disturbing was the fact that

contamination had begun to appear within the Great Xia fleet as well.

One warship,

while passing Sub-Vault Fifty-Seven,

was caught in a drizzle of white rain.

The three hundred and sixty-two soldiers aboard

had merely been drenched by the rain,

yet faces began growing beneath their skin.

Those faces

spoke to them every night of the Immortal Realm,

of eternal life,

and of their dead loved ones.

Some soldiers heard their mothers’ voices

and cut open their own chests,

trying to release the faces beneath their skin.

Others heard their fallen comrades calling to them

and willingly leaped into the void.

A-Li ordered the warship sealed.

No one was allowed in.

No one was allowed out.

The silver-haired youth stood outside the warship.

“Destroy the entire ship.”

“That way, the contamination cannot spread.”

A-Li did not answer.

Those three hundred and sixty-two men

had just followed her in conquering nine sub-vaults.

Many of them

were World-Pickers left behind by Uncle Shi.

An elderly World-Picker

looked at A-Li through the warship’s formation barrier.

More than a dozen faces had already grown across his face,

yet his own consciousness

remained clear.

“A-Li.”

“Don’t hesitate.”

“Boss Shi taught us this.”

“When a ship is sinking,

cut the ropes first.”

A-Li’s eyes reddened.

“His Majesty is on his way.”

“Wait a little longer.”

The old man smiled.

“It’s too late.”

The face on his chest

began to open its eyes.

A baby’s wail came from its mouth.

The old man’s body began to tremble violently.

He seized a short blade

and drove it into his own heart.

“Tell His Majesty for me…”

“As for the escort fee…”

“I don’t want it anymore.”

A-Li’s voice trembled.

“You weren’t getting an escort fee in the first place.”

The old man froze for a moment.

“Then curse him for me.”

“Tell him he’s a real miser.”

The short blade sank all the way in.

The old man collapsed.

Immediately afterward,

more and more soldiers

chose to sever their own heart meridians.

They were not afraid of death.

They were afraid of turning into monsters

and harming their comrades outside the warship.

A-Li watched one familiar figure after another fall.

At last, her palm descended onto the formation’s core.

She had to destroy the ship.

Otherwise, once the contamination broke out,

the more than three hundred remaining warships

would all be affected.

But just as she was about to activate the God-Slaying Cannon,

the Imperial Dao River

pierced through the void.

Wang Hao stepped onto the warship from above.

“Open the door.”

A-Li immediately shook her head.

“Your Majesty.”

“We can’t open it.”

“Inside, they’ve already…”

“I said…”

“Open the door.”

A-Li clenched her teeth.

In the end, she opened a gap

just wide enough for one person to pass through.

Wang Hao entered the warship alone.

Countless faces

turned toward him at the same time.

There were women,

old men,

children,

and even some

that wore Wang Hao’s own face.

“You can’t save them.”

“You’re not an immortal.”

“You’re only a Mortal King.”

“Kneel before the immortals,

and you will be purified.”

Wang Hao raised his hand

and seized a face identical to his own.

“Impersonating the Emperor.”

“Your crime is compounded.”

Golden imperial fire

erupted from between his five fingers.

The face let out a shrill scream.

Inside the entire warship,

all the contaminated faces

began to twist at once.

Wang Hao’s imperial soul

was also wracked with agony.

There was some kind of strange connection

between all those faces.

Destroying any one of them

would cause the damage to travel through causality

and fall upon the other soldiers.

The causal links had to be severed first

before the contamination could be burned away.

Wang Hao gripped the New Emperor Sword.

The silver-haired youth’s voice rang out.

“Master.”

“I can see those threads.”

“There are so many.”

“Everyone has them.”

“Can you cut them?”

“I can.”

The silver-haired youth paused.

“But my sword may crack again.”

Wang Hao said,

“His Majesty will pay the repair bill.”

The silver-haired youth could hardly believe his ears.

“What did you say?”

“The repair bill.”

“His Majesty will pay it.”

The silver-haired youth’s blade trembled violently.

“Master.”

“Have you been contaminated too?”

Wang Hao replied,

“Keep talking,

and you’ll pay for it yourself.”

“No!”

The New Emperor Sword

erupted with blinding silver light.