“Ahh!” Upon hearing Gu Yuan’s words, everyone present instinctively inhaled sharply, eyes wide in shock and terror. Manufacturing an Emperor-tier Pill? In the entire realm, was there still anyone capable of performing such a feat? Hun Tiandi was not a pill master—how could he manage such an act?
“The pill has already taken shape in its infancy. The most crucial stages were already completed by the Ancient Emperor Tosacho. If Hun Tiandi manages to accomplish the final key stage of crystallisation, transforming this infant Emperor Pill into a fully completed artifact of the Emperor-grade… such a possibility might not be so distant after all.” Xiao Yan moistened his dry lips and calmly remarked.
“We underestimated Tiandi’s ambition indeed. Although this nascent Emperor Pill is powerful, it would only offer a sliver of a chance for Hun Tiandi to breakthrough and become a Martial Emperor himself. Yet once that incomplete pill transforms into an authentic, perfected Emperor-class artifact… that potential would expand without bounds. One could even say, as long as Tiandi procures such a genuine Emperor-grade Pill at his hands, he may finally make one final dash into the long-standing threshold that has barred his path for a thousand years.”
At these remarks, from the lips of one hailed as the very top-ranked pill-maker in the land of Dou Qi, murmurs stilled as comprehension and concern spread around. It transpired then—the nascent Emperor Pill had never been the ultimate goal. His true prize? A true, perfect, and perfected pill of Emperor’s might!
“So now might be an excellent timing for us?” interjected Lei Ying gravely. “Now that Hun Tiandi has entered the last process of completing this nascent Emperor Pill, he will certainly expose himself. At that time, it should be an opportune moment to intercept and foil his attempts!”
“Even now, we cannot be certain of success,” Gu Yuan shook his head with a heavy pause. “Who knows what profound technique Hun Tie employs now to merge the incompletely mature Emperor Pill with his very self. Even now, my power combined with Zhu Kun’s… we may very well find ourselves at a disadvantage.”
“Moreover—if it weren’t for Hun Tiandi’s utmost focus on cultivating the Emperor Pill, it’s highly probable Hunyin would’ve initiated all-out war on us long ago,” he added solemnly, casting a collective chill across their hearts.
It was worsening—what once seemed a stalemate where they managed to seize the edge, especially when Zhu Kun had taken the fray by storm, had rapidly turned around to a position where momentum began slipping. Not even for a long while had it slipped completely away…
“And then what do we do? Are we to just wait on helplessly and witness Hun Tiandi transfiguring this infant Emperor Pill into a completed masterpiece?”
“Should the final step be finished, Hun Tiandi could well rise as the invincible figure. It wouldn’t be a battle anymore at that point,” Lei Ying pressed, once again.
All heads now nodded solemnly. The situation had deteriorated beyond comprehension—if they delay any longer, doom is upon them…
Gu Yuan’s gaze darkened like a storm cloud as he watched above the Central Zone’s sky the titanic, ineffable golden cauldron formed from pure radiant energy.
“For the moment—we watch. Refining an Emperor-class pill is no fleeting effort,” he muttered decisively. “There exists the precise point in time when our hands will find its perfect strike.”
All others hesitated momentarily, yet nodded again. Even if circumstances are dire—it cannot become the reason for losing calm or composure.
As the Central Zone grew restless with the spectacle above, its cause obvious—the appearance of the great luminous tripod cauldron floating through the clouds stirred unease in countless powerful entities below.
Few hours later, black lightning-like beams pierced through the very distance of the horizon, drawing eyes of thousands, culminating into a spreading spiderweb-like constellation, which, once established in the sky, unveiled at its core a mysterious figure draped in long cascading tresses.
“Hun Teindi!,” Gu Yuan along with other leaders observed sharply, focusing tightly on the great array encloser and its hidden guest. A single voice then broke through from within the formation, piercing through clouds down onto the earth:
“Gu Yuan,” it echoed, “do you feel regret yet… for not heeding my proposal before?”
Gu Yuan stood rigid, fists clenched, silent as stone.
“Many years of preparations culminate in the perfect moment. After a millennium, final triumph falls into my grasp…” Hun Tiandi spoke with a calm pride as suddenly from the great battle array came radiant pillars of energy shooting through the earth below the Zone.
“Boom, boom…!” When first energy touched ground, it was as if a grand seismic upheaval struck—tossing about structures and minds alike.
Within a metropolis upon Central Plains’ heart thrived a bustling metropolis packed densely with traders and wanderers—until violent seismic jarring erupted, and through cracked pavement, surged ominous blackish torrents.
