The Ancient Saint Emperor of the Heaven-shading

Chapter 289 River of Souls, The Fall of the Emperor

The Supreme Earth, which descended from beyond the heavens in the past, has lingered among the heavens for a long time.

Some say that its appearance is a crucial juncture before the great calamity is about to descend, and is related to changes in the heavens and the emperors of the heavens.

Now that Wang Hongwu has arrived, this ancient land is the very spot where the flames he saw fall in the long river of time.

It involves a clash between supreme beings.

The surrounding soil, rocks, and trees are all bright red, like clusters of flames dancing. Some areas are eerily green, like will-o'-the-wisps flickering and emitting a misty haze. There are also sheer cliffs where dragons roar and roc cries echo, as if all spirits are being nurtured.

This place is vast, with a different view at every step, and an extraordinary layout everywhere. There are invisible patterns of the Great Dao underground. This is the terrain of the Supreme Eight Trigrams Furnace. From a distance, it looks like an old Taoist priest fanning the fire of a furnace.

“Heavenly Father, there are Celestial Kings in this land, but they are in a deep slumber.” The Peacock King spoke, having already sensed the strength of the beings in this area. Although those beings seemed incredibly powerful and unapproachable to many in the mortal realm, and even vaguely considered another kind of forbidden land, in their eyes, they were merely some Celestial Kings.

"A distinguished guest has arrived, but it might also be a great calamity." Deep within the Supreme Realm, a ball of flame flickered, transforming into a living being with a bitter expression.

Just as he was about to go out to greet them, he saw the earth tremble and a giant hand descend, grabbing at something.

The terrifying shockwave made his body sway, leaving him stunned.

"Is he collecting what fell from the sky back then?" In an instant, the powerful beings of the Supreme Realm knew the purpose of the newcomer. However, although their race originated from it, that thing could not be considered their property, so they naturally did not do anything about it and simply waited quietly.

Under Wang Hongwu's capture, the ball of light that fell into this place years ago suddenly appeared, causing a great upheaval in space and time.

The power of space, like a celestial blade, slashed wildly between his fingers, while the wheel of time spun, grinding and twisting the heavens and earth until they collapsed. It was like the resounding of a great bell echoing through the three thousand realms, as if boundless darkness was being torn apart, and light illuminating the past and present. The fire of the great sky and the flames of the ancient universe boiled, symbols of the Great Dao flew everywhere, and the chains of divine order intertwined and then melted, creating a terrifying scene.

The Peacock King's expression turned solemn. This kind of flame could burn even a Celestial King, originating from beings of a higher level. Wang Hongwu also noticed that this flame did indeed cause the sacrificial bowl at his waist to react, as if collecting enough flames could cause some changes to it.

In the end, Wang Hongwu collected the two kinds of flames scattered here and integrated them into his body. A palm-sized piece of mother gold, radiating a dreamlike luster, appeared in his hand. It was the product of the fusion of the mother gold of all things and the dark mother gold left in the chaotic ancient world.

As soon as the two flames swirled together, the mother metal reacted, and he nodded in satisfaction. This flame could indeed temper the mother metal. This product had already surpassed the Kingly Way. After being integrated into the body, it could use this mother metal as the core and the flame as the furnace to unify the two mother metals in the body. At that time, the whole body would be made of origin mother metal, and naturally, it could advance even further.

"The Fire Spirit Clan greets the future ruler." At this moment, the beings of the Fire Spirit Clan arrived. The Immortal King was very respectful and bowed to Wang Hongwu before inviting him to move into the main hall for a chat.

Deep within the Supreme Realm, towering palaces shimmered with Daoist patterns in the firelight. Wang Hongwu sat in the reception hall, inquiring about the origins of this landform from the Fire Clan.

"To be precise, this terrain is where the heavens fell to the thirty-third heaven, and then fell back to the mortal realm," the Fire Spirit King solemnly explained, not daring to be negligent.

The Peacock King was somewhat surprised to hear this. This clan had such a powerful background and was even related to the lofty Heaven.

He had learned about that place from his conversations with the Immortal Kings of the Yang Realm. It was a place of great heights, where even the ultimate beings were not at their peak. There were even more terrifying beings at the end of the road, and the sheer number of evolved civilizations there was astonishing.

