Zhang Ruochen, Bai Qing’er, and Chi Yao felt space-time fall into chaos inside the teleportation array. Darkness swallowed everything, and a tremendous spatial pressure squeezed their divine bodies as if it would crush them.
With Zhang Ruochen’s profound understanding of space, he instantly recognised this as a sign of teleportation failure.
Unfortunately, he had only managed to inscribe the Rules of Life and the Rules of Death, so he could only wield the power of the Paths of Life and Death. Otherwise, with his mastery of space, he could have manipulated the surrounding space and kept the array functioning normally.
Zhang Ruochen did not sit idly by. He immediately summoned the Vajra Moon Wheel and concealed it in his sleeve, while gripping the Ten-Thousand-Curse Heavenly Bead tightly in his other hand.
Whoosh!
The light of the spatial teleportation array dispersed. Before Zhang Ruochen, Bai Qing’er, and Chi Yao could take in their surroundings, they sensed the aura of the Blackheart Demon Lord.
Chi Yao struck first. The Heavenly Sword Soul appeared above her head, and the divine sword burst forth with peerless sharpness.
“Sword Thirteen!”
Man and sword became one. She transformed into a blinding streak of light that stabbed straight towards the Blackheart Demon Lord.
Having just suffered a loss against that divine sword, the Blackheart Demon Lord had no intention of clashing with it head-on.
Yet Chi Yao’s timing and the speed of her strike left him no room to dodge. An ordinary god would have been run through without any chance to react.
But the Blackheart Demon Lord was no ordinary existence. Striking after her, he arrived before her. Four heavenly demon stone steles blocked his front and collided with the divine sword.
The ringing clash of metal against stone deafened the ears.
This was the collision of divine artefacts.
Even Chi Yao, the wielder herself, could barely withstand the impact. Her body was flung backwards. She could no longer maintain her transformation technique and reverted to her true appearance. Blood flowed from her eyes and ears.
“Haha! Chi Yao, the moment you swung that earlier strike, this seat already guessed it was you. Who would have thought that in just a thousand years your cultivation would reach the peak of Middle God?” the Blackheart Demon Lord laughed.
Chi Yao stood proudly with sword in hand. The blood from her eyes and ears turned into blood mist and vanished.
“You, a Great God, were wounded by a mere Middle God like me, and you can still laugh?”
Thirty-three bright points of light emerged within her graceful figure. Thirty-three layers of heavens rose above her head, and five-coloured chaotic qi spread beneath her feet. The fluctuations of divine power surging from her body instantly grew much stronger.
“The Thirty-Three Heavens! How could you possibly have cultivated the technique of the Immovable Ming Wang Great Venerable? And succeeded!” The Blackheart Demon Lord was utterly shocked, disbelief written across his face.
Bai Qing’er knew that the moment a person was most astonished was the moment their mind was weakest.
“Seven Souls Terror Dream!”
Bai Qing’er bit her finger and pointed forward, using divine blood as the medium to unleash this ultimate spiritual divine technique.
The Blackheart Demon Lord’s eyes grew heavy, and his expression faltered for an instant.
In that very instant, Chi Yao and Yulong Xian, who stood beside Zhang Ruochen, swung their swords together. Two dazzling sword lights flew out in a cross formation, one slightly ahead of the other.
“You think your spiritual power is enough to shatter this seat’s mind with the Terror Dream technique?”
The Blackheart Demon Lord controlled the four heavenly demon stone steles, guarding all four directions. They manifested four different scenes and counter-attacked the incoming sword lights.
Boom!
Chi Yao and Bai Qing’er could not withstand the might of a Great God. Both spat blood, flew backwards, and crashed into the stone walls, sustaining heavy injuries.
Even the strongest among them, Yulong Xian, could not hold on. She was sent flying from above Zhang Ruochen’s head and fell into the grey, hazy space behind.
The area where this spatial teleportation array had landed was filled with grey death qi that carried powerful corrosive force.
Beyond that, nothing could be seen clearly.
Clearly, this was not Xingtian Cliff at all. The teleportation had gone wrong, very likely because of the purple crystal array tower the Blackheart Demon Lord had shattered at the last moment.
The Blackheart Demon Lord laughed loudly. “Now you understand why you managed to injure this seat earlier, don’t you? Once this seat gets serious, with your level of cultivation, even wielding the mightiest war treasures, you have no chance at all.”
Boom!
Boom!
