Chapter 481: Wang Zijin'S Guess, What Wicked Thinking
*Rumble!* Heavens and Earth shook, as the four corners of the world resonated. Fleets of ancient battleships of the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains descended like torrents as countless divine rainbows followed right behind. However, compared to the mighty, endless-looking Upper Realm Army, they were like a rock in the vast ocean.
"Is this the Upper Realm's might?"
The faces of many young ones, who beheld the Upper Realm Army for the first time, blanched. Only when they saw terrifying figures could they understand the sheer intimidation coming from the Upper Realm's unparalleled power.
They were like a defenceless kayak in a vast ocean in front of the Upper Realm Army, possibly flipped over by a tide at any time.
Meanwhile, terrifying figures resembling Ancient Devil Mountains stood within an endless mist that was rolling over. They watched impassively as the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army arrived like they were looking at mere vermin.
Many Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains supreme experts turned grim in response as they sensed defeat coming even before fighting the Upper Realm Army. Thus, one of them couldn't help roaring, "Don't be intimidated by their power! They cannot get close to us at all! They're merely trying to scare us!"
Meanwhile, the fleets of battleships stopped and hovered in the sky across from the Upper Realm Army.
"Damn it... We're doomed! Are we even a match for them? They can obliterate us with only one hand!" Someone shrieked, so ear-piercing that it was laced with a kind of Dao tune that could be heard by everyone.
Many youths were jolted to their senses by the voice and couldn't help feeling apprehensive as chills ran down their spines.
[So these are the supreme experts of the Upper Realm.] Though only their Dharma Bodies were present, their fear-inducing invincible power still managed to travel to the youths from far away. It was as though they were facing invincible beings that they had to worship.
"So, these are the supreme experts of the Upper Realm? But, they're still just Dharma Bodies!" Someone scoffed with loath, having bitter resentment towards the Upper Realm.
Meanwhile, young Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains elites of various forces emerged from some of the numerous Chaos Qi-filled mystical mountains and grand temples on the ancient battleships.
Currently, they looked on gravely as they stood behind their supreme experts, who were the ones offsetting the terrifying oppressive aura from the Upper Realm Army.
They were extremely confident before arriving at the Aether Abyss, They believed barely anyone could rival them when they were champions of their generation. However, the second they arrived, all they could smell was blood. Not only had this very place buried their many Ancestors but also many Upper Realm experts who died in battle.
In front of the Aether Abyss was an endless wasteland. Some earthly debris floated in the air while others rested on the ground where dead bodies with blood had yet to dry, Shards of broken weapons, fallen stars and war forts sprawled. Meanwhile, the pits were so massive that they were like terrifying craters.
Hence, those of Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains no longer took the battle lightly anymore.
"Finally here, eh? It had been aeons since anyone in my realm could become an Immortal after you people stole my realm's Fortuity. Now that the Boundary Marker Sea is drying up, I'd like to see how this wasteland of yours can continue to protect you!" an Upper Realm supreme expert condemned with animosity within the terrifying mist.
Many had caught the underlying story in his words and couldn't help being taken aback. That said, a supreme expert of Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains thought otherwise, sneering, "Any excuse will serve a tyrant! Your people invaded our land repeatedly, and wreaked havoc in our domain for countless years. Just fight if you want; no need for excuses. Those of the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains fear no death!"
While speaking, he waved his arm, and experts standing behind him immediately lit the beacons. The fire burned ablaze, illuminating the entire space like powerful divine light.
Followingly, someone blew the war horn made from the horn of an ancient beast, and the inconceivable force of penetration inherent within it shook the heavens and earth, sounding grand yet sorrowful.
Those of Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains became invigorated as their fighting spirits shot through the roof.
"Charge!"
"For the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains!"
The Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains experts roared as a mysterious force appeared above their heads and transformed into ancient runes before finally merging together to form what seemed to be absolute power.
The power they exposed was strong enough to make even those from the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains have their hearts racing. It was as if they were witnessing it for the first time. However, this technique was no secret within their realm, After all, it was a method of stimulating one's bloodline. Every time the Upper Realm invaded, their experts would stir up everyone's fighting spirits and excite their bloodline power so as to activate runes to form up this mighty scripture.
"How dare you cast the same scripture you've stolen!? And you pride yourselves on your great ancient clans and bloodlines! How ludicrous!" An Upper Realm supreme expert sneered with utter disdain. It was evident he knew a thing or two about the secret technique.
