Tribulation of Myriad Races

With everyone gone, Cloud Fire Marquis sank into thought.

A trick?

All gone?

If this was really a trick…it seemed too simple. As though the enemies were treating him as a mentally challenged opponent.

Did he look that stupid? Would he really fall for such an obvious trick? How odd. He was ready to die with the attackers. Now that the attackers were gone, he didn’t know what to do anymore. This was so confusing.

“Wait, I need to put out the mountain fire first.”

After recalling something, he hurriedly rushed underground. Damn it. He had ignited the underground fire of the mountain range. If he allowed it to continue burning, the entire mountain range would blow up by itself before long.

“Why did they leave suddenly?”

Cloud Fire Marquis was feeling quite helpless. He was unsure if this was a ploy. The so-called underground fire was actually the core of this mountain range.

It wasn’t something he could reignite immediately.

“Did the myriad races find out about the core? Are they trying to trick me into putting out the burning core before returning to kill me? That would be troublesome.”

Looking at the burning core, he thought about it and gnashed his teeth, “I’ll wait longer. I’ll put it out at the very last moment.”

He decided to wait longer. The sudden withdrawal of the myriad races had caught him by complete surprise.

***

Cloud Fire Marquis was not the only one who had been caught by surprise.

At this point, it was already dawn.

Shadow Marquis was carefully hiding at the spot where he had met Su Yu previously. A look of confusion and shock covered his face.

Fuck!

Weren’t they supposed to attack the nethers today? Weren’t they supposed to meet in the morning? How did that change into an attack against the dragons? The dragons had been defeated less than an hour after their previous meeting.

What was that?

Were they playing a joke on him?

He was dissatisfied with being lied to, but he was also greatly shocked at that display of power. A pseudo king had been killed. Even the dragon race had nearly been exterminated. The whole attack was so swift and decisive that he found it hard to believe.

Clearly, they had acted right after deciding on it. There was zero hesitation. More importantly, they had spent so much time talking to him just to feed him a bunch of lies. They were simply too cautious. He wondered if they would still meet him.

Suddenly, an adorable girl appeared before him. With a lollipop in mouth, the girl was running barefoot amid the wilderness. She looked incomparably joyful.

Shadow Marquis’ heart thumped. Who was that?

“Darling Shadow, show yourself!”

Shadow Marquis was alarmed. Was this the white-haired youth?

As he revealed himself, the little girl giggled and said, “Darling, you’re here!”

Shadow Marquis asked, “You are…”

“Nameless the Second!”

“…”

Helpless, Shadow Marquis could only say, “Were you guys the ones who had attacked the dragons?”

“Yeap! Yeap!”

“Didn’t we agree to attack the nethers?”

“Nameless the First did not trust you. You look like a traitor…”

Shadow Marquis frowned and said, “You must be joking, Fellow Daoist. If I were a traitor, humanity would have ceased to exist in the Upper Realm.”

Lan Tian laughed and said, “I don’t care. Nameless the First has a message for you. He won’t be meeting you personally.”

“What is the message?”

With the same cheerful tone, Lan Tian said, “If you’re not a traitor, contact the other humans and inform them of our existence. Set a meeting between us. We will notify you of the time and place to meet at a later date. They can come, or they can not come. It’s up to them. We don’t care.

“Oh, right. By the way, not all of us are in the same faction. There are many factions among us. Tell them to not trust everyone. Those from our faction will have a code word for you during the meeting. Anyone without the code word won’t be one of us.”

“What?” Shadow Marquis asked, “You mean…”

Lan Tian said, “Why are you so stupid? Not all of us are together. There are bad guys and good guys among us. Our faction is naturally the good faction. We are not the only humans around. You guys. Us. And another faction, which is a faction of bad guys. They are very powerful as well.”

Shadow Marquis was greatly shocked. He asked, “You mean…there are more humans around?”

“Of course.” Lan Tian said, “By the way, your group is the weakest. You only have a few Daofuses among you. How pitiful. Those bad guys have numerous experts, including several pseudo kings. In any case, don’t take them as friends. If you end up getting all of you killed after trusting the wrong person, don’t blame us. We don’t care since we have already warned you about them. The code word is simple. I love candies. Remember it.”

Still in shock, Shadow Marquis asked, “Fellow Daoist, where did the other faction come from?”

“Not telling you!”

With a giggle, Lan Tian vanished.

Shadow Marquis attempted to follow, but he couldn’t detect Lan Tian anymore. He was greatly shocked. What an incredible expert. Just the clone alone was already unimaginably powerful.

Just who were these people?

Three groups, and his group was the weakest?

Shadow Marquis’ mood turned heavy.

He was greatly confused. Just what was happening? Where did these mysterious experts come from? Just how many more hidden experts were there?

“So many dragons are dead. Are these people our friends?”

With numerous questions in his mind, Shadow Marquis vanished as well. This wasn’t a place he should stay for long. He could already sense the arrival of many myriad race experts. Something might happen in the Chaos Mountain before long.

After such a major event, would something change? Would those on the Divine Fire Mountain survive thanks to this? Would Bloodbreak Marquis and the others proceed with their attack?

***

Dao Origin Hill.

Inside the cave, Lan Tian smiled and said, “Done. That guy is gone.”

