Tribulation of Myriad Races

Three lunatics opening a dao.

With a stone in hand, Su Yu charged forward in an almost barbaric manner.

“Settle down!”

He roared repeatedly.

This was the dawn of a new era. Those from the past did not dare to do this. Those from the future did not have the ability to do this. But that did not signify that they couldn’t do this. Were those from the past as crazy as Lan Tian? Could they produce as many clones to sacrifice?

Su Yu could see that this was a difficult dao to pursue.

Too difficult.

Each death was a real death. Yes. Each clone of Lan Tian was essentially a main body as well. Thus, he had experienced countless deaths walking this path.

Su Yu could create clones as well, but his clones wouldn’t allow him to walk this path. His clones were mere regular clones. In this era, Lan Tian was probably the one with the highest hope of completing this path.

In such a manner, they advanced while one clone after another exploded.

Lan Tian was grinning ear to ear.

“Big Brother Yu is amazing!

“Much more amazing than Big Brother Tiansheng! Earlier, each clone could only walk several steps. But now, each clone can go very far. Big Brother Yu is awesome!”

“…”

Fuck!

Even Su Yu couldn’t take it anymore. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had to stay and open the path ahead, he would have left by now. He had only played along for a bit, but why was Lan Tian getting overly excited about it?

Helpless, Su Yu decided to ignore Lan Tian and covered Lan Tian’s voice with his own laughter.

“Principal, let’s see who can last longer and go further. Clearly, your humanity is lacking since your human dao can’t carry you far enough.”

“Bullshit!”

Wan Tiansheng cursed. What nonsense was that guy uttering?

Su Yu was left speechless. That guy should learn to stay calm. He was being honest there. In fact, Wan Tiansheng had only lasted so long because of the human lord’s token. Of course, the stone was much better at suppression, but Su Yu would naturally not admit to this.

He continued rushing ahead with the stone in hand. Beneath Lan Tian, the path of blood continued growing.

More and more clones were lost.

And eventually, even Su Yu was starting to reach his limits.

It felt great to suppress the dao. It also felt great to act all cool and carefree while suppressing the dao. But strength was required to suppress the River of Time. Comprehension of the dao was also required.

It would be fair to say that Su Yu and his two companions were among the best in both aspects. Yet even they were having difficulty moving forward. But Su Yu forced himself to endure it. He had just laughed at Wan Tiansheng for being lacking. How could he fail right after that? As long as his comprehension of the dao was deep enough, anything was possible.

At that moment, he recalled something else. While they were moving along the river, they passed by numerous tributaries. And there were some pages buried in some of the nearby tributaries. At that moment, those tributaries released a burst of power and calmed the waves ahead of them with a rumble.

Wan Tiansheng’s jaw dropped.

What was the big deal about this?

In front, Su Yu laughed heartily and said, “Those favored by the dao will also receive help from the dao. Sure enough, when I’m personally opening the path, even the River of Time can’t resist helping.”

Wan Tiansheng couldn’t find a retort to that. He couldn’t understand. How did those waves calm before Su Yu was even there? Was Su Yu really telling the truth? Was even the River of Time giving him face because he was the one opening the path? Was his face that impressive? Wan Tiansheng couldn’t believe this, but he couldn’t find an explanation either.

As for Su Yu, he exhaled in relief. The pages he had buried in the tributaries were actually helping here. With the power of the tributaries, he was calming the river. He couldn’t borrow much power from a single page, but he had buried a lot of pages in the river.

1,477 of them had been buried all over the river.

Even if he could only calm a wave with one page, he would be able to go quite a distance with the help of his buried pages. Not all the tributaries had his pages buried in them. In such a situation, Su Yu would calm the waves personally. In such a manner, he advanced while alternating between using his own strength and the tributaries.

Because of this, the pressure on him reduced significantly. Meanwhile, the daos of the various races were shaking. The Eternals and Daofuses of these races could sense the agitation of their daos.

Unfortunately, it was pointless. After all, every single dao in the Myriad Realms was also shaking due to what the three lunatics were doing. With the conspicuous crimson path in the sky, even a fool would know that the humans were up to no good.

There was nothing they could do about it.

***

Crack!

And finally, even Su Yu started coughing blood.

Behind him, Lan Tian’s aura had also weakened considerably. How far had they gone? He did not have an answer. He only knew that they had passed by both the pen dao and the human dao. They had gone much further ahead. But the crimson path did not show any signs that it was going to end soon.

Both Wan Tiansheng and Su Yu had broken through their previous limits. They had traversed further than before on the River of Time.

While Su Yu was coughing blood, Wan Tiansheng flew over and said, “I’ll take over. You rest!”

Su Yu withdrew without wasting time.

Lan Tian laughed and said, “Big Brothers, you are so awesome!”

The two ignored him. In truth, this had been even more exhausting for Lan Tian than the two of them. He had lost around eight thousand of his clones. Thus, every step he took now was taken with great difficulty. Even the radiance of the Heavenly Hunt Index was slowly dimming.

Looking at the Heavenly Hunt Index in his hand, Lan Tian smiled and said, “This Myriad Art Catalog has the ability to cover the heavens. The moment it stops working, the entire River of Time will start rejecting me. My attempt will fail then. Thus, failure will arrive when the book fails or when I run out of clones.”

