"No way, man... were you really listening?"
Like everyone else, Lu Ze was equally dumbfounded by the appearance of the Remnant Spirit of the Heavenly Dao.
"Did you... call it here?"
Zhao Wendao looked at Lu Ze nervously and asked in a low voice.
"No."
Lu Ze smiled and shook his head.
"How could your disciple possess such an ability?"
He would have loved to call upon the Remnant Spirit of the Heavenly Dao to back him up; that way, who would dare mess with him as he roamed the world?
But given the other party's temperament, how could it possibly allow itself to be ordered around?
If it realized it was being used, even he would be in for a world of trouble.
Originally, Lu Ze only thought this guy was a tiny bit petty, but now it was absolutely confirmed.
Saying a single bad word about it from thousands of miles away resulted in it immediately showing up in person to settle the score... who could handle that?
On the Demon-Slaying Platform, Zhao Heng, who held the esteemed status of a true disciple of the Green Mountain Sect, was currently so terrified that his face was deathly pale, and his legs had given out, causing him to collapse to the ground.
"You... please listen to my explanation... Heaven, Heaven..."
Zhao Heng stuttered with trembling lips. His pathetic appearance made the onlookers frown.
But thinking about it, it made sense. Even a supreme expert like Qin Ming was incredibly wary of the Remnant Spirit of the Heavenly Dao. For a mere true disciple at the Soul Formation stage, calling him an ant would be an overstatement.
Before Zhao Heng could finish his stuttering sentence, a gust of astral wind carrying brown flames suddenly crushed down on him.
"Ah!!!"
With a miserable shriek, half of Zhao Heng's body was instantly burned down to the bone. Weeping and wailing, he rolled around on the ground.
"You bastard! You've completely ruined the reputation of my Green Mountain Sect!!"
A ball of brown light surfaced on Zhang Yuxian's right hand as he cursed furiously out of sheer disappointment. Clearly, he was the one who had just struck.
Seeing that the Remnant Spirit of the Heavenly Dao did not respond, he followed up with another blast of astral wind. A gaping hole appeared in Zhao Heng's throat. Now, unable to even make a sound, he could only shed tears in despair, looking exceptionally miserable.
Having done all this, Zhang Yuxian respectfully brought his hands together and bowed low.
"Lord Heavenly Dao, my sect's disciple spoke disrespectfully and has already been punished by me... There is no need to trouble yourself to take action."
Seeing this display, everyone present gasped in shock, and whispers erupted all around.
"He's his personal disciple after all... Isn't such a method a bit too heartless?"
"Nonsense! That is the Heavenly Dao... If he doesn't put on a show, he might be implicated as well..."
"If this entity were to strike personally, the outcome would probably be even more tragic..."
"Even so, it's still too..."
"Shh!"
...
The terrifying human face in the sky looked down coldly at Zhang Yuxian on the ground, a sneer forming at the corners of its mouth.
"Not a bad job..."
"However..."
"Those who intend to deceive this Heavenly Dao shall be punished!"
With a loud boom, a bolt of lightning struck Zhang Yuxian's hunched back. With a muffled groan, a trace of blood spilled from the corner of Zhang Yuxian's mouth, and the aura around him instantly weakened by several degrees.
Realizing that his cultivation had instantly regressed by a small margin, Zhang Yuxian harbored intense hatred for Lu Ze in his heart. Yet, he did not dare to show it. Instead, he humbly kowtowed and said, "Thank you, Lord Heavenly Dao, for your mercy!"
"Hmph."
The Remnant Spirit of the Heavenly Dao snorted coldly.
It had always been clear in its rewards and punishments.
If it weren't for the fact that the ant beneath its feet knew its place and saved it the trouble of acting, this old man would likely have been slapped half to death by it.
The current punishment was letting him off easy.
It swept its gaze over the crowd below the platform and spoke in a cold voice:
"This Heavenly Dao does not belong to anyone, nor does it favor anyone..."
"What you all see and think is nothing but an illusion."
Having said that, it looked at Lu Ze.
"This Heavenly Dao did not infuse spiritual energy solely into his illusion. Rather, it is because what the rest of you created... is unworthy of this Heavenly Dao's attention."
The corners of Lu Ze's mouth curled up in amusement.
Translated, that sentence meant: Everyone here, except for me, is trash.
"Since you all desire fairness, then this Heavenly Dao shall grant you fairness."
With that, the volume of the Remnant Spirit of the Heavenly Dao suddenly increased, as if resonating throughout heaven and earth:
"From this day forward, all illusions in the world shall be controlled by this Heavenly Dao..."
"They can connect heaven and earth, and reach the entire realm!"
"The excellent shall be rewarded."
"The inferior, punished!"
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?!
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!
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
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.