"Enough! As if you people know anything about the power our Ancestors bestowed us!" roared a Quasi-Nirvana Realm peerless Elder of the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains as he blessed himself with the scripture's power. The next second, Chaos Qi exuded from his body and enveloped him in dazzling divine light.
He decided to make his move, but before that, he wanted to inspire his fellow cultivators while also intimidating the supreme experts of the Upper Realm.
Everyone captured a vague image of a glorious ancient palace in the scripture, as a holy method rang out, resembling a majestic sunrise.
Right then, an incredibly powerful force emerged from the scripture as every word shone brilliantly like the stars, to form an indescribably majestic force. This force soon fell toward the Upper Realm Army, like it wanted to obliterate everything.
*Rumble!* The sky shook, and the whole space exploded in an instant. Mist began dispersing as Chaos evolved, and even the world's energy became erratic. It was as though time had reversed and fallen into eternal transmigration.
It was unimaginably powerful.
Meanwhile, the Quasi-Nirvana Realm peerless Elder used the force on himself and charged toward the Upper Realm Army.
"Is this how intimidating we are? We might be weak alone, but if we band together, we'll be invincible! Not even the Upper Realm Army will have anything on us!"
Some cultivators were excited and encouraged. They saw hope, believing they could defeat the Upper Realm if the whole Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains worked together.
Heaven and earth rumbled continuously as though chucks of the universe were falling, and as they advanced forward, many stars blew up and crumbled to dust.
"That's all you people got. As if any of you will be this rampant if we show up physically! How would a Quasi-Nirvana Realm trash like you dare behave so rampantly?!" The countenance of the supreme expert who had spoken up earlier turned imperceptibly cold. He naturally would have the power to withstand the attack if he was physically there. However, he could only show up in his Dharma Body. Hence, his power was greatly reduced to less than a tenth of what he was generally capable of.
Despite dreading this attack, he was even more infuriated than anything, since he couldn't help taking a few steps back.
The Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army happened to have caught it, and their fighting spirits escalated to another level.
"We've pushed their supreme expert back! He's afraid of us! He doesn't dare fight us! We won!" Someone screamed with elation as his forehead glowed brightly while ancient runes shone through his bone and skin.
Almost everyone saw hope at this moment after they witnessed an Upper Realm supreme expert being forced back.
The young ones were surging with excitement as they felt proud for having contributed to the terrifying force.
Meanwhile, the Upper Realm experts frowned. They hadn't expected such a move from Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains, which exceeded what they could do in the past.
However, just as the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army were reeling in excitement and wanted to launch another attack on the Upper Realm supreme expert, a seismic wave suddenly travelled from high up in the sky like a tsunami, causing the entire universe to shake as black bolts of lightning wider than the stars struck down with thunderous booms.
"What's that?!" Chills instantly ran down the spine of those from Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains. Some were deeply terrified. In fact, they even wanted to kneel to the figure up ahead.
An obscure figure stood in the sky above their heads that became incredibly blurry as though countless rays of Chaos Qi were coming down towards them as the three thousand worlds seemed to revolve around him like he was an almighty being.
"Has the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains been reduced to such a state? Sigh, how sad." It was a young man's voice. He should be quite young, as there wasn't a sliver of hoariness to his voice. That said, he sounded exceptionally impassive and heartless to the experts of the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains.
*Rumble!* In the next second, a ginormous sky-concealing, Chaos Qi-surrounding palm emerged in the sky, with countless Principles burned ablaze in the palm.
The boid burst apart and horrific craters formed in the universe as though it had been crushed by the palm.
One would have to witness it to understand just how appalling a scene it was. With all light overcasted, the world darkened in a flash, looking as though the universe had returned to its earliest days where there was still nothing but chaos.
The palm smashed the scripture formed by the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army, instantly transforming it into nothing more than specks of glowing dust scattered across the sky, like a dim firework, rendering everyone aghast, appalled, and weak at the knees. It felt as though all of their strength had disappeared along with that attack. Not even the end of the world felt as terrifying.
"Ugh..." The face of the peerless Elder who had blessed himself with the scripture blanched, and he coughed out a mouthful of blood while flying backwards, nearly exploding into bits mid-air. Because of the terrifying rebound, his breaths instantly became extremely weak, and he couldn't even stand.
"Who's that?!"
"How terrifying! I thought no supreme experts can cross over when the Boundary Marker Sea hasn't dried up yet!?"
The Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army stuttered and shuddered in fear as they beheld the scene, even feeling hopeless. Who'd have thought the attack they all thought was so mighty that it could shake up transmigration itself, would be crushed to bits with a single strike of a palm!?
