Tribulation of Myriad Races

Mo Duona did not say anything else. Instead, he contacted the pavilion and agreed to pay. A short while later, a figure appeared in front of him. The newcomer was not a white mask. Instead, it was a faceless elder.

Mo Duona’s eyes flickered as he said, “The Heavenly Hunt Pavilion is truly generous this time. An elder is personally doing a job like this? Is the pavlion not afraid of losing their elders?”

The faceless elder spoke in an enigmatic voice, “We might worry about others, but we believe in you, Devil Lord Mo Duona. You will only kill me if you can do it yourself. You won’t lower yourself to set up an ambush against me.”

Mo Duona laughed, “Perhaps you’re right. I hope you’re still alive when I’m finally strong enough to kill you.”

“Thanks for your well wishes.”

Before long, the payment was completed. After receiving the payment, the elder vanished with a flicker.

Staring at the empty spot in front of him, Mo Duona inhaled deeply and said, “Looks like the pavilion is placing a high level of importance on this. Even their elders have been deployed.”

In the past, only the regular members of the Earth Department or Profound Department would be deployed for something as simple as payment collection. At most, only a white mask would be sent. But this time, an elder was doing this job personally. One ought to remember that each elder was a late-stage Sunmoon.

Huang Teng said nothing. He seemed to be in the middle of a conversation with someone else. A short while later, the air rippled as an expert appeared. Huang Teng wasted no time and pointed in a certain direction. The expert vanished again.

Mo Duona glanced at them and waited until the expert was gone before saying, “Great Xia seems to be using all their strength to deal with the pavilion this time. Is this worth it?” The Xia Family had recalled a lot of their experts into Great Xia.

Even the late-stage Sunmoons stationed in the minor realms and Allheaven Prefecture had all returned. Furthermore, there were also people like Administrator Hu, General Zhao, the Great Xia Army’s chief commander, Marquis Xia, and so on.

Apart from the chief commander of the Devil Subduing Army, almost all their late-stage Sunmoons had been pulled back to Great Xia. And all these people were roaming all over Great Xia, in search of the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion’s members.

Interestingly, the strongest expert left in their capital was not a human. Rather, it was the white dragon in the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy, the mount of the second principal. This was probably the first time something like this had happened.

Huang Teng laughed, “It doesn’t matter whether it is worth it. The prefect will be affirming his dao. Because of that, the Xia Family has conceded again and again. But this time, we are done conceding. We will kill to our heart’s content. The Heavenly Hunt Pavilion crossed the line. They naturally need to pay the price for that.”

“You might not necessarily be able to make them pay a price. This organization has existed for countless years. A devil king once said that the pavilion has existed since the ancient past. Perhaps they even have surviving ancient experts from the lost era. It is likely that…Great Xia won’t be their match.”

“We’ll see.” Huang Teng smiled, “Even if we’re not their match, we still need to make it clear that laying a hand on a member of the Xia Family is not tolerable.”

Mo Duona said nothing else. He picked up his index copy and joined the group he paid for, awaiting the release of the information about the ruin.

That day, faceless elders and Sunmoon white masks were spotted all over the Human Realm. All of them were busy collecting payment for the upcoming release. It even gave one the illusion that this was the Allheaven Battlefield instead of the Human Realm.

To be precise, the pavilion seemed to have invested a lot more here compared to any individual operation of theirs in the Allheaven Battlefield. Most of the payments were collected personally by elders, and some battles also erupted in the process.

***

Heavenly Hunt Pavilion, Great Xia’s branch.

Su Yu was now in charge of this place.

At the moment, he was receiving one update after another. Suddenly, he smiled, “Looks like there are a lot of rich bastards in the Human Realm. A total of 116 individuals or powers have paid the fee so far.”

Over 1,100 drops of Sunmoon blood essence had been paid thus far. This was already comparable to half of what he scammed from the divines previously.

How rich.

All the pavilion members working on this operation would also be paid for their service, including the elders in charge of accepting payment all over the Human Realm. As for Su Yu, he was both the supplier of the information they were selling, the leader of this operation, and the person who had developed their market in Great Xia. Due to all that, he was entitled to thirty percent of the profit. That was a very large share.

Even White One and the other white masks were incredibly envious. As if to prove this point, White One spoke, “Profound Nine, you’re going to get rich after this.”

Su Yu replied indifferently, “Getting rich? I’m a living dead. I need to exhaust a large amount of heavenly source qi on a daily basis just to stay alive. If I can’t break free, what is the point of wealth? My savings of many years are running low. The headquarters are only covering seventy percent of my heavenly source qi expenditure here. The remaining thirty percent is enough to empty my savings. I need this just to stay alive.”

White One thought about it and found himself agreeing. He even started pitying Profound Nine.

He offered some words of comfort, “It will be fine. If you can get into the ruin, you might be able to temporarily block your death qi connection. At that time, the enforcer elder can fully sever the connection for you. With that, you will be free.”

White One guessed that Profound Nine had probably been converted by a Mountainsea or Sunmoon death spirit. It wouldn’t be too hard to sever the death qi connection established by a death spirit of that level.

Su Yu shook his head, “It’s not that simple. After the connection is severed, the death spirit will show up in Grandstar City. The best way of breaking free is to kill that death spirit before it can transfer the task to a stronger death spirit. However, that is now Su Yu’s city. Would anyone be willing to enter that city and kill a Sunmoon death spirit for me?”

