Immortal Martial Emperor

"What’s going on?"

Hong Yu’s expression changed.

He had often wondered what lay beyond the exit of the Path of Heart Refinement!

But he had never imagined that the moment he stepped out, he would be met with an ambush coming right for his head.

"Get lost!"

He activated the Eight Desolates Saint Slaying Technique, and a faint golden light enveloped his body.

BANG!

The massive arc of axe light slammed into him, knocking him back three steps before he barely managed to regain his balance.

The moment he found his footing, Hong Yu didn’t hesitate. He stomped hard on the ground, using the rebound to launch himself high into the air.

This leap took him a full sixty to seventy meters off the ground.

As he began his rapid descent, Hong Yu gathered immense power into his fists. The wind howled in his ears as he plummeted from the sky.

The moment Hong Yu landed, he unleashed a punch toward the source of the axe light.

RUMBLE!

The ground shattered on impact.

With a pained shriek, the sharp arc of axe light shattered. A cloud of dust billowed out, blotting out the sky.

Hong Yu frowned slightly. ’I didn’t even use my full strength, but it’s already dead?’

As he hesitated, the dust began to settle.

A stark crater, three to four meters deep, was blasted into the ground before him—the result of his punch.

Hong Yu’s gaze focused on the center of the crater.

A figure about a meter tall lay motionless in the crater.

"What is this?"

Hong Yu was slightly stunned.

He had assumed his ambusher was a powerful expert, or perhaps another puppet from the Land of Trial like the Gatekeeper Puppets. He never expected it to be this strange, humanoid creature.

The creature stood about 1.3 or 1.4 meters tall, with long arms, short legs, and a body covered in brown fur.

Its half-meter-long brown tail lay limply on the ground behind it.

It was motionless, clearly killed by Hong Yu’s last punch.

’A monkey?’

Puzzled, Hong Yu sent out a gust of Palm Wind to flip the strange creature in the crater onto its back.

It really was a monkey!

But it wasn’t an ordinary monkey. Its face was identical to a human’s, except that its eyes were unusually large.

WHOOSH!

Another figure rushed out from the Path of Heart Refinement.

It was Yao Yueye.

The moment Yao Yueye appeared, his eyes locked onto Hong Yu.

As Yao Yueye looked at Hong Yu, the scorn and disdain in his eyes had vanished. He said calmly, "You’re quite skilled, managing to complete the Path of Heart Refinement’s trial before me!"

"Uh..."

Hong Yu was taken aback and said with a wry smile, "Just luck!"

Yao Yueye shook his head. "Luck or not, your strength has earned my recognition. However, this will be the last time you take first place. In the trials to come, the top spot will be mine!"

Hong Yu gave a noncommittal shrug.

Yao Yueye paid it no mind.

His gaze then fell upon the strange human-faced monkey in the crater, and he frowned. "What is this?"

"I don’t know either."

Hong Yu spread his hands. "It ambushed me the moment I appeared, but it doesn’t seem very strong. Probably around the Late-stage Celestial Soul Realm."

"I see."

Yao Yueye nodded and looked around. They were on the edge of a vast forest.

His eyes held a hint of confusion. "Where exactly are we? And there aren’t any instructions?"

Hong Yu smiled. "Probably because the people behind us haven’t finished the trial of the Path of Heart Refinement, so the second stage hasn’t started yet!"

Yao Yueye frowned. "If that’s the case, then why is this thing here?" He pointed to the strange human-faced monkey lying in the crater.

Hong Yu was speechless.

He was just as puzzled.

Just then...

A figure approached them from behind. It was a man neither of them recognized. He walked slowly, speaking as he drew near. "You must be the first to pass through the Path of Heart Refinement. Congratulations! To have cleared it so quickly, your strength is nothing to scoff at."

Hong Yu and Yao Yueye were both stunned, wondering in alarm, ’When did this guy get here?’

After all, both Yao Yueye’s and Hong Yu’s Perception was incredibly sharp.

They would have long since sensed any ordinary expert who got this close, even one two minor realms above their own.

The man seemed to guess their thoughts, for he smiled and said, "Don’t be nervous. I’m the Gatekeeper for the second stage." He pointed to the vast forest behind them. "This is the Illusionary Forest, the second trial you are about to enter!"

"The Illusionary Forest?"

"Gatekeeper?"

Hong Yu and Yao Yueye began gathering their power, preparing to strike.

The man quickly waved his hands. "Don’t attack me! I’m not a Gatekeeper Puppet from the Path of Heart Refinement. I’m not going to fight you!"

"This second stage, the Illusionary Forest, is a test of your Spiritual Power, willpower, and Martial Arts Heart."

The stranger continued to explain, "The Illusionary Forest contains many things that are masters of Illusion Transformation—some are Desolate Beasts, others are plants. Even the natural environment in some areas possesses the ability to create illusions. They will change their appearance to deceive you, then use traps, ambushes, or treacherous terrain to kill you!"

"What you need to do now is to set out from here and cross the Illusionary Forest!"

He pointed eastward.

Compared to the other directions, the path to the east looked wide and clear.

