In a small tribe, several years later.
A young man knelt in agony inside his dwelling, his skin cracked all over as if scorched and fissured by fire.
–Great… Undying King…–
He pressed his hands against the ground, as though a flame had burst within his heart—a jarring tremor wracking him instinctually—before a soothing coolness emerged from the core of that flame, swiftly spreading throughout his body.
……
A decade or so later, in a village on another part of the continent that was being plundered, a woman with a fair complexion and a silver-white longsword at her back walked in from the village entrance.
–What crime have they committed?–
On the village path, villagers who had been beaten and tied up lay crying together. Their houses were being ravaged and set ablaze.
–These people didn’t pay tribute to the Immortal King.–
A man holding a knife, guarding the captives, looked blankly at her. The woman possessed a beauty like moonlit radiance, and he couldn’t help but answer her question.
–Ah, what a beautiful hairless woman! Tie her up and offer her to the King’s followers.–
The crowd, clad in animal skins, surged forward.
The woman drew the sword from behind her back, its blade quickly frosting over.
Thump, thump, thump!
In a single exchange, everyone fell groaning to the ground.
The one who had given the order, his face twisted with terror, tried to control his own hands and feet, but failed—his meridians had been severed by the swords.
The captain of the fallen men, seeing the longsword hanging over his throat, burst into tears and begged desperately for mercy.
–I never heard the king or the attendants mention these charges.–
–Of course you wouldn’t have. Only the followers…–
The woman withdrew her sword and turned to walk away.
–Release them. If I return next time and find this village gone—you, and your so-called followers, will all die.–
Her faint voice drifted like wind and snow through the village, thickening with mist.
……
Yang Zicang descended to the depths of the trench.
His skin was crushed and distorted by the seawater’s pressure, but his body managed to hold together, maintaining its human form. With each advancement in his cultivation, he had grown strong enough to withstand the crushing pressure of hundreds of meters of seawater.
Though this was merely a benefit of his psionic body, he still remembered his first plunge into the sea—just over a hundred meters down, and he had begun to deform severely.
Ahead glowed a red light—the molten lava seeping out ceaselessly. Within it, there was a peculiar stone, faintly emanating a soft sheen.
Inside the stone was the image of a fire centipede spiraling continuously. For decades, this stone had been steadily absorbing the intangible energy that surged from the magma.
Several nightmare demon’s remains, which had been transformed into spirit weapons, were infused with Chronos by Yang Zicang and tossed over.
Though the fire centipede had long been dead, the nightmare demon’s soul essence contained within the stone instinctively devoured these items, much like it preyed on living beings for energy—only the process took far longer.
Yang Zicang could sense that, as his Chronos was constantly devoured by it, he was occasionally able to perceive this thing’s presence, however faintly.
……
On a dark night, atop a lofty mountain peak, a majestic young man draped in a cloak made from black bear hide arrived behind Yang Zicang, and together they looked toward the comet that had appeared in the sky.
–Esteemed Attendant, the lord appointed by His Highness the Chief has offered him another new wife. The tribute bearer is the chief of the Northern White Wild Tribe; the woman’s village no longer exists.–
The night wind swayed, and a chilling air coiled through the forest. Yang Zicang, dressed in thin clothes, seemed oblivious to the biting cold.
–The next book is at this location. Go find its owner, and then wait there for the arrival of the Undying King.–
Yang Zicang handed him an animal hide and a gold coin, serving as both a token and a reward.
–Understood.– Wu Zheng took the coin and the hide marked with a route map, then stood silently behind this man.
His reports were never directly answered by this man, but the man never stopped him from speaking either.
–Is your sister’s illness better?–
Hearing the man address him, the cold-faced young man revealed a faint, heartfelt smile, hummed an acknowledgment, and nodded.
–That’s good.–
–I want to give her a gold coin.–
–Of course, you may.– Yang Zicang’s figure vanished from where he stood.
The youth was already used to this. He looked up at the sky and stars, clenching his right fist.
The Chief Follower had lost the original purpose of following. He and his fellow brothers and sisters, who trained together, decided no longer to fall behind such a person.
He took a deep breath, stepped forward, and looked down at the thousand-meter cliff below.
–This time, the challenge is: reach the ground within three minutes, or slay a thousand Swordtooth Striders.–
With a leap, he launched himself off the cliff. Mere meters down, he firmly landed on a protruding rock, then shot sideways like an arrow.
……
The Chief of the Sanctum, leading the mighty army, began their march.
Their ancient scriptures had already recorded countless experiences of dealing with this, and sixty-one years ago, they themselves had successfully applied it.
But each time, greater challenges would arise, as these decades would give birth to many, many new things.
Houses, tools, clothing, and even discarded trash thrown away to unknown places—all of these could breed demons, unless the city completely halted development and people lived forever in those ancient, hard, dark-red houses.
Within this town, where the chieftain led the personal expedition, shadows began to emerge, and the surrounding warriors looked up with blazing eyes.
–Children, be prepared.–
–Children, be prepared,– announced Zarguda, his hair beginning to gray, flanked by several offspring who looked to be in their forties or fifties.