He grinned and said, “Friends, let us chat as we walk. Record my legacy down. Record them all down. If I fail, I hope someone in the future can complete this path in my stead.”

The clone exploded. Another Lan Tian stepped forth and continued the conversation nonchalantly, “I am Lan Tian. Born in the year 275 of the Anping Calendar.”

“An auspicious date!”

Su Yu remarked. Lan Tian giggled and said, “Naughty boy, don’t interrupt and let me finish.”

Su Yu shut his mouth obediently.

Fine, fine.

“I am seventy-eight this year. I entered the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy when I was eighteen. At the time, Ye Batian was still the principal.

“I belong to the same era of Liu Wenyan and Hong Tan. In fact, I am a few years their senior. I experienced the height of Ye Batian’s glory. Alas, the fifth principal couldn’t escape death.

“After his death, I had a feeling. Studying in the academy as pure academics behind closed doors is not enough to save the world. Yes. I had grand ambitions. I wished to become the savior of the world.”

Lan Tian laughed and continued, “At the time, Tiansheng wanted to plant some spies in the Myriad Race Cult. I volunteered and left. At the time, I felt deeply powerless. The more I knew about the myriad races, the more I despaired. I couldn’t understand. Why was humanity so lowly in this era? I couldn’t help despairing at the fact that humanity had only survived because it was still useful to the myriad races.”

Lan Tian continued narrating his history, his past, his life, and his experiences. He even narrated the key events in his life that had altered his course massively. Why did he make all those choices? Because he couldn’t see any hope. The more he learned of the myriad races, the deeper his despair.

Eternals? What was that?

The myriad races had too many Eternals.

The small number of Eternals in the human race was not enough to save humanity. In his despair, Lan Tian walked a path he had never dared to walk. He opted to clone himself countless times.

To defeat the myriad races, he had to know the myriad races intimately. He would be both Lan Tian and the myriad races.

Initially, he only focused on searching for the weakness of the myriad races. But after some time, he found himself lacking. Something was missing. Clones were still clones. They were different from actual people.

“Finally, I decided that change was needed.

“Thus, I took another step forward. I transformed all my clones. I cut my sea of willpower apart. And I survived that!”

Lan Tian beamed, but Su Yu’s heart chilled.

Cutting his sea of willpower.

And he had somehow survived that. What a monster.

With a smile, Lan Tian continued, “The first time I cut my sea of willpower, it was so painful. I thought I would die there. But I didn’t. Why? Note this down clearly. Because of my willpower. Because of my will. Because of my spirit. Because of my stubbornness.”

Lan Tian solemnly said, “Because of my faith. When I first cut my sea of willpower, I did it to transform into a devil. At the time, I fully believed that I was a devil. I knew everything a devil should know. I even modified my entire body into the body of a devil. Everything about me was a devil. Thus, the sea of willpower I cut off became a real devil.”

Su Yu had a pensive look as he listened. After coughing a mouthful of blood, Wan Tiansheng said, “Willpower and spirit are important. But cutting the sea of willpower is supposed to cause a collapse. This shouldn’t change no matter how powerful the willpower is. How did you prevent that from happening?”

“Stupid.” Lan Tian flashed a seductive smile and said, “Anything is possible. You can’t, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the same for everyone else. Big Brother Yu, you can give it a try. Cut your sea of willpower into two before repairing the two parts quickly. As long as you have a sufficiently powerful restoration character, you have a great hope of succeeding.”

He giggled and said, “Tiansheng is so stupid. You can try as well. You have your copy character. It’s not too powerful, but you can try cutting your sea of willpower in half before making up for the missing half with a copy. Mixing the real and the fake. As long as you survive the immediate aftermath, you can take your time slowly fusing the real and the fake. Eventually, even the fake will become real.”

Wan Tiansheng laughed and said, “That makes sense.”

He asked, “How many clones do you still have?”

“A thousand or so.”

Wan Tiansheng frowned. He said, “It’s fine. Keep cutting your sea of willpower. I will help you make more copies of your clones. We might really need to try that and use something that is half real and half fake.”

He was worried that Lan Tian would run out of clones. It was very likely that Lan Tian wouldn’t have enough clones to complete this path. Even now, the end was still nowhere to be seen.

Behind them, Su Yu’s eyes flickered. He said, “This works. Principal, you will be in charge of making more copies of the clones. I will be in charge of strengthening and healing his clones.”

With a roar, Su Yu manifested a character: heal.

Seeing the recovery of Lan Tian’s damaged clone, Su Yu was overjoyed. It worked! He had nearly forgotten that they were cultural researchers! He had many characters! He could control the power of many daos! Why must they face this with brute force alone?

At the same time, Wan Tiansheng released his copy character and created another Lan Tian. It looked exactly the same as the real deal. However, the real Lan Tian frowned and said, “No, this is not enough. Don’t copy the entire person. When my clones are injured, just focus on copying the missing parts, such as my limbs or something else. This will also help my clones last longer.”

“Sure.”

Wan Tiansheng nodded. His mood had also improved. But then, both Su Yu and Wan Tiansheng were aware that this was akin to drinking poison to quench one’s thirst. Using their characters would also accelerate their rate of exhaustion.

The waves were already very hard to stop without this extra rate of exhaustion. This would only make things harder for the two of them. But they said nothing about that. At the very least, they could see a slightly bigger hope in doing this.

This dao was simply too difficult to walk.