Tribulation of Myriad Races

Death Realm.

A bunch of living beings moved openly, displaying their formidable auras. Yes. They were deliberately attracting attention. The appearance of living beings would attract death spirits. And then, He Tu would gain more underlings. They didn’t even need to hunt for underlings. Instead, these underlings would deliver themselves over.

Death spirits weren’t that smart, after all. They couldn’t resist charging over after sensing the presence of living beings. Even the laws in the Death Realm encouraged the death spirits to go after the living beings.

Generally, only the local death spirits could be found in this area. Powerful death spirits wouldn’t appear in this area unless they were the intruders from the domains of the four heavenly kings.

Before long, He Tu and Marquis Lanshan had gathered more than twenty death sovereigns. Some were even those He Tu knew. He was busy brainwashing them.

“You guys were clueless. Where are those ancient marquises? The four heavenly domains! After conquering the East Heavenly Domain, we are in need of people. The death qi there is much denser, and cultivation is much easier there. That is also a much larger territory. With a larger territory, your wisdom will grow at an increased rate!

“By following us to the East Heavenly Domain, you will be granted bigger territories. You don’t need to fear suppression anymore. Here, you have the old turtle suppressing you all the time. But the East Heavenly Domain is our own domain. We will take charge there. There are countless death spirits in that domain. Each of you can become the leader of a large army, ruling over millions of death spirits.”

“…”

He Tu pointed at Tuofa and continued, “Do you guys remember Tuofa? He has been appointed Heavenly Battle General of the East Heavenly Palace. His status is comparable to that of an ancient titled general! Everyone, at most, you were only untitled generals when you were alive. Now, the opportunity to get a promotion has arrived!”

He Tu roared, excitement in his voice, “After becoming a Daofuse, you can even become a marquis! It’s too late for us to become ancient marquises. But a new human lord has emerged, and a new era has begun! The living and the dead will be conquered soon. Instead of submitting to the new order now, are you going to wait until the very end? Will you receive the same opportunity then?

“Submit now. When the human lord conquers the world and resets the laws, tsk tsk. Just think about it. All of you will become the big shots of the new era. With the laws changed, death spirits can even enter the world of the living freely. You can even go back home and pay a visit to your descendants.

“I know, most of you are still dominated by your nature as a death spirit. You probably don’t care about any of what I mentioned. But upon entering the East Heavenly Palace and growing stronger, you will regain your true nature. You will recall your past. And you will thank yourself for making this choice today!”

Over twenty death sovereigns listened to He Tu’s passionate speech in confusion. As for Tuofa, who was being used as an example, he had an unsightly expression. He had been caught. The territory under the Luminous Domain Mansion was no longer his. He had been conscripted to the East Heavenly Palace. After showing everyone the carrot, He Tu proceeded with the stick.

He pointed at Marquis Lanshan and said, “Be obedient. All of you saw Marquis Lanshan’s east heavenly token earlier. That token specializes in suppressing death spirits. In Marquis Lanshan’s hands, it can suppress even Daofuses!”

The token should not be underestimated. During the previous battle, East Heavenly King had nearly succeeded in suppressing Marquis Lanshan with it. If it weren’t for Su Yu’s interference, he would have succeeded.

Of course, the power of the token would diminish in Marquis Lanshan’s hands. However, it was still more than enough to suppress a few Eternals. The laws had accorded it with some authority over the other death spirits. In fact, most of these death sovereigns had been directly subdued with the token instead of being beaten into submission.

Su Yu allowed He Tu to preach on. He did not interfere. Beside him, Heavendoom grinned and said, “We’re at Openmountain’s territory. Do we go up through the tunnel here?”

“No,” Su Yu smiled and said, “Take the local death sovereigns with us. Do this for all thirty-six cities. Disperse the death spirits under the cities and take all the death sovereigns with us. We will reduce the burden of the cities to the minimum.”