Su Yu nodded.

After a slight hesitation, Stable Army Marquis asked, “Emperor Yu, why didn’t you recruit him into the group as well?”

Su Yu smiled and said, “Not everyone is as reliable as you.”

For some reason, Stable Army Marquis felt like crying upon hearing that. Was this an acknowledgment that he was trustworthy? For some reason, those words sounded so touching to his ears.

Su Yu explained, “Shadow has always been operating outside. Nobody knows what he has been doing. And we don’t know much about the others as well. I would rather not have an additional ally than have an unreliable ally.”

Stable Army Marquis thought about it and nodded, “True. But with this, the others will continue living terrible lives.”

He suddenly discovered that he was now living quite a good life.

In fact, he felt great. They had killed six Daofuses. How satisfying. After losing so many Daofuses, the dragons wouldn’t have too many Daofuses left. It was likely that they had lost more than half their Daofuses.

More importantly, everyone else involved in the operation was barely injured. He was the one with the heaviest injury. That was an incredibly worthy price to pay to kill a pseudo king.

Furthermore, Chong Ming, his subordinate, had also attained Daofuse. Humanity had gained yet another Daofuse.

Su Yu, who was leisurely eating some roasted dragon meat, said, “The myriad races will probably stop targeting the other humans for now. They will be prioritizing the Chaos Mountain. The peace here might end soon. We can’t stay here much longer.”

Su Yu grinned and continued, “It’s time for us to sit back and enjoy the show. We come from the Lower Realm, so we have barely any presence up here. Even Control King’s lineage will sink into confusion after this. They won’t be able to figure out the identity of the people who are scheming against them.”

Great Zhou King said, “They won’t be completely clueless. After all, we’re using West Royal Consort’s formation.”

Su Yu nodded, “Yes. But so what? Are they supposed to explain themselves to the myriad races? Will the myriad races bother to listen after learning of their existence? Even if the myriad races know that the entire thing is a ploy, so what?”

Su Yu grinned, “Lower Realm humans on one side and Control King’s lineage that has been hiding for a hundred thousand years on the other side. How will the myriad races react?”

Great Zhou King chuckled and said, “They can’t do much against the Lower Realm for now. Furthermore, the Lower Realm is weaker than Control King’s lineage. They will naturally focus on the stronger party.”

Lan Tian said, “Don’t be too impatient. Be careful lest they decide to join hands and wipe out the Lower Realm before deciding a victor among themselves.”

Su Yu nodded, “Yes, there is such a possibility. Anything is possible. They could reach an agreement and deploy three to five heavenly kings each against the myriad races and we would be in deep trouble.

“These fellows definitely don’t want to see us reaping the benefits of their conflict. However, having three parties vying for power is actually better than having only two parties. That will keep things balanced. We fear each other. Also, there is no rule stating that we must wait for them to join hands.”

Everyone blanked out.

“If we need to, we can use the myriad races of the Lower Realm as the bargaining chip and join hands with the myriad races to eliminate Control King’s lineage.

“The myriad races have a lot of people up here. But they have even more people down there. Sure, maybe the divines, devils, and immortals don’t care about their people down there. But what about the others? As long as we can maintain our control over the Lower Realm, this bargaining chip will remain ours. Thus, we don’t need to be too worried about the possibility of them joining hands against us.”

The others thought about it and nodded.

Stable Army Marquis appeared uncomfortable with that. He asked, “Emperor Yu, why don’t we join hands with Control King’s lineage against the myriad races first?”

He couldn’t accept joining hands with the myriad races against Control King’s lineage.

Su Yu said, “Don’t treat Control King’s lineage as humans. Just view them as an entirely different race. In that case, we naturally need to remove the strongest race first. Control King’s lineage is far more terrifying than the myriad races. They are also harder to deal with. Don’t take their race too seriously. That’s a race of mixbreed. They have the blood of a Devil Pseudo Emperor in their vines. Why are you seeing them as one of you?”

“Mixbreed?” Stable Army Marquis was surprised, “Is that true?”

“Of course.”

Suddenly, Stable Army Marquis roared with fury, “All mixbreeds deserve death!”

Yes. That was a perfectly normal reaction from an old fossil like him.

Su Yu couldn’t even be bothered to give any other reasons to hate Control King’s lineage. He only needed to call them mixbreeds to turn all the old fossils against them.

Stable Army Marquis gnashed his teeth and said, “As mixbreeds, they deserve to be wiped out! The blood of humanity is the most noble! How dare Control King’s lineage pollute their blood? They should all die!”

Die! Even if he had to join hands with the myriad races against them, they must be wiped out! No matter what, there was a reason for the myriad races to be their enemies. Meanwhile, mixbreeds were essentially traitors!

“…”

The others were rolling their eyes as they looked at the furious Stable Army Marquis. This old guy sure was fast in changing his mind.

Su Yu laughed and said, “Let’s talk about the future. After reaching an agreement, the myriad races will be able to penetrate the outer region of the Chaos Mountain. All these ancient beasts will be slaughtered.

“Control King’s lineage cultivates the chaos power as well. Even for the odd members who aren’t cultivating this power, they also have their formations to conceal themselves within the Chaos Mountain. The myriad races might not be their match here.”