Tribulation of Myriad Races

The trip to the River of Time with the old turtle wasn’t too exhausting for Su Yu.

He didn’t even need to give the old turtle any guidance. There was also no need for him to help the old turtle switch to a different dao. The old turtle was aware of his mistakes in cultivation. As long as the dao did not conflict too much with his nature, it was still better for him to monopolize this dao instead of doing anything else.

He would be too lazy to pioneer his own dao anyway.

***

When Su Yu was done making arrangements for the new guardians, he left the book spirit and tea plant in Grand Dream City. One could say that a large number of Daofuses had gathered there.

Great Xia King, Great Qin King, Heavendoom, Grandstar, Empyrean Cloud, Tian Yue, and the old turtle. Great Ming King was also there to study the formation around the city. If he could successfully reach the Daofuse Realm, the number of Daofuses here would rise even higher.

Anyone daring to attack Grand Dream City right now would most certainly come to regret it unless that person was a Master of Law. Even a heavenly king would not be a match to the forces currently gathered there.

Su Yu proceeded to enter the Death Realm with the twenty-seven guardians who had yet to remove their petrification. These guardians were not weak. That was especially true since they had all regained their weapons.

Among them, six were ninth-degree Eternals, fourteen were eighth-degree Eternals, and the rest were seventh-degree Eternals. This was enough to face about four or five Daofuses.

And four or five Daofuses could handle a heavenly king. In that case, these guardians should be able to handle a heavenly king as well. Unfortunately, combat strength could not be calculated so simplistically. A heavenly king could probably kill one of them with a single slap.

***

Death Realm.

The sky above the Death Realm was as dusky as ever.

The number of death spirits beneath the ancient cities had dropped considerably. Most of them were the newly awakened death spirits or random roaming death spirits. Most of them were quite weak. Only a small number of them were Sunmoons.

Naturally, there was an exception under Grandstar City. There, the ancient castle continued standing tall. Nothing had changed. Xing Yue was the only death sovereign left under these ancient cities. She was unwilling to leave, and nobody had forced her to leave. He Tu and the others had left her alone. They all knew that Xing Yue was the death sovereign who had converted Su Yu.

At present, she was no longer strong enough to provide Su Yu with the death qi he needed. Most of the time, he would take the death qi of the various cities instead of her. However, the death qi connection between him and Xing Yue remained. He had left it alone even when he was already strong enough to sever it at any time.

He wanted to try resurrecting her. He had formed the life character not long ago. But at the moment, his characters had all been drained to power the pen dao. Thus, he was unsure he could resurrect anyone in his current state. After all, even the almighty Culture King had failed.

But there was no rush. He could always try in the future. He did not say anything about Xing Yue’s refusal to head toward the East Heavenly Domain. As for the guardian atop her, Su Yu had sent Zhou Potian over. Those from the Zhou Family did not lack intelligence. He did not say much to Zhou Potian about Xing Yue, only reminding him to not get into a conflict with her.

“Your Majesty!”

Not long after Su Yu arrived, an expert rushed over. It was Marquis Lanshan.

Su Yu asked in surprise, “Why are you here?”

“I’m here to see Spirit Suppression General.” Looking at the guardians behind Su Yu, she nodded at the few familiar faces among them and said, “Your Majesty, the Celestial River of Death has been stirring recently. In the past, it would take a long time for a death sovereign to emerge from the river. But as of late, more than ten death sovereigns had emerged near the East Heavenly Domain. More must have emerged elsewhere as well.”

“Any marquises among the newcomers?” Su Yu asked.

Marquis Lanshan answered, “None has been discovered, but I suspect there are some. But marquises and death sovereigns are different. Death sovereigns will only awake with about ten percent of their memories. They need to recover slowly so they are quite dim most of the time. But marquises will awake with at least fifty percent of their memories. They are far smarter than death sovereigns. When death sovereigns awaken, their instincts will drive them out of the river. But the marquises can continue hiding in the river.”

Su Yu nodded. He had sensed the same the previous time he was here. A marquis had awakened, but that marquis had remained in the river. It was clear that the marquises were smarter.

As for the death sovereigns, they would be quite dumb when they first woke up. For example, Xia Chen had regained some of his memories a long time after awakening. Without Culture King’s token, it could have taken him much longer to even regain that much memories.

Speaking of, Xia Chen might have left with Liu Hong. That was quite impressive. Liu Hong had actually succeeded in persuading Xia Chen to go with him. Not even He Tu noticed their departure.

“Why are you looking for Grand Dream?”

“I’m here to ask him on a trip to the Celestial River of Death. We need to survey the river and get a better grasp on the current situation.” Marquis Lanshan said, “Not even marquises are that hard to deal with. I’m more worried about the awakening of some of the more ancient existences. It would be troublesome for a new heavenly king to emerge right after we pacified the Death Realm. With two heavenly kings gone, new heavenly kings might appear.”

After all, the deaths of two heavenly kings had cleared a large patch of the death spirit dao. That would be enough to support the awakening of at least one new heavenly king or even two. After all, quite a lot of marquises had died lately as well.

Marquis Lanshan could feel how fast she had been improving as of late. That was because of the empty space left behind by the two dead heavenly kings.

Su Yu’s meddling had changed a lot in the Death Realm. After killing so many death spirits, it was likely that new heavenly kings would emerge, either from the river or among one of his own people.