Su Yu ordered, “Heavendoom, you will go with Grandstar. Tian Yue, you will go with Empyrean Cloud. Capture all the death sovereigns you see. I will be traveling between your paths. I expect to see you return with an army of death spirits. Do not kill them. The laws will simply replace any death spirit you kill. It’s pointless.”

“Yes!”

They answered in excitement. In fact, they were already getting impatient to show off their strength. Now that the opportunity to do so had arrived, they left without hesitation. Unlike them, Tian Yue appeared indifferent. But since an order was given to him as well, he did not protest and left with Empyrean Cloud.

They would capture all the death sovereigns and take control over the death spirit armies under the ancient cities. They aimed to create a territory of zero death spirit under all the ancient cities.

Of course, that was basically impossible. The Celestial River of Death would constantly produce new death spirits. Random death spirits would also wander into the territory. However, these death spirits were much easier to handle. A regular Eternal would suffice as the guardian of a city.

Su Yu was heading toward the East Heavenly Palace. He intended to mark the location in preparation for opening a death tunnel from the world of the living to that place.

In the future, he could open a death tunnel during battle and lead his enemies into the midst of countless death spirits. Even powerful Daofuses would find it tiring to deal with millions upon millions of death spirits. Just the death qi corrosion from so many death spirits would be enough to seriously harm these top experts.

Su Yu continued moving ahead while comprehending the various techniques and abilities he knew. The Sky Sundering Saber had transformed into a character. Or to be precise, it had strengthened his existing character. Previously, the Soul Expanding Hammer had transformed into a character as well.

The hammer character was his thirty-third character. He still lacked sixty-six characters. Thus, he needed to reach a high degree of mastery over sixty-six techniques and abilities. These abilities and techniques also needed to originate from powerful races or they would be too weak. He had no use for trash characters.

He also needed to ensure that these abilities and techniques would transform into human characters. Fortunately, all these abilities and techniques had been automatically converted into the human edition before he started cultivating them. It was unlikely that they would transform into non-human characters. For the most part, he focused only on the daos that were more compatible with humanity.

“The abilities of major races like divines, devils, immortals, dragons, and nethers are all acceptable. The 72-Forged Iron Devourer can also be considered a racial ability.”

With the Heaven Gate, his comprehension ability had increased significantly. At the same time, he was also using the fire of civilization to enhance his comprehension. Unfortunately, his comprehension ability would still be affected in the Death Realm.

After all, he would be able to observe the corresponding dao if he were to comprehend the technique in the world of the living. That would be much more conducive to his comprehension. If possible, he even wanted to take a walk in the River of Time while comprehending all these techniques and abilities. It would prove extremely helpful.

The group continued moving ahead, with Marquis Lanshan and He Tu busy educating their new subordinates. Every now and then, Marquis Lanshan would throw Su Yu a look of admiration. Su Yu, the current human lord, was too impressive.

Heavendoom shot over in excitement with a death sovereign in hand. After tossing the death sovereign toward the group, he sped off again. He was already a Daofuse. When he went to the territory under Openmountain City, he had knocked out the death sovereign there with only one punch. He even charged through the death tunnel, causing Openmountain to turn pale with fright.

Openmountain only knew that it was Heavendoom when Heavendoom’s head emerged from the tunnel. After showing Openmountain his Daofuse aura, Heavendoom left, ignoring the stunned Openmountain. He was in a rush to show off in more cities. He couldn’t allow Empyrean Cloud and Grandstar to show off before him. Thus, he didn’t even have the time to greet Su Yu when he returned to the group to deliver his captive. Time was of the essence!

He knew that Grandstar was doing the same thing. Thus, Heavendoom felt a great sense of urgency. There were only thirty-six cities in total. Excluding their cities, only thirty-three cities were available for them to show off. But they had to exclude their boss as well. Thus, only thirty-two cities were available.

Heavendoom would not be satisfied with anything lower than eleven. That was the lowest share he could accept. While the guardians were hard at work, another character was slowly taking form in Su Yu’s sea of willpower.

The 72-Forged Iron Devourer began its transformation.

“Resist.”