–Will the Undead King come this time?–
That was what everyone wanted to know.
The new warriors within the sanctuary could only see that person’s likeness on sacred icons and in ancient texts.
Were it not for the living Holy Bestowed one mounted on the steed beside them, they might have doubted whether such a person truly existed.
Many years ago, some spread rumors that the Undead King was the codename for a group of people.
Others claimed it was an ancient family with a mysterious bloodline, practicing internal marriage, so each generation looked alike yet was fundamentally different.
There were also rumors that the Undying King had forsaken the temple, but soon the fabricators of these voices would be flayed, their tendons pulled, and hung over a wooden rack to roast.
Yet the more this happened, the more such rumors proliferated, especially during droughts or floods, when the whispers swelled to a peak. Templars yearned for the arrival of this year, longing to know if the King still dwelled within or had already departed.
Rumble!
A new house shattered, not bursting outward but collapsing inward, coalescing into a dark crimson shadow.
The horse reared, lifting its forelegs high in fright.
Boom! Boom! The gale howled, and more eldritch nightmares were born.
–Charge!–
Countless people raised their holy relics, bellowing wildly, charging fearlessly toward these demonic fiends—even at the cost of their lives.
The battle raged through the sparse town for entire days and nights.
Zaguda dreamed of reaping the Undying King’s reward once again in this conflict, and so he fought with extraordinary zeal. Having lived two lives, even old and graying, his sinews and bones remained sturdy—he could single-handedly battle dozens without flinching.
Over the past months, he had galloped across countless regions like the legendary Undying King, striving to emulate his sovereign in traversing the continent, saving every place, amassing more glory, chasing the dream of a third youth.
Yet as the army advanced, more and more news reached his ears—there was another force doing exactly what the Temple was doing!
Moreover, those people were highly skilled in martial arts and unstoppable.
The more he heard, the more alarmed he became.
Finally, before winter arrived, the Temple’s army reached another great city on the eastern side of the continent.
Outside the city lay countless items spread out like a sea.
There were jars and dyeing vats, looms for weaving, wooden frames, tables, chairs, benches, and thousands upon thousands of arrow shafts—ghastly demons shuttling blackly through the turbulent air.
Both sides in the battle pushed their lines forward with their very lives.
In the sky, tens of thousands of demons, dangling like garments yet moving freely and uttering eerie wails, erupted with each burst of gray mist; people screamed as they twisted apart like gnarled vines of flesh and blood.
Amidst the vast army, the old man on his white horse cleaved through a charging demon born from wood, then suddenly he sensed something, turning his gaze into the distance.
On the other side of the battlefield, a group was rapidly carving through the demon’s territory.
Countless heroes of the Temple also noticed.
They watched in awe as that handful of people—barely a dozen—slaughtered whole swaths of densely swarming shadows that poured like rain from the sky.
Faced with that golden surge, countless demons resembling locusts fell from the sky, turning into sealed holy relics below.
Within this group, there were actually rebels who had defied the Sanctum over the years!
Take that burly man with speckled white beard, for instance—five years ago, he slew a fully accredited lord.
And another fellow, wielding a wooden staff, single-handedly massacred a patrol of over thirty men, looting the year’s grain and slaves!
Now, across the battlefield, the gray-haired, burly rebel danced his longsword, like a god of the blade among myriad demons.
As the golden wave subsided, the chief follower on the white horse spotted the youthful silhouette appearing far ahead.
A thunderous buzz echoed as Zaguda felt the sky collapse before him.
In the distance, the young man calmly lifted his head, locking eyes with him across a thousand-meter span.
It was as if a thunderclap had burst forth.
Zaguda stared in shock at that man—that supreme being.
One who had tread the earth time and again since antiquity… now leading a new company!
Vigorous, fearless warriors surrounded their king.
Zaguda seemed to peer through millennia of mist, glimpsing the legendary –Cleansing Squads,– who had crossed continents again and again since the savage age long told.
Clang!
The shadow of an arrow, transformed into a demon, shot from behind his head. The old man’s precious sword fell from his horse, and he felt his eyes blur instantly, as if something was bursting inside his skull.
–Chief!–
The people around panicked and rushed over, forming a circle around him.
But their chief could no longer hear them.
Zaguda fell from his horse, his Adam’s apple twitching slightly, as the back of his head stained the damp grass with blood. A white, circular halo emerged and drifted before his chest, containing blurred, illegible numbers.
[22N]
On the other side of the grassland, a cold girl, as if frozen in youth, turned to look at Yang Zicang beside her, then revealed a smile:
–Brother, it seems there’s trouble over there.–
–Let’s focus on ourselves.–
Yang Zicang swung the fist of the raging wind, gleaming with golden radiance, blasting a passage nearly ten meters long through the swarming demons before him.
Beside him, the aura of bitter cold and the Blaze Blade erupted simultaneously, along with the trembling earth and the ethereal incantation.
The silhouette of the comet once again vanished alone into the other end of the sky.
On the lands it passed, the horn of resistance had already been sounded, and battle raged across the continent…
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