Tribulation of Myriad Races

The encirclement of North Heavenly Domain continued.

Su Yu spent his time throwing threats at them, but he didn’t attack for real. As time passed, those inside started calming down.

How fortunate.

Clearly, the new human lord was incapable of doing anything to the North Heavenly King for now. His threat to strip the heavenly king’s title had not happened. It had clearly failed.

After a while, Su Yu said, “North Heavenly King, I’m going back to the world of the living to spend some time right above you. Leave while you so can or a stomp will come down at any time.”

After leaving those words behind, Su Yu vanished.

***

North Heavenly Palace.

North Heavenly King was frowning.

Su Yu was gone. But why couldn’t he leave silently? Why did he leave that threat before leaving? Could he really do that?

A devil marquis said, “Heavenly King, he must be going to gather reinforcement. Why don’t we kill our way out while he’s not around? At worst, we can hide in the Celestial River of Death…”

None of them considered the possibility of victory. Yes, both sides seemed even. Each side had one heavenly king and ten or so marquises. They shouldn’t be at a disadvantage. But the sight of that stomp was still clear in their minds. They all knew that they wouldn’t have the final victory. At most, they would have a temporary victory. That dog had yet to appear.

North Heavenly King sat silently on his throne and stared upward for a long while. Finally, he asked, “Hiding in the Celestial River of Death?”

A different marquis said, “We can also flee into the Origin Land!”

North Heavenly King was frowning.

An immortal marquis said, “Lord, I know you’re unwilling to give up on the North Heavenly Domain. This is your territory. But even if we can defeat South Heavenly King and her people, Su Yu won’t let it rest. He might get provoked into doing something crazy and throwing the entire Death Realm into chaos. Rather than facing a mad dog, we are better off preserving our strength and entering the Origin Land.”

The so-called Origin Land was the region beyond the four domains. The four domains and the Spirit Suppression Domain were all surrounded by the Celestial River of Death in a circle. The regions even further away were known collectively as the Origin Land. These were all ownerless lands.

After a short silence, North Heavenly King said, “The Origin Land is even more dangerous. Back then, Martial King and several human kings descended to conquer the Death Realm. Martial King once entered the Origin Land, but ultimately, he decided to give up on a full conquest and stop only the four heavenly domains.”

After a pause, he continued, “I know a little about the Origin Land.”

Everyone looked at North Heavenly King, awaiting his answer. He was the oldest among them. They were ancient marquises, but North Heavenly King was already around before the ancient past.

One of them asked curiously, “Lord, we sent explorers to the Origin Land before as well. That place lacked the suppression from the laws, but the death spirits there were never stronger than those in the four heavenly domains.”

There, the laws of the four heavenly domains did not exist. The authority of the ancient imperial court did not extend there.

North Heavenly King said, “You don’t understand. Back when Martial King arrived, he killed a large number of experts. That caused a disturbance with the Celestial River of Time. Numerous experts emerged from the river. Martial King was powerful. Leading the heavenly kings, he proceeded to kill more, including more than ten death spirits at the level of heavenly kings.”

The marquises were shocked to hear that. They were unaware of that past. After all, Martial King had only arrived with several human kings back then. They had pacified the Death Realm with their small group. Those in the world of the living were unaware of the events down in the Death Realm.

North Heavenly King said, “The four of us recognized the trends of time, so we submitted. But you need to understand that it was an era of countless experts. After the deaths of so many heavenly kings, even stronger experts emerged from the river.

“There is only one dao in the Death Realm. Everyone cultivates the same dao. When someone dies, the others will have the chance to grow further.

“As far as I know, a supreme expert emerged from deep inside the Origin Land due to all the deaths. I am unsure if Martial King was able to kill that supreme expert during his attack. I only know that new heavenly kings had stopped emerging after the appearance of that supreme expert.”

The marquises sank into confusion. What was the heavenly king trying to say?

But not everyone among them was confused. Someone said, “Lord, you mean to say that…Martial King might have spared that supreme expert, as that would only result in an endless stream of death spirits from the river. Killing more might result in the emergence of someone even stronger. Thus…he settled with sealing that supreme expert?”

North Heavenly King nodded. Good. Not everyone here was stupid.

He said, “Yes. I suspect that. It wasn’t that he couldn’t kill, but he opted not to kill.”

Killing the supreme expert would make way for stronger death spirits to appear in the death spirit dao. The likelihood of such death spirits appearing would increase further if the number of top death spirits dropped. Furthermore, the death spirit dao was too powerful for them to break. Thus, they could only settle for suppression.

Understanding dawned on the marquises. One of them said, “Lord, are you saying that there may be one or more sealed supreme experts in the Origin Land?”

North Heavenly King sighed and said, “Yes. Most likely. If they were killed back then, the four heavenly kings would have grown enough to match the physical body dao human kings from back then. Alas, that did not happen.”

If even the physical body dao could produce such powerful experts, the death spirit dao should definitely be able to do the same. However, the death spirit dao was too old. And too many beings cultivated the same dao. Thus, the four heavenly kings had been stuck for many years.

Only upon the deaths of East Heavenly King and West Heavenly King did the two remaining heavenly kings grow.

“Sealed…”

When the marquises stared at him, North Heavenly King said, “Don’t bother. Even sealed, these aren’t existences we can handle. I only want to tell you that the Origin Land is more dangerous than you can imagine.

