Chapter 1030: Fate

“Your Majesty, the Crown Prince has fainted. There is nothing seriously wrong. He is merely exhausted.”

The imperial physician knelt before the Emperor and made his report.

The Emperor himself looked exhausted as well.

Everything that had just happened was something he could never have imagined experiencing in this life. He did not cultivate, so he had long understood that certain vistas were simply destined never to appear before him.

But after truly becoming the Son of Heaven... everything became different.

He...

Ji Chengjue.

Ji Old Sixth.

Little Sixth of Yan.

Had somehow managed to perform something this miraculous too: from ten thousand li away, helping that Zheng bastard fight!

Under ordinary circumstances, the Emperor would probably have dismissed everyone, shut himself inside the Imperial Study, and laughed himself breathless. Or perhaps he would have summoned the Empress so the two of them could enjoy the joke together.

This time... his heart felt indescribably stifled.

Even... furious.

Instinctively, he did not want to ask himself where the fury came from.

Yet he knew the answer perfectly well.

He had felt it.

That Zheng bastard who spent all his time noisily threatening to rebel... had ultimately chosen to pay any price necessary to eradicate, in one stroke, a future source of calamity for Great Yan.

The Emperor suddenly felt like laughing.

So he began laughing... while tears ran down his face.

Once, he had told that Zheng bastard:

Without you in this world, how boring would it be?

Perhaps that was not something a sovereign should say.

But deep in his heart... he had truly meant it.

He would rather that Zheng bastard rebel against him.

Whether Ji Chengjue marched into Fengxin City or Zheng Fan marched into Yanjing, one could place the other under house arrest afterward, and they could keep showing off and tormenting each other.

Anything was better than one of them suddenly... without warning... simply disappearing.

Wei Zhonghe quietly asked:

“Your Majesty, the Pixiu... are we still executing it?”

“Damn slave! Does an imperial decree from Us require you to ask twice?”

The Emperor roared at Wei Zhonghe with reddened eyes.

Wei Zhonghe’s face went pale with fright. He immediately retreated and ordered the red-robed Grand Eunuchs to prepare the “execution.”

Truthfully, Grand Eunuch Wei could hardly be blamed.

The Secret Intelligence Department of Great Yan was about to execute Great Yan’s own totem.

Even with an imperial decree in hand, he had every reason to ask one more time.

What Wei Zhonghe did not know was that rage had already taken control of the Emperor’s reason.

Before, killing the Pixiu had been acceptable.

Not killing it had also been acceptable.

Now... it had to die.

For no deeper reason.

He would simply send that Zheng bastard a funerary offering in advance.

The road through the underworld was probably difficult to travel.

That fellow was delicate and spoiled.

There might not be enough time to burn him a sedan chair and paper servants later.

Better prepare a mount for him on the Yellow Springs Road now, so that bastard did not come back in a dream and complain about it.

At that moment, Eunuch Zhang cautiously approached and whispered:

“Your Majesty, you have not eaten for an entire day. Please take care of the dragon body.”

“We’ll eat,” the Emperor said.

Eunuch Zhang was delighted. He released a long breath of relief.

“This slave will order the meal at once.”

“We want... corn cakes.”

“Uh... ah?”

The Emperor turned and looked at him.

With Wei Zhonghe’s fate fresh in his mind, Eunuch Zhang felt a chill shoot straight up from his tailbone.

He immediately shouted:

“This slave obeys!”

...

For the many experts inside the Gate at Dongming Stockade, everything they had witnessed today represented the greatest series of rises and plunges in their entire lives.

From the moment Great Yan’s Regent Prince arrived before Dongming Stockade on horseback with only a handful of retainers, the situation had overturned... then overturned again... then overturned again.

In the end... the dish could no longer contain what had been piled upon it.

It shattered completely.

Fortunately for them, they did not remain trapped long in the bewilderment of having their entire understanding overturned.

Nor did they have much time to torment themselves with regret over the choices of their past.

Before a group of First Grade Demon Kings... even resistance had become an extravagance.

