【You drove back the tornado and protected this small village.】
【You looked at the shattered space created by your punch. It still refused to repair itself, proving that the human realm’s plane really was in terrible shape.】
【You used your own elemental energy to mend the rift, slowly restoring the shattered space to its original state.】
【You turned to face the crowd and looked down at them. Golden light radiated from your body in all directions, making you seem practically divine.】
【With your current strength, being called a god by the people of the void realm didn’t seem inappropriate at all.】
【When he got a clear look at your face, Zhuge Zhujin cried out in surprise.】
【“Martial God Chen?!”】
【You returned to your normal size and walked over to the others.】
【“It’s me.”】
【“You… didn’t you ascend to the real realm? How can you possibly come back?”】
【Pavilion Master Zhuge had been deeply impressed by you. After all, you had visited the Divine Armament Pavilion just one year before your ascension and allowed the Four-Eyed Spirit Monkey to take the path to immortality.】
【“Pavilion Master Zhuge, I haven’t actually come back. This is only a projection, not my true self.”】
【You lightly stomped your foot, causing a piece of rubble to rise into the air. With a casual wave, you passed your palm straight through the stone, as if your body were transparent.】
【Zhuge Zhujin understood.】
【“So this is the power of the real realm. Truly unfathomable… truly unfathomable…”】
【“Pavilion Master Zhuge, what exactly happened? How did the human realm end up like this?”】
【The moment the subject came up, tears began streaming down Zhuge Zhujin’s face.】
【“Martial God Chen, the human realm is finished…”】
【The widespread disruption of the five elements, followed by all kinds of natural disasters, had begun ten years ago.】
【Before that, there had been isolated abnormal phenomena, but they had never reached the apocalyptic scale of today.】
【For ten years, the people of the human realm had suffered terribly. The environment continued to deteriorate, and most regions were no longer suitable for life.】
【Plants and animals had been destroyed on a massive scale. Humans and demons were equally as weak as ants before the might of nature, and could do nothing but flee continuously toward regions that were barely stable.】
【“The Three Great Sacred Lands were swallowed by tsunamis. Every star in the Starfield fell from the sky. A wall of waves rose beyond the seas, mountains and rivers were overturned, and the earth split apart. Everything we once knew is gone…”】
【Zhuge Zhujin shook his head repeatedly.】
【Once the sect master of one of the Five Regions’ Eight Pillars, he had been a figure of supreme dignity. Now he was dressed in rags and covered in grime, utterly helpless before the disasters of nature.】
【“As far as I know, the only possible explanation for this kind of disorder in the human realm’s plane is that all five elemental artifacts have been destroyed.”】
【“That’s right. It can only be that. And I personally witnessed the Nine Provinces Cauldron and the Heaven and Earth Sword battling high above the Five Regions. That single battle destroyed the land of seven or eight provinces!”】
【“The Heaven and Earth Sword?”】
【“I don’t know the details behind it, but it isn’t hard to guess. Someone must have been controlling the Heaven and Earth Sword.
As the most destructive of the five Great Dao Immortal Artifacts of the human realm, the Heaven and Earth Sword was capable of destroying the other Great Dao Immortal Artifacts.
That mastermind first used the Heaven and Earth Sword to shatter the other four Great Dao Immortal Artifacts, then destroyed the Heaven and Earth Sword itself. In this way, all five elemental artifacts were wiped out.