Two heavenly demon stone steles flew out, manifesting heavenly demon scenes, and suppressed Bai Qing’er and Chi Yao respectively.
Bai Qing’er immediately raised sixty-five bronze bells that circled around her. Wave after wave of bell chimes rang out, resisting the descending stele. Astonishingly, she held firm!
On the other side, the thirty-three illusory layers of heaven above Chi Yao’s head were shattered by the stele, leaving only ten solid layers to contend with it.
A look of surprise appeared on the Blackheart Demon Lord’s face. He clearly had not expected the two women to be so formidable and sighed, “Both are peerless talents. To achieve this at Middle God level, your future is unimaginable.”
Bai Qing’er and Chi Yao could not speak.
In fact, Bai Qing’er had already begun burning her divine blood.
The Blackheart Demon Lord looked at Zhang Ruochen with eyes full of envy and said, “Back in the Kunlun Realm, no matter how hard this seat tried, no matter what realm this seat reached, this seat was forever merely a follower of Empress Qian’gu. She never even deigned to look at this seat properly. Do you know the feeling of being ignored? You wouldn’t understand, because you can win the favour of two proud daughters of heaven at the same time.”
“So that is why you betrayed the Kunlun Realm?” Zhang Ruochen asked.
Actually, when Bai Qing’er and Chi Yao had attacked the Blackheart Demon Lord earlier, Zhang Ruochen had possessed opportunities to escape.
But he did not flee.
The Blackheart Demon Lord seemed certain he could deal with all three of them, so he was in no hurry to strike.
He sank into memory, his gaze shifting between anger, cold ruthlessness, and struggle. “Betrayal? That description works too!”
Zhang Ruochen glanced at Chi Yao, who was suppressed beneath a heavenly demon stone stele, and saw that the ten layers of heaven above her were beginning to increase. She was forcibly condensing the eleventh layer, attempting to break through to Upper God.
Their eyes met.
Zhang Ruochen understood that she wanted him to buy her a little time.
The Blackheart Demon Lord was lost in his emotions and had not noticed Chi Yao’s change.
Seeing the Demon Lord’s gaze gradually sharpen, Zhang Ruochen hurriedly said, “You seem reluctant to accept the word ‘betrayal’. Why not tell me your story?”
“You want to hear it?” the Blackheart Demon Lord asked.
Zhang Ruochen replied, “Standing so close to a Great God, I cannot even detonate my divine source if I wished to. Since I am fated to die by your hand today, why not let me know what kind of person is killing me?”
“You won’t be able to pull any tricks.”
As a Great God facing mere Supplement Heaven gods, the Blackheart Demon Lord naturally possessed absolute confidence.
Relief flickered in Zhang Ruochen’s heart. He knew the Blackheart Demon Lord had lowered his guard.
“You should understand better than this seat how absurd the word ‘betrayal’ is. In the eyes of the cultivators of the Heavenly Court, are you not also a traitor? A primordial calamity traitor? Yet how much truth do they really know? They are nothing but fools who only see the surface,” the Blackheart Demon Lord said.
Zhang Ruochen nodded. “On that point, I agree with you.”
The Blackheart Demon Lord’s expression grew solemn as he sank fully into recollection, though in truth he remained constantly wary of Zhang Ruochen. He continued, “One hundred thousand years ago, in the Kunlun Realm, this seat and a great many cultivators listened to the Jie-Tian Divine Tree expound the Dao. When Huangtian arrived, all of us Saint-realm cultivators were overwhelmed with excitement.”
“You can hardly imagine how much the younger generation worshipped primordial-level geniuses. Moreover, at that time Huangtian had already stepped into godhood, reaching the realm we had always pursued.”
Zhang Ruochen very much wanted to say, I can imagine, because I am a primordial-level genius myself. But he did not wish to interrupt the Blackheart Demon Lord’s train of thought and simply listened in silence.
The Blackheart Demon Lord gave a mocking laugh. “Yet we never expected that Huangtian would raise his axe and sever the Jie-Tian Divine Tree. The power unleashed by that single strike knocked every one of us unconscious.”
“When this seat awoke, this seat and the other Saint-realm cultivators were already outside the Kunlun Realm.”
“Upon waking, before this seat could even work out what had happened, we were surrounded and attacked by the armies of Hell Realm. In the end, all the cultivators died. Only this seat fought his way out and escaped.”