The stark contrast rendered many in such a dumbstricken state that it took them a long time to come to themselves.
"That's Gu Changge! That's the strongest youth of the Upper Realm! He has come as well!" Exclaimed Gu Wudi with abhorrence as he stood alongside the ancient beings.
His words took everyone aback, reeling in a revelation while feeling terrified.
None doubted Gu Wudi's words. It was only normal that he would loathe Gu Changge when he was the Chosen One of the Nine Great Mountains, and the latter obliterated the Nine Great Mountains not long ago.
"It's really him!" Xiao Yang had, too, made out Gu Changge. "He was the one who killed Senior Sister Suyun and obliterated the Nine Great Mountains!" growled the young man with bloodshot eyes and tightly clenched fists. His hatred for Gu Changge was arguably monstrous.
But could anyone blame the young man when Gu Changge had not only murdered the Eldest Senior Sister of the Nine Great Mountains but also obliterated the sect? What was more, the Elders' fates remained unknown.
"Is this really the power of the strongest youth of the Upper Realm? How can he be so overwhelmingly powerful?! We're no match for him at all..."
The Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army were shaken up, and the youths who had wanted to fight Gu Changge were aghast. They had learned about this strongest youth of the Upper Realm and how powerful he was from hearsay, but it was only after seeing him in person that they realised his might would render others hopeless and wouldn't even think about fighting him.
[How are any of us going to fight him?! We can't even match his one attack with all of our forces combined!]
This was a scenario none of them had fathomed at all.
"That's not his own power! It has been amplified by the treasure in his hands..." spoke up an ancient being as he gazed at the seal above Gu Changge's head, which looked to have tens of millions of stars and bits of mountains and rivers revolving around it. Just one sliver of such vast, majestic power was all it took to render one greatly dismayed.
"That's the Celestial Seal of the Nine Mountains he had stolen..." Gu Wudi growled with gnashed teeth, filled with nothing but bitter resentment. "To think he'd use the power of the Nine Great Mountains' treasure!"
[First the Immortal-Killing Gourd, and now this...] some ancient beings couldn't help shuddering in dismay as they pondered.
"As I thought, only Young Master Changge could shut these vermin up! They think they can turn the tides around?! Ha! All it takes is one move from Young Master Changge to stifle them!"
"The supreme experts couldn't physically show up yet but we still have Young Master Changge..."
"As if Domain Ten of Barren Eight experts will dare continue to behave insolently with Young Master Changge around."
Unlike the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army, deadly silent and terrified, the Upper Realm Army guffawed with ridicule and contempt after recovering from the shock. Of course, most of them celebrated Gu Changge with reverence.
"Well, this guy's as unbelievably strong as ever..." mumbled Gu Xianer as she stood with her fellow Immortal Academy disciples. A thought seemed to have hit her when she looked up at the figure in the air, as her face flushed, and her heart was racing.
As An Yan was super close to Gu Xianer, she couldn't help chuckling when she heard the latter's mumble.
"I swear, Young Master Changge must've unlocked the secret to cultivating, or how can he be so much more powerful than the rest of us when we're all around the same age?" she mused with her signature artless smile.
All she knew about Gu Changge was through the few assumptions she had made from hearsay and the conversation she had with her sister, An Xi, and the man she had saved. That said, the assumptions were already enough to terrify her from imagining further.
Meanwhile, Wang Zijin looked at the scene with slightly narrowed eyes. Of course, his might didn't surprise her; what she wanted to know was something else. "So, where in the world are the Mountain Elders of the Nine Great Mountains now? Has he killed them all?"
Based on her knowledge, there were Nine Mountain Elders of the Nine Great Mountains. So where have all the Mountain Elders gone after Gu Changge had obliterated their sect? Had they been killed by the man? Or held hostage? But whatever the possibility, there should be some sort of news and not like the current situation, where it was as though the Mountain Elders had disappeared without a trace.
For someone as shrewd as Wang Zijin, she naturally picked up the clues that lay bare in front of her despite not wanting to know too much about certain things.
[Just what is Gu Changge hiding?] The more she learned about him, the more she found him enigmatic, and as though she had fallen deep into an abyss known as Gu Changge, she could no longer extricate herself from him.
Before meeting Gu Changge, Jiang Chuchu was all about annihilating the Successor of Demonic Arts and finding the Mortal One's reincarnation. However, after meeting the man, not only had she stopped her search for the Mortal One's reincarnation, but she had also given up looking for the Successor of the Demonic Arts.
