Tribulation of Myriad Races

Origin Land.

South Heavenly King watched in silence. After a long while, she lamented, ”Lanshan, in the pursuit of dao, is it better to be alone or to be accompanied by friends?”

”Friends?” Lanshan said doubtfully, ”But isn’t dao cultivation a private affair? Nobody can cultivate your dao for you.”

South Heavenly King looked at Su Yu again and said, ”Is that so? But look at him. Is he cultivating his dao alone?”

Lanshan looked over and sank into silence. Was Su Yu still attempting Creation alone? Not really. Someone was serving as the vanguard for him, like a valiant general paving the way for a noble king. All around him, people were discussing the correct path, ensuring a smooth progress for him.

If Su Yu had to do all that himself, he would have failed by now. To cultivate the dao. What exactly was one cultivating when cultivating the dao? For some reason, Lanshan found herself lost in that question.

She couldn’t resist saying, ”Back then, Martial King and the others relied only on themselves. South Heavenly King, which is the better path?”

South Heavenly King shook her head. She had no answer.

After a long silence, she laughed and said, ”I don’t know which is better. But don’t you feel like when he’s pioneering his dao, it feels like everyone is pioneering a dao as well? There is a sense of community and participation in all this.”

Community?

Or to be precise, she was talking about a sense of belonging.

This gave the impression that their emperor needed their assistance even when pioneering his dao, solidifying the impression that he was indeed still a kid.

Lanshan smiled. ”Yes. When His Majesty is pioneering his dao, it feels as though I’m doing it as well. But honestly, we aren’t doing anything here. I’m so envious of Lan Tian and the others. They are the ones truly helping with the pioneering.”

Noting her envy, South Heavenly King smiled and switched to voice transmission, ”Do you wish to join them?”

”Of course.” Lanshan nodded. ”Don’t tell me you’re good at the study of the myriad daos as well.”

She clearly remembered that this wasn’t a subject they were good at. South Heavenly King was not someone too well-learned about the myriad daos.

After a short pause, South Heavenly King said, ”There is still a chance for us to participate. He has yet to lay down the life and death daos. I suspect his comprehension of the two isn’t deep enough, or perhaps he simply lacks confidence. The death dao, in particular, might be the hardest dao for him to lay down.”

Understanding dawned on Lanshan. ”You mean...but what can we do to help?”

South Heavenly King replied after a slight hesitation, ”Life to death won’t be too difficult. But the biggest hurdle is the return to life from death. He Tu will probably demonstrate the process of going from life to death for him. But how can one do it in reverse?

”Back when Culture King tried to resurrect someone, he failed repeatedly. Death is death. How can a reverse be so simple?

”This dao pioneering might not be so easy if life and death are excluded, but he wishes to pioneer a unique dao and include life and death. This will greatly increase the difficulty. But without life and death, his dao will remain incomplete.”

It wasn’t like Su Yu really wanted to include life and death in his dao, but he had to if he didn’t want his dao to remain incomplete. And if he couldn’t even lay down the core concepts of his dao, his Creation would fail.

South Heavenly King didn’t know much about the act of Creation, but she knew enough to see that Su Yu had no choice but to do this.

”Death to life...”

Marquis Lanshan muttered to herself. Yes. How should one go about it? That was a very tricky question. She remembered Wan Tiansheng doing it before, but Wan Tiansheng had drawn support from the River of Time to do so. Su Yu wasn’t doing that. He did not intend to form any connection with the River of Time.

”Do you have any ideas, South Heavenly King?”

South Heavenly King was an ancient being. Back then, she had even interacted with Culture King when he was attempting to resurrect Xing Yue. At the time, Culture King was also trying to figure out a way to resurrect death spirits.

South Heavenly King gave it some thought and said, ”He’s not going to die for real. Instead, he’s only going to lay down the death dao. If he were to try laying down a death dao, it wouldn’t be too powerful. Both of us are death spirits, so we understand that he won’t die in the attempt, but failing will also ruin this attempt at Creation.”

Hearing that, Marquis Lanshan grew even more agitated as she asked, ”Do you have a way to help or not?”

Why was South Heavenly King saying so much instead of getting to the point? It wasn’t too likely that Su Yu would die upon failing. But that would ruin everything he had accumulated up until this point. There was no saying if he would be able to make another attempt in the future.

Of course, the pen dao was still there as backup for Su Yu. But would he be willing to cultivate the dao of others?

When Marquis Lanshan asked herself that question, she felt like laughing. Yes, even upon failing, Su Yu wouldn’t end up reduced to a helpless kid. There wasn’t much for her to worry about. But she still hoped to see Su Yu succeed.

After all, this might be his sole chance to make such an attempt. He might not have enough time to try again in the future, or he might no longer have such an opportunity. In that case, there would be a ceiling to his future accomplishments.

For people like them, becoming Masters of Laws would be the height of their ambition. But Su Yu was far more ambitious than that.

South Heavenly King said, ”If he fails, we will extract the death power from the death spirit dao.”

Marquis Lanshan listened in silence, waiting for the proposed solution.

South Heavenly King continued, ”I know a place where life and death interweave. It’s at the end of the death spirit dao. Find Liu Hong and start extracting death power through his ink dao and collect the power of life and death at the intersection before channeling the two powers into his dao.”

Marquis Lanshan asked in astonishment, ”Would this work? Why hadn’t he thought of this?”

