Chapter 645: I Command You, Look at Me!

The body is in the midst of collapsing, and then begins to regenerate again.

Cracks appear on Chen Yan's body, only to vanish rapidly.

Surges of violent aura dissipate from Chen Yan's body.

At this moment, Chen Yan's state is extremely subtle.

Every second, his physical body is on the verge of exploding several times, and is repaired several times.

It is just like a powder keg, having its fuse constantly lit, and then constantly having the fuse extinguished.

This is a tug-of-war.

The longer the time, the more intense the tug-of-war becomes.

Until one hour later, the number of times Chen Yan has to experience bodily explosion and restoration per second exceeds ten.

"Within danger, there is always the true truth accompanied."

Chen Yan gasps violently.

He can clearly feel that the True Martial Power born within his body is becoming more and more abundant.

He is walking toward success step by step, and is also facing the most terrifying danger step by step.

A sense of resolution emerges in Chen Yan's heart.

He wants to master the purest power of his own.

He wants to obtain the strength that truly belongs to himself.

He is accustomed to pain, accustomed to breaking limits.

But he is not accustomed to accepting things he is unwilling to accept.

This is not madness; this is the refusal to be mad.

Remaining in the deepest part of Chen Yan's mad surface is anger, and is calmness.

He must admit that he underestimated Chi Xue and underestimated the Dark-Devouring Mother Tree.

He thought that battle would not be that tragic.

He had made all preparations, but it was still not enough.

He once loathed the secret phrase that Qi Fan gave him.

But on the verge of death, he still went to use it.

He sees the Great Xia Creation Realm cultivators who died for him, still having to be utilized by him after death.

He told Qi Fan and the others that if they wanted to see the dawn, then they should go see it themselves.

However, Qi Fan and the others had already given their all.

And he, however, failed.

The Second-Tier Domain Battle, to others, is a huge success belonging to Chen Yan.

But to Chen Yan.

That is a huge failure, carved into the bottom of his heart!

"The Martial Dao is not meant to be revered; the Martial Dao is meant to be broken."

He speaks in a deep voice.

His consciousness appears in the Saint-Breaking Realm.

That towering tree reaching toward the sky is wrapped in golden light.

One by one, 【Skill】 Saint-Breaking Fruits are being born.

He strokes the Saint-Breaking Tree with one hand.

"In this world, if there is truly one person who can understand me, it is you."

Chen Yan whispers.

Saint-Breaking Tree.

What is Saint-Breaking.

Breaking all holy spirits, breaking all rules, breaking all the fog and obstacles in one's own heart.

Chen Yan strokes the Saint-Breaking Tree; at this moment, person and tree seem to share a spiritual connection.

"Tree, no matter how you grow, you can only be described as 'reaching the sky'; the sky is always above the tree.

This is the Great Dao, this is the truth, it is the reality of the world."

He whispers in his heart:

"But the tree keeps growing, unwilling, mad, growing firmly and unswervingly toward the highest and most distant firmament.

Even if in the end, the reality of the world tells it that everything is a futile struggle.

Yet the tree has never given up."

With a *slap*.

He pats the Saint-Breaking Tree with one hand and laughs:

"Saint-Breaking Tree, you must break the limit for me!"

Immediately, Chen Yan plucks one 【Skill】 Saint-Breaking Fruit and swallows it into his belly.

Then, two.

The third 【Skill】 Saint-Breaking Fruit is still condensing.

This is a race against time.

If he is off by one step, Chen Yan might directly have his body explode.

His technique is growing, and the more it grows, the more proficient Chen Yan becomes in controlling his body.

In Chen Yan's mind, a cyan orb of light floats slowly.

Inside the ball of light, the phantom of Xia Weimin sat cross-legged slowly.

At this moment, even Xia Weimin felt somewhat suspicious and uncertain.

He was the existence most capable of sensing the changes in Chen Yan's body.

At this moment, Chen Yan's changes were simply...

Outrageous.

Xia Weimin felt at any moment that Chen Yan was about to explode, but there was always a force pulling Chen Yan to stabilize.

This was a heart that would never give up.

It was just too risky.

Xia Weimin knew that Chen Yan did not have much time.

But Chen Yan gave himself even less time.

This was truly racing against time.

Never resting, never stopping.

Xia Weimin's expression turned ugly.

He knew that the only one who could help Chen Yan now was that existence.

Yet just a moment ago, that existence had mercilessly denied everything about him.

The thousand years of suffering he had endured were, in the eyes of the other, more like a disgrace.