Noticing its gaze, the Fire Spirit King smiled wryly, "Senior, you misunderstand. We are not beings of the heavens, but evolved by the falling fire of the Great Dao."

In fact, the source of the fire here is the Great Void Fire and the Ancient Universe Flame. That kind of substance, that supreme Dao Fire, is said to be something that only Dao Ancestor-level beings, or even only beings at the end of the road level, can evolve.

Therefore, the fact that this forbidden land could fall from the heavens must have involved a battle between supreme beings, leading to this unexpected event.

Wang Hongwu knew that it was Shi Hao who participated in the battle, using the Supreme Desolate Sword to strike the stone jar, creating a small hole in it and sending it into the world.

Upon realizing this, he couldn't help but glance at his sacrificial bowl, suspecting that it was also an artifact from that series, related to the three generations of bronze coffin masters.

"Does your clan possess any treasured Mother Gold?" the Peacock King then asked, knowing that the Heavenly Father needed Mother Gold for his cultivation, and thus naturally prepared it in advance.

The so-called mother metal is the mother of all kinds of rare metals. It is the supreme material for forging weapons. There are Heavenly Blood Mother Metal, Starry Sky Mother Metal, Purple Mansion Mother Metal, Time Mother Metal, Primal Mother Metal, Xuanhuang Mother Metal, Dark Mother Metal, etc. Each of them is an extremely precious item.

"Yes, yes, there are nine kinds of mother gold like this in our group."

The Fire Spirit King patted his chest, finally finding a good opportunity to forge a good relationship with the Lord of All Heavens. He immediately ordered his people to bring out the nine kinds of mother metal, each one in abundance, accumulated over a long period of time, along with tributes from various tribes to open the Eight Trigrams Furnace.

Wang Hongwu nodded slightly, leaving some royal laws as a token of his gratitude, and then put away the mother gold. Upon seeing this, the Peacock King said, "The Heavenly Father is very satisfied. If you have any thoughts, you may go to the Celestial Court to reproduce."

"Thank you, Lord!" With the Fire Spirit King's joyful voice, they departed and returned to the alien realm floating above the mortal world.

Inside the central palace, Wang Hongwu's figure appeared and disappeared on the platform. With a single breath, the nine mother metals entered his body, forming a dividing line between the kingly mother metal and the dark mother metal. Then, a palm-sized piece of origin mother metal appeared above his head. It was a product left behind by the Chaotic Ancient. Its surface not only had a dreamlike ten-colored radiance, but was also shrouded in a hazy gray mist of tribulation light.

This is somewhat similar to the state of the Three Tribulations Sparrow Clan, which also means that this piece of mother gold survived a great calamity that destroyed all the heavens and myriad realms, and drew some special power from it.

“He helped me.” Wang Hongwu realized that there were traces left by Shi Hao on this piece of mother gold. During the great calamity, he turned the tide and illuminated the heavens. Otherwise, none of these things would have happened, and the mother gold would not have been preserved.

Now, he took this piece of Origin Mother Gold into his body. As soon as it entered his body, it instantly assimilated and absorbed the nine Mother Golds that he had previously taken into his body, making itself larger. Then, it began to use this as the center to accelerate the fusion of the Mother Gold of All Things and the Mother Gold of Darkness. The Great Sky Fire and the Ancient Universe Flame burned fiercely, using his body as a furnace to refine it.

During his seclusion, many things naturally happened throughout the myriad realms.

Firstly, there was the great upheaval caused by the attainment of the supreme ruler of all heavens; secondly, there was the competition among the younger generation after the return of the Three Realms.

Their glorious years have just begun, and they are about to embark on a magnificent journey.

The young man who emerged from the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths generation is named Ye Fan.

He set sail from Mount Tai, touched an ancient stele left by his predecessors, and followed the traces of Emperor Ming into the Big Dipper. While wandering there, he unexpectedly discovered that the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths had merged into the myriad realms, and an unprecedentedly vast scroll unfolded before him.