“Boom! Boom! Boom!”
Within moments of the light shaft rising to envelope it, countless figures across the cityscape exploded—bodies bursting and dissolving into red clouds, viscera scattering, raining crimson in a spectacle no longer conceivable.
Panic took hold as citizens fled madly toward open gates—only soon to witness others vanish violently mid-flight. Mayhem unfolded. The entire city drenched now in gore, blood rising into ghostly vapours, lifting back into the sky and pouring into the celestial arrangement above it, nourishing its dark purpose.
The streets littered, soaked with carnage, the air reeking. The city’s gates creaked open… yet as one eagerly approached in hope through their threshold, they met with the crimson tsunami that gushed outward to meet them. Piercing screams filled the void, mirroring a hundredfold atrocities spread wide across Central Zone in the moments that followed.
Crimson now painted the once-spiritual sky, with the overwhelming stench filling hearts and nostrils of living souls below with dread and disgust, a signal of total despair spreading wide through every heart.
In a hovering formation over an ally metropolis—nearing the grand headquarters—hovered Gu Yuan with Xiao Yan at his flank, the scene below them turning their expressions grim.
“How dire… What has truly occurred…?” Flame-King Yan Jin breathed sharply.
Gu Yuan, face tight and pale, cast sleeves forth to wrench the great rift apart and purged the red sea that flooded below.
Deeply hidden within the fissure’s depths—rose the ancient formation itself; skeletons embedded across arrays carved with malicious willpower.
“It’s indeed what some have feared,” whispered Yan Jin—eyes wide at the revelation of the structure beneath. “‘Chariot of Souls, Feast of the Void.'”
“Fiendishly ruthless,” Lei Ying hissed.
“A relic long deemed extinguished,” noted the former, “a blood array that converts every living essence to crimson vapours extracting vitality in torrents, outlawed since its infamy in ancient ages. And here—this warring clan, the Hun… they wielded such atrocities!”
“We deduce correctly,” Gu Yuan affirmed, expression shadowed. “It was through these arrays laid across Central beneath our very notice, underhandedly seeded, masked merely as soul-gathering campaigns under Hun Palace’s orders. Indeed this—this entire plot, Hun Clan meticulously set and primed for centuries…”
“With such mass blood harvesting,” added Xiao Yan sombrely, eyes set upon the vast arrangement of cosmic runes far above, “then indeed such Emperor-tier Pill crafting by Hun Tiandi may progress significantly… Yet activating these arrays in unison will require vast energies even for their very clan. Clearly, they have committed everything at this very point, gambling with all resources. A reckless final effort…”
Gu Yuan nodded solemnly then called aloud, “Then, we return—for this monstrous act has earned no allies in this mortal expanse. If we unify ourselves, resistance will hold power… Perhaps not futile.”
The rest acquiesced—though Xiao Yan stood a moment with shadowed musing eyes toward his comrades ahead: For however strong their unity, was one soul capable—the one Hun Tiandi—transformed to full Emperor-level might enough to challenge legions unphased, all in one? Such the fearful nature held by Martial Emperors.
“We do all we may…” sighed Xiao Yan softly.
They’d barely returned when a vision greeted their sight—a once absent comrade now stood, waiting patiently by the hall entrance. Behind was a small girl.
Zhu Kun, returned—and alongside a rejoining Zi Yan!
“Feh,” exhaled the great man with ironic amusement at their sight. “Who could foresee he held such a final hand in play? So ruthless was he to resort to carnography at its worst!”
At that moment of mutual glances around—Zhu Kun continued gravely.
Gu Yuan gave a brief nod, “We must seek allies. Disrupt that sky-bound ritual above, prevent his final completion, and Hun would fall.”
Such words, brave-sounding as though they were—his tone betrayed irony.
“Common strength,” Gu Yuan muttered wryly, eyes scanning at once the vast Central Sky above, where Hun’s array thrummed powerfully on, “pales at his hands… barely so much as insects against a titan. Yet among us few, how very rare, and far fewer than his equal strength? Even among our might…”
Still hushed, Zhu-Kun rubbed his coarse palms in a habitual rhythm before looking upon Zi Yan, then back at friends with breath held long and heavy.
“Still not lost yet,” Zhu-Kun exhaled with final intent.
“Yes. If he could ascend—” His eyes glimmered, voice hushed but certain,
“…so can we craft one from our end as well.”
(TO BE CONTINUED)
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