Whether A’Ming’s River of Death or Liang Cheng’s Sea of the Dead, the terrifying devouring domains they opened swallowed half of the Gate’s remaining experts almost instantly.

After all... the Demon Kings’ realms were constrained by Master.

When Master stood at Fifth Grade, the strongest they could display was peak Fifth Grade. In the earlier years, however, their experience, awareness, and incredibly refined understanding and control of power had still allowed them to fight above their Grades.

Perhaps only a heaven-born genius like the Sword Saint could face a Demon King at equal cultivation and not fall behind.

Most of the time, it was more like years ago in Mianzhou City, when Xue San assassinated the supposedly “high-Grade” Prince Fu.

It looked outrageous.

In truth, it was perfectly natural.

Once their realms rose higher, however... fighting above one’s Grade became far more difficult.

No matter how formidable a Third Grade Demon King was, he still could not wield Second Grade power. Faced with experts capable of opening Second Grade, there was only so much he could do.

Of course... a Second Grade expert would still have enormous difficulty killing a Third Grade Demon King.

But such things were relative.

The higher one climbed, the broader the vista became. Whatever any individual saw might still be only one corner of an iceberg.

The Demon Kings, however... were completely familiar with the scenery.

Some experts capable of opening Second Grade were still merely at the stage of “borrowing” power from Heaven.

Once the Demon Kings reached Second Grade... they had already seen the whole picture.

That was why a Second Grade Demon King could kill other Second Grade experts with ease.

And when the Demon Kings entered First Grade...

The Son of Heaven of Great Xia, who had awakened after hundreds of years wrapped in national fortune and borne upon Heaven’s will... had only just crossed the threshold of First Grade himself.

The Demon Kings were different.

Their mastery of power.

Their understanding of power.

The true height of their bloodlines.

None of it could truly be encompassed by this world’s ladder from Ninth Grade to First Grade.

The nine Grades measured the stages climbed by cultivators of this world.

But which Demon King had not once been a genuine existence capable of summoning wind and rain in a world that belonged to them?

Siniang had been the madam of brothels.

Many branch establishments.

At first glance, that sounded ordinary. If one establishment made money, who did not understand opening another?

The question was... who in this world could open that many branches across thousands of years and thousands of stretches of time?

Fan Li had been a woodcutter.

He liked chopping apart the bones of demon gods and using them to construct his austere, majestic palaces.

Wherever the building materials ran short... he went there and chopped more.

Pharmacology had merely been San’er’s hobby.

But back then... he had genuinely used dragon livers and phoenix marrow for his experiments.

There was even less need to explain A’Ming and Liang Cheng.

The height of their bloodlines was genuinely...

“Progenitor.”

Thus, the ladder from Ninth Grade to First Grade could measure the Demon Kings’ present strength.

It could never measure all that they were.

And so... when the Demon Kings acted together... the sky itself... naturally turned upside down.

At the final moment, the Son of Heaven of Great Xia seemed to realize something.

He raised a hand and tried to break the Four Directions Grand Formation.

This formation had originally been arranged as insurance to suppress the Regent Prince’s methods.

Now... it looked more like a conduit being turned against its creators.

The Son of Heaven of Great Xia could not understand why Zheng Fan’s advancement caused this entire group beneath him to advance as well.

But he vaguely understood one rule.

If Zheng Fan’s realm could be forced down and prevented from holding... then these terrifying existences should fall with him.

Their earlier collective drops and rises in realm had already displayed that law with perfect clarity.

So the Son of Heaven of Great Xia did not hesitate.

While the remaining Gate experts still “blocked” the Demon Kings outside, he reached out with both hands and seized Granny Qian and Wine Elder by the throat.

Terrifying power erupted from his palms.

The two had no defenses raised against him.

Their physical bodies exploded instantly.

Even the souls that drifted out from their shattered bodies as Qi Refiners were shredded by the Son of Heaven of Great Xia’s gang qi.

With the two men maintaining the Four Directions Grand Formation dead... the Son of Heaven of Great Xia raised his head toward the sky with expectation.

Then froze.