Su Yu nodded. He agreed with the assessment. But even with such a possibility, he couldn’t give up on his plan. Perhaps he would get lucky and the newly awakened death spirits would be human death spirits, right?

Even if they weren’t, it would still be an improved situation compared to their current situation.

“Come on. Let’s go to the East Heavenly Domain first.” Su Yu said, “There is nothing we can do about this. The Celestial River of Death is too ancient. Who knows how many death spirits it contains? For now, focus on your cultivation. Devour all the death imprints we gathered from our previous battle and reach the level of a heavenly king as soon as possible.”

At that, Marquis Lanshan’s expression turned awkward. She had indeed consumed all those death imprints, but her growth had been slower than expected. Even the death spirit dao required talent and comprehension for growth.

Just devouring the other death spirits madly would not be enough. Regretably, she was not too talented. Then again, this was a common weakness of most warriors. They weren’t very good at comprehending the dao.

And Marquis Lanshan was one such warrior. Even in the ancient past, she was known as a fierce general, not a wise general. Noticing her silence, Su Yu was left quite speechless.

Understood.

He had reached a new conclusion. Perhaps it would be better to put his hope on He Tu instead. Su Yu was starting to wonder if he should get the old turtle to remove the seal on He Tu’s growth.

Su Yu had a feeling that He Tu would have grown into a marquis if not for the seal. Compared to the other death spirits, He Tu was quite a smart one. And as a marquis, He Tu could most likely reach the level of a heavenly king with enough resources.

After all, resurrection was not something that would happen anytime soon. It might drag on until the end of the war against the myriad races.

Suddenly, the old turtle’s sigh rang out as he sent Su Yu a voice transmission, “Emperor Yu, if you have a different plan, you can remove the seal on He Tu. I want to resurrect him, but I also know that it’s almost impossible. Even Culture King had failed to do this in the past. I will never succeed.”

Su Yu couldn’t help but be impressed. Did the old turtle guess his thoughts so easily? He decided that it would be better to let He Tu make the choice instead. Growing stronger would also reduce the likelihood of his resurrection.

“Resurrection…South Heavenly King…”

Was South Heavenly King aware of Culture King’s attempt back then? Was she aware of the method to resurrect someone?

“He Tu was near Daofuse before his death. With the seal removed, he might be able to reach the Daofuse Realm in no time. And if he’s given the remains of North Heavenly King, he will be able to become either a peak Daofuse or a heavenly king.”

With numerous thoughts in his mind, Su Yu said, “Let’s go. We’ll head to the North Heavenly Domain first.”

“Understood.”

As the group moved, Marquis Lanshan joined them in excitement. She said, “Your Majesty, everything is stable in East Heavenly Domain. Some people have been deployed to take over the West Heavenly Domain as well. But due to the distance, communication is quite difficult. We need to clear a path through either the South Heavenly Domain or the North Heavenly Domain for uninterrupted communication.”

“What has South Heavenly King been doing?” Marquis Lanshan answered, “Nothing much. But she wishes to meet you before making her decision.”

Switching to voice transmission, she continued, “South Heavenly King is biased toward the human race, but she is also proud. If you can’t convince her of your abilities, he will remain an ally, not a subordinate.”

Su Yu nodded. That was understandable. She could help humanity, but only humanity. Not the human lord. In short, she could help for Culture King’s sake, but if the human lord was useless, she would only help where she could instead of giving everything she had.

She would not obey the orders of humanity or the human lord. She would only help in ways she deemed fit. Su Yu smiled. He was unbothered by that. Her way of thinking wasn’t bad. If she were the type to throw her lot behind every single human lord, she might have died helping Hundred Battle King during the previous epoch.

But no, she was still around. That was all thanks to her lack of absolute loyalty toward humanity.

Only those who had refrained from helping Hundred Battle King were still around to lend help to Su Yu. The old turtle was one of them. If all these people had opted to help Hundred Battle King before, they could all be dead by now.

Su Yu took the chance to throw more insults at Hundred Battle King inwardly. He was still very dissatisfied with that useless human lord. As far as he was concerned, Hundred Battle King was the ruler who had caused the collapse of a nation with a bright future ahead of it.

Unaware of Su Yu’s thoughts, Marquis Lanshan continued, “Your Majesty, I have one more thing to report. Not long ago, North Heavenly King sent us an emissary. He only wants to remain independent with his existing domain. He does not intend to make an enemy out of humanity. He would have allied himself with the myriad races long ago otherwise. With the deaths of two heavenly kings, he has grown by about a third stronger than before. He wishes to make peace with humanity.”

“Make peace?”

At that, Su Yu laughed. He said, “How can we allow a threat to remain so close to us? Is he brainless? Or does he think me brainless? Will I allow a disobedient heavenly king to remain so close to me?”

“Ignore him.”

Su Yu added, “If he sends more emissaries, kill them. Inform him that peace is not an option. Only surrender is acceptable. Upon his surrender, he is to scatter his comprehensions of the dao, dropping his strength to the level of a marquis.”

Marquis Lanshan’s expression changed. That was an impossible request. In that case, war would be their only option. Marquis Lanshan felt like Su Yu was being too much of an idealist.

“Your Majesty, he will never surrender.”

Su Yu nodded, “I know that. But if he maintains his strength, I will need to keep an expert of the same level here to keep an eye on him. With peace negotiated, our side might relax our wariness against him, giving him the chance to stab us in the back. That is far more dangerous than making our stance clear.”

Marquis Lanshan thought about it and nodded in agreement. True.