Tribulation of Myriad Races

Inside the main hall.

Su Yu continued smiling for a long while. When he was finally done thinking, he stopped smiling and said, “Sit down. Do not be so reserved. You are all guests and seniors of mine.”

He felt so friendly. But the friendlier he seemed, the more fearful the four were. They looked at Great Zhou King and Wan Tiansheng. The two said nothing and sat down to the right and left of Su Yu.

Then, a cup of tea appeared before each of them. They started sipping tea. They were both doing the same thing. As fellow old foxes, they knew that the safest thing to do was stay silent, sip tea, and listen. In fact, Wan Tiansheng had the habit of attending meetings with a large pot of tea back then. Great Zhou King had a similar habit as well.

After all, both were cultured scholars. Unlike the barbaric warriors, they did not enjoy quarreling. Noticing that, the four sat down quietly, not daring to say anything.

Su Yu said, “Give me a simple description of the situation up there. Also tell me what you need. Do they have any message for us? Tell me about the situation of the various races up there as well.”

He added, “What are your names?”

“Zhao Chuan.”

“Ping Yao.”

“Zhou Nan.”

“Zhang Hong.”

Zhao Chuan was the oldest looking among the four. The woman was Ping Yao. Su Yu did not pay too much attention to the remaining two. Their strength was decent. Not too long ago, they might even be able to lord over humanity after descending.

All of them were Eternals.

Zhao Chuan was at the seventh degree, while the other three were at the middle degree. The weaker ones had probably died. This was a decently strong group. Su Yu had previously assumed that the Upper Realm would only be filled with Daofuses, but clearly, there were quite a lot of Eternals there as well.

Su Yu nodded.

Seeing that Su Yu was nodding, Zhao Chuan, the eldest, exhaled with relief and said, “Reporting to the lord, we serve Stable Army Marquis. For the past thousands of years, the humans of the Upper Realm have struggled to survive. To preserve humanity and to ensure the future rise of humanity, countless experts died. At present, there are six human forces left in the Upper Realm.

“South Suppression Marquis, hiding in the Heavenly Hole Range.

“Cloud Water Marquis, hiding in the Floating River.

“Cloud Fire Marquis, hiding in the Divine Fire Mountain.

“Brave Martial General, hiding inside a gorge, and Stable Army Marquis, whom we follow.”

Only five were mentioned.

Noticing Su Yu’s continuous gaze, Zhao Chuan continued, “The other party is a lone wolf. The Shadow Marquis. He does not stay at a fixed location. He has been spending years fighting a guerrilla warfare against the myriad races. Prior to this, Marquis Minshan led the strongest human force in the Upper Realm. But he fell, and the force under his command was wiped out.”

Five marquises and one general. They were probably all Daofuses. These were the current human forces in the Upper Realm.

Su Yu was in no rush to ask about anything. He only had one question. “Of the six, are there women among the leaders?”

“…”

Zhao Chuan was curious about the question, but he didn’t dare to ask anything. He answered promptly, “Cloud Water Marquis and Brave Martial General are both women. Shadow Marquis’ gender is unknown. I have never seen them.”

Su Yu nodded and asked again, “Are all six Daofuses?”

“As far as I know, yes.” Zhao Chuan explained, “Everyone is busy hiding. Some might have gone fully into hiding, awaiting the opening of the Upper Realm. Not even Stable Army Marquis himself knows if there are more humans alive. The ones we know are the ones with enough strength to fight actively.”

Hearing that, Great Zhou King sighed.

Only six left.

In the previous epoch, humanity had around eighty or so Daofuses. Out of all those experts, only six remained.

Noticing Su Yu’s gaze on him, Great Zhou King sighed and said, “I don’t know what to feel about this. Emperor Yu, may I ask them some questions?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Great Zhou King looked at Zhao Chuan and asked, “These are the survivors from the previous epoch. But thousands of years have passed since then. Are there no new Daofuses? Those in the Lower Realm were forced to go into slumber during the sealed period, but there was no such period in the Upper Realm. Also, the inheritance of the Upper Realm is not severed up there. Have you produced new Daofuses?”

Hearing the question, Zhao Chuan sighed as well. He said, “We have not heard of any so far. The myriad races have been hunting us relentlessly, and we have been spending most of our time in running. The more talented members of our groups have always been the priority targets of the myriad races. Also, we lack resources. Furthermore, the power of the daos are too clear in the Upper Realm. Any attempt at advancement will instantly attract the attention of countless myriad race experts.”

Only six Daofuses, and all were busy running everywhere. If this were in the past, Su Yu would probably exclaim with joy that this was a decent number. But he had killed as many Daofuse in the span of one day. Thus, that no longer seemed like a big number to him.

Su Yu asked, “How many Daofuses do the myriad races have?”

“That…” Zhao Chuan thought about it and answered, “We are unsure. Information gathering is very difficult for us. But they have at least seventy or eighty Daofuses in total. The humans have not produced any new Daofuses, but the myriad races have produced quite a lot. With their strength, they have monopolized the resources of the Upper Realm, allowing them to keep producing new experts.”

“Even with that many Daofuses, they couldn’t wipe out the humans?”

Su Yu was feeling doubtful. That sounded a tad bit too useless. It had been so many years. And they hadn’t even been forced to go into deep slumber like the Daofuses of the Lower Realm.

Zhao Chuan explained, “The Upper Realm is massive, and it is filled with dangerous regions. As long as we don’t stay in the same place for too long, we can keep entering the various dangerous regions to make their hunt challenging. Often, they will have to sacrifice two or even three just to kill one of us.

