Martial Peak

Chapter 3698: Ashes to Ashes, and Dust to Dust

The remaining Army Commanders traded glances and felt speechless at this display. Just then, an Army Commander walked over and said passionately, “Brother Yang, I have a young disciple who is beautiful and virtuous, and she hasn’t been engaged to anyone yet. She has always admired heroes like you. I think both of you would be perfect together, and I’d like to act as a matchmaker. What do you think?”

The other Army Commanders shot him with dismissive looks, but he still appeared assertive, “Men and women have to get married when they reach a suitable age. What’s wrong with that?”

Another Army Commander stepped forward, “Brother Yang, I have sixty-three unmarried women in my clan with different styles of beauty and demeanours. Why don’t you visit my home when you’re free? I’ll summon all of them to let you choose freely.”

Yang Kai was rendered speechless, knowing that they truly craved the World Beads in his hands; otherwise, they wouldn’t have embarrassed themselves in such a way. Seeing that the other people seemed to have the intention of becoming matchmakers for him as well, he hurriedly passed all the beads to Li Wu Yi and let him be troubled instead.

As expected, upon seeing that, the Army Commanders immediately surrounded Li Wu Yi. They would either argue with him or plead with him in an attempt to get the beads for themselves.

Upon getting himself out of the mess, Yang Kai looked at the chaotic battlefield and felt increasingly uneasy. The fact that the Demons had gone mad and killed one another contributed to their victory, but it was definitely part of a bigger plot. No one could set their mind at ease before finding out what this plot was.

However, the Great Emperors were not around, so it was extremely difficult to ascertain anything. 

Just then, Yang Kai felt his chest tightening, which caused his expression to change.

A few billion kilometres away, above the sky of Profound Frost City in the Northern Territory, two figures were silently hovering in the air. One of them appeared righteous, while the other person looked wicked. Above the sky of this little-known city, Iron Blood Great Emperor from the Star Boundary, and the strongest Demon Saint from the Demon Realm, Huang Wu Ji, appeared at the same time and confronted one another in silence.

After a few days of chasing and trading moves, which almost shattered the world around them, the pair finally arrived at this place from the Western Territory.

Huang Wu Ji stopped in his tracks as soon as he reached this place and with an inscrutable smile, he stared quietly at Zhan Wu Hen.

Zhan Wu Hen looked around and released his Divine Sense to scan the surroundings that were within a radius of several ten thousand kilometres.

He didn’t understand why Huang Wu Ji would stop in this place. Judging from the previous circumstances, Huang Wu Ji seemed to have the intention of coming to this spot beforehand, but what was so special about this place that could attract a Demon Saint’s attention?

Even though Zhan Wu Hen was a Great Emperor in the Star Boundary, he wasn’t omniscient. At the very least, he couldn’t figure out what the Demon Saints were up to, so he had no other choice but to see how things went.

Recalling the sight when the Demon Saints first appeared, Zhan Wu Hen had a feeling that an egregious plot was waiting for the Star Boundary. Huang Wu Ji had stopped in this place, so what about the other nine Demon Saints? Where were they? What were they up to?

Despite not knowing anything, Iron Blood came to the realization that the Demon Saints had indeed risked their lives to barge into the Star Boundary, but their moves had caused the Great Emperors to fall into a passive situation.

It was a small city with only several hundred thousand residents, with the strongest being just a few Origin Kings. Such a small city was poor in resources, which was why it couldn’t attract top cultivators to stay. Moreover, the armies had been recruiting soldiers wantonly in recent years, so the small number of Origin Kings from this city had almost all joined the armies.

Despite the fact that Huang Wu Ji and Zhan Wu Hen had been staying in this place for a while, no one from the city could detect them.

Since Huang Wu Ji didn’t seem to have the intention of making a move, Zhan Wu Hen decided to wait and watch as well.

Faced with the strongest Demon Saint, he wouldn’t dare to be complacent despite the fact that they were in the Star Boundary. Once they got into a fight, they would use their full strength, and the repercussions of the battle would spread far and wide, likely wiping this entire city off the map in the opening exchange. 

Unless he could discover Huang Wu Ji’s weakness and deal a fatal blow to him in the first strike, everyone in the city would lose their lives.

Their auras clashed as they confronted each other in silence. While Zhan Wun Hen appeared dispassionate, Huang Wu Ji’s expression was solemn. 

It wasn’t that Huang Wu Ji was no match for Zhan Wu Hen. Given a fair environment, no one could tell who would turn out to be the winner if they got into a fight.

However, they were now in the Star Boundary, where the World Principles were different from those in the Demon Realm. Zhan Wu Hen had obtained recognition from the World’s Will, which meant that he had the blessing of this Great World. On the other hand, Huang Wu Ji was an invader, so the world was naturally hostile to him. Considering these factors, it seemed that he was on the weaker side now.

Zhan Wu Hen was confident that if Huang Wu Ji wasn’t going to flee, he could severely injure him, though there would be a heavy price to pay in order to achieve that.

Nevertheless, he didn’t have the heart to condemn to death the several hundred thousand people in the city below. The Great Emperors had obtained the Star Boundary’s recognition, making them the guardians of this Great World. If they couldn’t even protect the people living here, why would the world acknowledge them?

“Why don’t we have a talk?” Zhan Wu Hen broke the silence.

