The girl’s eyes were practically bulging from their sockets.
Since she had first appeared in the world, when had she ever been slapped in the face like this?
Her whole life, she had been wild and untamable, always the one doing the “training,” always the one enjoying the process of slaughtering others in their pain.
However…
On this day, her moment of greatest satisfaction, at the peak moment of her breakthrough to the Half-Emperor realm, a tiny fist had smashed into her face. It had shattered the strength she was most proud of right in front of her. How could she not be furious?
“You — “
“You certainly have a lot of nerve.”
She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and stared at the petite figure before her, the words squeezed through the gaps in her teeth.
“You really think you’re something just because of a despicable sneak attack?”
“I am the first powerhouse from ancient times to the present to approach the Emperor Realm.”
“What do you have to oppose me?”
Xi Zhiruo tilted her head. “The first?”
That peculiar tone made the girl’s pupils tremble.
Immediately after, she noticed something she had been ignoring.
A domain, even more massive than her own, was sealing her in tightly from every direction.
She finally realized the cultivation level of the person in front of her.
“How can you be a Half-Emperor?”
“I should be the only Half-Emperor in this world!!!” Her voice was frantic, unable to accept reality.
While she was immersed in her own fantasies, at the critical juncture of dreaming of her future hegemony, reality told her clearly that someone else had already broken through to the final realm — a realm she had spent countless years preparing and plotting for.
In the next second, she calmed down and let out a cold, sharp laugh. “Even if you are also in the Half-Emperor Realm, you cannot possibly be my match.”
“Because — “
“The person standing before you now is the most talented person in all of history.”
“My name is Xuan Shang.”
“Since I began my path, I have never suffered a single defeat in battle against those of the same rank.”
“What does it matter if you are also a Half-Emperor? Today, I am destined to step over your bones to forge an eternal and immortal supreme legacy.”
“What are you blathering about?” Xi Zhiruo threw another punch.
Xuan Shang stood with her hands down. Even as she saw the fist coming, she neither dodged nor moved. She wanted to use the cruelest method possible — dodging at the very last second to grind the enemy’s fighting spirit into the dirt. She wanted the person before her to thoroughly realize the gap between them, a difference as vast as the clouds and the mud.
She had already planned the future scene in her mind.
And yet…
The split second before she prepared to dodge, Xi Zhiruo’s small fist suddenly erupted with a burst of brilliance. This was a suppression on the level of rules. Xuan Shang’s proud Half-Emperor domain was actually briefly suppressed by this person she had never even met. This sudden turn of events caused her eyes to look dazed for a fleeting moment. She regained her senses quickly, but the opportunity had already been seized. A heavy punch landed on her left cheek, sending blood and saliva spraying into the air.
Xuan Shang’s flower-like face was now quite the mess.
She hunched over slightly, a greater rage brewing in her chest.
“You beast, die for me!!”
She suddenly raised her head, her hideous expression terrifying.
Xuan Shang raised her arms, and endless ghost energy began to converge.
Her domain was now beneath her feet.
In this moment, she seemed like the true ruler of a world, the world’s only supreme sovereign.
Since they were both at the Half-Emperor Realm…
She couldn’t lose.
She shouldn’t lose.
As the most powerful genius throughout the ages, she didn’t believe for a second that anyone could defeat her in the same realm.
Unfortunately…
The next scene would completely shatter her worldview and her beliefs.
No matter how she changed her tactics or adjusted her movement techniques, she was always one beat too slow.
This resulted in her attacks never managing to touch even the corner of the enemy’s clothes, yet the enemy’s fists always managed to strike her body.
‘Damn it!’
Xuan Shang cursed repeatedly in her heart.
Since her debut, she had never encountered such a difficult enemy.
Whether it was fighting spirit, physical strength, or the level of their soul, she was suppressed in every aspect. As the battle reached a fever pitch, the scales of the fight began to tilt gradually as small advantages accumulated.
Two figures constantly crossed paths in the sky.
The battle grew increasingly fierce.
Both had begun to fight for real, taking on a stance where only one would leave alive.
The tremors in the rules caused by the ongoing battle had already caught the attention of the powerhouses in other worlds.
The stars in the sky were trembling slightly, looking as if they might fall from the firmament at any moment.
A suffocating pressure that left countless people breathless was being transmitted from the direction of the Ghost Realm.
This wasn’t just one Half-Emperor.
Instead, two powerhouses who had never appeared before were locked in combat.