“In the first thousand years after the ninth epoch, the hunt was intense. At the time, there were more than ten human Daofuses remaining. Lord Marquis Minshan and the other lords were extremely powerful. Thus, they fought back intensely. But eventually, these peak experts died one after another. Marquis Minshan was forced to order the remaining forces to scatter and hide, making it far more difficult for the myriad races to wipe us out.

“From then on, the intensity of the hunt dropped. Furthermore, the myriad races have never been fully united. The Upper Realm is filled with treasures, including the many laws they can harvest…”

Afraid that Su Yu wouldn’t understand, he explained, “There are some masterless daos in the Upper Realm. Some are broken daos, but some are complete. It is said that by capturing a masterless dao, one has the hope of becoming a Master of Law. Thus, the myriad races have been fighting each other for these treasures while hunting humanity.

“Due to the drop in the number of experts humanity can muster, the myriad races have withdrawn most of their forces to focus on these treasures.”

Only a few human Daofuses were left, and all were focused on hiding. Thus, the myriad races had decided to stop wasting their time and wait for the Upper Realm to open. At the time, these old fossils would be forced to emerge and protect the humans of the Lower Realm.

This was one of the reasons Tiangu and the others had spared humanity early in the tenth epoch. Without the humans of the Lower Realm, the humans of the Upper Realm might continue hiding, remaining a thorn in their side.

Thus, one could say that the humans of the Upper Realm had helped the humanity of the Lower Realm survive by simply being around.

“Are there Masters of Laws up there?”

“No.” Zhao Chuan shook his head and said, “It is said that a few of the old fossils are near that level, but none of them is an actual Master of Law. They wouldn’t have remained hiding for so long otherwise. Most of these experts are deep in seclusion nowadays. They rarely show themselves. All of them are trying to reach that level.

“There is a popular belief in the Upper Realm that Masters of Laws are very hard to produce in this era. Something important is lacking, apparently.”

Noticing Su Yu’s gaze on him, he shook his head and said, “I don’t know what it is. But so many Masters of Laws emerged during the ancient past. It doesn’t make sense that not a single new Master of Law has appeared over so many years.

“During the ancient past, over a hundred of them emerged in only a short time. Most of the survivors are ancient marquises. Ancient marquises could be considered peak experts even during the ancient past. But why has nobody been able to break through even after a hundred thousand years?”

Su Yu had a pensive look. Perhaps the old fossils up there had discovered something. True. A hundred thousand years had passed. It was unlikely that every single one of the surviving Daofuses had pursued the daos of others.

Even if that was the case, what was the likelihood that all the masters of these daos were still alive? It had been so many years. Why had there not been a single new Master of Law? Did Human Emperor and the others did something to the daos?

While Su Yu speculated, Zhao Chuan continued, “It is said that this be related to the River of Time. It has been a long time since anyone reached that realm. Things had been the same since the conquest of humanity during the ancient past.”

Su Yu nodded and said, “In short, there are no Masters of Laws up there, but there are experts near that level.”

“Yes.”

Su Yu smiled and asked, “I’m curious about one thing. Apart from Daofuses, are there many weaker living beings up there?”

“Yes.” Zhao Chuan nodded and said, “Back when we first migrated to the Upper Realm, a number of Eternals followed. These people have been propagating. Even if the speed is slow, it has been a hundred thousand years. Furthermore, the experts up there do not need to enter long slumber like the experts down here. That is enough time for them to produce numerous descendants. After so many years, the many experts up there have established many cities.”

Great Zhou King added, “The Upper Realm is massive. The Allheaven Battlefield is merely a trial ground. In truth, humanity’s main goal during the ancient past was to develop and grow the Upper Realm. They even planned to migrate all humanity into the Upper Realm. That is a place with denser source qi and clearer power of laws.”

After a short hesitation, Great Zhou King continued, “Back then, humanity discovered the Death Realm. Then, a human expert suggested that humanity create a new world as well. A world separate from the Myriad Realms.

“They aimed to make it as big as the Death Realm, splitting the world into three levels. Humanity would reign beyond the heavens. The myriad races would stay under the heavens. And the Death Realm would stay at the very bottom.

“Humanity did carry out this plan. The Luminous Domain Mansion was meant to be a temporary palace. The Upper Realm was supposed to be the final destination of humanity.”

Su Yu asked, “Has the Upper Realm been around all along, or was it created by someone?”

“It was there, but in the beginning, it was similar to the boundless void.” Great Zhou King explained, “It was an unfinished product of someone attempting to create a world. The Myriad Realms is an example of a finished product. The Death Realm and Upper Realm were left incomplete. Subsequently, a supreme expert appeared and improved the Death Realm. Humanity aimed to do the same with the Upper Realm. They invested quite a lot into this project, but the ancient past collapsed before they could complete it.”

Su Yu said, “I see. Humanity…was that Human Emperor’s plan? Did he try to pioneer a new dao like the death spirit dao? To break free from the River of Time?”

Su Yu rubbed his chin and said, “This isn’t right. It should be much harder for them to connect to the River of Time from the Upper Realm. If that was the plan, humanity should do something similar and completely follow only one dao like the Death Realm.”

He looked at Zhao Chuan and asked, “Is it hard to access the River of Time from the Upper Realm?”

“Not really.” Zhao Chuan explained, “In fact, it is much easier. Thus, it is much easier to grow in the Upper Realm.”

“This doesn’t make sense.”

Su Yu frowned. This was not in line with his theories.

If humanity wanted to turn the Upper Realm into something like the Death Realm, they would need an independent dao. In that case, they should block the influence of the River of Time to make that possible. Unless…Su Yu’s eyes flickered.

Unless humanity intended to steal from the River of Time!

To drain the river.

Had the ancient humans opened a secret tributary on the River of Time, preparing to drain the river into the new dao of the Upper Realm? Or were they trying to cut off a section of the river to make it the dao of the Upper Realm?