Without the five elemental artifacts to stabilize the five elements of the human realm, the world became what it is today.”】
【“Da Chun…”】
【The tower formed from all the mysteries had finally been built. Only three clouds still hovered above its roof.】
【One of them was the whereabouts of the Heaven and Earth Sword.】
【When this cloud appeared again, it had become the prelude to the apocalypse of the human realm.】
【You knew that Da Chun must have fought desperately in the final moments.】
【But he had been alone, and he himself had not been at the peak of his strength. His enemy, meanwhile, was the Heaven and Earth Sword—the most destructive weapon of them all—backed by the mastermind.】
【Da Chun could not have won.】
【Who was destroying the five elemental artifacts?】
【The dragonfolk?】
【That didn’t seem like their style.】
【Just look at the demon realm they had destroyed. It was nothing like the human realm in its current state.】
【Besides, the dragonfolk had launched their realm war for the sake of mortal energy.】
【They would certainly have slaughtered every living thing. There couldn’t possibly be any survivors.】
【The surviving remnants of the Ancient Desolate Survivors who had not been completely eradicated?】
【That didn’t seem likely either.】
【The five great elemental artifacts of the human realm had suffered one misfortune after another.】
【For thirty thousand years, the Ancient Desolate Survivors had persecuted them, preventing the five great artifacts from ever being gathered in complete form.】
【But the Ancient Desolate Survivors would never take things too far.】
【If the human realm became like this, all the minor worlds would collapse, and their Ancient Desolate Secret Realm would be destroyed as well.】
【The Ancient Desolate Survivors had once infiltrated every aspect of the human realm, yet even they had been unable to completely destroy all the artifacts. How could those remaining undercover agents have accomplished it?】
【During the confession session in the Ancient Desolate Secret Realm, you had assumed that the Ancient Desolate Survivors were the ones who had shattered half of the Heaven and Earth Mirror.】
【Now, it seemed there had been a misunderstanding.】
【The Ancient Desolate Survivors might indeed have persecuted the Heaven and Earth Mirror, but the person who shattered half its surface with the Heaven and Earth Sword while it was in Shen Yang’s hands might not have been one of them.】
【After all, when the Ancient Desolate Secret Realm was destroyed, the Heaven and Earth Sword had not appeared.】
【The mastermind’s objective was also to destroy the artifacts, which happened to overlap with the Ancient Desolate Survivors’ goals to some extent.】
【It was entirely possible that the mastermind had taken advantage of the Ancient Desolate Survivors in the process.】
【“This mastermind didn’t decide on a whim to destroy the Great Dao Immortal Artifacts. He had been planning it for a long time. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have targeted the Heaven and Earth Mirror all those years ago.
It was at Shen Yang’s side back then, so he failed.
The Sun-Moon Pagoda was in the Great Demon’s hands, and he was an even more formidable opponent. The mastermind might not have been able to defeat him.
The Mountain-and-River Armor was in Hua Wuyan’s hands, so he probably couldn’t conveniently move against humanity’s guardian.
Therefore, once the five of us successively ascended to the real realm, leaving only Hua Wuyan behind to guard the human realm, he finally made his move.”】
【After hearing your analysis, Zhuge Zhujin found it convincing.】
【“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Senior Hua Wuyan at all. She…”】
【“She should have sacrificed herself.”】
【When your divine sense swept across the entire continent, the first person you wanted to find was Hua Wuyan.】
【But whether in the Southern Border, where she often appeared, or anywhere else, you found no trace of her.】
【The good news was that the enemy did not seem overwhelmingly powerful. Otherwise, he would not have acted so cautiously.】
【The bad news was that the enemy was hiding far too well, leaving you with no place to begin.】
【“By the way, Pavilion Master Zhuge, where did your disciple, the Fiery-Eyed Golden Monkey, go?”】
【Those two divine monkeys from the real realm belonged to the Star Ape clan.】
【As one of the three great ancient divine-beast clans, these monkeys possessed invincible, indestructible bodies.】
【If they were already so formidable in the real realm, then in the void realm they were even impervious to blades, spears, water, and fire.】
【So even in an apocalyptic disaster like this, the Fiery-Eyed Golden Monkey should still have been alive.】
【“When the Starfield collapsed, countless stars came crashing down upon the earth. It was a calamity of unprecedented proportions.
The Fire Monkey could not bear to watch the living beings suffer, so he flew alone into the sky and used his Celestial Gold Meteoric-Iron Staff to shatter many of the falling stars, preventing the continent from being sunk on the spot.
After that, he disappeared.
Strangely enough, the Heavenly Gold Meteoric Iron Rod I forged for him became unbelievably massive in his hands, already surpassing the realm of immortal artifacts…”】
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
