Chapter 1028: Demon Lord!
At that moment... outside the formation... beside Zheng Fan...
Xue San, who had supposedly been standing there all along, vigilantly watching the front and protecting Master... suddenly developed a crack in the stick below his waist.
Pfft.
Air hissed out.
The whole "person" began deflating.
Then he shriveled into a sheet of skin and folded onto the ground.
Neither Zheng Fan, sitting there, nor Siniang, standing behind him with a row of silver needles while sewing clothes, showed the slightest surprise.
Clearly... they had known from the beginning that Xue San was not there.
Otherwise, there would have been no explaining how Third Master Xue could watch everyone else advance one after another and remain completely unmoved.
The deception only worked because the people inside the Gate knew absolutely nothing about this method of "advancement."
After all... whenever there was an advancement, Third Master had always been the most enthusiastic one.
"Looks like... it's done..." Zheng Fan said.
"Yes, Master. San'er succeeded."
Siniang set down the needlework in her hands and gently wrapped an arm around Master's neck.
This human-skin puppet had been vastly more delicate and complete than the bodies Siniang could casually weave from thread.
It had required real effort and a real price to create.
In truth... for an assassin... the finest form of concealment was not how powerful your stealth was, nor how extraordinary your movement techniques were.
It was making the target you intended to assassinate... believe you were standing somewhere else.
That there were Second Grade experts inside the Gate had been certain.
Beyond question.
Inevitable.
But whether the Gate contained a legendary First Grade expert... what First Grade even looked like... what sort of power such an existence possessed...
Zheng Fan had not known.
Nor had he been able to uncover any records describing it.
Still... one could despise an opponent strategically.
Tactically, one had to take him seriously.
So from the moment the three Xu brothers first stood outside the formation... the real Xue San had already infiltrated the formation.
He was an assassin.
A true, absolute, top-level assassin without the slightest exaggeration.
If he could not even slip through one formation... that would have been humiliating.
Of course... the Third Master who delivered that dagger strike was no longer Fourth Grade.
Nor was he Third Grade.
He was a genuine...
Second Grade Third Master.
Xue San had left Zheng Fan's side long before the others.
But the Blind Man and A'Ming kneeling at Zheng Fan's feet while Wuya "bestowed grace" upon them, like some great monk consecrating a sacred object... had never been a necessary condition for the Demon Kings to advance.
Across all the advancements of the previous ten-odd years... when had they ever needed a ritual like that?
This time the ceremony did help mislead the people inside the Gate.
But the more important reason... was that it looked good.
Put simply... the Demon Kings had tacitly cooperated with Master in indulging his love of elaborate ritual and theatrical bullshit.
Whether Third Master advanced had always depended only on Zheng Fan's will.
Even if Xue San had been at the ends of the earth... if Master thought of him, remembered his merits, and wanted him to rise... then he would rise.
The truly difficult part was something else.
Xue San had been hiding silently inside the formation... while enduring wave after wave of advancement and the indescribably violent pleasure that accompanied it.
Lips pressed together.
Teeth clenched.
Not only could he not cry out... he had to suppress every fluctuation in his aura.
That... was the hardest part.
Fortunately...
Third Master endured it.
His entire infiltration had existed for one purpose: that single dagger strike.
And that dagger itself represented the true crystallization of almost five years of Third Master's painstaking work.
It was difficult to imagine.
Even Xue San himself no longer knew how many horrifying poisons had been tempered into that dagger... or how many tiny formations had been embedded after countless failed attempts before finally succeeding.
If that dagger ever circulated through the jianghu... across a thousand years of history, it would unquestionably become a divine artifact in the eyes of every assassin.
Add Third Master's Second Grade strength... and at last... he appeared at the most appropriate moment... in the most appropriate place... to deliver the most appropriate person... the most appropriate and sincere greeting.
A Second Grade expert... had almost no chance of defeating a First Grade existence.
You still needed to borrow power from outside.
He could simply reach into his own house and take it.
The difference was Heaven and Earth.
They were not even the same concept.
But for an assassin... if you could not kill above your own Grade... then what meaning did the profession of assassin possess?
If your realm was already higher than the opponent's, why not simply stand in front of him and fight openly?
Assassination existed for one reason.
At the crucial moment... you exchanged an extremely small cost... for the enemy's life.
This arrangement had been made by Master and the Demon Kings from the very beginning.