His thousand-year defense of Ten Thousand Phases Island was not seen as resilience by the other, but as a joke.

It was impossible for Xia Weimin not to be angry.

Xia Weimin also had his pride.

But at this moment, he hardened his heart and cast a glance toward a distant place.

"I implore the ancestor to take action!"

Yet Xia Weimin's request, which nearly shattered his dignity, received no answer at all.

Xia Weimin narrowed his eyes.

That existence was a legend in the history of the Xia Clan, and also the center of everyone's anger.

All members of the Xia Clan harbored hatred for the other, yet were helpless to do anything about it.

The other was the ancestor of the Xia Clan.

Inside the Ancient War Palace.

The white-haired old man narrowed his eyes.

He had judged that Chen Yan would not be able to hold on for two hours.

Yet until now, Chen Yan was actually still holding on.

"The ambition is too great."

He murmured:

"You already possess the path of will, yet you are still not satisfied, actually wanting to involve the origin of the path of horizontal tempering."

He felt incomparably complex.

The path of horizontal tempering was his thing, his creation.

Now, you watch a descendant wanting to change your creation.

And, furthermore, wanting to combine your creation with the creation you despise the most.

What would your mood be?

It is just like, having painstakingly refined a golden character, someone melts the golden character to fuse it with filth.

It is just like, having painstakingly made a bowl of rice, the other person actually pours the rice back into the pot and then adds a handful of dirt.

Is this insulting someone?

This is a naked insult!

Placed upon an ordinary person, anyone would be angry.

Let alone that he is the Master of Horizontal Tempering.

"It is fundamentally impossible to fuse; the path of horizontal tempering is a creation higher than the path of Qi and blood, and the rules within it are perfected, absolutely denying the path of Qi and blood.

To want to fuse the martial path, the rules and truths required might number in the hundreds of millions.

How could a human brain process such a massive amount of information?"

He said faintly.

Moreover, Chen Yan had no one to help him at this moment; he had to, while experiencing danger himself, find those golden grains of sand representing truth, like wading through mud and sand.

This is no different from a dying person looking for a needle in the ocean.

He raised his head, wanting to watch when Chen Yan would fail.

He did not like to persuade others.

Because, persuading others only makes oneself lowly, and the person you are persuading might not care about your persuasion at all.

All masters of the martial path have one fixed characteristic.

That is, arrogance.

A great illness in life is merely the word 'pride'.

In this world, everyone is incomparably proud, believing that their own way is the truly correct one.

So-called blindness never exists; everything is one's own absoluteness and lack of self-awareness.

This is the greatest obstacle blocking everyone.

But more people simply do not know, and have not noticed.

Ordinary people are all like this, let alone the Master of Martial Dao.

Therefore, the Master of Hardened Body is willing to watch you fail.

At your most desperate moment, he denies everything about you and tramples upon everything you are.

Then, he tells you that he is the truth.

Just like back then.

With graying hair, he watched his son set off on an expedition from afar.

It was as if he were seeing his own past self.

He heard his son utter the same words he once had: "Suppressing the ages."

He furrowed his brows and sent a voice transmission to his son, telling him not to be in such a hurry to launch the expedition.

Just like the Divine Shamans of the past, he harbored an indescribable fear toward the Ancient Gods.

To this day, he cannot forget the look in the young Master of Blood Qi's eyes when he gazed at him.

Disappointment, confusion, disdain.

"Father, I am the Master of Blood Qi, I am the Master of Martial Dao.

And you, you are merely a failure whose life has been occupied by the Ancient Gods."

His son denied everything about him, then led an army on an expedition.

He heard the people's cheers for the Master of Blood Qi, and even more so, he heard the people's insults toward him.

He was carved onto the pillar of shame.

And his son was the only hope.

People began to wait for the triumphant return of the Master of Blood Qi.

People used him to set off the greatness of the Master of Blood Qi.

He was a clown, he was trash.

He stood deep within the mountains and began to study the path of Blood Qi.

He found an Ancient God Beast and fed his own blood and Qi to it.

And that Ancient God Beast, after devouring the blood and Qi, became incomparably powerful.

At that moment, he was completely stunned.

In the uninhabited deep forest, he roared toward the sky:

"It's you, isn't it? You are rehearsing everything once again!"

He saw through the truth.

Everything was an illusion.

He entered the human world and began to shout.

The so-called path of Blood Qi was a scam, it was fake.

The Ancient Gods cannot be defeated.

But what he received was humiliation and denial.

