“Desolate, I shall send you to the afterlife!”
The voice of Kun Di echoed as several supreme beings among the Immortal Kings besieged the Dark Willow God. Breaking through the chaos, he charged forward, wielding the Immortal-Refining Pot, intent on annihilation.
As a supreme overlord, he was unstoppable—no ordinary Immortal King could withstand him!
For instance, the Golden-Haired Beast was sent reeling with a single palm strike, coughing blood. When it attempted to counterattack, a radiant beam from the Immortal-Refining Pot severed its body in two. Roaring in agony, it tumbled away.
Kun Di, boundless in power, his undying might shaking the heavens.
Bird Grandpa and Fine Jade Elder, desperate, fought with reckless abandon, charging forward despite their injuries to clash with the Immortal-Refining Pot. Light erupted, immortal radiance surging like a tide.
“You old fiend, face me! Harm not my brother!” bellowed the Horned Ant, his eyes crimson as he lunged forward.
Struck from behind, he ignored the wound, pressing onward to intercept. The Immortal King behind him pierced his body, leaving a gaping hole, blood shimmering brilliantly.
Yet, the Immortal King’s arm was shattered by a tremendous counterforce, bones snapping with a resounding crack.
Such was the Horned Ant—the pinnacle of strength. Even when struck, his retaliation was devastating, his body erupting with dense, flourishing runes of law.
“Clang!”
The Horned Ant crashed into the descending Immortal-Refining Pot, his arms turning golden, his strength at its zenith, entwined with terrifying order.
This desperate assault halted the pot’s descent, sparing Shi Hao from a fatal blow.
Yet, the Horned Ant could endure no more. His eyes burned redder, blood streaming from his seven orifices, his arms convulsing, bones fracturing.
Kun Di, a supreme overlord, wielded weapons capable of annihilating worlds with a mere gesture.
“All of you, begone! Who dares stand between me and Desolate?” Kun Di roared, his silver-crossed pupils gleaming, his frail frame radiating invincible dominance.
With a single strike, he sought to obliterate Shi Hao.
“Boom!”
The Dark Willow God intercepted, unleashing thousands of black-lightning-wreathed willow tendrils to slaughter foes around it. Its main body surged forward, clashing with Kun Di in a battle of titans.
At the horizon, immortal majesty billowed as an Immortal King arrived.
“Kun Di, cease your arrogance!” An elder appeared—Qi Yu, the Immortal King, a supreme being and one of the mightiest in the immortal realm.
Beside him stood Pan King and Primordial Chaos Immortal King.
Kun Di glared, his silver hair ablaze, the Immortal-Refining Pot radiating overwhelming pressure.
But he knew the moment had passed. With Qi Yu’s arrival, his dominance here was thwarted.
The Horned Ant and Golden-Haired Beast exhaled in relief.
Thankfully, Pan King and Primordial Chaos Immortal King had swiftly summoned reinforcements. Otherwise, the consequences would have been dire.
Other Immortal Kings were also converging.
“Retreat!” Kun Di commanded.
Reluctantly, the Immortal Kings of the foreign realm withdrew.
The battle ended, yet Shi Hao remained unresponsive. All realized something was gravely amiss—had his peerless cultivation been intact, he would never have lain so still.
Qi Yu stepped forward, scrutinizing him with a frown. “Uncertain if this bodes well or ill. Dark energy festers within him, his flesh instinctively purging it. Moreover, he seems lost in enlightenment, trapped in a state he cannot escape.”
Dark energy? The crowd tensed. If Desolate succumbed to darkness, it would be a tragedy!
An Immortal King lost in enlightenment, unable to awaken—such peril was known. Some had meditated thus, only to perish in seclusion.
This was the Immortal King’s tribulation!
Should he fail to cross this threshold, Desolate might perish.
Soon, the crowd dispersed.
From that day forth, the Dark Willow God, the Second Under Heaven, the Immortal Metal Daoist, and the Horned Ant stood guard, vigilant in protecting Shi Hao.
They knew he stood at a critical juncture. Success would herald boundless horizons; failure, annihilation.
Time flowed like a river—five millennia passed in a blink.
Shi Hao awoke, his eyes blazing with divine light.
Coiled around his finger was a wisp of black substance, serpentine yet unable to corrode his flesh.
A staggering feat—darkness itself could not taint him.
His gaze deepened. Over the years, he had pondered the path ahead, seeking to shatter constraints and glimpse the threshold of emperorship.
Yet this was mere conjecture—truth awaited validation.
Within the Heavenly Court, cheers erupted. Shi Hao’s awakening lifted a weight from all hearts. His prolonged stillness had cast a shadow of dread.
“My child!” Shi Zhongtian rejoiced, his years of worry for his grandson’s fate now eased.
Old comrades came to see him.
But when they learned Shi Hao intended to tread the Emperor’s Path once more, shock and concern arose. To continue was to court death.
“You persist?” the Dark Willow God inquired, probing his methods, his path.
The Second Under Heaven and the Immortal Metal Daoist trembled, urging caution, advising temperance.
“Conjecture is not truth. History records peerless Immortal Kings who believed they could ascend, only to perish in the attempt.”