Xue San was an assassin.
Put him on a frontal battlefield and it was difficult for him to play an especially large role.
He could not tank like Fan Li.
He could not regenerate like A'Ming.
He could not control the field like the Blind Man.
He was not as hard as Liang Cheng.
So from the beginning...
Xue San's mission had been... hide.
If a genuine First Grade expert existed inside the Gate... then assassinate him.
Third Master... had completed the task Master and the Demon King organization entrusted to him.
And he was certain... his target... was beyond saving.
Third Master kicked off with those short little legs of his and flipped backward from the edge of the floating coffin.
It was an exceptionally elegant diving motion.
There were no other possibilities.
No clone.
No substitution body.
Not even the possibility of imitating that Daoist who caused trouble in Fengxin City years ago and left behind a single sheet of paper as his final vessel.
None.
None whatsoever.
Absolutely none of that fragmented, cliché bullshit.
Because if Xue San had been unable to confirm every one of those points... his dagger would never have stabbed.
Since he had stabbed... the target... would die.
Even if you were a First Grade great expert.
Even if you were the final man to appear.
Even if everyone had been waiting for you.
Stack however many "even ifs" you liked.
Before this strike... lie down.
For a moment... the oppressive silence stretched on and on.
First, Xue San's assassination shocked everyone inside the Gate.
Then came disbelief.
Their instincts told them that this mysterious First Grade existence, possibly even the Gate Master himself... could not possibly die like this.
Could he?
Yet gradually... the man in the long gown inside the coffin, who had been in the process of standing but had not quite managed to finish... released a roar that shook Heaven.
Then his body began festering.
Pus and foul-smelling blood poured from him.
His aura... was extinguished completely in the span of a breath.
Not the slightest trace remained of that world-shaking presence from a moment before.
The people inside the Gate... had no choice but to admit the truth.
Their First Grade reinforcement... had not even managed to climb out of the coffin... before being sent permanently back down into it.
Granny Qian froze.
Wine Elder froze.
The experts standing in front of Fan Li and the others froze.
Huang Lang... even forgot to continue killing himself.
Perhaps... this was the greatest joke played beneath Heaven in a thousand years.
"Heh..."
The Emperor of Chu recovered from his astonishment first.
Then... he could no longer stop himself from laughing.
At this moment... whether Great Chu lived or died... whether the Xiong Clan retained the realm... none of it mattered.
He simply wanted to laugh.
Laugh happily.
He could not suppress the feeling spreading through him.
And did not want to.
"Heh... hehehe... hahahahahaha..."
Behind Fan Li's earthy-yellow barrier...
A'Ming laughed so hard the holes in his chest twisted with the motion.
"Good.
"Very fucking good!"
Even Liang Cheng, the zombie, laughed aloud.
The Blind Man released a long sigh inside his heart.
Thank goodness their Master was the sort of person who strictly prohibited anyone from planting flags and jinxing the outcome.
Every possibility of things overturning had to be anticipated in advance... and arrangements made beforehand to strangle it.
Small things... like how, in the early years, after killing someone he always insisted on finishing them off first and looting the body afterward.
Large things... like how even a mysterious First Grade expert no one had ever seen still had to have a pit dug for him before the battle started.
Compared side by side... the people inside the Gate had been blasted into scraps.
Being cautious was not frightening.
What was frightening... was being cautious for an entire lifetime.
Even after becoming a Prince... even after becoming Master to the Demon Kings... the original habit never changed.
Fan Li, still supporting the barrier, roared:
"Third Master is fucking awesome!"
...
It was over.
Over.
The atmosphere inside Dongming Stockade crashed straight to the bottom.
The experts still remaining looked exactly like the Qian armies of the early years after losing their will to fight.
They were no threat anymore.
Fine.
Let Great Yan take All Under Heaven.
They would stop dreaming of Great Xia's national fortune rising again and feeding them fresh fortune and vast new lifespans.
Gone.
Everything was gone.
They had lost the gamble.
And gambled themselves into a joke.
Perhaps... if things continued along this path... the jianghu would soon see a wave of mysterious experts appearing from nowhere.
Perhaps some family or sect would suddenly see an ancestor long believed dead return to restore a severed inheritance.
Or perhaps some little beggar would have his wrist seized by an old beggar who solemnly declared:
"Your bones are extraordinary. I shall transmit to you a divine art."