He glared at the human world and declared that the Master of Blood Qi would inevitably fail.

But.

A scene even more humiliating arrived.

Twenty years later.

The Master of Blood Qi returned, having suffered heavy casualties.

Five million people went on the expedition, and in the end, only five hundred thousand returned.

He had failed.

But the people were ecstatic.

Every returning soldier was roaring.

The Ancient God had appeared and was beaten to the brink of death by them; they had almost defeated the Ancient God.

The human race had failed, yet the human race had also won.

The Ancient Gods were not undefeatable; the human race was just a tiny bit short.

Sure enough.

The malice between heaven and earth had diminished.

The Master of Blood Qi was hailed as a true god.

And he, who had said the path of Blood Qi was a conspiracy, became the true disgrace of the human race.

"Father, I was only a tiny bit away from success.

Yet you, you were blocking the path that belongs to the human race."

These were the words the Master of Blood Qi said to him.

His son looked down at him from on high, the contempt in his eyes clearly visible.

He opened his mouth, wanting to roar, wanting to speak the truth.

Then, he could no longer speak.

Some invisible force had silenced him.

His eyes widened, endless fury occupied him, and along with the fury came terror.

The Ancient Gods had been watching him all along.

He was the only wise man of the human race, but the Ancient Gods had stripped him of his right to speak.

All this time, the Ancient Gods had been watching the human race, and had been watching him.

He discovered an even more desperate truth.

His own son's so-called victory was fake.

But he had no other way.

The human race began preparing for an expedition, exhausting the people and draining wealth, paying everything.

A hundred years later.

The Lord of Blood and Qi was even more powerful, even more majestic.

The third expedition was about to begin.

He came before the Lord of Blood and Qi, unable to speak, constantly stretching his body, wanting to block him.

But he had become a disgrace in the eyes of the entire human race.

The Lord of Blood and Qi looked at him indifferently, no longer possessing any of the affection from before.

That day, he suddenly understood.

In this play belonging to the human race and the Ancient Gods.

He was the true protagonist.

He had always been.

His pride, his arrogance, his despair, his shame had all been seen by Him.

He had always been gazed upon, been watched.

Performing the most ridiculous joke in front of the Ancient Gods.

That day, he understood everything.

From the moment he was born, he was a conspiracy of the Ancient Gods.

He had been controlled his entire life.

What should he do?

Should he give up, or should he struggle, or should he continue to play the part that a protagonist ought to do.

He stood for a long time, watching the third expeditionary army leave, watching the sun rise and set, watching the entire human world.

If the entire human race were shrouded in boundless darkness.

Then within this endless darkness, was there a light belonging to the dawn?

He became cold.

He saw the third expeditionary army return.

It failed, yet it was still a victory.

This time, three million out of five million people returned.

The Lord of Blood and Qi excitedly told everyone.

The Ancient Gods could not hold on much longer.

The Ancient Gods were truly on their last breath; if not for the army being unable to withstand the bitter cold of the glaciers, the Ancient Gods would definitely have perished.

People cheered; this was an unprecedented victory.

Another hundred years passed.

The fourth expedition began.

Before it began, the Lord of Blood and Qi found him.

Only, this time he did not speak, just silently looking at his own son.

"I will accomplish the things you are fundamentally unable to do."

The Lord of Blood and Qi sensed his change and said:

"The Divine Shaman said you are the Mandate of Heaven, but I think the task of the Son of the Mandate is actually to give birth to me."

In human history, the fourth expedition began!

Unprecedented scale, unprecedented formation!

Having experienced two hundred years of an era without a scarcity of malice, the human race had developed into a population of over five hundred million.

And for the fourth expedition, a full forty million humans were mobilized!

Everyone believed that this battle would surely be a victory.

Everyone was already celebrating the triumphant return of the Lord of Blood and Qi in advance.

A new heaven for the human race had arrived.

And he knew one thing.

That was, this play should come to an end.

He descended into the human world once more.

No one could recognize him anymore.

He just walked quietly, passing every household, looking over the mountains and rivers of the human world.

He calmly watched the human world beneath all the joy, he had seen the living people singing the praises of the Lord of Blood and Qi one by one.

He already knew the true meaning of everything.

To defeat the Ancient Gods, one needed to understand the Ancient Gods.

He stood with his hands behind his back above the vault of heaven.

Waiting until.

The true desperate situation belonging to the human world arrived.

That day.

The mountains and rivers changed color, that day endless malice obscured the great sun.

An indescribable, boundless terror descended upon the human realm.