“If those beings happen to break free from their seals when we’re there…we will all die. Martial King has been gone for so many years. Are his seals from all the way back then still standing strong?”

He was unsure. In truth, he had been sending people to explore the Origin Land over the years. But not one of the scouts had returned. It was as though they had all been devoured by the darkness pervading the Origin Land.

These marquises were suggesting that he enter the Origin Land, but he felt like he was better off fighting the South Heavenly King instead. Those sealed beings were most definitely powerful, arrogant, domineering, and ruthless.

How did he reach such a conclusion? Because the more cowardly of the death spirits had all submitted back then, just like him and the other heavenly kings. If those people had submitted back then, they would have been the ones to be the heavenly kings appointed by humanity.

North Heavenly King felt like he would need to be a total fool to go there. He would rather submit to humanity. At the very least, he wouldn’t die submitting to humanity. But submitting to the beings in the Origin Land might result in his death.

Looking at the marquises who were busy worrying about their own fates, desolation welled within North Heavenly King. They hadn’t even fought! Yet these people were already thinking of fleeing. Where could they even go?

He didn’t mind submitting to humanity during the ancient past because humanity was powerful then. But this was the weakest humanity had ever been. Why? How did all this happen?

“The humans…are truly overbearing.”

That was the only thing North Heavenly King could say. Even when humanity was this weak, they demanded complete submission. He only wanted to be left alone. He only wanted to rule his own slice of land. He hadn’t even done much to the humans over the previous nine epochs. In fact, he had allowed even the human death spirits in his domain to survive.

And yet…Su Yu’s demands…humanity was indeed as domineering as ever. That was how Martial King had acted all those years ago as well.

When he arrived, he first killed three to five death spirits at the level of heavenly kings to scare everyone else. And when nobody submitted, he continued his slaughter until even the heavenly kings were trembling in fear. After a majority of the powerful death spirits were killed, the four heavenly kings submitted. Only then did humanity stop the slaughter.

North Heavenly King looked toward the Celestial River of Death. He was unwilling to enter the Origin Land. In that case, was the Celestial River of Death his only path of retreat? That was where he had emerged from, so he wasn’t completely clueless about the river.

He was someone who had awakened with some of his wisdom, unlike the death sovereigns, who would have blank minds when they first woke up.

***

At the same time.

Su Yu was moving rapidly through space.

Before long, he reached the Celestial River of Death.

He crossed the river, crushing some death sovereigns who had attempted to drag him into the river in the process, before arriving on the other side. There, he was welcomed by a thick concentration of death qi. A large number of death sovereigns were waiting. Openmountain and the other guardians were there. The three human marquises were there as well. All of them were looking at him in shock.

South Heavenly King had seemingly submitted.

The three marquises did not dare to say anything stupid. Puresolar Marquis said, “Reporting to the human lord, we have captured nearly all the newly awakened death sovereigns in the area.”

Su Yu nodded and looked at the gathered death sovereigns. They were all standing there blankly, and some were struggling. However, their resistance was easily crushed by the experts around them.

There were about thirty of them.

Noticing their numbers, Su Yu frowned and said, “So many have awakened recently?”

“Yeah.” Puresolar Marquis said, “That’s not all. We even encountered a marquis. These death sovereigns still don’t have their memories, but that marquis must have regained some of his memories. After a short clash with us, he fled.”

As Su Yu’s frown deepened, Puresolar Marquis continued, “We don’t dare to go too deep into the river. But just by staying near the shore, we captured so many. Also, I’m starting to feel a sense of crisis. Thus, I told He Tu to inform you that we might need to stop. But of course, the decision is in your hands, Human Lord.”

Danger.

Su Yu looked toward the river. He could feel a slight sense of crisis as well. An unknown number of experts had awakened in the river.

How troublesome. Some might be humans, and some would be the dead of the other races. But that was not important. He was more concerned about whether these newly awakened death spirits had regained their nature.

Even a human marquis would not immediately regain their human nature upon awakening. That required time. Without their nature, death spirits would be dominated by wrath, killing intent, and bloodlust.

Such a human marquis would attack even humans. Just how many powerhouses had the Death Realm gathered?

Su Yu was feeling quite helpless. He was worried that there would be too many for him to handle. He was worried that the more he killed, the more would rise. That would drag him into a quagmire of war. A dao so powerful could most certainly produce a large number of experts.

Looking at the group of newly awakened death sovereigns, he noted that they came in all shapes. Some were shaped like beasts. These were clearly not humans. Some were humanoid, so it would be harder to judge if they were humans, immortals, devils, or divines.

“Are there humans among them?”

Puresolar Marquis nodded, “Three. But their identities are still unknown. We can take them back to the East Heavenly Domain and give them some time to recover.”

He added, “Also, there is a Heavenly Mirror in the East Heavenly Palace. It can be used to monitor the surrounding region for newly awakened death sovereigns.”

That came as a surprise to Su Yu. He asked, “What mirror are you talking about?”

He did not know that when he first entered the Death Realm and killed other death spirits with He Tu, he had already caught the attention of the supervisors from East Heavenly Palace. That was how Marquis Lanshan had learned of him.

At the time, Marquis Lanshan had opted to ignore him. Since the incident had happened in the Spirit Suppression Domain, those from the East Heavenly Palace had not been too bothered about it.