The jianghu might gain many new little episodes.
Ten or twenty years later, those episodes might connect into whole new chains of stories... giving teahouses and wine shops endless fresh material for conversation.
...
"No..."
Zheng Fan, sitting outside the formation, suddenly spoke.
Siniang, who had her arms around her man and already had faint traces of tears at the corners of her eyes, looked at him in surprise.
"Master, what is it?"
"Siniang... You just said... the man in the coffin... was wearing a gown?"
"Yes."
The formation did isolate.
But it isolated aura rather than sight.
For any formation above a certain level, whether it blocked ordinary vision hardly mattered.
So although the formation stood between them, Siniang could clearly see what was happening inside.
The senses of Demon Kings were vastly sharper than those of ordinary experts to begin with.
As for Zheng Fan... his current physical condition was severely restricted.
Even though his aura stood at Second Grade... he could barely move.
How could he possibly see far into the distance?
That did not matter.
Siniang had been describing what happened inside for him.
And when the First Grade expert's coffin emerged, the force of his presence had practically made his words law.
His voice could not be filtered by the formation at all.
It had carried clearly in every direction.
Zheng Fan had heard him perfectly.
The man's voice had been neither masculine nor feminine.
In plain language... it sounded effeminate.
And Siniang had described him rising from a coffin... wearing a long white gown.
Zheng Fan said:
"There's... another one...
"There's still... another one..."
Siniang stared at Master in surprise.
"Master, another what?"
"Another...
"Another First Grade..."
"Why... why?"
Bloodshot veins began appearing in Zheng Fan's eyes.
His expression grew agitated.
Unfortunately, in his current condition... he could not express himself freely no matter how urgent the words in his chest became.
Those who should have been dejected... were being dejected.
Those who should have been pleased... were being pleased.
Only one Prince sat nearly paralyzed outside the formation... sensing that something was terribly wrong.
"Burial companion...
"Burial companion...
"Burial companion!"
Siniang suddenly raised her head in alarm.
She looked toward Dongming Stockade inside the formation.
Zheng Fan continued:
"The Jin wind...
"The Jin wind...
"The Jin wind!"
A First Grade expert.
Clearly a man.
Yet buried wearing a long white gown.
Speech and mannerisms extraordinarily feminine.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Because... he had a man... whom he loved deeply.
The wind of Jin had blown for so many years.
In truth... it had explained everything long ago.
In that instant... inside the formation... inside Dongming Stockade... inside the earthen mound from which the coffin carrying one First Grade expert had just emerged... another coffin... rose slowly into the air.
This coffin... was a dragon coffin!
Nine dragons... coiled around its body... as though making pilgrimage.
And the instant this coffin appeared... a pressure several times more terrifying than the previous one... crushed down upon everyone present!
Every gaze... from every side... was drawn toward it.
Every pair of eyes held the same disbelief.
Third Master, who had completed his assassination and landed with perfect elegance... looked at the new coffin before him.
His lips began trembling.
His face turned pale.
"How...
"How the hell... is there another one?!"
Clang!
The coffin lid dropped away.
Inside the upright coffin... a person stood.
Or leaned.
Or lay upright against its interior.
He wore a golden dragon robe.
Upon his head rested a mian crown with hanging jade strands.
Even with his eyes closed... the instant the coffin opened... his terrifying majesty seemed almost tangible.
This was not merely pressure born from strength.
There was something else inside it.
The Emperor of Chu stared fixedly at the figure.
That was imperial pressure.
The majesty of the Son of Heaven.
It merged with and stood above First Grade cultivation.
It was even more terrifying than the previous man.
The Emperor of Chu murmured in disbelief:
"The Son of Heaven... of Great Xia."
Huang Lang suddenly burst into laughter.
"Hahahahaha!
"There's another one!
"There's another one!
"There's another one!"
At that moment...
Huang Lang felt his qi and blood surging upward.
Then very quickly... he discovered that his blood truly was surging upward.
Because... blood was being drawn from his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose... flying toward the coffin.
Huang Lang began aging at astonishing speed.
He realized what was happening.
He stared at his own hands... now wrinkling before his eyes.
"No...
"No...
"NOOOOOOOOO!"
He would rather die... than believe this.
He would rather believe every dream he had experienced in this life had been false... than believe all those dreams... had been dreamed on someone else's behalf.