Competition among all races? Not quite enough. A struggle for supremacy among the universes? Slightly less impressive. The era he is ushering in is one where fists pound the heavens and feet trample across all realms, where he will fight against all living beings!
The Eight Forbidden Rules and Divine Forbidden Rules that once shook the universe are no longer the limits here. They have even more powerful standards, including beings of the "Da" generation and the legendary "Heng" generation.

Duan De, a playboy in the mortal world, became fascinated with transforming into an old master to train disciples. This time was no exception. He became Ye Fan's guide, passing on the path and methods of the Nine Immortal Golden Bodies to him, and leading him to search in the universe to collect more Immortal Gold and Mother Gold.

He vowed to create the strongest golden body in history and to create a miracle of blood energy suppressing all the heavens.

The Four Extremes Secret Realm is the time when many physiques have reached a minor stage of completion. At this time, Ye Fan had already collected nine kinds of immortal metals into his body. He used the secret method of the Golden Body lineage passed down from the Martial Emperor to forge the Immortal Metal Secret Realm. He also cultivated the Divine Form Technique of the Overlord Body lineage given by Duan De. The Immortal Spirit Battle Body, which was also inherited from the Martial Emperor, allowed him to combine the strange phenomena and divine form into one body and forge a new path.

The nine great immortal golden phenomena and the nine great immortal golden divine forms, when combined, transformed into the Heavenly Emperor, and when the divine forms merged into the Human Emperor; when the two were combined, they became the Heavenly Emperor and the Human Emperor, the ruler of both heaven and man. He used this to fight against the heroes of all realms. Later, he used the Origin Technique to outline the Nine Immortal Medicine Array Diagrams, which were then sublimated into a field, engraved in his body, and carved out a world for himself.

In the blink of an eye, he has been hailed as the protagonist of this generation of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, known as the "Chosen One of the Realms," making all realms increasingly wary of the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths. More and more ancient historical records about the place have been unearthed, revealing more of its glory.

However, not everyone is wary. Among them is the ancient cycle of reincarnation, where a dispute is taking place, with some demanding to go there and find out what's going on.

"No matter what kind of background or how terrifying the taboo, we should have reverence for reincarnation. We have no need to be afraid. Whoever can pass the test of reincarnation, the underworld stands behind us!"

"What are you going there for, to die? Do you know how strong that person is? And he doesn't have much of a conflict with us. On the contrary, the Soul River's outpost, Soul Light Cave, has been destroyed. We should be kindly reminding him."

"You...you want to send the Soul River to scout ahead?"

"A dead Taoist friend will never die a poor Taoist."

The two beings on the cycle of reincarnation hit it off immediately and began preparations. They burned special incense and candles, opened a special portal, and as it appeared, a passage descended, spreading like crystal ripples and emitting strange fluctuations. The entire ancient land was rumbling, the fog collapsed, sand and stones flew everywhere, and dust formed from souls was everywhere.

The portal to the River of Souls has been opened.

At this moment, even the mortal realm sensed it, and a grand phenomenon appeared. Countless evolved beings raised their heads and looked up, as if they heard countless beings from all the heavens and myriad realms crying, as if they saw that the heavens and the earth, the past and the future, were all stained red with blood.

"The forbidden lands of the heavens have been destroyed? A thousand years have passed in a single sleep, and another era has begun."

In some unknown space, a terrifying creature opened its eyes. It had been sleeping there for countless millennia. Before the River of Souls, beneath the boundless sands on its banks, it slowly crawled out, and its words sent chills down everyone's spines.

"The delicious taste of blood is so enticing that this whole world should be offered up as a sacrifice."

The day of the birth of the Lord of All Heavens will be the time of the minor sacrifice. The beings of the Soul River thus declared that they would once again harvest all the myriad realms and offer sacrifices to the Lord of All Heavens.

A blood sacrifice to the supreme ruler of all heavens?!

What kind of place is that? All living beings in the world were astonished. Who dares to speak so arrogantly?

However, some ancient immortal kings were terrified, because those were the four legendary ancient lands, and also the rivers of souls with the most souls in the present world!

In that place, if a sacrifice is to be made, it is done on a per-realm basis, requiring the sacrifice of all living beings from the entire realm, resulting in the annihilation of all spirits, the staining of the universe with blood, and complete extinction.

