Tribulation of Myriad Races

“Enough, Martial Emperor!” Su Yu shouted, “Do you really think I can’t do anything to you? You are not fully unsealed. I have only been leaving you alone because I can’t be bothered to waste my energy on you. If you keep pestering me, I will gather everything I have and kill you first!”

With a snort, Martial Emperor threw another punch. His punch did not contain the power of dao as his dao was still sealed. But just a regular punch from him was enough to shake Su Yu’s pen dao.

“Killing me?” Martial Emperor sneered, “You can try!”

“So you’re not done?”

Suddenly, Su Yu pulled out a token. Instantly, the token shone brightly, causing Martial Emperor to stiffen. With a snort, Su Yu said, “Try me again! I dare you! Do you know this thing?”

Finally, Martial Emperor stopped. Looking at the token in Su Yu’s hand, he coldly said, “The Token of Sanctification?”

Su Yu snorted.

“Good. You know this. Can the current you stop this? You are only so awake at my mercy. Remember that!”

Martial Emperor said, “Yes, that is a good tool. Unfortunately, it can only effect me slightly. You can’t destroy my body. You can’t destroy my dao. At most, my release will be delayed.”

He might be saying that, but he had indeed stopped attacking. Free from Martial Emperor, Su Yu sent his Mark of Civilization out. Countless broken strands of hair were pulled into the Mark of Civilization.

Martial Emperor’s face fell as he asked, “What are you doing?”

“Recycling trash.” Su Yu said, “You’re balding. It’s time for you to have a haircut. I’m cleaning the broken strands of hair from your scalp.”

Martial Emperor glared at Su Yu coldly. Did this bastard take him for a fool? This bastard was clearly taking his hair away to use as weaponsmithing materials! This was too hateful! How hateful.

In Martial Emperor’s eyes, Tai Shan was the first person he wanted to kill, and Su Yu was the second. This guy was too annoying and shameless. Su Yu ignored the sulking Martial Emperor, but inwardly, he was greatly shaken.

This was only a projection of Martial Emperor without the power of dao. The projection could only utilize the power of acupoints and apertures, yet he couldn’t defeat it. Su Yu would not say that he was at the level of a heavenly king, but with the pen dao, he should be as strong as a middle-tier or even an upper-middle-tier Daofuse.

Su Yu had a feeling that he was already comparable to the Hou Pseudo Emperor in strength. These old fossils were not weak at all. Those classified at the highest tier were the heavenly kings.

Those in the second tier were the likes of Tiangu, Heavenly Overseer Marquis, Great Zhou King, and even Soy Bun. But Soy Bun was the weaker one among them.

The third tier was comprised of the likes of Great Qin King, Great Xia King, Jiwu, and Mo Ji.

The fourth tier would be the likes of Hou Pseudo Emperor and Phoenix Pseudo Emperor.

The fifth tier would be Mo Yue and Heavendoom.

As for the sixth tier, they were the newly advanced Daofuses and the death spirit marquises.

Naturally, there were differences between those in the same tier. For example, the old turtle was nearer to the heavenly king level, and quite a lot stronger than Soy Bun.

Su Yu couldn’t help but be impressed by how strong Martial Emperor was. How much stronger would Martial Emperor be with his power of dao? Could he still utilize his power of dao? Or was it fully sealed away?

Or perhaps he was simply holding back because such a level of exertion would turn him crazy again. It was hard to judge. Since he hadn’t used his power of dao, Su Yu couldn’t even track the dao down for observation.

Su Yu ignored Martial Emperor even as all those thoughts lingered in his mind. Instead, he hurriedly looked at the group of people absorbing the heavenly reward. With one look, he blanked out.

At the same time, Marquis Lanshan, He Tu, and Heavenbridge Marquis arrived around him. At this point, Martial Emperor had recovered enough that they could see him as well. They all stood guard around Su Yu, constantly wary of Martial Emperor.

Su Yu did not say anything about Martial Emperor. Rather, he looked at the guardians with surprise and asked, “How did they do this?”

He had assumed that some of the guardians would die fighting Cangshan Nether. Death was unavoidable even if they could win.

Su Yu had already braced himself to lose a few of these guardians. Losing three, five, seven, or even eight would not be surprising. But all of them had survived. What was going on? Yes. All of them had survived. All of them were carrying injuries of varying degrees, with some of these injuries being rather severe. But they were still alive. Being injured was better than being dead. How was this possible?

Su Yu was in disbelief. He looked at Marquis Lanshan and the others, wondering if they had helped.

Heavenbridge Marquis hurriedly explained, “Emperor Yu, we did not interfere! Don’t look at us! From the way you’re looking at us, you clearly suspect us of interfering! No! We didn’t! We followed your order faithfully! Do not overthink!”

Su Yu frowned. Why was this guy rambling endlessly again?

That frown silenced Heavenbridge Marquis. Beside him, He Tu smiled and said, “We didn’t do much. Something unexpected happened to Cangshan Nether during the combat.”

“Something unexpected?”

Su Yu was confused. What could it be?

He Tu explained, “It didn’t happen to him alone. It happened to everyone, but it was over quickly. We weren’t in battle, so we were unaffected. Something must have happened to the death spirit dao as all of us felt our vision darkening for a split second.”

Darkening vision? Su Yu was very surprised. How could something like that happen? That wasn’t supposed to happen to people at their cultivation level. Also, the death spirit dao was already very dark. What could be darker than their own dao?

He had entered in a rush, so he hadn’t asked South Heavenly King about it. Upon hearing He Tu’s words, he started frowning. Darkening vision in the middle of combat. What was happening?

