Tribulation of Myriad Races

Most of the space within the Heaven Gate was filled with emptiness, similar to chaos. Very few people would bother to create worlds within this space. As for the few created worlds here, they rarely welcomed visitors. Each world was the personal territory and dao center of the Creator.

In fact, the Myriad Realms were essentially a dao center created by the Master of Time. The people in the Myriad Realms were lucky that he had been absent since forever. Otherwise, his influence would cover the entirety of the Myriad Realms.

The same applied to the worlds within the Heaven Gate. Thus, most people drifted about without a fixed place of residence. Some would create some minor worlds for habitation, but these worlds weren’t able to last too long. The whole space within the Heaven Gate was unstable. It would shake every now and then, causing the extermination of these minor worlds.

At the moment, Return was moving rapidly away from Su Yu’s Heaven Gate projection. Before long, he arrived at a floating mountain. This was his lair.

Having sensed his return, a patrol greeted, ”Welcome back, Daolord. As of late, the Return Cloud Mountain is starting to shake. We are unsure if this is a sign of extermination. We beseech the daolord to investigate this matter.”

Return frowned slightly. So soon?

He said imposingly, ”Noted. The Heaven Gate is opening soon, so all sorts of things are happening. Looks like this reality will overlap with the Myriad Realms soon.”

Hearing that, an expectant look covered the patrol’s face. The patrol said, ”May we rebuild the Return Cloud Mountain out in the Myriad Realms as well.”

Return said nothing to that.

This was what he wanted in the past as well. He only wanted a small territory and his own dao center in the Myriad Realms. But after the accidental connection with Su Yu, he was starting to grow ambitious. How lowly must he be to be happy with a mere dao center after entering the Myriad Realms in advance?

He only needed to be there a few years before others. That would be a massive advantage for him. At present, a Sixteenth Dao powerhouse like him should be the strongest in the Myriad Realms.

With all that in mind, he said, ”I have been sensing some intense fluctuations recently. Have those outsiders been fighting?”

”Culture King?” The patrol said, ”Yes, they’re fighting again. Even that overlord was somehow dragged into the conflict. You may not know this, Daolord, but that person from the Eternal Life Mountain has walked out of the forbidden land as well...”

Return gasped with shock. What? He had only been away for a few days, but even that person had emerged? The Eternal Life Mountain was one of the forbidden lands in the Heaven Gate. That was the residence of an overlord from the Creation Era, also the main opponent of Culture King over the years.

The patrol said, ”However, that person did not go looking for the outsiders after leaving the forbidden land. Rather, he went looking for the overlord of the Death Zone.”

Return frowned again. Overlord of the dead. Were they trying to start a major war before the opening of the Heaven Gate?

These forbidden land overlords were incomparably powerful. Each of them was a supreme being, and they had avoided major conflicts with the others in a form of tacit understanding. The last major conflict had erupted a long time ago when the Master of Death first entered the gate. Since he was considered an outsider, a massive battle erupted when he arrived.

But he had forced the various parties to accept his presence with his overwhelming strength. With the other forbidden land overlords choosing to ignore him, he was able to establish himself in the Heaven Gate. After so many years of peace, was chaos returning?

Return sank into contemplation. After some time, he asked, ”In short, Culture King isn’t being pursued right now?”

”Yes. Those two vanished at the same time. They might be fighting secretly, or maybe they never encountered each other.”

The patrol asked expectantly, ”Daolord, will a war between the two erupt?”

Return warned, ”Don’t look forward to war. Perhaps you find it interesting to witness a war between such beings. But when such beings actually fight seriously, the damage will spread everywhere. You will come to learn what extermination truly means.”

The patrol nodded. True. A war between these supreme beings was very dangerous for everyone else.

”I understand...”

Since he was in a rush, Return did not say more. He went straight to the point, ”Patrol our territory more in the coming days. Also, send a message to those old friends of mine. Tell them that I’ll be holding a dao forum in a few days.”

”Daolord, are you going to be discussing your advancement?”

The patrol grew excited as well. After their daolord’s advancement into a Sixteenth Dao powerhouse, he grew strong enough to be hailed as a powerful being even within the Heaven Gate. The status of the Return Cloud Mountain had been growing steadily since his advancement.

However, their daolord had only advanced recently, and he had been rather silent as of late. A dao forum organized by him would definitely attract the attention of a decent number of important figures. After all, a Sixteenth Dao powerhouse was very rare as well.

”I’ll be sending the invitations. Do you have any other instructions, Daolord?”

Return thought about it and said, ”Tell them to come with some law fragments or similar treasures. If possible, we can even hold a trade. It has been too many years since our last gathering. We can take this chance to trade for what we need.”

”Yes.”

The patrol was very happy to hear this. Trades were extremely rare in the Heaven Gate.

After all, they lived in a boundless void. It was too hard to find fixed trading locations. Even when such locations were established, most would still be too wary to actually make use of them.

The truly strong beings were uninterested in trading, and they were also uninterested in protecting anyone. It was only natural that they were also uninterested in running these trade centers.

This appealed more to the weak, but the weak did not have the strength to establish trade centers.

Some had tried doing so before. One unlucky soul had established a trade center near a forbidden land ruled by an overlord. The noise annoyed the overlord, so the entire trade center was obliterated, resulting in countless deaths. Since then, very few dared to start such trade centers.

Silence and stillness were the main theme of the world within the Heaven Gate.

Return did not say more. He was still hesitating. Looking for Culture King...was an extremely dangerous task.