The formation... was still operating!

High in the distant air, the Blind Man floated with a faint mocking smile at the corner of his mouth.

Several differently colored lights flowed around his fingertips according to a fixed rhythm.

Once Master reached First Grade... and the Blind Man reached First Grade with him... he had simply taken control of the Four Directions Grand Formation himself.

As the “strategist,” how could he possibly have overlooked such a small detail?

The Blind Man yawned.

He reached into his sleeve again, found no orange, then remembered he had already peeled the last one.

A faint disappointment entered his heart.

He had not gone down to join the excitement.

Even without Siniang participating, the present situation was already too many wolves fighting over too little meat.

While maintaining the formation at a stable level... the Blind Man made a motion there was no actual need to make.

He turned around.

First, he “looked” at Master standing below.

Then... he looked behind Master.

“Heh. So that’s how it is.”

After that sigh, the Blind Man turned his “gaze” northward.

The next time he peeled an orange... would probably be when his godson came to sweep his grave.

At that thought... the Blind Man suddenly became nervous.

What if that blockhead eventually said something like, “It is enough to mourn him in my heart,” and could not even be bothered erecting a grave mound for him?

Then... the Blind Man burst into laughter.

Who would have imagined that even he, at the very end, would find himself thinking about things like this?

He had always called himself clever.

Always claimed to see through everything.

And now, at the end, he too wanted to find a piece of cloth to cover his eyes... even though he had been blind to begin with.

Still... apart from maintaining the formation, there was nothing else for him to do.

There was no time left for anything farther away.

So he might as well...

The Blind Man divided his attention.

With one part, he stabilized the Four Directions Grand Formation in a smooth arc, preserving enough flexibility to endure the shock produced by Master together with Great Yan’s national fortune.

With the other... he began using mental power to shape things inside Dongming Stockade.

Steps.

An altar table.

Stone lions.

Then he erased the stone lions.

Pixiu were better.

Still unsatisfied, he sculpted seventeen or eighteen of them in one breath.

The Pixiu leading the procession wore exquisitely detailed scales and held its neck arrogantly high, looking unbearably smug.

It captured the spirit of Master’s own Pixiu perfectly.

Master had once said that true grandeur meant having seventeen or eighteen Pixiu opening the road before you.

Fine.

The Blind Man would indulge him.

Now... how should the gravestone be designed?

First, the Blind Man shaped a joint burial tomb below.

Master’s grave.

Beside him, naturally, Siniang’s.

As for Master’s other women... please.

At a time like this, did anyone really expect the Blind Man to worry about distributing imperial favor equally and preserving household harmony?

Then, beside Master’s grave, the Blind Man shaped another new tomb.

His own.

Just as he prepared to move on to the next... the Blind Man turned back.

Beside his own grave... he opened a companion burial chamber too.

Next... he still needed graves for everyone else.

Ah Li’s tomb had to be large.

Xue San’s could not look small from the outside, but the interior needed particularly efficient use of space.

A’Ming’s grave and Ah Cheng’s grave should be beside one another.

And so... while slaughter raged ahead... the Blind Man behind them became utterly absorbed in playing with clay.

First Grade spiritual power combined with First Grade mental power allowed him to complete the project very quickly and comfortably.

He needed to finish fast.

Afterward, he still had to reserve a little time to modify the Four Directions Grand Formation.

Ideally, it could keep operating on its own for another eighty or a hundred years and stop outsiders from disturbing them.

Oh.

He would also need to leave a door for his godson and the others.

And Tian Tian should remember to bring him oranges.

The thought that he was designing what might become a future “forbidden land” of this world... perhaps called the Prince’s Tomb... or the Demon Kings’ Tomb... made the Blind Man find the whole thing enormously amusing.

Then he thought a little further.

What if, in the future, this place turned into some proving ground for genius cultivators, with some brat coming in every few days searching for fortuitous encounters?

That would be incredibly annoying.

So... the Blind Man decided he should add some mechanisms too.

He did not care whether the intruder was some heaven-blessed genius or a child of destiny.

