Immortal Martial Emperor

"AWOOOO!"

"ROAR!"

"GROWL!"

The Green-faced Ghost Wolf King, the Golden Scale Green Snake King, and the Iron Armor Demon Rhinoceros King.

These three were absolute monarchs who had dominated the Celestial Essence Secret Realm for hundreds of years. Each one possessed the power to contend with a Primordial Core Realm expert.

Under their lead, several thousand Desolate Beasts of various species charged toward Hong Yu, instantly submerging him in a sea of beasts.

Watching the Desolate Beast Group crush its way forward with an overwhelming presence, Hong Yu remained unusually calm.

He took a deep breath. He pushed his *Wandering Dragon* Body Technique to its absolute limit, incorporating the First Technique of *Tyrant’s Walk*, Thunder Step.

Evidently, with the help of Cyan Eyes and his own powerful comprehension, Hong Yu’s Body Technique was becoming even more perfect!

But no matter how formidable he was, facing the attacks of so many Desolate Beasts at once—especially with the three great Beast Kings among them—he found himself stretched thin and gradually began to lose ground.

’Damn it, is this really a hopeless situation?’

Despair filled Hong Yu’s heart.

「Meanwhile!」

Atop the mountain peak, Zheng Tian wore a placid expression as he watched Hong Yu being gradually swallowed by the Desolate Beast Group. He said coolly, "Hong Yu, oh, Hong Yu. If it weren’t for Qin Mutian, you might have had a chance to escape with your life. But since even he decided to use the Desolate Beasts to do his dirty work, you can only blame your own rotten luck!"

Behind Zheng Tian, the three experts from the Blood Killing Tower had extremely ugly expressions. "Zheng Tian, you promised to help us take Hong Yu’s head. Now there won’t even be a corpse left. How are we supposed to report back?"

"That’s your problem. What does it have to do with me?"

Zheng Tian said indifferently.

"You..."

The three men erupted in fury.

Zheng Tian swept a calm glance over them, his sharp gaze as chilling as that of a venomous snake or a falcon. "Others may fear your Blood Killing Tower, but I, Zheng Tian, have never given you a second thought. If it weren’t for the respect I have for Blood the First, I could have killed the three of you on the spot for what you just said."

"You..."

Blood the Third was about to speak again but was stopped by Blood the Second, who shook his head at him.

「On the other side...」

The experts from the Tiger and Wolf Corps had ashen faces. They glared at Qin Mutian, filled with a rage they dared not voice.

A moment ago, they had been wondering why the Crown Prince had suddenly chosen this direction, leading them to sprint away from the Iron Armor Demon Rhinoceros herd before taking cover.

Only now did they all understand. Qin Mutian had actually been luring the Iron Armor Demon Rhinoceros herd toward Hong Yu, diverting the disaster onto someone else.

Watching Hong Yu being consumed by the herd, the men couldn’t help but clench their fists in secret.

If Hong Yu hadn’t intervened, they would have surely died during their first encounter with Zheng Tian. If Hong Yu hadn’t helped, how would they have gotten the chance to fight for the Demon Bone Spirit Plates instead of being killed directly by that Martial Arts True Soul?

But not only had Qin Mutian kicked Hong Yu out of the group, he had also targeted and framed him again and again. This left the experts from the Tiger and Wolf Corps deeply dissatisfied.

Qin Mutian, however, was completely oblivious, a sinister sneer plastered on his face. "Heh heh, wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Hong Yu, oh, Hong Yu, aren’t you so strong? Go on, act tough now! HAHAHA! To die at the hands of a Desolate Beast Group, to have your corpse torn apart by them, and finally to be shat out as a pile of crap—that’s the best end you could hope for! HAHAHA..."

...

The beasts’ rampage lasted for a full half-hour.

Finally, under the command of the three great Beast Kings, they gradually retreated.

Now, the ground was a scene of utter devastation.

Amidst the Desolate Beast corpses and trampled earth, there was no sign of Hong Yu.

Qin Mutian led his group over to investigate. After confirming that Hong Yu was gone, he burst into laughter and ordered his men to chop down trees to build boats for crossing the river.

Although they found Qin Mutian’s act of framing Hong Yu utterly despicable, and were even enraged by it, they were ultimately experts of the Qin Royal Family and could only obey his orders.

Zheng Tian did not come over. From a distance, in another direction, he had his men build boats, racing against time to cross the river and head for the Championship Platform.

Gazing at the vast river, Zheng Tian frowned and muttered to himself, "The trials in the Celestial Essence Secret Realm are different every time, but the Championship Platform is the one constant, located in the deepest part of the Secret Realm. We’ve obtained three Demon Bone Spirit Plates on our side. I wonder how many Qin Mutian and his group have."

After a moment of contemplation, Zheng Tian shook his head with a faint smile. ’I’m overthinking things. That good-for-nothing Qin Mutian isn’t even worth mentioning. Once I find the Championship Platform, I’ll have my men stand guard and just take his Demon Bone Spirit Plates directly.’

With that said, Zheng Tian continued to supervise the boat construction.

However, neither the cold and vicious Zheng Tian nor the insidious and jealous Qin Mutian knew that this great river, which stretched for several thousand meters, held a secret of its own.

The great river was twenty to thirty meters deep.

And at its bottom was another world entirely!

Once one descended more than ten meters, the turbid, yellow, and violently churning river water vanished without a trace.

Down here, at the riverbed, the water was incredibly clear, the current calm and gentle.

Scattered every few dozen meters across the riverbed were glowing pearl clams. They continuously opened and closed their shells, each one revealing a pearl the size of a human head. The pearls emanated a soft light, looking like clusters of full moons at the bottom of the river.