Culture King and Martial King were butchers as well. They had been contending against a forbidden land overlord for so many years without actually losing. Many speculated that the two were as strong as that being when joining hands.

Unfortunately for the two, that being was old enough to have produced a decent number of powerhouses among their lineage. Otherwise, Culture King and Martial King might have defeated that being by now.

For Return, these were all terrifying beings. The two would probably move away when encountering powerful beings. But it was likely that Return would be able to find them since they wouldn’t bother to run from someone weaker like him. In fact, they might even consider killing a weakling to vent their anger or something.

Should he really go looking for them? Numerous thoughts surfaced in Return’s mind. After a while, he gnashed his teeth and decided to go anyway. It was unlikely that Su Yu would trust him if he lied and said that Culture King had refused the request without even trying.

In truth, Return did not think that Culture King would actually agree anyway. That was not someone Su Yu knew personally. But one could never be sure, right? Perhaps the identity of the tenth human lord would be useful here.

With all that in mind, Return said, ”I’ll be leaving for a few days. Contact me if anything important happens.”

”Yes!”

Watching Return’s departing figure, the patrol had a doubtful expression. The daolord would rarely leave their territory. Why was he leaving so frequently recently? After all, their daolord had never been a...brave one.

Then again, that was understandable. This was a place where one could accidentally enter a forbidden land and die at any moment. Perhaps their daolord had grown confident after advancing into a Sixteenth Dao powerhouse.

***

Return had an idea of the general area Culture King would be at. The two had always remained in that general area. They rarely left.

It was said that the being from the Eternal Life Mountain had captured Culture King’s little sister as bait to lure Culture King and Martial King over. Of course, Return did not know the truth. He only knew that Culture King and Martial King had stayed near the Eternal Life Mountain for many years.

Each time they suffered a defeat, they would only be gone for a short while before returning. They had been pressuring the Eternal Life Mountain for many years. The people there were tired of their harassment. The master of the mountain had even tried to kill the two many times, only to fail each time.

The two were too strong. And they would never hesitate to flee the moment the situation turned bad for them. Pursuit was pointless as Culture King had too many tricks up his sleeve. In fact, Culture King could very well be the one to win this conflict if they were outside the Heaven Gate.

It was likely that his strength had dropped slightly after entering the Heaven Gate. After all, he was an outsider here. With all those thoughts in mind, Return vanished amid the boundless darkness.

Minor dao centers could be found here and there in the Heaven Gate. These were the territories established by the different tier-ones. Some of them even liked creating light in the darkness, so the world within the Heaven Gate wasn’t dominated by total darkness.

However, the area surrounding the Eternal Life Mountain was truly dead. Nobody dared to enter that area as the ones intruding into that area would either be killed by the ones from the Eternal Life Mountain for their intrusion or killed by Culture King and Martial King in passing.

That area had been known as a region of absolute danger for many years. Thus, Return was feeling quite nervous as he approached that area. Of course, he was no fool. He did not enter with his main body. Rather, his clone was the one entering while his main body was hidden outside the area.

This was a place he would absolutely not dare to approach in the past. After becoming a tier-one, his courage had grown slightly. Even so, this was still a place he wouldn’t come if possible. A lot of unlucky fellows had died here over the years.

The survival rate of humanoid beings was still somewhat decent, but it was said that Martial King would grow mad at the sight of any non-humanoid being he saw. It was said that he had grown crazy from sheer hunger, but nobody knew the truth.

With all that in mind, Return started searching the area carefully.

At the same time, he was scared that his clone would be killed before he could get a word in. Thus, he could only whisper during his search, ”Lord Culture King, I humbly seek an audience with you to discuss something important.”

With this, Culture King wouldn’t kill his clone before he could react, right? After a while, no response came. Return started growing anxious. Su Yu had only given him three days for this. That bastard was in too much of a rush.

”Lord Culture King, Return seeks audience to discuss something important...”

He kept calling out softly as he searched.

***

At the same time.

Not far away from Return’s clone, the white-robed Culture King was watching silently with his hands clasped behind him. His eyes gleamed as he calculated the location of the main body through the clone.

To the side, the impatient Martial King said, ”What are you doing? Just kill him and get this over with. Why are you staring like this?”

It was obvious this fellow was here harboring bad intentions. The easiest method to handle these fellows was to kill them. Culture King ignored Martial King and continued staring with gleaming eyes. After some time, he gazed in a certain direction. That seemed to be the location of the main body. It was outside the territory claimed by the forbidden land.

Culture King raised his brow, ”A tier-one.”

”Oh.”

Martial King was indifferent. What about it? The gap between fellow tier-ones could be very big as well. From how nervous that fellow was, this was clearly not someone with impressive strength.

Martial King had zero interest in wasting his time with the one called Return. Instead, he said, ”That fellow is absent. Should we take this chance to charge into his lair, wipe out his line, and save Wen Yu?”

Culture King ignored that suggestion. How could things be so simple?

”Hey, give me an answer. Are you going to ignore your little sister?”

Finally, Culture King reacted. With a smile, he said, ”What’s the rush? Do you really think that fellow has gone far away? This is clearly a trap. After entering his territory, it will be far too hard for us to flee.”

”But...” Martial King wasn’t exactly an absolute fool. He knew this, but he was growing impatient. He said, ”But it will only be harder to save Wen Yu with him around. Since he’s trying to lure us in, why don’t we take this chance to mess him up?”