Come inside... and Grandpa kills you.

Mm.

Should he add a self-destruction formation too?

Once the battle ended, he could collect a little blood or a few fingernails from A’Ming and Ah Cheng, mix them in, then ask San’er to prepare some poison.

That would be a fairly large amount of work.

There might not be enough time.

The Blind Man became troubled.

He instinctively raised a hand and lightly tapped his own forehead.

In the end, he had not planned far enough ahead.

They should have sat down before coming here—or at least on the road—and agreed on blueprints together.

Of the Seven Demon Kings... one remained fused with Master and had never been free to emerge.

One stood beside her man, eyes gentle.

One was making pottery and had become thoroughly engrossed.

Yet even with only four Demon Kings truly fighting... the battlefield remained completely one-sided.

A’Ming and Liang Cheng each cleared one section instead of greedily taking the whole field for themselves.

Fan Li, enormous as a giant, punched and kicked the so-called experts one after another, delivering the purest possible greetings with his physical body and enjoying himself beyond measure.

Third Master kept appearing in positions none of the Gate experts could imagine... then driving a dagger in.

Everyone was playing.

Everyone had something to play with.

This was their final fireworks display.

Whoever had a chance could show himself off and loosen his muscles.

In the end... the most miserable person present was actually the Son of Heaven of Great Xia.

If one could choose, then in a certain sense the First Grade expert who had died earlier had been fortunate.

His death had been humiliating.

But at least it had been quick.

The Son of Heaven of Great Xia tried to flee at first.

Fan Li directly blocked his path, seized him, and smashed him violently into the ground again and again before hurling him away.

Liang Cheng combined the phantom of his White Bone Throne with his Sea of the Dead and forcibly suppressed the Son of Heaven of Great Xia when he tried using national fortune to break out again.

A’Ming moved in immediately afterward.

He used the River of Death to bind both body and soul, then took out a handkerchief and carefully wiped the Emperor’s neck clean.

Then... his fangs entered.

Blood of the Son of Heaven... was every bit as delicious as expected.

So delicious that A’Ming completely ignored Xue San nearby, who was excitedly rubbing his little hands together while waiting to take the final relay leg.

Lost in bliss...

A’Ming simply kept drinking.

“Fuck your uncle! This is the last one and you’re still trying to eat alone!”

Xue San’s figure appeared directly in front of A’Ming.

The dagger in his hand vanished.

A black phantom appeared within his palm.

“Grandpa gets the finishing blow!”

He sent the black shadow directly into the Son of Heaven of Great Xia’s forehead.

In an instant, cracks spread across the Emperor’s body.

Black flames erupted and began burning both flesh and soul.

A’Ming had no choice but to withdraw his fangs and end his pleasurable drink.

He could hardly complain to Xue San.

Because he understood perfectly well that although everyone looked as though they were having fun, the speed of the slaughter had never slowed.

Even with the final Son of Heaven of Great Xia... it looked as though everyone had taken a turn playing with him.

In reality, Fan Li’s brutal pounding destroyed the body.

Liang Cheng’s Sea of the Dead then suppressed national fortune and soul.

A’Ming hollowed out what remained inside.

Xue San delivered the final strike.

Even before that, while everyone else was killing, no one had truly held anything back.

A lion uses all its strength even to hunt a rabbit.

Several Demon Kings had even used forbidden arts that damaged their own foundations.

There were two reasons.

First, they were worried about Master’s body.

Even supported by national fortune and forced into First Grade, he obviously could not maintain this state for long.

If everyone indulged too much, Master’s body gave out before the enemy was completely dead, and everyone dropped in Grade before the killing was finished... that would be unbelievably embarrassing.

Second, everyone understood this was probably their final performance.

There would be no next time.

So why not use every method they had hidden at the bottom of the chest?

If they did not use them now... they would expire unused.

And so... this Son of Heaven of Great Xia became the strongest existence the Demon Kings and Master had faced in almost twenty years.

At the same time... he became the one with the least dignity.

He had barely awakened... when Demon Kings at their peak rushed him without the slightest prelude and smothered him to death.