Just the aftershocks of the battle were spreading through the Boundary Sea toward the Six Realms. Countless rules were shivering, and the barriers of the world were shaking continuously, as if they might be shattered from a distance in the next moment.
“You forced my hand.”
Xuan Shang’s dress was tattered and her appearance was wretched. With a flash, she retreated to a safe domain.
An Emperor was an Emperor because they were qualified to form their own world, with rules no weaker than the Heavenly Dao of a certain realm.
Right now, she was within her own world. The projection of a complete great world, woven from countless rules, tilted toward Xi Zhiruo.
It was called a world projection, but in reality, it was the manifestation of the Sea of Consciousness.
The current Six Realms were all evolutionary manifestations of the Creator God’s Sea of Consciousness.
A Half-Emperor only needed to complete the final half-step to also thoroughly manifest their own Sea of Consciousness, forming a world that belonged only to them.
Standing in the center of her own world…
She was the deity, she was the Heavenly Dao, and she was the sole ruler.
The title Half-Emperor still contained the word “Emperor.”
While she couldn’t yet make her Sea of Consciousness fully permanent, she could already achieve manifestation for a short time, even projecting it into the physical world to kill her enemies.
Xi Zhiruo remained silent for a moment before likewise projecting her own Sea of Consciousness.
This was already a life-risking method.
The Sea of Consciousness was a person’s most fragile place.
Once injured, one could very likely become a fool.
The Sea of Consciousness was also an Emperor’s most powerful means of attack.
It was like being a king; if you didn’t have a kingdom to rule, what kind of king were you?
The manifestation of the Sea of Consciousness was equivalent to solidifying one’s identity.
*Rumble.*
As the worlds continuously collided and squeezed against each other, countless cracks appeared on the ground of the Ghost Realm.
Gorges spread out in all directions, and countless ghost cultivators were blown away by the aftershocks of the battle.
The collision of two small worlds triggered the appearance of spatial rifts.
Countless crimson bolts of lightning appeared in the sky.
Near the center of the collision, which looked like a massive spiderweb, the surrounding space was already on the verge of collapse.
In the next second…
A figure flew backward, and Emperor’s blood splattered onto the ground.
*Drip.*
*Drip.*
The girl stared at her open hands, her eyes gradually growing dazed.
‘How can this be?’
‘There is actually someone in this world who can defeat me?’
The Great Priest on the ground had long since gone silent.
He had never even considered that his master might not be a match for the opponent.
By now, the identity of the enemy before them was clear.
She was the supreme powerhouse who had broken through a few days ago.
Moreover, she wasn’t a Nine Sources powerhouse as others had guessed, but a living Emperor in the mortal world.
Xi Zhiruo gave a cold, thin smile. She stepped onto the air with her bare feet, walking toward the wounded girl one step at a time. “Have you already forgotten? I was personally raised by you.”
“You said it yourself; you wanted to cultivate a perfect masterpiece that was invincible in the same rank.”
“Look — “
“Haven’t you succeeded?”
“Now.”
“Your perfect masterpiece has come to kill you.”
Xi Zhiruo’s smile was a bit strange, like the final delirium of some sort of obsession.
After living with such a maniac for several hundred years…
After regaining her memories, how could she be normal?
It was just that she habitually disguised herself in front of her mother.
*Ugh — *
Xuan Shang suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood and stared wide-eyed at the figure before her. “You are? You’re — “
She finally remembered everything.
Xuan Shang’s pupils constricted repeatedly as she saw the most shocking thing of her life.
“You are Subject Number One?”
On the face of the young girl who had become a stranger, she could vaguely recognize traces of the past.
Then, she laughed toward the sky. “That’s impossible. You can’t possibly be Subject Number One. She was just a soul body. How could she possibly break through to the Emperor Realm?”
Xi Zhiruo’s footsteps were light, yet they seemed to echo with the weight of a world.
The sound of each step echoed directly in the hearts of everyone present.
She stood before the girl. “It’s not that you have no way to believe it; you just don’t want to admit that you’ve been defeated by someone you once treated as worthless as grass.”
In the next second, Xi Zhiruo threw another punch, sending the girl flying once more. After tumbling once, the girl stood up in a wretched state.
“You were the one who personally taught me.”
“Weakness is a sin.”
“Now that you’ve become the weak one, why can’t you accept it?”
“You can’t be so double-standard.”
“Weakness is a sin. You have to learn to accept your fate.”