Marquis Lanshan said, “Yes, that happened. We weren’t using our power of dao too much so the effect wasn’t as prominent on us. But Cangshan Nether was in an intense battle with heavy injuries. I suspect his six senses had been sealed for a short moment. We don’t know what happened.”

Martial Emperor had the answer. He sneered and said, “That was merely a dao interference. A parasite had caught the opportunity to devour the dao secretly while everyone was fighting.”

“Parasite?”

When Su Yu looked at Martial Emperor, he sneered again and said, “Only the so-called cultural researchers will do something like this. Shameless bastards like you are always playing these tricks. Opening a secret tributary on the dao and steal from the main branch through the tributary, ultimately devouring the main branch. This isn’t the first time you lot did something like this.”

Su Yu sank into silence. After a while, his eyes flickered as he muttered, “Tributary…treating the death spirit dao as the River of Time and opening a tributary to steal the power of the dao.”

Understanding dawned on him.

He exclaimed, “Ink dao?”

“Ink dao?” Martial Emperor thought about it and said, “So it was indeed that dao. Back then, I heard about it prior to my defeat. But I never saw it. I was quite surprised. Just what manner of existence could do this? So it was him. Ink dao. How impressive. Stealing the power of the death spirit dao. Was he trying to take control of the death spirit dao as well?”

It really was the ink dao! Su Yu was now certain. It was Culture King’s ink dao. Surprisingly, it was a tributary of the death spirit dao, not the River of Time. Every dao in existence was supposed to be a tributary of the River of Time. That included the dao of the Time Sage.

But Culture King had treated the death spirit dao as the River of Time. He had actually created a tributary there. Would such a tributary be powerful?

Unlikely.

But it was also useful. It could steal the power of the death spirit dao. Or to be precise, it was meant to steal the ownership of the death spirit dao.

In other words, a Master of Law pursuing this ink dao wouldn’t be too strong either. Such a Master of Law would probably be the weakest of the Masters. Because such a person was attached to the Celestial River of Death, not the River of Time. The death spirit dao might be powerful, but it was incomparable to the River of Time.

If the other tributaries of the River of Time could be considered tier-two tributaries, the ink dao would be a tier-three tributary. There was an unreal quality to it, similar to the unreal daos collected by the Book of Time.

Countless thoughts emerged in Su Yu’s mind.

Was it Liu Hong?

Did he take the opportunity when Cangshan Nether’s dao was shaking intensely to move in and extract some power into the tributary? If that was the case, Liu Hong must have grown quite rapidly.

Su Yu was greatly alarmed. The ink dao was a dao from the Death Realm, also the sole tributary of this dao. Was that so? He had not seen it himself or he would have noticed something.

Martial Emperor had noticed the matter because he was right here when Cangshan Nether was fighting intensely.

Suddenly, Su Yu sneered and said, “Stealing? Shameless? What nonsense. Everyone is stealing from the River of Time as well. Martial Emperor, why are you so naive? The River of Time is a dao as well. Answer me. Are you a thief? Are you not ashamed of talking badly about others for doing the exact same thing? If we treat the Celestial River of Death as a different River of Time, the ink dao is merely the first tributary.”

“Back then, the Master of death spirit dao created the Death Realm. Did he do that to share power with everyone in the Death Realm? Use your brain. He must have intended to have countless people explore and open new tributaries on his dao, just like the River of Time.

“With such ambitions, new tributaries are most certainly welcomed. What does a frog in the well like you know?”

Su Yu curled his lips and continued, “What you can see, I can see as well. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The tributaries on the River of Time are mere tributaries while a tributary on the Celestial River of Death is a thief?”

Su Yu laughed with contempt, “What a juvenile way of thinking. If I grow strong enough to control the River of Time, I will definitely not hesitate to snatch it for myself as well. This did not cross your mind, proving your incompetence and weakness. You only care about the tiny bit of power you have. What is your biggest ambition? Growing your dao to the level of the physical body dao. Only that. Am I right?”

Martial Emperor’s expression darkened, but he said nothing.

Su Yu continued, “I must be right. Your biggest dream is probably reaching Martial King’s level. He is your only goal. You don’t have a bigger dream. Or perhaps the physical body dao is your ultimate goal. Have you never considered creating a brand new dao? An independent dao?”

Martial Emperor stared at Su Yu for a long while before laughing, “Young and frivolous. Your courage comes from ignorance. Yes, I had the same dream in my youth. When I first opened my Heaven Gate, I had this dream. I believed I was undefeatable. I believed the River of Time itself would be mine. I would master the myriad daos.”

He was a supreme genius of his generation as well. Just how many people since the beginning of time had opened the Heaven Gate? Who wouldn’t think of becoming the master of the River of Time when they first lay eyes on it? But upon opening a dao, one could come to realize just how difficult it was.

Martial Emperor said, “Even now, you’re merely pursuing the dao of others. Talk about snatching the River of Time when you actually master your pen dao. At the time, you will come to realize just how naive you were. How laughable. An ant is trying to shake a tree. That is you.”

He was once ignorant and arrogant. For him, this was a phase. After enough slaps from reality, Su Yu would naturally wake up. Su Yu did not bother to argue. It was pointless to argue about something like this. He agreed that he had a big dream, and he also acknowledged that his arrogance would be curbed after being stuck for tens of thousands of years.

Clearly, Martial Emperor’s arrogance had been curbed by reality. Through this conversation, Su Yu learned something new. Someone had grasped the ink dao. Or to be precise, a dao fusion had been initiated. The sly Liu Hong had actually taken the chance to snatch even more space on the death spirit dao while Cangshan Nether was busy fighting.

“What a sly guy. Sure enough, he is still the same. He even lied to me back then that he was only entering the Death Realm for the key, claiming that the actual treasure was in the ninth level of the Luminous Domain Mansion.”