By the end, forget the Demon Kings... perhaps even the Emperor himself had died unsatisfied.

At last, Fan Li opened his mouth and swallowed the burned remains of the Son of Heaven of Great Xia, already reduced almost completely to ash.

Only then was everything truly finished.

It was not that they did not want a spectacular battle.

It was not that they did not want to exchange moves back and forth.

It was not that they did not want each side to unleash methods capable of collapsing mountains and reversing rivers... probing... stalemating... adding force... erupting... being suppressed... breaking through... and finally roaring together into one grand reversal through unity of purpose.

If the battle could have followed that rhythm, the Demon Kings would certainly have enjoyed playing along.

Unfortunately... they truly could not make it happen.

Job done.

Not one left alive.

Clean enough that not even a thread of remnant soul could possibly remain.

A genuine case of eating everything clean and wiping the plate afterward.

The Blind Man was still planning and constructing graves.

When he saw the others had finished, he hurriedly called out:

“Come, come. Check your own places and see if anything doesn’t suit you. If you want changes, say it while we can still make them. Once you’re actually lying inside, you can bitch all you want and it won’t help.”

A’Ming saw that his grave was right beside Liang Cheng’s and immediately said:

“No objections.”

A’Ming’s grave had a small wine cellar.

Liang Cheng’s grave chamber had a throne.

Fan Li shrank his body again and climbed into his own tomb to lie down.

The size fit.

He sat up, noticed that Master had a companion tomb and the Blind Man had one too, then immediately said:

“I want one too.”

“Be good. Stop trying to delay the girl’s life. She’s still a young woman with years ahead of her. Give it a rest.”

Third Master came over specifically to mock Fan Li, then shouted:

“Blind Man, make one beside mine too.”

“What about you?” Fan Li asked.

“I’m different from you. My woman probably won’t remarry in this life. It’ll be hard for her to find a second man beneath Heaven who can satisfy her. When she gets old enough, she can come back and lie down with me.”

As he spoke, Xue San took out a porcelain bottle and grinned.

“Want to put some on?”

“What?” Fan Li asked.

“Preserves for a thousand years.”

Third Master lowered his gaze toward his crotch.

“Even if the rest of me rots, dissolves, and scatters in the future, Grandpa still intends to lie here and salute the rising sun every morning.”

“Our bodies could be dug up a thousand years from now and used as materials for divine artifacts. How could they rot?” Fan Li asked.

Xue San shook his head and looked toward Master.

“Heaven knows how low Master’s realm will fall before he goes. We won’t be what we are now either. If we die, there’s a very good chance we’ll die in the state of ordinary mortals.

“You’re still dreaming about your body never decaying? Beautiful dream.”

“Then... got any more?”

“Didn’t bring much. Barely enough to smear over both our dicks.

“Grow bigger again and block the view for me. We need to move fast. Who knows if the others will try to steal some?”

“The zombie and vampire don’t need to fear decay. The Demon Child doesn’t even have a body. Master, Siniang, and the Blind Man probably prefer dust to dust and earth to earth. No one’s going to compete with us.”

“Hm. Now that you say it...

“That actually makes a lot of sense.”

Elsewhere, Liang Cheng walked over, picked up the Nine-Dragon Coffin that had belonged to the Son of Heaven of Great Xia, and tossed it into A’Ming’s grave chamber.

From beginning to end... none of the Demon Kings immediately returned to Master.

Every one of them was deliberately ignoring something.

Hoping... the ending might arrive a little later.

But when the aura around all of them began falling... everyone accepted it.

Reluctance was reluctance.

But this had always been within their expectations.

Perhaps it was precisely because they knew things would end that the earlier gathering, those earlier images, had felt so precious.

The Demon Kings put down what they were doing and began walking toward Master.

Zheng Fan sat on the ground.

Siniang supported his back.

Silver needles piercing the acupoints.

Years ago, the old Prince Zhenbei had used this secret method to forcibly recover his peak condition.

He had fought one final war... then returned to his residence and died upon his couch.

