Chapter 227: The Undying Nether Emperor (Part 8)
Su Chen had not expected to meet an old acquaintance again right after leaving seclusion.
Chen Tianyi had changed greatly. He had broken through to the Spirit Sea realm. With a lifespan of three hundred years at this level, he was now over a hundred years old. Though he still appeared as a middle-aged man, his temples had turned white. Dressed in luxurious robes, he carried the noble air of someone accustomed to high status.
Chen Tianyi also noticed Su Chen. After so many years, he recognized the massive black divine bird at once. It was the same crow he had encountered in his youth. And now, it had slain a Demon King.
Upon reuniting with this old acquaintance, Chen Tianyi cautiously shielded his wife and daughter behind him and stood in confrontation with the divine bird.
In Chen Tianyi's eyes, Su Chen saw wariness and… fear.
Fear was the instinct of all living creatures. Courage was humanity's hymn of praise.
Su Chen spread his wings. The resulting gusts of wind were like countless blades scattering in all directions.
Chen Tianyi struggled to resist the violent storm. By the time he regained his senses, the divine bird had already vanished without a trace. In his ignorant youth, he had not understood.
Only now did Chen Tianyi realize just how sacred the crow he had met back then truly was. Even so, what he knew was only a tiny corner of the whole picture.
After devouring the Black Snake King and feasting on the other powerful demons in the Sunset Cloud Mountain Range, Su Chen felt satisfied.
"Some demon mentioned that the Earth Scale Emperor won't let me off."
Su Chen pondered for a moment. He had thought it was some ancient emperor. It turned out to be nothing more than a Void Refining realm creature.
Small fry.
He was only at the Spirit Soul realm for now. For humans, thirty years east of the river, thirty years west. For demons, with their longer lifespans, it was three hundred years east, three hundred years west.
Perfectly fair.
Su Chen flew out of the Sunset Cloud Sect's territory and headed beyond the Great Wu Dynasty. There lay a demon beast kingdom.
News soon spread through the demon beast kingdom: a black divine bird had slain a Demon King, seized its territory, and established itself as a new overlord.
A hundred years passed in the blink of an eye. It had been a century since Su Chen left the Great Wu Dynasty and claimed his own mountain as king. Along the way, he had slain Demon Kings, seized spiritual treasures, and taken territories, forging his own domain. His fierce reputation spread far and wide. Both surrounding human dynasties and demon clans feared him.
"Was it really necessary to chase me so relentlessly just because I took that mudfish's fruit from the East Sea?"
Su Chen felt rather speechless.
In the East Sea, a Void Refining peak flood dragon glared covetously at his territory, looking as if it wanted to devour him alive. However, that East Sea Demon Emperor did not dare leave its oceanic domain. If it did, it would get beaten.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Su Chen's gaze also occasionally drifted toward the flood dragon emperor that carried a trace of ancient dragon bloodline. He did not step into the East Sea either. If he did, he would get beaten, too.
Although that flood dragon was not a true ancient dragon, it controlled a portion of the heavens and earth. Within the East Sea, its strength was immense, comparable to an ordinary Nirvana realm expert.
Su Chen was not a true phoenix yet. He had not even gained a single feather of one.
"I'll eat you sooner or later, you mudfish."
Su Chen decided to spare the little East Sea mudfish for now. In his talons, he held a section of a branch bearing a colorful fruit that resembled a drop of blood.
This was a Divine Spirit Fruit. Such fruits only had a chance to form after the fall of at least a quasi-Saint level being. It contained a trace of Saint Dao power and was also known as a Saint Spirit Fruit.
None of that mattered. What mattered was that it was an eighth-grade spiritual fruit.
Su Chen had only been acting on a whim, flying around, when he caught the scent of an eighth-grade spiritual herb emerging. He and the flood dragon emperor had been neighbors for nearly a hundred years, minding their own business.
But the old flood dragon had secretly hidden an eighth-grade Divine Spirit Fruit. Since they were practically old brothers, Su Chen felt it was immoral for the old flood dragon to try crossing tribulation alone. So he had slipped into the East Sea.
Good brothers should share blessings together.
Su Chen had snatched the Divine Spirit Fruit right under the old flood dragon emperor's nose. With this fruit, the remaining energy needed for his third nirvana was secured.
Some might call him cruel and immoral for bullying even his pitiful old neighbor and destroying its last hope of breaking through.
Su Chen believed that if the old flood dragon emperor succeeded in its breakthrough, the first thing it would do was eat him. This was the world of demons. He had always found it strange that the old flood dragon had never attacked him. It turned out the creature had been biding its time, planning to turn him into its first meal after breaking through.
Su Chen returned to his territory and made all the necessary arrangements. Over the past century, he had nurtured four loyal and powerful demon kings who managed his domain on his behalf.
With everything settled, Su Chen entered seclusion once more. It was time for his third nirvana. Each nirvana granted by the Nirvana Scripture brought him a great fortune.
Su Chen had a strong premonition: once he succeeded in his third nirvana, he would undergo a qualitative transformation.
He began the process.
...
This nirvana lasted five hundred years. To be precise, five hundred years minus a few days.
Su Chen awakened. He had succeeded. A thick stench of blood filled the air.
"Something's wrong."
Su Chen rushed out of his seclusion grounds and saw a field of corpses. Several powerful human auras were wantonly slaughtering everything in sight. Among them was a young figure directing the massacre.
Only when Su Chen appeared in the sky did the killing stop. Every demon beast in his territory had already been slaughtered. Even the four demon kings he had raised were dead.
The young man, upon seeing the divine bird wreathed in black flames descend like a black sun, showed no fear. Instead, his face lit up with excitement.
"It's him! It must be the divine bird that Ancestor encountered in his youth!"
The young man was named Chen Bufan, the fourth-generation grandson of Chen Tianyi.
Chen Bufan was indeed extraordinary. At a young age, he had defeated all rivals in the Great Wu Dynasty. A senior elder from the Abyssal Sea Sacred Land had taken a liking to him and brought him back to cultivate. In a short time, relying on the ancestral Crow Visualization Technique and his own talent, he became a true disciple of the Sacred Land with limitless prospects.
It was precisely because of this that he understood how terrifying the crow in his mind truly was. According to his ancestor's description, the visualization he had drawn was less than one-thousandth of the crow's true wonder. Even so, that fragment had allowed his ancestor Chen Tianyi to elevate the once-insignificant Green Mist Sect into the greatest power in the Great Wu Dynasty.
If a mere one-thousandth fragment was already at least a Nirvana realm visualization technique—or possibly even stronger—and unmatched in profundity by most techniques in the Abyssal Sea Sacred Land, then what kind of existence would the complete visualization method belong to?
Chen Bufan had used the Sacred Land's intelligence network to search for the mysterious crow for several years. His persistence had finally paid off. He had found it.