“Indeed, this path is the most perilous.”
“The False Medicine Seller split himself into six parts, embedding them in immortal herbs—was it not because his reckless charge at emperorship nearly destroyed him?”
“Even the Butcher once teetered on death’s edge!”
They pleaded for prudence.
To them, emperorship was a myth. Throughout eternity, all who reached the pinnacle, no matter how peerless, had only blood and death to show for it.
Those who insisted perished.
“I am certain a higher path exists. Even if not emperorship, it surpasses the Immortal King,” Shi Hao declared.
His ordeal with the bone crown—crafted from an origin artifact’s skull—had nearly slain him. That alone proved his point.
He would advance, break through.
For the next three millennia, Shi Hao meditated, meticulously refining his path. He believed this time, he would ascend.
“My path lies in perfecting my own law,” Shi Hao murmured.
Already unrivaled, his cultivation stood at the apex of Immortal Kings. This was due to his six unique secret realms, a path truly his own.
Now, he sought to refine it further, to breach the Emperor’s Domain.
Once, he had attempted a seventh secret realm—and failed.
Under the bone crown’s pressure, nearing death, he had glimpsed the light above his head, a miniature figure roaring alongside him.
In that moment, his power had surged, briefly resisting the crown.
“Three inches above the head sits divinity—but this is not the end. It must return, merge with me!”
The light could shift, enter his body—but fusion was agonizingly elusive.
Shi Hao, revived yet refraining from slaughter in the foreign realm, puzzled the Immortal Kings. Knowing his relentless nature, they expected retaliation.
In truth, fury burned within him. But he restrained himself, aware of the foreign realm’s depths—likely primed for war.
He would bide his time, ascend first, then unleash carnage upon them.
To sweep through the foreign realm’s kings—such audacity would stun the world.
Shi Hao harbored no goodwill for that realm. Their atrocities, all for the so-called “key seeds,” were unforgivable.
Annihilation was their way—An Lan’s abduction of Sin Province had doomed countless to darkness.
And that was but a prelude. In the ancient Immortal Era’s war, the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths had been purged, only fragments surviving.
The world had lain barren for ages, its systems broken, immortality beyond reach.
Shi Hao emerged from seclusion, wandering the world, reflecting on his journey. Gazing skyward, he steeled himself.
Could he succeed?
“Yes!” he affirmed.
“The path of cultivation is a race of a thousand vessels, a contest of myriad races. One must charge through adversity—there are no smooth roads. We must carve our path through thorns and blood!”
Resolute, he prepared to ascend.
“Three inches above, my own divinity sits. Why should it remain outside? It must return, become one with me!”
He would force the merger!
This path was drenched in blood, paved with lamentations.
That day, Shi Hao returned, ready to challenge the Emperor’s Path—to shatter the King’s Domain!
“Why the haste? It’s too perilous! What if Kun Di strikes during your ascent?” fretted the Second Under Heaven.
“Summon Pan King and Primordial Chaos Immortal King to guard you!” urged the Immortal Metal Daoist.
“Fear not. I welcome them all,” Shi Hao said, eyes ablaze.
Thus, he began his ascent, seated amidst the stars, his body erupting with boundless vitality.
“Boom!”
His five secret realms blazed, manifesting countless chains of order, ensnaring the light above.
This was no mere touch—it was fusion, drawing the “divinity” into his flesh.
“Boom!”
The universe quaked as if splitting asunder. Chaos spilled forth, shaking the immortal realm.
All sensed the cataclysm.
“What is this junior attempting? Such grandeur!” marveled some Immortal Kings.
“He seeks emperorship—to transcend kingship!”
“Reckless! Such spectacle invites disaster!” others chided.
Would the foreign realm not intervene?
There, Kun Di’s eyes gleamed. “He dares ascend? A jest! None have ever crossed that threshold. If fortune favored him once, let us send him to the wheel of rebirth!”
Yet suspicion flickered. “Could this be a trap?”
“No, Desolate truly ascends—his body bleeds, tearing itself apart!” confirmed an Immortal King.
“Good! Gather our forces. Summon Wu Shang, summon the Bramble King—we ride to slay Desolate!” Kun Di commanded.
The assembly paled. Wu Shang—the ancient, magic-immune, peerless warrior.
The Bramble King—a legend thought lost in the Immortal Era’s war.
“The Bramble King lives?”
“In the Emperor’s Fall Era, an alchemist forged peerless pills. Our realm claimed many treasures, among them a pill that revived him,” Kun Di said coldly.
“With such might united, even an ascended Desolate would perish—let alone one doomed to fail!”
“To the Sea of Realms! Summon those two allies to join the hunt!” Kun Di hissed.
All shuddered. Kun Di’s “allies” could only be supreme overlords. Such a force could conquer the immortal realm itself.
“Desolate is doomed!”
The Immortal Kings were certain—this day, the immortal realm would run red.
Deep in the immortal realm, within a Receiving Ancient Hall, a nine-headed monster opened its eyes.
“Ascension? Let us witness it.”
The immortal realm trembled as powers converged—all seeking Desolate’s demise!
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