Huang Wu Ji said impassively, “Are you going to lecture me or something?”

“That’s not what I meant. I just hope that there won’t be any war between the two Great Worlds, and no one else will have to die.”

Huang Wu Ji replied with a smile, “The war has been ignited, and countless people from both worlds have lost their lives. Who could possibly forget this kind of blood feud? Great Emperor, do you even believe what you’ve said?”

Zhan Wu Hen said, “If you promise that the Demons will leave the Star Boundary, seal off the Two Worlds’ Passage, and never come back again, we can forget about this war.”

“Do you think that’s possible?” Huang Wu Ji sneered.

“We can only do our best.” Normally, Zhan Wu Hen would just fight it out with his enemy. This was one of the rare circumstances where he had to talk it out with his foe; however, he had no other choice as he didn’t want more people to lose their lives pointlessly. “I know that the Demon Realm is falling apart. The reason you’re invading the Star Boundary is that you all want a place to live. You don’t necessarily have to do this though. If there’s a new world that could accommodate the Demons, the war between our worlds would become unnecessary.”

As a Great Emperor, he was aware of Yang Kai’s plan. The new world he just mentioned was the territory inside the Sealed World Bead.

Huang Wu Ji shook his head, “Discussion is meaningless because you know nothing.”

Upon hearing that, Zhan Wu Hen furrowed his brows. Just when he wanted to say something more, Huang Wu Ji suddenly spread his arms and yelled, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. All living creatures and their spirits will die. In the end, everything in this world will perish!”

Initially, his voice wasn’t particularly loud, but as soon as he started speaking, his words reverberated around the world like the tolling of a gigantic bell. Apart from his, nine other voices could be heard echoing his exact statement. Despite the fact that their voices were intermingled, there wasn’t a sense of disorder. It was as though the same person had said the same thing in ten different tones.

At that instant, their voices could be heard by everyone in this world. Trillions of lives were astounded as they looked up at the sky, and it was at that exact moment that Yang Kai felt his chest tightening.

On the battlefield in the Western Territory, the Army Commanders had surrounded Li Wu Yi in an attempt to get their hands on the World Beads and were arguing with one another until their faces and necks had reddened.

““Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. All the living creatures and their spirits will die. In the end, everything in this world will perish!””

The ten voices were heard, and everyone stopped arguing as the entire world fell silent. At the same time, they all looked up into the sky. Presently, Li Wu Yi and the other Army Commanders appeared extremely solemn. Even though their voices had been mixed together, one voice stood out in particular. They had heard Huang Wu Ji’s voice before, so they could immediately recognise it.

The voices of all ten Demon Saints were suddenly heard across the Star Boundary, which was a horrifying fact.

“Damn it!” Yang Kai turned pale and cursed.

“What happened?” Li Wu Yi asked anxiously. He knew that something terrible had just occurred, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Judging from Yang Kai’s tone though, he seemed to have realised something.

It wasn’t that he was less powerful than Yang Kai, it was just that Yang Kai had inherited the World’s Will from Bright Moon Great Emperor, so he could somewhat sense what was going on.

“The World Barrier…” Before Yang Kai could finish speaking, his expression changed again as he looked into the distance. Demon Qi started surging from the five hundred thousand Demon corpses nearby. This Demon Qi was as thick as ink and soon formed into a giant Flood Dragon and shot towards the sky.

Not only was this happening on the battlefield near them, it was also happening on the battlefield near the Two Worlds’ Passage. Only five hundred thousand Demons, who worked under Yu Ru Meng and the others, had passed away in this place; however, there were millions of corpses on the battlefield near the passage.

In just a few days, the Humans had killed more than ten million Demons while the number of Demons that had lost their lives from killing one another was even greater than that.

Millions of Demon corpses were scattered everywhere on the ground. Demon Qi could be seen rising from the dismembered corpses and converging in the same place. Looking from afar, a particular area of the sky had turned completely dark.

The horrifying Demon Qi then shot into the sky like a huge black column, as though it was going to pierce the Heavens.

With a loud boom, the column exploded and turned into ten streams of darkness before shooting off in ten different directions, the same directions the ten Demon Saints had flown off in.

Li Wu Yi’s expression changed drastically as he fished out a Space Beacon and contacted Zhan Wu Hen in an attempt to ask what had happened. At the same time, he informed him about the anomaly in this place. Unfortunately, he didn’t get any reply from the Great Emperor.

At this moment, Zhan Wu Hen had no time to reply to him. Right after Huang Wu Ji said these odd words, Zhan Wu Hen hurriedly waved his hand as a blood-coloured flag appeared and covered the entire Profound Frost City.

It was the Iron Blood War Banner, which was the manifestation of his cultivation. It could be said that the banner was his unique mark.

Zhan Wu Hen had to deal with Huang Wu Ji, but he couldn’t ignore the safety of the several hundred thousand lives in the city, so he had to send them away first.

When the residents looked up and realised that the sky had been covered in red, they became flustered. Following that, the Iron Blood War Banner rolled up and turned into a red light before shooting into the distance. No one was left in the city. All the living creatures, including cats and dogs, were swept away by the War Banner.

Over ten breaths later, the residents finally saw sunlight again as the redness that had engulfed them diminished. They realised that they were in a desert with no one else around, seemingly lost.