Zheng Fan, by comparison, had only fought one battle.

But the noise and consumption of this one battle... had both been terrifying beyond imagination.

Holding on until now... had already been extraordinarily difficult.

Everyone present understood how much pain and torment Master had endured.

Yet when the moment truly came... the sight still shocked them.

Master’s hair... was turning white and withering before their eyes.

His skin was rapidly wrinkling and losing moisture.

This was the consequence of draining every reserve in the body.

This was the sign of life force withering toward an irreversible end.

Years ago, when word came that the old Prince Zhenbei had died, Zheng Fan’s status had allowed him to learn the hidden truth of how the man had actually died.

Because of that, he had specifically summoned Siniang and Xue San to discuss it.

Siniang’s answer had been that if she performed the same technique, she could certainly do it better.

Xue San’s answer had been simpler: once it was done... no medicine or stone could save you.

To make Master understand more clearly, Xue San had even offered a modern analogy.

It was like drinking paraquat to commit suicide.

Rescue might pull you back temporarily.

You might appear able to climb out of bed and walk around like a normal person.

But before long... you would still face an irreversible ending.

Whether A’Ming’s Embrace or Liang Cheng turning someone into a zombie with corpse poison... both were changes in the state of life.

They did not... create life.

Everyone silently sat down.

No one spoke.

Everything that needed saying had been said earlier.

Now they merely sat quietly... waiting for that moment to arrive.

Whether Master’s death would drag them into death with him or not... to the Demon Kings, either outcome would still amount to one kind of “death.”

The Blind Man sighed.

Then asked:

“Do you still have a way?”

“Who?” Xue San asked in confusion.

The Blind Man raised a hand... and pointed behind Master.

At that moment, Zheng Fan had already lowered his head.

He was waiting for his own ending.

Then suddenly... he heard a familiar voice.

“Believe, and it exists. Disbelieve, and it does not.”

Zheng Fan laughed inwardly.

Not bad.

Before dying... he could even experience an auditory hallucination.

The Demon Kings present did not hear the voice.

But they sensed something.

As though another consciousness existed among them.

Or perhaps... as though someone stood beside Master.

Even Siniang looked behind herself in confusion.

“Do you still have a way?” the Blind Man asked again.

Earlier, after entering First Grade and taking control of the formation... the Blind Man had turned his head once.

His “gaze” had rested for a moment behind Master.

There were certain things he had never been able to see before reaching First Grade.

Afterward... he could.

Years ago, the old woman who came searching for Hu Bamei—the mother-in-law of Xue San’s woman—had read Tian Tian’s fate.

The backlash almost killed her on the spot.

The Sword Saint had once held Tian Tian in his arms and received guidance from Tian Wujing. Unlike the desperate battle before Snow Sea Pass, that was the first time he truly comprehended the realm of Second Grade.

And according to Xie Yu’an, when Tian Tian once led the Brocade-Clad personal guards into formation on the southern bank of the Wei River, a Great Chu Shaman Rector across the river tried to use shamanic arts to peer into Tian Tian’s fortune.

The attempt frightened him into madness.

Everyone had gradually accepted one explanation.

They believed Tian Wujing had left a thread of his own consciousness inside his son.

One could call it a strand of a divided soul.

Whatever the terminology, they assumed he had left something within Tian Tian so that outside evil could not invade him.

For the heir of a Prince Residence, ordinary assassination methods had almost no chance of success.

That left only crooked occult methods.

But only after the Blind Man turned back and “looked” earlier... did one fact finally become clear to him.

When Hu Bamei’s mother-in-law read Tian Tian’s fate... and when the Sword Saint carried Tian Tian while truly entering Second Grade... both incidents had happened inside the Prince Residence.

And Master himself had been there.

When Tian Tian first led troops into formation against an enemy...

Master had been watching anxiously from across the river the entire time.

For Great Yan...

Tian Wujing exterminated his own household.

After Du Juan died, his hair turned white overnight.

Even then... he did not raise troops, purge the court, march into Yanjing, and kill Zhao Jiulang.

He was a ruthless man.

