Tribulation of Myriad Races

Great Zhou King said, ”Alright. Let’s sit down. Why are you raging right away? Don’t let history ruin our cooperation.”

The Venerables exchanged gazes before sitting down. The table in the cave was large enough to accommodate all of them.

”Tiandao, serve the Venerables tea.”

Great Zhou King ordered as he looked at Su Yu. Naturally, Su Yu smiled gracefully at the order, but inwardly, he was grumbling that Great Zhou King was taking this opportunity to mess with him.

With a smile, Great Zhou King addressed the Venerables again, ”This is my grandson, everyone. He’s a young guy, but I’m getting old. Nowadays, my grandson is the one running most things among the Torchbearers.”

Venerable Moon looked at Su Yu and said, ”A talented youngster. I still remember the courage he displayed during our previous meeting.”

Su Yu said, ”You praise me too much, Venerable Moon.”

Then, he served them tea. Well, not tea, exactly. He merely generated some water out of source qi and pretended like he was serving them tea. Nobody minded. It wasn’t like they were here for tea. They were here for a meeting.

Venerable Moon went straight to the point. ”I had a short discussion with Fellow Daoist Tiandao previously. Now that we’re done sweeping through the Dao Origin Land, we found Giant Axe Marquis, a Venerable, Southbrook Marquis, a pseudo king, and Snow Orchid General, also a pseudo king. All humans.”

Great Zhou King blanked out slightly before saying, ”Is Snow Orchid General really still alive?”

”Yes. I’m just as surprised myself.”

Venerable Moon said, ”Her status isn’t low. I believe you know this better than us.”

Great Zhou King nodded and looked at Su Yu. ”My grandson was born after the ancient past. I doubt he knows Snow Orchid General. Back then, only 360 people were appointed marquises. Many people were unable to receive an appointment due to the lack of openings. Snow Orchid General had a high status due to her identity as Snow King’s daughter. Snow King was one of the few women among the human kings. And Snow Orchid General is the true direct descendant of a human king.”

He sighed and said, ”Snow Orchid General wasn’t too advanced in age, and I didn’t hear anything about her after the ancient past. Had she been in deep seclusion all along? A pity. She could have become a human lord of one of the previous epochs if she had been around. At present, she is the only direct descendant from the main branch of a human king left.

”Or perhaps that’s the case if we exclude Control King. Let’s get straight to the point. What do you want in exchange for them?”

Venerable Moon said, ”Remove Human Emperor’s seal and allow all of us to advance into Masters of Laws.”

Great Zhou King frowned and said, ”This matter is a lot more complicated than you know. If the seal were so easy to remove, we would have removed it during our height of power.”

Nevertheless, the Venerables still grew excited upon hearing that. Sure enough, he knew something about the restriction!

Great Zhou King said, ”The difficulty is too great, and the time isn’t right. Not everyone in Control King’s lineage walks the chaos dao. They have some Venerables among them as well. Without the restriction, they will advance as well.”

Venerable Moon said, ”Tell us about the steps involved to remove the restriction. How are we supposed to know if you’re telling the truth without knowing anything?”

Great Zhou King laughed and said, ”It’s not that big of a secret, to be honest. And there are multiple methods to make it happen. Firstly, Human Emperor’s death. Secondly, humanity’s complete extermination. Thirdly, another unification by humanity. Fourthly, the removal of the core nodes of the seal.

”At present, the seal is basically impossible to remove. I suggest that you forget about this for now. It’s not something you can accomplish even if you know what to do.”

Venerable Moon said, ”Since you’re so confident we can’t do it, what’s the harm in telling us about it?”

Great Zhou King chuckled and said, ”How about this? I’ll tell you about some of the core nodes. The first node can be found at Martial Emperor’s Heaven Connecting Acupoint, formerly Devote King’s Residence. The second node can be found at the ninth level of the Luminous Domain Mansion, right atop King Yue’s corpse, to be precise.”

The expressions of the Venerables changed as they listened on. Venerable Dao couldn’t resist interrupting, ”Martial Emperor’s Heaven Connecting Acupoint and King Yue’s corpse?”

With a sigh, Great Zhou King nodded, ”Yes. King Yue is dead. During his final moments, Human Emperor planted one of the nodes right on top of his head.

”I don’t need to lie about this. It’s pointless. Also, it’s very dangerous. Don’t even think of trying it after descending to the Lower Realm. King Yue might be dead, but the corpse holds his final attack. For anyone not a human, death is guaranteed when you attempt to approach him. But if you believe you’re good enough to survive the final attack of King Yue...”

He was being so straightforward it felt as though he was merely sharing some street gossip. But the expressions of the Venerables kept changing as they listened on. The more nonchalant Great Zhou King seemed, the more seriously they took it.

King Yue was dead. His corpse was still around. And above his corpse was a node sealing their advancement. In other words, they had to reach the ninth level and break the seal before they could attempt their advancement.

There was also the Martial Emperor. That was a Master of Law. The difficulty was...truly terrifyingly high. No wonder this man was telling them that it was impossible for now.

Great Zhou King said, ”As I said, I’m telling the truth. You are free to try when the connection to the Lower Realm is restored. But if you ask me, I believe death is a real possibility even if all of you are working together. Martial Emperor and Yue King were both Masters of Laws back then. And Martial Emperor isn’t dead. He hates Martial King, but he hates the myriad races as well. Think it through before doing anything.”

To the side, Su Yu listened in silence. Sure enough, Great Zhou King was a crafty scoundrel. He was sending them to their deaths with complete nonchalance. It wasn’t like he was lying to them, but he had mixed lies and truths in what he said.

Yes, King Yue’s corpse could be found on the ninth level. It was also true that there was a seal atop his corpse. And it was true that Martial Emperor wasn’t dead. But the seals on the two were not the same as the seal they needed to remove to become Masters of Laws.