All forty million of the human race were routed.

The Master of Blood and Qi was severely wounded, returning to the human race in a daze, his eyes filled with an indescribable despair.

People asked him in a stupor, begging him.

But the reality had already manifested.

All forty million of the human race died from gibberish, died from madness.

The infinitely glorious Master of Blood and Qi only truly understood at the very last moment.

Everything, absolutely everything, was nothing more than the mockery of the Ancient Gods.

Just as the entire civilization was plunged into grief and despair.

True despair arrived.

Endless Ancient God Beasts pressed in.

Millions, tens of millions!

One rising city after another fell, one living soul after another died in despair.

People discovered that the Ancient Gods had been angered.

The Ancient Gods wanted to wipe out the human realm.

The severely wounded Master of Blood and Qi did not even rest before donning his armor to join the battle.

But he had been corrupted by malice; he was fundamentally unable to stop the fact that the human race was about to perish.

For tens of thousands of years, humanity had given birth to hope, but this hope had vanished once again.

The Ancient Gods had always been a mountain that the human race could never cross.

A mere three months.

Hundreds of millions of living souls died.

The earth cracked, the setting sun was like blood, and mountains of corpses were piled there; the stench of rot could not be masked at all.

Everyone was stunned; they no longer shouted, committing suicide in despair.

Only the Master of Blood and Qi was still fighting back.

Until that night.

When the army of Ancient God Beasts reached the last city of the human race.

When the Master of Blood and Qi was suppressed by three powerful Ancient God Beasts, his body shattered, roaring in unwillingness.

When the city gates were as fragile as cicada wings.

A beggar with a head full of white hair and wearing tattered clothes walked on foot to the top of the city wall.

His face was filthy, yet his eyes contained an indescribable coldness.

Under the astonished gaze of the last humans, he sat on the city wall and spoke toward the endless darkness in the distance:

"I have come."

He said it quietly, as if greeting an old friend, terrifyingly calm.

As he raised one hand.

Then.

Boom!

Within a certain spot inside the last city of the human race, endless flames erupted with a roar.

In that place, the humans who had fled there and were crowded together were instantly swallowed by the endless explosion.

One explosion, one million people dead.

His eyes were calm as he raised his hand again and pressed it down.

Boom!

Another explosion, millions of people dead!

He kept raising his hand, kept pressing it down.

Explosions rang out incessantly.

Boom, boom, boom, boom!!!

Inside the last human city, millions, tens of millions of people just died like that.

Everywhere there were cries, everywhere there were roars.

The Master of Blood and Qi, who was still fighting his final battle, looked back in astonishment, letting out his most furious roar at him.

The Master of Blood and Qi was incredulous, angry to the extreme.

He never imagined that the father he had once revered, admired, been disappointed by, and held in contempt would be more cold-blooded than the Ancient Gods.

But the old man with a head full of white hair was like a god of death, destroying the last of the human race more swiftly and ruthlessly than the Ancient God Beasts.

"Do you want to continue?"

The beggar laughed loudly:

"Do you want to continue?

The entire human race will be wiped out by me; if you kill me, the entire city will perish even faster!

The human race, completely extinct!"

He stood up, embracing the heavens with the posture of a victor:

"If there are no actors in this play, what exactly are you going to watch, what exactly are you going to eat?"

He laughed wildly.

He was more insane than the Ancient Gods, he was more cold-blooded than the Ancient Gods.

He had long understood one thing.

In this world, there is something more terrifying than the Ancient Gods, more terrifying than malice.

That thing exists deep within the human heart.

And he, as it happens, possesses it.

At the moment when the last generation of the human race was about to perish, he thought of the only way to defeat the Ancient Gods.

That is, for the human race to be completely extinguished.

The Ancient Gods would not extinguish the human race.

If they could have extinguished the human race, the Ancient Gods would have done so long ago.

They are merely watching a play.

They need food.

A constant stream of plays, a constant stream of food.

But when this food no longer intends to survive, no longer intends to keep acting, the Ancient Gods fail.

The old man, who had seen through the human world and seen through the Ancient Gods, laughed loudly and roared madly:

"I command you, look at me!!!"

The next instant.

Screech!!!!

At the infinitely distant horizon, space was torn apart for ten thousand myriad miles, the earth collapsed, and boundless malice surged.

Unimaginable rumbling and explosions destroyed the endless heavens and earth.

That night, beyond the endless malice, the human race vaguely saw two indescribable behemoths.

Vague, too vague.