South Heavenly King said, ”That’s a stupid question. How is he supposed to do it? He’s pioneering his dao amid chaos. But the end of the death spirit dao is deep inside the Death Realm. He can’t do both at the same time.”

South Heavenly King had no choice but to admit that Marquis Lanshan could be quite dim at times. If Su Yu could really do so, why would he not do so? He had only abandoned that method because it wasn’t doable for him.

South Heavenly King continued, ”We are both quite accomplished in the death spirit dao. When the time arrives, I’ll take you to the intersection. We will join hands and build a tunnel and redirect the powers of life and death into his dao.”

”Can we...really do it?”

”Yes. But we need help. We need Liu Hong’s help. His ink dao is required.”

South Heavenly King looked around. She recalled seeing Liu Hong nearby earlier. After a short moment, she finally saw Liu Hong hiding behind Xia Chen. She wasted no time and rushed over before grabbing Liu Hong.

Liu Hong stared at her in confusion. What? He was in the middle of writing and calculating something, but nobody knew what he was really doing. After grabbing him on the back of his neck, South Heavenly King said nothing and dragged him off. Marquis Lanshan hurriedly followed them.

Liu Hong asked with confusion, ”Yes, Seniors? I don’t recall provoking the two of you.”

Why did they drag him off for no reason?

How odd.

South Heavenly King asked through voice transmission, ”Do you have full control over your ink dao?”

”This...”

”Stop wasting time and answer me. Is it possible to run your dao through the place where life and death interweave and form a tunnel all the way to the chaotic space?”

Liu Hong asked, ”Did the two of you spy on me earlier?”

”What?”

”That was what I was calculating earlier.” Liu Hong explained, ”I was calculating the odds for that. But from what I can see, it’s rather hopeless. The place where life and death interweave is quite far from the ink dao. To do what you propose, we need to first suppress the will of the experts in the river. Then, we need to create a new tunnel, run the two powers through the ink dao, before redirecting it to the chaotic space.”

In short, they had to go about it in a roundabout fashion.

South Heavenly King asked again, ”What if you receive the help of Marquis Lanshan and me?”

”You?” Liu Hong thought about it and answered, ”That’s not enough. We need one more person, preferably someone proficient in life. But that is too risky for the two of you. You are death spirits. The power of life will corrode you. Similarly, that living being will be corroded by the power of death.”

”There won’t be many issues with using my ink dao since I’m a pseudo death spirit. But we need a top expert to carry out the process. However, there is no way to convert a living being so strong into a death spirit.”

”Power of life?” South Heavenly King frowned. ”We don’t have a life cultivator among us.”

She asked, ”Can we skip the help of a life cultivator?”

”No! The two of you lean too heavily toward death. If we do it with only your help, it might lead to an imbalance. This isn’t a fight where you can succeed if you try hard enough.”

As someone cultivating the ink dao, Liu Hong knew a lot about this subject. After some thought, he looked around and said, ”It’s not that we don’t have a suitable helper, but I can’t be sure if they are willing to help.”

”Who?”

”Since we don’t have a proper life cultivator, we can find a top powerhouse with abundant life force. And it’s even better if this someone is a human. As a fellow human, there is a higher level of compatibility with Su Yu.

”If the two of you agree with my plan, I suggest that South Heavenly King focus on suppressing the will of the experts in the river while Marquis Lanshan focuses on the connection with the power of death. The other expert can focus on the connection with the power of life. We only need someone similar in strength with Marquis Lanshan.”

South Heavenly King asked impatiently, ”Who?”

”Great Zhou King.”

When South Heavenly King blanked out, Liu Hong explained, ”Principal Wan and Lan Tian won’t work well for this role. They are too young. Simply put, the power of life is similar to a tree. The longer one has lived, the more powerful it would be. But we also can’t get someone too old like Stable Army Marquis and Royal Consort Qi. I can sense the exhaustion of their life force. Meanwhile, Great Zhou King has aged vibrantly.”

What even was he talking about? South Heavenly King and Marquis Lanshan were both left quite speechless. For some reason, it felt like he was insulting Great Zhou King.

Liu Hong continued, ”I’m serious. Great Zhou King might be old, but his life force is still dense. I suspect he once consumed some precious treasure to grant him such a powerful life force.”

That was true.

South Heavenly King considered it. Just as she was about to speak, Marquis Lanshan said, ”Did he consume a Long Life Pill before? I remember that Culture King killed a top expert of the immortal race back then to refine three Long Life Pills. All three were given to Human Emperor. We never heard of those pills after that. That old bastard was Human Emperor’s attendant. Did he receive one of those pills from Human Emperor?”

Liu Hong shrugged. How was he supposed to know that? He only knew that Great Zhou King was definitely long-lived, perhaps as long-lived as Masters of Laws. He probably had enough life force to outlive everyone else.

Both Marquis Lanshan and South Heavenly King looked at each other solemnly. Great Zhou King...should they really get him to help?

Strictly speaking, Great Zhou King wasn’t someone fully from Su Yu’s faction. He was a Torchbearer, and he belonged to Human Emperor’s faction. Unfortunately, he was the only one suited for this task. The others were either too weak in strength or too weak in life force.

After some contemplation, Marquis Lanshan suggested, ”Why don’t we try asking? If he’s unwilling, forget it.”

They had to prepare this in advance. Su Yu was progressing at a rapid pace. With Lan Tian’s help, his speed had increased considerably.