Will it be the same this time?
Wang Hongwu remained calm, but he was actually somewhat looking forward to it. He hoped that a supreme being would actually appear, so that he could take advantage of the situation to launch his plan, connect with the four ancient lands, grow stronger and bigger there, and create new glories.

"You must come."

He was full of anticipation, but also a little disappointed, because it was the River of Souls. He was more curious about the Heavenly Emperor's Burial Pit.

In the next hundred years, Wang Hongwu did not intend to sit idly by. Instead, he planned to go to the Land of Reincarnation to cultivate and expand his system. Ideally, he would break through immediately upon his return and then acquire the position of Lord of All Heavens, achieving a state of dual Dao Fruits.

"I will be in seclusion for a hundred years. I will temporarily entrust the affairs of the heavens to you. I will also keep this ultimate artifact for future use."

He instructed the Peacock Queen to leave behind a bone crown and staff, and then once again set foot on the land of Tongtian, entering the cycle of reincarnation once more.

With over two hundred Celestial Kings and ultimate artifacts, they are more than capable of handling various situations. Even if a large number of Celestial Kings emerge from the River of Souls, they can still take action to kill them.

As Wang Hongwu had predicted, although the Soul River did not appear, its minions frequently emerged, from the younger generation to the Immortal Kings, all entering the heavens and stirring up storms in the mortal realm.

There, a young man named Ye Fan, with the bearing of a Heavenly Emperor and the might of a Human Sovereign, confronts the dark creatures and writes his own legend.

Ascending to all realms, treading on perilous lands, a single leaf can blot out the sky!
On the other side, within the Heavenly Land.

Wang Hongwu stood with his hands behind his back in front of the stone wall, gazing at this wonderful place that connects the past and the present. Now, he was able to perceive the special nature of this area.

There, a drop of blood appeared, reflecting the heavens with a grand aura. Below, a line of golden characters flowed, writing of countless reincarnations, carrying a profound Daoist charm.

Just by gazing at these two things, his consciousness saw many images, which seemed to be the future and the past, with time and space reversed.

In the scene, a bronze coffin floats in the sky, drifting in the river of time. Someone sits alone on it, along a river, watching the blood-stained sunset and the blood flowing through the myriad realms. He travels alone, crossing the Thirty-Three Heavens, and ascends to the highest heaven.

Another coffin sailed across the cold, icy cosmic poles beneath the floating rubble, drifted along the dark and turbid River of Souls, and traversed the burial pits burned by the fires of the Great Void and the flames of the Ancient Universe. In the unfathomable depths of the ancient underworld, weak voices emanated, calling out, calling out to their master.

The two coffins, having chosen completely different routes and methods, are connected to each other, one inside and one outside, forming a perfect circle.

'He transforms freely, transcending eternity; I cling to reincarnation, clinging to all worlds.'

Then, two overlapping sounds rang out, forming a dazzling and bizarre vortex that completely enveloped Wang Hongwu and submerged him within it.

An ancient river appeared before him, its waves surging, each wave a piece of ancient history, each drop of water an era, rushing forward without end.

"Different systems, different paths. To me, these are the stars that can be plucked from the river of time, enlightened by the law, and transformed into my own."

Wang Hongwu watched intently, and vaguely, those eras, those heroic spirits worthy of praise and tears, those dark giants, those powerful figures of good and evil, their paths, their battles, their experiences, seemed to be transmitted through this mottled scroll. So many people, heroes from various eras, surpassing all others in his own great world... This interwoven grand trend, like a surging river, like the primordial world exploding, enlightened him.

The sparks ignited by the interaction and collision of different evolved civilizations, if sensed, will release the most brilliant celestial sounds of the Great Dao, offering endless insights and serving as the best form of cultivation.

Gradually, page after page of history was turned, and time flowed by. In the era of imperial decline, familiar figures could be found there.

Boom! The next moment, Wang Hongwu crashed directly into the scene. This era was too terrifying. The wars never stopped, and all races vied for power. It was an unimaginably glorious world.