“This is your end.”
“You are destined to die by my hand.”
Xuan Shang’s pupils shrank again.
Because she truly felt a powerful killing intent.
Only now did she have to admit the identity of the person before her. Her tone gradually became fearful. “I was the one who raised you. You can’t kill me. I am your master. You cannot commit regicide.”
“Master?” Xi Zhiruo asked back in confusion. “You really do love flattering yourself. You simply used coercive means, yet you label yourself a slave owner.”
Knowing she had no chance to leave, Xuan Shang actually calmed down. “I gave you an inch of respect, and you took a mile. You really think I’m afraid of you?”
“Ten Thousand Soul Flag.”
She waved her hand casually, and an artifact that had slaughtered tens of billions of lives appeared by her side.
The black smoke of the Ten Thousand Soul Flag covered the sky.
Endless souls howled within, twisting in a shoreless sea of despair. The main soul among them was actually the former Subject Number Two. However, there was no longer any of the past’s admiration in his eyes; only intense hatred remained.
“Even if your combat power is stronger, you can only submit before this Ten Thousand Soul Flag.”
Xuan Shang regained her confidence.
Xi Zhiruo remained calm, her left hand opening slightly to the side.
Suddenly, a dragon’s roar resonated through heaven and earth.
The Heavenly Nine Dragon Sword appeared in her hand without any warning.
The silver-white blade shimmered with black and white light.
The two colors of Yin and Yang seemed to encompass the infinite transformations of the rules.
“A Dao Artifact?”
“I’m sorry, I have one as well.”
“This is — ” Xuan Shang’s breath suddenly hitched. Her gaze was fixed on the divine sword. “How can you have the holy relic of the ancient True Dragon race? The supreme divine weapon rumored to be forged from the powder of the fallen Destiny Stone.”
She had also searched for it for countless years in the past, but she had never heard where it was, only for it to reappear today.
The only small fragment of the Destiny Stone currently resided in the garden of the Heavenly Dao. This divine sword was a weapon forged exactly from the powder left behind after the Destiny Stone had fallen.
What!?
My mouth dropped open a fraction.
This was exactly like seeing myself being held in someone’s hand.
All the points of confusion from before were resolved in an instant. No wonder the Heavenly Nine Dragon Sword, which usually defended passively and harmed strangers, never attacked me.
This was a divine weapon forged from my own body. Why would it attack its own self?
“Heh.”
“So what if you have a divine sword?”
“You simply don’t understand the terror of the Ten Thousand Soul Flag.”
The battle was once again on the verge of breaking out.
This time, the fight was even more intense. Xi Zhiruo no longer had the luxury to protect her mother, so she simply waved her hand to store me within her own Sea of Consciousness. She gripped the long sword tightly and refocused on the battle.
Before coming out this time, she had already foreseen that there might be a fight, so she had gone to Su Liumeng to borrow the weapon in advance.
***
No matter how powerful a cultivator was, their combat strength would be greatly discounted without a handy weapon.
The center of the Ghost Realm had been turned into ruins.
The original land had become a bottomless crater.
The name Sky Abyss became even more fitting.
With every attack from the Ten Thousand Soul Flag, countless vengeful souls wailed.
The phantom of the True Dragon pierced through the heavens and earth, constantly shattering the seal of the Ten Thousand Soul Flag.
Just as the two were at a standstill, the main soul within the Ten Thousand Soul Flag suddenly turned traitor. Subject Number Two directly self-detonated, cursing with hatred before his death. “You wretched woman, you deceived my feelings. You couldn’t love anyone, yet you purposely gave people hope like you were fishing. Even if I die, I’ll take you down with me.”
He had waited for this moment for far too many years.
Throughout the endless years of pain within the Ten Thousand Soul Flag, he had only endured and kept his consciousness from being completely annihilated by relying on a single strand of will.
Now that he finally had the chance to kill Xuan Shang, he didn’t hesitate for a second to contribute his strength.
As Xuan Shang had praised in the past: ‘You are the most powerful soul I have ever seen. If it weren’t for the fact that Subject Number One can continuously strengthen, you should have been the world’s number one ghost cultivator.’
In fact, he had indeed achieved it.
With the resolute anger of a self-detonation, he shattered nearly half of the souls within the Ten Thousand Soul Flag.
The words Xuan Shang had said and the things she had done countless years ago all turned into boomerangs, ruthlessly striking her right between the eyes countless years later.