Perhaps his greatest pain lay in precisely this: once he had already chosen absolute severance... he could never again permit himself attachment.

Not even toward his own son.

No matter how much emotion remained inside him, he had to suppress all of it.

He could do nothing.

Otherwise, everything he had done before would be betrayed and overturned.

He himself... and every person who had died because of him... would become a joke.

But there was exactly one man... toward whom he could permit himself otherwise.

That man... was Zheng Fan.

The Blind Man believed the brotherhood between Tian Wujing and Master had been real.

Two men who were, in their own ways, both “lonely”... had found the right moment to support one another.

At the level of the soul... you and I are both alone.

And precisely because Master was useful to Great Yan... because he was enormously useful to Great Yan’s future... because he was enormously useful to Great Yan’s unification of All Under Heaven...

Tian Wujing could hide his private attachment beneath that greater righteousness.

Only beneath that shelter could he truly treat Zheng Fan as a younger brother.

Only then... could Tian Wujing allow himself the relationship with a clear conscience.

So...

Tian Wujing had not left anything inside his own son, Tian Tian.

He had left it... inside Master.

That was the truth behind that winter day... upon the frozen surface of the Wangjiang River.

Brother will take you down the mountain.

The reason everyone had misunderstood before was simple.

Tian Tian had always been beside Zheng Fan during those incidents.

Often directly beneath Zheng Fan’s eyes.

Whatever Zheng Fan saw... he saw too.

That was why the Blind Man was asking now.

Asking him:

Do you have a way?

If there were still one being in this world who might possess a method... it would not be the Demon Kings who had briefly stood at First Grade.

It would be... the Prince Jingnan of those years.

The Demon Kings were powerful in ways that did not belong to this world.

Because of that, this world’s rules constrained them with extraordinary severity.

But Tian Wujing... was someone even the Demon Kings acknowledged.

Someone who had once made even them feel alarmed.

He... understood the rules of this world better.

At that moment...

Zheng Fan’s gaze had already begun to lose focus.

Before leaving, he had fallen into his wife’s arms.

His grave had already been dug.

And now he could even hear Old Tian’s voice as an auditory hallucination.

Not bad.

He would die peacefully.

Then the next “hallucination” shattered the final fantasy of a dying man.

The voice said:

“Since you have already accomplished ‘disbelieve, and it does not’... why not try...

“‘believe, and it exists’?”

...

At that same moment... far to the northwest...

Wei Zhonghe led the red-robed Grand Eunuchs in cutting off the old Pixiu’s head.

A light rain began falling over Yanjing.

Inside the imperial palace... the rain became a torrential downpour.

The Emperor of Great Yan held a corn cake in one hand and sat upon the threshold of the Imperial Study.

Rainwater soaked his face.

He continued chewing the cake that had already turned soggy in the storm.

Deep within the Great Marsh... one white-haired figure stood behind another white-haired man.

He pointed toward the northwest.

And drew forth an enormous Pixiu.

For centuries, it had been nourished inside the imperial palace.

It had passed through countless springs and autumns.

Long ago, it had merged with Great Yan’s national fortune and the incense of the state.

Without an imperial decree... forget one Wei Zhonghe.

Even five Wei Zhonghes together could not have done anything to it.

But now... it was dead.

And after death... it had still been dragged here.

Following the path along which the national fortune, the Son of Heaven, and the Crown Prince had traveled earlier... it instinctively came this way.

Because of the Four Directions Grand Formation.

The Blind Man had already made preparations earlier because he intended to arrange everyone’s graves after death.

So the formation... was still operating.

At that moment, the Demon Kings looked upward.

A black Pixiu phantom appeared above them.

It descended toward Master.

Perhaps Zheng Fan’s old melodramatic streak had flared one final time.

He was already dying, barely one step away from someone reaching over and closing his eyes for him.

Yet suddenly... he still managed to say:

“How could I possibly accept something this generous?”

Behind him... the white-haired figure answered:

“You opened Great Yan’s frontiers.

“Great Yan... will prolong your life.”

[End of Chapter 1030]