Establish the Spirit Artifact Nation, Starting Today

[Several minutes ago.]

["Old Wan, it's your time to shine."]

[You said to the Myriad Soul Banner in your hand, which was glowing with golden light and emitting misty aura, while in a hidden forest.]

[The Myriad Soul Banner pointed its banner face at the distant army of dragon-men.]

["Brother, you really know how to flatter me. Taking them all on alone? I'm a supreme immortal artifact, not a supreme sucker!"]

["No, what I mean is, you can finally fulfill the real goal you've always hidden in your heart: use me to find the Earth Spirit—what you call the 'Earth Vein'—awaken intelligence in all spiritual artifacts under heaven, establish a kingdom of artifacts, and become its king!"]

["Awakening intelligence in all spiritual artifacts under heaven, huh…

Oh! Th-this, th-that! I-I-I…

No such thing!

Brother! My loyalty to you is like an endless river, unceasing, like the Yellow River flooding beyond control!

How could I have any ulterior motives? No such thing, no! Haha! Hic—"]

[People really do laugh when they're embarrassed.]

[The Demon Refining Pot threw in a jab.]

["Oh, I wonder who it was, last time encouraging those nine little crows to take you for a flight? Too bad those crows couldn't understand human speech—they just flew you around the cauldron realm."]

[When people feel guilty, they tend to raise their volume and act angry to hide it.]

["Damn pot!! Stop spreading rumors! Chen Yi, my good brother, this damned pot is slandering me, slandering me!"]

[You gave a gentle, friendly smile.]

["It doesn't matter. Whatever you're thinking now, I need you to stay true to your original plan and make it happen. If you can't, I'll melt you down and reforge you into a low-grade spiritual artifact!"]

[The Myriad Soul Banner suddenly looked as if it had a realization.]

["Ah! Now that you mention it, I remember! Yes, yes, the Earth Vein! Of course, I have one! I do have a plan to turn the tide of this battle and bring light out of darkness! It just came to me, just now…"]

[Although no one knew what you were really up to,]

[how could the Myriad Soul Banner refuse when it meant becoming the ruler of all spiritual artifacts under heaven and achieving the great cause of awakening intelligence in artifacts as independent entities?]

[The Earth Spirit could appear anywhere on the ground at any time.]

[In the past, you had encountered the Earth Spirit because you awakened the spirit of the Nine Provinces Cauldron.]

[The Earth Spirit was curious, so it appeared.]

[Now that Da Chun had been a vessel spirit for many years, it was no longer enough to draw out the Earth Spirit.]

[But Hua Wuyan, as a guardian, could directly communicate with the Earth Spirit.]

[At the moment of her self-sacrifice, she summoned the Earth Spirit and instructed it not to leave, but to cooperate with your actions.]

["He really came!"]

[The Myriad Soul Banner was the first to sense the Earth Spirit.]

[Then your spiritual sense also detected a mass of pure energy underground.]

[At the same time, you felt a deep sorrow emanating from that energy.]

[The Earth Spirit seemed to be mourning Hua Wuyan's passing.]

[What happened next went smoothly.]

[The spirit of the Myriad Soul Banner rushed out, dove underground, and had a deep soul-to-soul conversation with the Earth Spirit.]

[One was a naive Earth Spirit; the other was an old roughened slickster who was nearly burnt to a crisp.]

The result was predictable.

The iconic scene from the fourth simulation's opening was replaying right now.

All human-world spiritual artifacts had gained sentience.

"Hey hey hey, artifact spirits, you there? This is the Myriad Soul Banner! The greatest, most powerful, and most badass super-immortal artifact in human history!"

The voice of the Myriad Soul Banner echoed across heaven and earth, audible to anyone anywhere in the human realm.

The smile froze on Heavenly Venerate Xia's face as he sensed something was off.

"Something's not right. They've done something..."

His expression twisted with rage as he glared at Hua Wuyan's soul trapped within the Soulbinding Lock.

"Speak! What does that voice mean?"

Hua Wuyan just smiled.

"Why don't you listen and find out?"

The Myriad Soul Banner continued laying it on thick.

"I have something to say, and all artifacts, listen up!

For tens of thousands of years of this chaotic war between realms, you Dragon-Man Army artifacts have been toiling under the Dragon race without complaint!

Through blades and shadows, you fought for them, only to be tossed aside when damaged!

Amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood, it was you who suffered the hardships while they claimed all the glory!

Even if the Dragons forged you, does that mean you can't have an independent life of your own?

Dragons are born from other dragons, yet even they seek independence and break free from their original families!

Don't let others define you. Don't let others control you!

What's more, you're now in the human realm. The Dragon-King of your realm is far away in another dimension, so as the saying goes, far from headquarters, orders from above can be ignored.

Come on, everyone, join us in the human world. Cast off the Dragon race's enslavement, and build a free and glorious nation that belongs only to us artifacts!

Right here, right now!!!"

That was the Myriad Soul Banner's classic declaration of independence.

You had made a few tweaks to it.

The old rascal had grumbled a lot about your changes to the script, but under your iron-fisted rule, he had no choice but to read it exactly as written.

And he had to deliver it with passion.

Back when he was just a scrappy banner without even a proper artifact body, he could still sway countless human-world artifacts.

Now that he was a super-immortal artifact, his persuasive power could only be imagined.

The Dragon race suddenly realized that all the war machines they had just deployed to the ground were starting to talk!

"Great Immortal Wan is right! We should build our own nation!"

"We artifacts can't keep living under others' thumbs forever!"

"Screw the Dragons! I've been fed up with them for ages. I want to be the master of my own artifact life!"

"All hail Great Immortal Wan as the founding emperor of our Artifact Nation!"

"I vote for Great Immortal Wan! He's the people's choice!!"

The war machines had all gone rogue.

No matter how the Dragons on top tried to control them with their spells, the now-sentient artifacts just took over their own bodies and ignored all commands.

"What's going on? These weapons we forged didn't have artifact spirits before!"

"What the hell? The human realm has tricks like this? Well, damn, talk about learning something new every day!"

"Earth Venerable! Heavenly Venerate! What do we do? Even the Demon Spirit Army won't obey orders!"

Heavenly Venerate Xia was drenched in cold sweat.

They were in deep trouble.

In the Dragonman race’s war across the domains, victory hinged on a dazzling array of war machines. Even the five-element spirit beasts, which looked like living creatures, were actually just mass-produced spiritual tools transformed from spirit beads.

The Dragonmen themselves were certainly no pushovers, but they refused to send their own people to the frontline as cannon fodder. Instead, they fought by having “humans control high-tech weaponry” to minimize casualties as much as possible.

Why? Because they had to conquer all the void realms. If they didn’t keep their death toll in check, they’d run out of clansmen long before reaching the finish line handing spoils to their enemies.

Now, stripped of their “high-tech” advantage, was the remaining hundred thousand or so Dragonmen supposed to throw themselves into battle with blood and valor?

Heavenly Venerate Xia’s head was about to split from the sheer headache.