With a self-mocking tone, Su Yu continued, “In truth…I know a lot of things. The elders have merely been trying to comfort me. It doesn’t matter. Even severing the connection once will free me for a period of time. It will take that death spirit some time to rebuild the connection. As a dying man, I will take any extra time I can get.”

Hearing those words, the white masks looked at him with sympathy, not knowing what to say anymore. Some of them knew more about ancient cities, but some knew very little. Thanks to Profound Nine, they had learned something new about the ancient cities.

Just severing the connection was not enough. To fully break free, one also needed to kill the death spirit responsible for the conversion. This wouldn’t be that big of a deal at any other time.

They could simply send an elder for the task. The death spirit would only be an early-stage Sunmoon, and its death would only spawn middle-stage Sunmoon death spirits. At that time, the elder only needed to stop killing and survive for three days. After the city was unsealed, the elder could simply leave.

However, Grandstar was currently under Su Yu’s control. That would greatly complicate things.

After thinking about it, White One said, “It’s not completely hopeless. Su Yu is quite greedy. Perhaps we can solve this by paying him. As long as he leaves the elder we send alone, it might work.”

Su Yu indifferently said, “We’ll see. He won’t be so easy to satisfy. Not long ago, he earned such a massive profit. We don’t even know if he will be interested in dealing with us. Also, I killed someone from the Xia Family and he came from Great Xia.”

Finally, White One was out of words. He decided to stop trying to comfort Profound Nine.

Su Yu leaned back on his chair and said, “Su Yu…sigh. I guess the biggest dream I can have is to become a mayor like him. He won’t be able to live for long. In fact, I reckon I can outlive him. Perhaps…I have the chance to become the next mayor after his death.”

White One nodded, “He is too rash. He even got the stone statue to fight for him and leave the city. He won’t be alive for long.”

Su Yu smiled, “If you ask me, I hope to see him make even more moves. That will only accelerate his death.”

As the two conversed, the other white masks could only listen silently. Even if some of them were Sunmoons, they did not feel qualified to interject in this conversation. Before long, Su Yu’s mask shook slightly. The eighth elder’s message had arrived.

“Profound Nine, you may start releasing the information.”

“Noted.”

Su Yu’s reply was short.

***

All the paying customers were brought into a group communication channel. There were quite a lot of them. Including the staff from the pavilion, there were more than 120 people in the channel.

Almost every individual in the channel was the representative of a major power. Most of them were backed by Invincibles. In fact, someone without at least that much backing would hardly be able to afford to enter this channel.

Su Yu would take the leading role in the release of information. Even so, his status was not high enough in the pavilion. Thus, he did not have full access to all the information in the channel. He couldn’t see the exact number of participants or their identities. He only knew about the customers who had received their index copies from him.

Nobody was saying anything. It almost felt like the channel was empty, but Su Yu knew everyone was paying close attention.

“I’m Profound Nine.”

The silence was finally broken.

“If anyone here has searched Nanyuan before as well, you might also know a bit more than the regular person. I suggest you share it with everyone here. That way, you can compare it against what I’m about to say. Everyone will know if the information I’m about to release is worth this price.

“I took a massive risk to learn what I know. If you doubt me, you may get a Sunmoon ancient city resident and search Nanyuan through their death qi. That might allow them to discover what I found as well. Oh, you could also find yourself a Pseudo Invincible or an Invincible. That would work as well, I guess.”

Finally, someone else spoke, “Profound Nine, stop wasting time. We have all paid to be here. Since we have decided to pay, we naturally have a certain degree of trust in the pavilion. We will decide for ourselves what we want to believe.”

It wouldn’t be too late to worry about verifying the information after hearing about it.

“Sure. Let me preface this. If you have any questions about what I’m about to say, you may ask. As long as it is relevant to the information I’m releasing, I will provide answers free of charge. As for any other information, you may contact us privately and negotiate a different deal. Firstly, there is a ruin in Nanyuan.”

Nobody questioned that. Or perhaps everyone was merely waiting for him to say more.

“Secondly, this might be the ruin of a cultural researcher, not a warrior.”

Immediately, a question came, “Do you have any proof for that?”

“Be patient. Let me finish. Thirdly, I am tentatively naming this ruin the Culture Ruin.”

Someone else asked, “Have you entered the ruin?”

“No. But I did manage to get a glimpse of the ruin through a unique method. If you did enter, all of you would have learned of it by now. This is related to my next point. I believe this is not a ruin you can enter secretly. Any attempt to enter might generate loud sounds or massive energy undulations.”

At that, some of the people in the channel cursed. That would be annoying.

“How was Su Yu able to enter undetected?”

“You should ask Su Yu, not me. Perhaps he was lucky. Or perhaps he knew the proper method of entering.”

Su Yu rolled his eyes. Of course he could enter undetected. That was a ruin he made. Then again, these people all believed that this fake ruin was the same as his ruin—wait, no. He didn’t even have a ruin. There was simply no such thing in existence.

“Fourthly, this is likely an Invincible ruin. Carrier treasures have been found inside. This is not my conclusion. Rather, the experts in the pavilion were the ones who had concluded this. I only saw two sentient treasures inside the ruin.”

If they were actually meeting face to face, everyone would probably start hearing everyone else gasping in shock at this point.