“At that time, this seat only wanted to return to the Kunlun Realm immediately and tell the gods that it was Huangtian who severed the Jie-Tian Divine Tree, that Huangtian had betrayed the Heavenly Court. But when this seat reached the outer bounds of the Kunlun Realm, this seat discovered the entire world had been sealed. From afar, it looked like a great fireball; one could not even approach.”
Zhang Ruochen silently reflected that after the Blackheart Demon Lord and those Saint-realm cultivators fell unconscious, they had probably been teleported away by the final power of Saint Monk Xumi before his death.
Or perhaps, when Saint Monk Xumi teleported Huangtian, he had inadvertently sent them away as well.
In any case, what the Blackheart Demon Lord described differed greatly from what Xiao Hei and the cultivators outside had said. Logically, under the present circumstances, the Blackheart Demon Lord had no reason to lie to him.
“Since this seat could not return to the Kunlun Realm, this seat could only go to the Heavenly Court.”
The Blackheart Demon Lord grew furious, his emotions surging. “But this seat never imagined that the cultivators of Hell Realm would be so shameless. Having failed to kill this seat, they spread word that this seat had led Huangtian to sever the Jie-Tian Divine Tree, that this seat had tried to borrow a knife to kill others.”
Zhang Ruochen said, “The Heavenly Palace should not have believed such crude rumours.”
“The Heavenly Palace? Haha! The Heavenly Palace is so exalted; how could it deign to notice a mere Saint-realm cultivator like this seat? The rumours did not kill this seat, but they turned this seat into a traitor in the eyes of countless cultivators, especially those who had old grudges against this seat.”
“While Empress Qian’gu was still present, they did not dare touch this seat. But in the eyes of the cultivators of the various realms of the Heavenly Court, the fall of the gods of Kunlun was no different from its destruction.”
“Thus, because of a single rumour spread by Hell Realm cultivators, those people began to oppress this seat. Back then, this seat suffered endless insults, bullying, and persecution. It even implicated the cultivators of the Black Demon Realm.”
“Zhang Ruochen, you have no idea what this seat endured in those years. Though you too were branded a traitor, in the Heavenly Court you had the Moon God protecting you, and in Hell Realm you had the Blood Absolutes War God supporting you with all his might. This seat had nothing.”
“When cultivators stronger than this seat broke both my legs, I had to crawl between their legs. There was no second Moon God to stand up for me!”
“When the cultivators of the Black Demon Realm were sold as slaves and treated as playthings, this seat was powerless to stop it, because gods stood behind those people. There was no second Blood Absolutes War God to turn the heavens upside down and tell them that the Blackheart was not someone they could provoke. There was none!”
Zhang Ruochen fell silent. Compared with the Blackheart Demon Lord, he truly had been far luckier.
The Blackheart Demon Lord continued, “But later there was someone! Lord Yi Tian. Lord Yi Tian admired this seat’s unyielding spirit and saw potential in me. Thus, he had the Paradise Realm, acting as the Lord of the Western Universe, step in to help this seat and accept the Black Demon Realm, allowing the Black Demon Realm to truly become part of the Western Universe.”
Zhang Ruochen asked, “Have you never considered that the ones who oppressed the Black Demon Realm and persecuted you might all have been the same person?”
“Does it matter, Zhang Ruochen? It does not matter!”
The Blackheart Demon Lord said, “I know I am merely a piece in the Paradise Realm… no, I have not yet reached that height. I know I am only a pawn of Lord Yi Tian. All the dirty and exhausting work is done by me and the Black Demon Realm. But it does not matter anymore; it is already good enough!”
“Over one hundred thousand years, the Black Demon Realm has grown into a strong realm, and this seat has reached the level of Great God. Every cultivator who ever humiliated this seat has had their clans exterminated by this seat, one by one.”
“Those who dominate worlds are the players, strong realms are pieces, weak realms are the board. Those are the rules! To become a useful piece for a player is already fortunate.”
“If a piece dares to question the right or wrong of the player, that piece is not far from being discarded!”
Zhang Ruochen could only find it laughable. Who would willingly remain a piece forever? He said, “Do you not wish to become a player yourself?”
“Of course I do! I dream of it. That is why, despite knowing the extreme danger, this seat stayed behind. To become a player, this seat must take you down, Zhang Ruochen. Even risking my life is worth it,” the Blackheart Demon Lord declared.
Boom!
The eleventh layer of heaven successfully condensed. Chi Yao broke through to Upper God realm. The Space-Time Chaos Lotus unfolded in her palm, blasting away the heavenly demon stone stele that had been suppressing her.