It was transforming into the resist character. This technique was known for its outstanding defensive prowess and its ability to grant one an unimaginably powerful body. The seventy-two forges focused on forging the greatest defensive body.

Offense was not the priority of this technique. That was why the iron devourers were known for their impressive defense. This was the dao their entire race walked. As the resist character was formed from a technique Su Yu had perfected, it instantly became a Sunmoon character after taking form. In fact, it went far beyond the level of an initial Sunmoon character.

This wasn’t surprising. After all, Su Yu had an incredibly high level of mastery over the 72-Forged Iron Devourer. One could say that he was already a grandmaster of this technique.

This was the third character he gained from his techniques. Not long after, another character took form.

“Strike.”

This was a character transformed from the Mountainbreak ability of the mountainbreak bull race. He was quite regretful since this was a relatively weak race. However, he had still gained a character from them since this was a race whose blood essence he used to use frequently. Inadvertently, his comprehension of their dao had reached a rather high level. Thus, a character had taken form automatically.

“I will probably form quite a lot of characters by the time I’m done. At that time, I can consider crushing some of my unwanted characters. I only need to keep the best of the best.”

That was Su Yu’s plan. He also had a second plan. He could use only his weaker characters to form his character technique and explore the pen dao. As for his stronger characters, he could keep them independent and pursue their own daos.

For example, the tribulation character was one whose dao Su Yu wanted to pursue independently. With enough comprehension, he might be able to instantly detect the source of his danger the moment it emerged.

He might even achieve clairvoyance with this dao, gaining the ability to anticipate threats before their appearance.

“As for the characters from Great Zhou King and the others, I can use them all to pursue the pen dao. They will serve as the fuel. After all, they have most likely comprehended the daos of these characters as well. If I pursue the same daos, it will be the same as competing over these daos with them.”

As Su Yu thought, he laid out his plan for his future growth. The characters that were not suitable for further comprehension would all be used to fuel his pen dao.

Some of his natural characters could be left behind and provide him with more daos to pursue. In any case, he was unwilling to pursue only one dao. He might grow strong doing so, but he would probably be quite weak compared to the top experts of the ancient past.

“Thirty-five characters.”

His number of characters started growing. Behind him, the number of captured death sovereigns was growing as well. Further behind, a large number of regular death spirits followed.

As Su Yu traveled, he concealed his aura of the living. He didn’t fear them, but he didn’t want to be disturbed by them. It would be pointless.

***

World of the living.

Grand Dream City.

The old turtle was sighing with mixed feelings. He could sense that massive changes had occurred within the Spirit Suppression Domain. A large number of death spirits were being gathered.

“This is something I have failed to accomplish even after a hundred thousand years.”

He felt helpless as he thought about that. Was he really that bad at his job? He had never been able to pacify the domain even after acting as its guardian for a hundred thousand years. That was mainly due to those from the East Heavenly Domain. Every now and then, they would cause trouble for him, preventing him from pacifying the domain.

And now, East Heavenly King was dead. The biggest obstruction to pacification had been removed by Su Yu. As for the other heavenly kings, they were too far away to stir trouble effectively.

“Unification is only a matter of time.”

The old turtle had a feeling that this would truly be the final war. Either the humans or some other race would achieve the grand unification. It was unlikely that the war of this epoch would end without a clear result like all the previous epochs.

Suddenly, the old turtle frowned. A white figure appeared before him.

He asked, “Heavenly Overseer Marquis, what are you doing out here instead of hiding in your lair?”

As usual, Heavenly Overseer Marquis was assuming the appearance of a scholar. He looked at the old turtle with a complicated expression and said, “During our previous meeting, I asked you if the world would be unified again and if a new Human Emperor would emerge. I asked you about Su Yu. But you…sigh.”

He had a premonition that something would happen. Alas, it was too late for him to act on it.

The old turtle said, “I warned you. Even if you make the Heavenly Hunt Index yours, it doesn’t matter. That is not Su Yu’s treasure. He is not Culture King. He does not care. If you had helped during the previous battle…you would not be in such a position.”