They brought clarity and light to the dark riverbed.

"What is this place?"

Within the clear water, Hong Yu stood quietly on the riverbed, walking slowly as his eyes, full of amazement, scanned his surroundings.

He had not died from being trampled by the beast horde.

When facing the beasts’ siege, at the moment of crisis, Hong Yu had resolutely thrown himself into the raging river.

Worried that the Desolate Beasts would notice and pursue him, Hong Yu had deliberately maneuvered within the horde for a long time before finding a subtle opportunity to leap into the water.

He had intended it as a desperate gamble!

He never expected that entering the river would lead to such a harmonious scene!

Even now, Hong Yu found it hard to believe.

’With my strength, I can probably hold my breath for an hour or two, but doing so will accelerate the drain on my stamina and Elemental Power. I’ve already consumed a great deal of energy in the previous battle, so this is definitely not the best solution. I must press deeper and find a suitable place to rest and recuperate,’ Hong Yu thought to himself.

Even at the bottom of the clear river, his eyes still held a frigid glint. ’Zheng Tian and Qin Mutian, those two bastards, actually dared to frame me. Just you wait. The day I return will be the day I settle all scores and take my revenge.’

He walked forward slowly.

There is a saying that one loses track of time in the mountains; the same was true underwater.

Hong Yu only knew that he was about to run out of air. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he immediately tried to swim toward the surface.

However, he had barely risen two meters from the riverbed when a powerful suction force pulled him back down, returning him to the bottom.

Hong Yu’s face gradually turned red. "Wh-what’s happening? I can’t leave the riverbed?"

The lack of oxygen made Hong Yu feel dizzy and pained.

His lungs felt as if they were being scorched by flames, on the verge of exploding.

His legs gave way and he knelt on the ground, his hands weakly clawing at the sediment on the riverbed.

As his palms scraped away a thick layer of sediment, the scene before him was so shocking that he momentarily forgot he was suffocating.

"What is this?"

Hong Yu discovered a hard, golden object on the ground.

It had been hidden by the sediment, but once that layer was removed and its true form was revealed, he could clearly see that it was a strange, golden metal.

"BANG! BANG!"

As he tapped it, Hong Yu discovered that he could hear a heavy sound, even underwater.

He couldn’t help but lean closer.

What he found shocked him once again.

His body, which had been in extreme discomfort from suffocation just moments before, calmed down as if it had received air the moment he came into contact with the golden light.

’What a miraculous metal sheet! If I can dig it out, wouldn’t I be able to walk freely underwater?’

At this thought, Hong Yu’s expression grew excited.

If he could walk underwater, he could naturally avoid the sight of the Desolate Beasts and cross to the other side from the riverbed!

’I wonder how big this metal plate is. I’ll clear away the surrounding sediment first and see!’

Hong Yu took a deep breath.

He began to clear away the surrounding sediment with his hands. In his mind, the metal plate would be the size of an infant at most.

However, when he had cleared a ten-square-meter area of sediment and saw that the exposed golden metal plate was part of a continuous sheet that didn’t seem to have an edge, Hong Yu was shocked once more.

"H-how big is this damn thing?"

Driven by curiosity, Hong Yu continued to dig.

Ten meters!

Fifty meters!

One hundred meters!

Three hundred meters!

Before he knew it, Hong Yu had excavated an area over a thousand meters long and wide on the riverbed. A month had already passed since he first entered the water.

The excavated sediment had formed three sizable dunes in the river.

He stood on the shimmering golden riverbed, somewhat dazed. ’It’s about a thousand meters long and a thousand meters wide, which comes out to a million square meters. A metal plate of a full one million square meters, and I still haven’t reached the end. Don’t tell me the entire bed of this great river is made of this single metal plate?’

Hong Yu swallowed hard.

Even though he could live freely underwater thanks to the mysterious metal plate—no need to worry about breathing or the current—he couldn’t help but break out in a cold sweat at this moment.

He didn’t know how long the river was, but he knew one thing for certain: its width alone was no less than five or six thousand meters.

Five or six thousand meters wide, and an unknown length.

Just how colossal was this golden metal plate?

He knew that in the Celestial Dynasty of his previous life, the Forbidden City, hailed as the world’s largest Imperial Palace, was only 720,000 square meters.

’In other words, this one metal plate is as large as dozens of Forbidden Cities?’

Amid his shock, Hong Yu suddenly noticed that a section of the metal plate beneath his feet was different from the rest.

He frowned slightly. "What’s this?"

He discovered a set of runes on the metal plate. The runes were extremely strange and difficult to comprehend, looking like a cluster of crooked little worms.

’It seems they can be combined?’

Hong Yu muttered in confusion.

He quietly reached out his hand and began to arrange and combine the crooked, worm-like shapes.

The moment his fingers touched these worm-like runes, Hong Yu felt a sudden roar in his head. The Star River in his eyes began to revolve rapidly, and his Star River Celestial Spirit Bone emitted waves of a clear, cool current.

Hong Yu’s hands moved faster and faster.

Amidst the unpredictable movements, the runes also began to change.

Finally, after a few breaths’ time, the runes finished reassembling. A dazzling light surged from them, swimming through the water like tiny fish made of runes.

Hong Yu could even feel the cheerful emotions they transmitted.

"SWISH! SWISH!"

The runes suddenly flashed with golden light and began to revolve around Hong Yu.

A moment later, the light abruptly converged, transforming into rays of brilliance that condensed in the palm of his right hand.

A strange, serpentine rune suddenly appeared in his palm. At the same time, a single word surfaced in Hong Yu’s mind...

Rashomon!