The atmosphere in the palace instantly became tense, thick with hostility.
Xu Rong clenched his fists tightly. Ever since the spiritual energy resurgence, he had absorbed the genes of numerous evolved creatures. The genes from this new era were incomparably stronger than those of ordinary creatures from before. Naturally, his power had skyrocketed as a result.
One could say that within the Shattering Heaven stage, he was practically invincible. Across the entire Blue Star, there were only a handful of beings who could threaten him.
But the problem was... he had Chen Hao tagging along with him!
That damn troublemaker was nothing but bad luck!
Xu Rong had been screwed over by him more than once. The last time, in the depths of a certain mountain in Dragon Country, he had been about to devour a highly evolved Devil Vine Tree—only for Chen Hao’s presence to turn a sure victory into a complete disaster!
He had suffered severe injuries because of it.
The worst part? Chen Hao stuck to him like a piece of stubborn gum—impossible to shake off!
With tensions this high, it seemed a fight was inevitable.
And right at that moment—
"B-b-b-big trouble! Invaders! Invaders! We’re no match for them!"
A massive shark crashed into the palace gates, its body drenched in blood, its fins completely missing.
The tense atmosphere shattered instantly.
Qiu Lin stood up, his eyes gleaming with ferocity.
"Invaders?"
The Megalodon’s eyes flickered with an almost human-like intelligence. "You must avenge me, my lord! The invader is too brutal—he sliced off my fins..."
"Your Majesty, help me!!!" The shark, highly intelligent, pleaded.
But the response it received was a merciless palm strike from Qiu Lin!
The Heaven Origin-stage shark died instantly.
"Damn trash! You ruined the underwater palace I painstakingly built for Her Highness the Dragon Maiden? You deserve death!"
The palace was still under construction—he had planned to recruit millions of sea beasts to craft a breathtakingly luxurious underwater palace, one that would surely earn the Dragon Maiden’s admiration.
Qiu Lin glanced back at Chen Hao and Xu Rong. "I’ll deal with you two later!"
With that, he summoned his trident and strode out to face the enemy.
The aura of a Half-Step Divine Transformation expert radiated from him, crushing the surrounding waters under its pressure.
In the Nine Heavens, Qiu Lin might have been nothing more than a weakling everyone bullied—but in the Mortal Realm? Who dared challenge him?
Chen Hao and Xu Rong exchanged a glance, instantly understanding each other.
They would wait and observe. Once the fight started, they’d strike when Qiu Lin was weakened—finish him off for good!
......
Trident in hand, Qiu Lin exuded an overwhelming presence.
But the moment he stepped out of the palace, the sight before him nearly stopped his heart.
The seabed was a scene of utter devastation.
His appointed Octopus General—its tentacles all severed.
Every shark had lost their fins. The sea turtles had been decapitated. The sentient abalones had been drained of moisture, turned into dried abalone...
Was this the distortion of morality or the collapse of humanity?
Finally, his gaze landed on Jiang Che—and his fury erupted.
"A human? Another human?! Hahaha..."
Qiu Lin’s aura surged violently, even emitting a radiant glow.
But Jiang Che merely yawned, casually releasing a trace of his Martial God-stage aura.
Qiu Lin: "???"
In an instant, his scales trembled uncontrollably.
M-M-Martial God?!
Impossible!
How could a Martial God exist in this world?
Even in the Nine Heavens, Martial Gods were considered formidable experts!
Thud—
The little dragon-man dropped to his knees without hesitation.
Just then, Chen Hao and Xu Rong rushed out—only to see Qiu Lin kneeling.
What the hell? This guy had been so arrogant a second ago... why was he kneeling now?
But when they looked at Jiang Che, everything became clear.
Ah... Jiang Che had arrived. Well, that explained it.
With Young Master Jiang here, the Dragon Palace was at peace. With Young Master Jiang here, justice was served.
Qiu Lin was shaking like a leaf, too terrified to even register his own humiliation.
Jiang Che glanced at Chen Hao and Xu Rong.
Thanks to his divine perception, he already knew everything.
"So... all this grand preparation was just to summon the Dragon Maiden to the Mortal Realm?"
The moment Jiang Che spoke, Qiu Lin’s soul nearly fled his body.
How did he know about Her Highness?!
Could it be... this man had also descended from the Nine Heavens?
But the current spatial rifts shouldn’t allow a Martial God’s body to cross into the Mortal Realm!
Jiang Che smirked. Special effects truly were a divine skill.
He leisurely walked up to Qiu Lin and patted his shoulder.
"I... I..." Qiu Lin was too stunned to form words.
"You want to ask how I know so much?" Jiang Che chuckled.
Qiu Lin nodded instinctively.
"Ask me in your next life." Jiang Che’s voice was soft—yet it carried the weight of a demon’s whisper.
Qiu Lin: "???"
"No... don’t kill me!!!"
In that one second of desperation, Qiu Lin’s brain worked at lightning speed.
This Martial God knew of the Dragon Maiden—he must also be from the Nine Heavens. Perhaps he was one of Her Highness’s countless admirers.
The Dragon Maiden, the most prestigious princess of the Dragon Palace, possessed the purest dragon bloodline. Before even reaching a century in soul-age, she had already ascended to the Martial God stage, ranking among the Ten Great Beauties of the Southern Abyss Heaven!
Her descent to the Mortal Realm was said to be in search of lost dragon treasures.
The Martial God’s murderous intent must stem from jealousy—he had sensed Qiu Lin’s own ambitions toward the Dragon Maiden. After all, the geniuses of the Nine Heavens were notoriously possessive.
"Lord Martial God! I was wrong! Spare me... I swear I have no ill intentions toward Her Highness! I’ll build the Dragon Palace for you! I can even briefly communicate with the Nine Heavens’ Dragon Palace—I’ll tell you everything I know!!!"
Dragon dignity? A goddess’s honor? None of that mattered in the face of death!
Human Overlord, right this way!
Chen Hao and Xu Rong were dumbstruck by Qiu Lin’s shamelessness.
This guy had zero principles!
Jiang Che was speechless. The little dragon-man’s survival instincts were so strong, he almost felt bad killing him.
Fine. He’d keep him alive—use him to extract more information about the Nine Heavens’ Dragon Palace.
Besides... Jiang Che did have some thoughts about that mysterious Dragon Maiden.
What man hadn’t dreamed of becoming a dragon rider?
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
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.
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