It wasn't until she accidentally discovered Jiang Chuchu's Purity Mark had gone missing lately that she noticed the strangeness. With her intellect, she naturally could make certain conclusions and could tell how the indifferent Jiang Chuchu would become so preoccupied with him.
In fact, the young woman was practically an open book in the time they cultivated at the Immortal Academy, visiting Gu Changge's chamber every now and then.
All the clues led Wang Zijin to believe she was close to the truth—Gu Changge had very likely killed the real Mortal One, and Jiang Chuchu knew about it.
But, the million-dollar question was his connection to the Successor of Demonic Arts?
While Wang Zijin was deep in her thoughts, another terrifying energy stuck down from above the sky like an ancient universe which had strayed off its course and come crashing onto the realm.
"Looks to me like you guys don't want to abide by the treaty of training each of our cultivators. In that case, all of you can stay here, then," announced Gu Changge plainly. His gaze was fathomless and indifferent that it was as though stars were dying within his eyes one following another.
Just then, his voice impassively reverberated across the realm as he threw his palm forward. A horrific golden hand split the heavens and earth and crushed the many runes to bits with a thundering rumble. Even the neighbouring universe was shaking.
It was a catastrophic phenomenon as the vast mist actually dried up, revealing cracked, dry land as the mountains split apart.
At the same time, a deep hum echoed from the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains's ancient battleships as countless runes shone brilliantly and merged above the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army, who wanted to resist.
"Ugh..." However, many couldn't withstand the shockwave. They couldn't stop coughing up blood, and their skins and bones cracked while on the verge of dropping to the floor from going weak at the knees.
*Whoosh!*
Just then, a dazzling light appeared in the sky above the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army. It was a bloody and tattered flag which a supreme expert had taken out to block Gu Changge's attack.
"A flag? That's my clan's flag! It was once stained with an Immortal's blood..." Xuan Tian's eyes lit up with excitement when he realised what it was. The supreme expert who had held up the flag was an Elder from the Black Tortoise War God Clan, a genuine True Daoist.
*Boom!* Endless light burst out in an instant. Though the clan's flag the True Daoist had taken out blocked Gu Changge's attack, there were still the aftershocks.
The attack left the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army shook up with utter fear. If the Black Tortoise War God Clan Elder hadn't made this defensive move, they would have certainly been blown to bits.
"Huh, to think you dare stop me..." Gu Changge fixed his gaze on the approaching Elder with great interest and a quirked brow when his attack had been successfully blocked.
"According to the declaration, both sides are to fight here, so I don't see why you have to bully the young. Or is this actually how the Upper Realm usually act?" Questioned Xuan Gang as he stared dreadfully at Gu Changge. The Elder of the Black Tortoise War God Clan with a near-black face and granular scales on his body, looking soul-stirring.
Despite being a True Daoist, he had to take out the clan's flag to successfully counter Gu Changge's attack.
While the Celestial Seal of the Nine Mountains had amplified Gu Changge's attacks, the latter's raw abilities should never be taken lightly.
"Bully the young, you say? But I'm actually around their age," noted Gu Changge with a plain smile. "Besides, you guys are the ones who accepted the declaration, and it was also you guys who launched the first attack today. You don't possibly think you guys have nothing to fear just because the Upper Realm's True Daoists can't physically be here, right?" His tone turned icy as he spoke those last words, and a bone-chilling energy enveloped over once again.
While Xuan Gang looked grimly at Gu Changge, whom he dreaded, the clan flag was spread out across the sky with countless lights falling, creating a wondrous picture of a galaxy.
"In that case, we'll do as the declaration says; both our young prodigies will battle it out against each other first. I sure like to see what makes you think you can be so cocky," he said sternly, not wanting to fight Gu Changge.
"Is that so?" Gu Changge's voice remained impassive. "Ye Han, you shall take the first round."
In the next second, a figure on an ancient battleship in the thick mist behind Gu Changge transformed into a divine rainbow and landed next to the latter with deep malice.
"I shall not disappoint you, Young Master." Ye Han grinned as thick, terrifying animosity enveloped him.
"It's him! It's the Yaksha like man that had killed many of our young prodiges..."
The Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army burst into an uproar as they made out who Ye Han was. Not only that, Lin Qingyang and an ancient being of the Blood Dragon War God Clan had even died from Gu Changge's Dharma Body at that time.
After coming to realise what Gu Changge was intending to do, the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains Army turned grim as their anger burned even brighter.
It was evident that he had named this person to be the first fighter to anger and humiliate the Eight Wastelands and Ten Domains.
[How wicked!]