He said with a wide smile, "You should hurry along! This is a relatively safe path. With your strength, you two should be able to cross it easily. Consider it a reward for taking first and second place on the Path of Heart Refinement."

"So that’s how it is!"

Hong Yu nodded.

Yao Yueye also replied, "In that case, thank you!"

With that, the two of them turned and headed east together.

Seeing this, the corners of the man’s mouth behind them curled up, revealing a hint of excitement and the pleasure of a successful scheme.

However...

Just as it seemed they had turned their backs, Hong Yu and Yao Yueye suddenly spun around in unison.

The two of them attacked at the same time.

Hong Yu threw a punch while Yao Yueye lunged with his sword, both attacking at once.

BOOM! BOOM!

The two attacks landed almost simultaneously on the self-proclaimed Gatekeeper of the second stage.

A look of confusion and indignation crossed his face. "Wh-why?"

Hong Yu and Yao Yueye replied coldly in unison, "Your tail is showing!"

"Huh?"

He whipped his head down and saw a furry tail sticking out from behind his pants. With a look of bitter resentment, the man shattered with a POP.

However, it wasn’t his body that shattered, but the entire illusion before their eyes.

The scene before them changed once again.

The Illusionary Forest was still there. However, the eastern path the man had called "safest" had changed completely.

To the east was no longer a wide, smooth road, but a massive cliff.

Below the cliff, a disastrous profusion of multicolored flowers, obviously venomous at a glance, covered the ground.

"Are those Seven-Colored Enchanting Flowers? I’ve heard that if you step among them, even a Primordial Embryo Realm Powerhouse will become lost in endless illusions..."

"Damn. Good thing we saw through its plot in time, or we would’ve been screwed."

As they talked, they looked over at the creature’s corpse.

Without the illusion to deceive them, they finally saw the creature’s true form. It was another Human-faced Ghost Ape!

"What the hell is this place?" Yao Yueye frowned.

Hong Yu shrugged, saying nonchalantly, "Who cares what place it is? We’re still in the Land of Trial. The situation is unclear right now, so it’s best not to act rashly. Otherwise, if we run into some other dangerous situation, it’ll be too late for regrets!"

With that, the two of them sat down cross-legged on the ground and began to quietly regulate their condition.

They sat like this for a whole day and night.

Early the next morning, other experts finally began to emerge from the Path of Heart Refinement.

Surprisingly, the first ones out weren’t the other three of the Four True Dragons. Instead, it was a burly young man in animal hides. He looked rather battered, with a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.

He wiped the blood from his lips, pulled some herbs from his robes, and began to chew them carefully.

Hong Yu glanced over; they were all healing herbs.

Although they had healing properties, without being refined through Alchemy, swallowing them raw would not have a very good healing effect.

Hong Yu frowned, took out a jade bottle containing a Third-grade Healing Spirit Pill, and tossed it to the burly youth.

The latter caught it with a wave of his hand, his eyes flickering with vigilance.

Hong Yu smiled. "Relax, it’s a Healing Elixir. It’ll work better than those herbs."

"Hm?"

The burly youth still looked at Hong Yu warily.

Yao Yueye said flatly, "He’s not lying. It really is a healing Pill."

The burly youth’s eyes, like those of a Desolate Beast, sized up Hong Yu and Yao Yueye. He nodded, tipped out a pill, and swallowed it. "Thanks!"

He then tried to return the rest of the Pills to Hong Yu.

Hong Yu smiled and refused, "I have plenty more. You keep them. You might need them later."

"Right."

The burly youth nodded, not being polite about it any longer.

The fourth to emerge was the delicate Shui Rou’Er. Aside from a slight blush on her pretty face and a violently fluctuating aura, she showed no other reaction.

The fifth was Ding Zhentian of the Celestial Star Kingdom.

As soon as he appeared, he brought a bone-chilling, gloomy wind with him. He stared fixedly at Hong Yu and Yao Yueye, let out a cold snort full of hostility, and walked straight to a corner to sit down cross-legged.

Prince Zhui Ri was sixth, and his expression was extremely foul.

Evidently, being surpassed again and again had made this proud and arrogant Second True Dragon extremely resentful.

Ziyan Wuhen followed as the seventh, Hong Renjie the eighth, and Feng Xue Xin the ninth.

’But,’ Hong Yu thought, ’knowing Feng Xue Xin, he wasn’t going all out. In fact, his ninth-place finish was probably orchestrated by Hong Renjie.’

’If Feng Xue Xin really unleashed his power,’ Hong Yu mused, ’I’m sure that glutton could have placed in the top three!’

As for the Fourth True Dragon, Ling Bingxin, she didn’t appear until tenth place because her specialty wasn’t a True Martial Arts Intent related to Vibrating Power.

After the first ten, they waited quite a while longer before other experts began to trickle in.

Another two days later, when the one-thousandth person emerged from the Path of Heart Refinement, the exit to the Path of Heart Refinement closed on schedule.

The middle-aged man in Black Armor and the woman in white armor, who had not been seen for some time, slowly materialized before everyone. They scanned the thousand people before them and announced quietly...

"Congratulations on passing the first stage, the Path of Heart Refinement. Next, you will face the second stage—the Illusionary Forest!"