Even in his dreams... he had never possessed the freedom to choose for himself!
"No!
"NOOOOOOOOO!"
Huang Lang wailed again and again.
But his cries could change nothing.
The Emperor of Chu looked at Huang Lang before him.
When he had given him the name Huang Lang, in the Chu dialect it sounded almost like "going yellow"... "it's over"... a joke implying that all Huang Lang's dreams and efforts would come to nothing.
Who could have known?
This was not merely a prophecy fulfilled by accident.
Reality was far more hopeless than even the Emperor of Chu had imagined.
Huang Lang was a direct surviving descendant of Great Xia's legitimate imperial line.
But he... was not the true Master.
His function... was simply to offer his own essence blood at the crucial moment to the true Son of Heaven of Great Xia... and wake him.
In Tian Tian's dream...
Tian Tian had already turned against Great Yan.
He had personally killed Chen Xianba and become nearly lawless, drenched in baleful fury.
Yet when "that person" spoke from behind him...
Tian Tian had still felt both "majesty" and "fear."
Obviously... even another ten years would never have allowed Huang Lang to achieve that.
More importantly...
Xie Yu'an, Zhao Mugou, and the Barbarian brother-in-law of Prince Zhenbei... would never have obeyed some puppet who possessed nothing beyond nominal legitimacy.
After all... in that vision... the three of them were sovereigns... of three separate states.
Unless... unless the "Master" in the prophecy... was himself a Son of Heaven.
A true orthodox Emperor of Great Xia from some generation past, officially "deceased" and then sealed away!
Yes.
Only a true Son of Heaven of Great Xia... could have laid this arrangement hundreds of years ago, established this Gate, and become its true mysterious Gate Master.
Yes.
Only a true Son of Heaven of Great Xia... had the qualification... to lay curses upon Yan, Chu, and Jin!
Because the ancestors of the Three Marquises had all once sworn eternal loyalty to the Son of Heaven of Great Xia... only to establish their own states afterward.
And only a true Son of Heaven of Great Xia... could command the Demon Kings grown according to prophecy... and use them... to unify All Xia again!
The Son of Heaven.
The Son of Heaven.
The true Son of Heaven!
As the Son of Heaven of Great Xia absorbed Huang Lang's essence blood... his aura... continued climbing.
Between Heaven and Earth... an existence that seemed to declare "I alone am supreme"... was about to open his eyes.
He... was awakening.
Returning.
The process required some time.
But not much.
Xue San was the closest to him.
Third Master charged like a madman toward the coffin.
But the instant he approached... an invisible force blasted him backward.
He crashed down and spat blood.
The other man clearly already possessed instinctive defenses.
A self-contained world surrounded him.
Now that Xue San had been exposed openly... he could no longer even approach.
The Son of Heaven of Great Xia had not yet opened his eyes.
Yet his voice already spread outward.
"Wait for me.
"Wait for me to avenge you."
Clearly... he was speaking to the First Grade expert Xue San had just killed in a single strike.
The true Jin spirit... was a kind of purity.
A bond surpassing flesh and sex... reaching the spirit beyond the material world itself.
To make a First Grade expert love from the heart... to make that man willingly don a long gown and accompany him into burial... what kind of terrifying existence did that require?
And when this Son of Heaven of Great Xia... fully awakened... who... could possibly stop him?
The appearance of the Demon Kings had changed the prophecy.
But even the Demon Kings had never imagined... that the true essence of that prophecy... would be something this terrifying.
The remaining experts inside the Gate all dropped to their knees.
"Greetings, Son of Heaven of Great Xia! Long live our Emperor!"
"Greetings, Son of Heaven of Great Xia! Long live our Emperor!"
Every one of them had once been a jianghu expert of his own era.
Every one had possessed the strength to roam the jianghu proudly.
Yet now... they instinctively prostrated themselves before the true Gate Master who was about to awaken!
The Son of Heaven... had saved them.
Yes.
Saved them!
But unlike those men, who were nearly weeping with gratitude...
Fan Li withdrew his barrier.
The Blind Man ceased resisting the Four Directions Grand Formation.
A'Ming and Liang Cheng remained perfectly calm.
They did not rage.
They did not collapse into despair.
There was only... a faint... sadness.
...
Outside the formation...
Siniang stood behind Master.
At last, the tears she had been holding back began falling.