He was even generous enough to tell them about the danger involved, such as the final attack in King Yue’s corpse. That was supposed to be a secret.

If the myriad races took his words seriously, they might even give it a try when they went to the ninth level and saw the spatial fluctuations above King Yue’s corpse. After all, everyone understood that one couldn’t become a Master of Law without paying a price.

The Venerables were processing what they were hearing.

After a while, Venerable Scrape asked, ”Why are you telling us all this so easily?”

Great Zhou King laughed and said, ”If you have the courage to go, if you have the ability to kill Martial Emperor, and if you are capable of surviving King Yue’s final attack...so be it. But I believe that at least three or even five out of the nine of you will die during the attempt. A Master of Law should never be underestimated. I’ll actually be happy to have you test those two for us. As for whether I’m telling the truth or not, well, you will have to rely on your own judgment.”

Venerable Scrape frowned and asked something else instead, ”Have you taken over the Lower Realm?”

Great Zhou King said, ”Yes and no. To keep things low-key, we left the three major races alone even when we could have wiped them out.”

After a short silence, Venerable Scrape looked at Venerable Moon. Then, Venerable Moon proposed, ”You can have the humans, but we will only trade people for people.”

Su Yu interjected, ”Are you asking for the fellows in the Lower Realm?”

Su Yu paused to laugh before saying, ”That won’t do. Those fellows know a lot about us. With them in your hands, you will learn more of our secrets than we are comfortable with. Of course, we are willing to promise that we won’t touch those fellows if you hand the humans to us.”

”Bullshit!” Venerable Desolate said, ”You’re asking us to hand you all those experts for nothing but a promise? Is that a joke?”

Great Zhou King chuckled and said, ”Patience. Don’t worry about the people down there. They would have died long ago if we wanted them dead. We can’t afford to expose too many of our secrets for now. Please understand.

”Also, we can’t expose the passage to the Lower Realm. That is too much to ask from us. This concerns our very foundation. Not even a few additional human experts are worth that much.

”To cooperate, it is natural that everyone needs to contribute. We are very willing to contribute. We will teach you the way to build the formation you need for the Chaos Mountain instead of only giving you completed formations.

”Secondly, we will leave the fake dao cultivators alone for a period of time. We can even sign dao-backed contract for this.

”Thirdly, we can even act as the vanguard for the coming war against the chaos race. You are free to pick the timing to join the fight.

”For every human expert you release, we will kill a chaos race expert. A life for a life. If you release Giant Axe Marquis, we will kill a Venerable. This is what we’re willing to offer.

”With this exchange, releasing the humans in your hand won’t weaken the myriad races and strengthen the human race as we will be killing the same number of experts from chaos race’s ranks.”

Their pupils shrank as they heard that. What confidence. And how ruthless. Even Su Yu was shocked. What manner of a promise was Great Zhou King giving? He did not recall agreeing to something like that.

But after giving it some thought, Su Yu realized that the myriad races wouldn’t be willing to hand over the human experts only for some empty promises. After all, releasing those humans was the same as strengthening their enemies.

But if they could get an expert of the same level killed for every human released, it wouldn’t be that big of a loss for them anymore. The Venerables looked at each other with odd expressions.

Finally, Venerable Moon smiled and said, ”Since you’re showing so much sincerity, we won’t continue bickering over this. How about this? We’ll release an expert every time you kill an enemy...”

Great Zhou King shook his head, ”That is not possible. We are taking a big risk here. We won’t do it before the humans are released to us. We also need more help to fulfill our promise. What about this? You can keep Snow Orchid General and release the rest. Don’t worry. We won’t abandon the daughter of Snow King. We need Giant Axe Marquis to kill a Venerable of the chaos race.”

Great Zhou King sighed and said, ”I might be a Venerable, but I’m alone. I can’t do everything myself. With Giant Axe Marquis, I will feel a lot more comfortable doing this. If you can’t even agree to this, let’s forget about the deal altogether.”

Giant Axe Marquis must be released.

The Venerables had a short conversation with each other through voice transmissions. After a short wait, Venerable Moon said, ”How about this? We will keep Giant Axe Marquis first. Instead, we will release the rest directly, including Snow Orchid General.

”We only need you to kill two pseudo kings and two peak Daofuses to prove your sincerity and we’ll release Giant Axe Marquis. You are free to decide whether you want to kill a Venerable after getting him, but that will affect our future cooperation. However, our current cooperation will progress smoothly.”

Both Su Yu and Great Zhou King cursed inwardly. Nobody cared about Snow Orchid General! Giant Axe Marquis was who they wanted! That was a Venerable! Who cared about some descendant of a human king? The ancient past had ended so long ago. Nobody cared anymore.

The two felt rather helpless. It was clear that the myriad races wouldn’t release Giant Axe Marquis easily.

With a sigh, Great Zhou King said, ”In that case, I can only promise to try our best. Without Giant Axe Marquis, it will be too hard for us to go deep into the Chaos Mountain and kill that many experts.”

Venerable Moon said, ”Don’t be overly humble. I believe in the strength of the Torchbearers. As long as you agree with this deal, we will release the four humans promptly. You have my word.”

After a short silence, Great Zhou King nodded, ”So be it. I know what you’re thinking. By having us kill enough experts of the chaos race, their hostility will be concentrated on us. Meanwhile, you will be able to observe our strength on the sidelines.”

With a bitter smile, he said, ”So be it. I agree. This is all I can do now after the stupid things Hundred Battle did back then.”

At that, the Venerables smiled.

With this, the cooperation was established.

The Torchbearers would first kill some people to prove they weren’t secretly on chaos race’s side.

A flimsy alliance was thus established.