However, one day, the sky collapsed, all the masters of the heavens fought a decisive battle, all things suffered, and some living beings came from the other side of the sea.

The War of the Kings: A glorious yet tragic epic.

Some say this is the era of imperial decline!

Amidst the dazzling scene, Wang Hongwu opened his eyes, only to see a deafening roar ahead. There were no Nine Heavens and Ten Earths here, only the original Great World that had never been separated. All the myriad worlds were still connected, with passages linking the various realms.

They once belonged to a glorious era of emperors.

But after a cataclysmic upheaval, everything changed.

Ahead lay a dark red graveyard, with large tombs one after another, burying beings of unknown identity, now engulfed in intense chaos.

There was a great war among the kings, not just a few, but tens of thousands!

This number is still increasing.

Some emerged from the ruins of a collapsed ancient road ahead, while others rushed out from the ancient temple that was constantly falling from the sky; all were beings that had fallen into darkness.

At the very center of the battlefield stood a man wielding a sword embryo, slashing and killing the kings with sweeping, powerful strokes. The laws of the heavens and the laws of the myriad worlds appeared around him, surrounding him. With each tremor, a torrent of myriad laws surged forth, suppressing and killing the fallen immortal kings. Three feet above his head, there was also a luminous humanoid figure, chanting incantations, suppressing the primordial spirits of the approaching immortal kings, turning them into seeds that would give rise to new laws of the heavens.

Despite being surrounded, he possessed an invincible aura, and suddenly shouted, "Transformation at Will!"

In the blink of an eye, one figure after another appeared around him, all of them Celestial Kings, including himself and kings from ancient history, all incredibly powerful.

"Shi Hao?" Wang Hongwu's expression shifted. He hadn't expected the two to meet again during the Fall of the Emperors. He immediately stepped forward, and a phantom image of a human body suddenly appeared around him. With a single stomp, he crushed a large number of fallen beings to death. The vast sea of ​​realms swept over the area, submerging it in an instant and sending hundreds of fallen kings flying.

He raised his hand and grabbed, and the sky was filled with golden light, forming a giant hand that tore down the entire Ancient Reception Hall. With a casual strike, swathes of Immortal Kings died instantly.

This is simply not a realm; the difference in physical strength and size is too great, it's a complete crushing defeat. Especially when the radiance of the Origin Mother Gold was released, it was already more terrifying than the two ancient Origin artifacts. Wherever the radiance passed, swathes of fallen creatures wailed and fell.

"Supreme?!" "No, it only touched upon that realm."

The kings were shocked, not expecting such a fierce and powerful figure to suddenly appear, killing immortal kings as easily as pulling weeds; he was far too powerful.

"Heavenly King?" Shi Hao was surprised, then smiled and said, "Although the process was a bit bumpy, I still found you."

Although he quelled the great calamity of the Immortal Realm's fall and replaced it with the Secret Realm system, it was not over yet; an even deeper darkness was about to sweep in.

"Shi Hao, you've unearthed the Cycle of Reincarnation?" Wang Hongwu looked at the collapsed ancient road ruins in surprise. It looked so familiar; wasn't that the Cycle of Reincarnation?
"To be precise, it existed before the Emperor's fall, but the commotion caused by its excavation was too great." Shi Hao waved his hand. The creatures that appeared were not there to kill him, but to prevent him from entering. But now it was clear that they couldn't stop him.

The two charged inward, shaking off the kings and entering a vast area where the cycles of reincarnation were interconnected.

Strictly speaking, it's more like a realm than a road, vast and desolate, boundless and cold, covered by endless darkness, shrouding billions of mountains and frozen soil.

It was as if we had stepped into the Ice Age, where there was no sunlight, no sun or moon, and the whole world was shrouded in a dark sky.

Looking out into the darkness, there are floating continents, or rather, ruins of the past, connected together to form an ancient path that is sometimes broken and sometimes open, leading to the end of the cold world.

"To whom does the cycle of reincarnation, which existed before the fall of the emperor, belong?"

As the two stood side by side, stepping onto this land, that familiar imperial edict resounded once more:
Others are free to transform, while self-attachment leads to endless cycles of reincarnation!

(End of this chapter)