"What are you crying for...
"Mother of my children..."
"Father of my children..."
Siniang answered with the same form of address.
Master.
Husband.
Father of my children.
Compared with the other Demon Kings, the bond between Siniang and Zheng Fan possessed more layers... and far finer threads.
"Don't cry..." Zheng Fan said.
"If you... don't go with me... take care of our son...
"If you do go... then you and I... will still walk hand in hand...
"Mother of my children...
"I've lived... two lives...
"And in neither... did I ever imagine... never even dared hope... that I could have... a woman like you...
"Having you... feels like a dream... just like a dream...
"Heh..."
After those words...
Zheng Fan's gaze sharpened.
His body was still almost completely limp.
Yet the aura around him... changed abruptly.
A tiger... even lying upon its couch... was still a tiger.
He was Zheng Fan.
Master of the Demon Kings.
And at the same time...
Great Yan's...
Regent Prince!
Zheng Fan turned his head toward Siniang.
"Do it...
"Mother of my children...
"This... was always one of the outcomes... we prepared for."
Siniang did not waste time with tears or sentimental hesitation.
She wiped her eyes.
Then nodded.
Why, from the very beginning... had Zheng Fan intended to charge inside together with the Demon Kings?
And why... had he dared?
Why, when they first encountered people like Xu Gang and Lady Yun, had the Blind Man been able to say that since those people wanted to double their happiness, there was no reason not to indulge them?
Why had the Blind Man repeatedly warned everyone before entering the formation... not to overextend?
Why had he kept reminding them... that they still had a chance?
Why had the Blind Man specifically ordered Siniang... to remain outside the formation beside Master?
Was it merely because...
Siniang was Master's woman... and taking care of him had become habit?
Everything... had been because of this.
Siniang took out a set of silver needles.
One by one... she began driving them into her man's body.
Years ago... during the campaign that destroyed the Barbarian Royal Court...
Prince Zhenbei, already bedridden with illness, had used precisely this method to regain "health."
Together with Tian Wujing, he led the iron cavalry of the Zhenbei Army and fulfilled the shared wish of Marquis Zhenbei Residence's Li Clan and the entire State of Yan, a wish carried for centuries.
Their horses trampled the Royal Court.
Not long afterward...
Prince Zhenbei Li Liangting reached the point where neither medicine nor stone could save him.
He passed from the world.
What Siniang was doing to Master now... was exactly what Li Liangting had chosen then.
Fusing with the Demon Child made Master's movements almost impossible and placed an immense burden on his body.
But once the battle ended... if they dissolved the fusion... the Demon Kings' Grades would naturally fall again.
And Master's body could still be nursed back to health.
But once Siniang used these silver needles to pierce the acupoints... forcibly igniting every reserve and function inside his body... there was a chance to push Master's present Second Grade realm... one step higher.
The price... was that after everything ended...
Master's life would follow the same road Li Liangting's had.
Toward an ending that could no longer be reversed.
And together with him... the Demon Kings... might also depart.
That was why... from the very beginning... everyone had discussed this possibility.
That was why... before entering the formation...
Zheng Fan had said so much to every Demon King.
What was a reverse scale?
A reverse scale meant: if you touch my daughter...
I will throw everything away... and exterminate your entire house!
Everything... included his own life.
And because that choice might carry the Demon Kings away together with him...
Zheng Fan had nagged.
Asked again.
Confirmed again.
Are all of you willing?
The answer... had been yes.
Now... as the silver needles entered his body one after another... a low growl came from Zheng Fan's throat.
His vision began capturing the dragon coffin deep within Dongming Stockade beyond the formation... and the figure in imperial robes standing within it... the Son of Heaven of Great Xia... who was about to awaken.
"I... haven't even rebelled yet!
"So long as I haven't rebelled... this realm... is Great Yan's realm!
"It belongs to the Black Dragon Banner!
"It was conquered by the late Emperor... by Prince Jingnan... by Prince Zhenbei... and by me!
"All Under Heaven... has one... and can only have one...
"Son of Heaven.
"And that is... the Son of Heaven of Yan!"
Zheng Fan slowly stood.
His voice... began carrying in all directions.
"Great Yan's Regent Prince Zheng Fan stands here.
"A petty remnant of a fallen dynasty... dares proclaim himself Emperor before this Prince?
"Insolence!"
[End of Chapter 1028]
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