It was impossible to see them clearly at all.

But they obscured the world, they obscured the firmament.

The two behemoths were actually letting out endless roars and bombarding each other.

That day, the human race truly understood.

As it turns out, there are two Ancient Gods.

That day, the Ancient Gods fought among themselves.

Millions of Ancient God Beasts withdrew their troops.

Because there was one human who threatened the Ancient Gods.

He sat atop the city walls, laughing maniacally, yet blood and tears flowed from within his eyes.

His laughter overwhelmed the heavens and earth, carrying madness, carrying cold-bloodedness, carrying despair.

Over thirty million humans perished overnight at the wave of his hand.

That night, the human race won completely, and the human race also failed completely.

Until, one day.

A powerful new martial path that transcended the path of Mind Power and the path of Blood Qi.

The Path of Hard Tempering.

Was born!

But the one who created this martial path was precisely the one who brought despair to the human race.

He was no longer the Divine Son of the human race.

He was the demon of the human race.

But he was also the first human existence to be truly watched and valued by the Ancient Gods.

The only human future to transform from a chess piece into a chess player.

But people could not revere him the way they revered the Lord of Blood Qi.

People would only fear him.

His methods were too cold-blooded; he created the Five Clans and divided the power of the Lord of Blood Qi.

He bloodily suppressed all human rebellions.

He was an absolute tyrant.

Even after death, he still controlled the entire trajectory of the human race.

He not only took action against his own son, but also intended to take action against his own granddaughter.

Even when the Lord of Blood Qi begged him to spare his descendants before becoming the Continent Bright, he still ignored it.

Having been entangled with the Ancient Gods for so many years, he had long since ceased to be his former self.

He watched his granddaughter flee as if watching a play, merely splitting off a wisp of his divine soul to pursue and kill her.

Just as the Ancient Gods viewed the human race, he viewed his granddaughter's despair and helplessness.

He was intrigued.

This wisp of his split soul was also intrigued.

But when the granddaughter fled into the Purple Firmament World-Fixing Mirror, this wisp of split soul was suppressed by the Purple Firmament World-Fixing Mirror.

The split soul did not care.

Because the original body would arrive in person.

But the split soul never imagined that the original body would not arrive.

He thought for a long time, yet could not understand why the original body did not come.

Could it be that within his heart, he still retained some things he had long since discarded?

This shouldn't be.

The Master of Horizontal Tempering never hesitates.

PS: Writing a little less, just this one chapter today.

Because according to the subsequent plot direction, writing two thousand more words would cause it to cut off in the middle of the plot, neither here nor there, which isn't very good.

I generally can complete a whole story cycle in one day, which is the convergence of emotions.

It just so happens that we've reached this point, which is quite perfect.

Introducing the history of the human race and the rise of the Master of Horizontal Tempering.

This doesn't count as padding the word count, because thinking up this story itself is actually quite strenuous.

The Master of Horizontal Tempering, the Master of Blood Qi, and even Xia Weimin are actually figures in history.

If they can be written down, it will increase the authenticity of the story and also provide good foreshadowing for the development of the plot later on.

For the protagonist, he wants to extinguish all malice, and the Master of Horizontal Tempering is actually a part of that malice.

But this person is also extremely complex; cold-blooded, yet not cold-blooded—a very complex, very painful person.

In fact, like Lu Xunyang, this person runs through the entire book.

The protagonist's talent in the path of Blood Qi is also close to the relationship between the protagonist and Xue Qi, which is similar to that of fellow Daoists and comrades-in-arms.

In the path of Horizontal Tempering, the protagonist constantly alters his body and constantly encounters setbacks, but the path of Horizontal Tempering has granted him even greater strength.

In itself, the difference between the two martial paths was designed from the very beginning based on the personality traits of the Master of Horizontal Tempering and the Master of Blood Qi.

Compared to the previous book, readers who have been following along will notice.

The previous book presented one person, a world that belonged solely to him.

This book is a group of people, a world that belongs to a group of people.

Complex people, a complex world.

People are inherently complex, and they are much harder to write.

For example, Qi Fan; he is a person who follows his life's purpose, wanting to complete his tasks well and make his life perfect.

He believes that death is his final destination.

But at the very last moment of death, he gave birth to a desire to live on.

I feel that this is the most real version of him; he wants to live, he wants to see the dawn.

It's just that he is going to die.

I respect him, and I pity him even more.

Complexity makes him perfect, and makes him even more painful.

The difference between the characters and the world.

Is the biggest difference between the two books.