Chapter 789: Ten Thousand Years of Martial Dao, All Sages Bow, I Alone Am Supreme!

The sentiments of Lord Chen still lingered in Chen Yan's ears, yet Chen Yan's gaze grew increasingly tranquil.

Deep within his mind, it was as if the tens of thousands of years of the human race's history of humiliation flashed by in this instant.

At this moment, he finally understood why the condition for ascending to the Ninth Rank was to slay an immensely powerful Eighth Rank Ancient God Beast.

Because, if one did not slay it, even upon reaching the Ninth Rank, one would be unable to survive day and night within this true world of endless chaos and evil.

What Chen Yan had seen previously was the very environment in which Lord Chen had always resided.

For a person to live constantly in such a world, no matter how great their aspirations, they would gradually succumb to the endless majesty of the Ancient Gods and the fear of the unknown.

All the rules of the world and the unique emotions of the human race would completely collapse.

Chen Yan did not know if he were Lord Chen, constantly situated in such a world, whether he could maintain his original heart.

However.

Chen Yan's eyes widened; if he did not experience it personally, what qualification did he have to say he could not do it?

A thought appeared deep in Chen Yan's mind, and then it could no longer disappear.

"Chen Yan, if you want to do your business, you must cross this hurdle of mine."

Lord Chen stood with his hands behind his back and spoke calmly:

"I give you a chance, I also give Lu Xunyang a chance, and I give the Great Xia a chance; I am merely a threshold, a threshold that blocks you all.

If you cannot even cross me, how can you speak of Ancient Gods?"

He turned around slowly, the afterglow of the setting sun leaving golden rays upon his greying temples.

"Do not think that I am not your opponent; I have always been your opponent, the enemy you must annihilate.

We are neither wrong..."

He paused:

"It is this world that is wrong."

Chen Yan waved one hand, and strands of willpower wrote themselves in the void.

Golden-red light flowed like living creatures, sketching profound characters in the void.

The flowing brushstrokes seemed to contain the ultimate truths of heaven and earth; where the light traces touched, the void trembled slightly, with a hint of the resonance of the Dao.

Lord Chen's eyes narrowed:

"This is?"

"This is the method to awaken the True Martial Dao." Chen Yan smiled calmly:

"The reason I agreed to Chen Youqing to help her awaken the True Martial Dao is because I am certain that in the entire human world, I am the only one who can enter it."

Chen Yan's eyes bloomed with brilliant light, and he spoke with an expression of absolute confidence:

"Ten thousand years of Martial Dao, all sages bow their heads; I alone am supreme!"

Lord Chen watched in silence, because the True Martial Dao awakening that Chen Yan had written was simply too heaven-defying.

At the time of the Creation Realm, one must destroy their own universe of the Blood Qi Path and the Hardened Body Path, then endure the immense crisis of physical destruction to force the two internal universes to fuse.

With the Blood Qi Path internal universe as the foundation, and the Hardened Body as the core.

Furthermore, one must achieve reincarnation once again.

And afterwards, the second Blood Qi Path internal universe and the second Hardened Body internal universe created must repeat this process.

A single error, and one's body would perish and their Dao would vanish.

Lord Chen frowned; Chen Youqing could not have awakened the True Martial Dao from the very beginning.

Because, to awaken the True Martial Dao, one must start from the Creation Realm, and Chen Youqing was already at the Eighth Rank.

Chen Yan had been toying with the other party from start to finish.

But even if other Creation Realm experts were to follow Chen Yan's method, they would still be unable to succeed.

Because, no one could withstand the crisis of their own internal universe being destroyed.

Lord Chen's expression changed again and again.

Chen Yan was absolutely correct; in these ten thousand years of Martial Dao, no one could surpass him.

Even if all the mysteries of this True Martial Dao were laid out before one's eyes, a second True Martial Dao martial artist could not appear.

No one could do it, except for Chen Yan alone.

Lord Chen raised his hand, paused, but still swung it out, scattering the True Martial Dao essence that Chen Yan had written.

"No one can do it." He pursed his lips, not knowing if it was bitterness or emotion:

"Chen Youqing cannot do it, and I, Chen Yuan, cannot do it; only you in this world can do it."

He looked at Chen Yan:

"Speak, what do you want?"

For Chen Yan to directly bring out all the secrets of the True Martial Dao, he must have some ulterior motive.

Chen Yan nodded:

"What was the method you used just now to let me see the true human world?"

"It is a sliver of the essence of the Ninth Rank Death Realm; I was only trying it out, placing this sliver of essence upon you, never expecting that you would truly withstand it."

Chen Yan nodded.

At this moment, he finally understood everything the Great Xia Lord had done in the College Entrance Examination Secret Realm.

In the College Entrance Examination Secret Realm, there were indeed two layers of worlds.

The two worlds had always had an invisible barrier, and the Great Xia Lord had always stayed in the other, more frigid world, one filled with malice and even greater terror.

In that world, Xue Qi experienced endless reincarnation, suffering the pain of his wife and daughter's tragic deaths time and time again, stepping across the frozen river time and time again, to see the lonely man at the end of the frozen river.

Chen Yan had always thought that the Great Xia Lord was merely using the frozen river and Xue Qi to simulate the possibility of the human race defeating the Ancient Gods, but he had overlooked the point of the two layers of worlds.

Chen Yan had always thought that the peaceful outside world was the true world, and the world where the Great Xia Lord resided was the false world.

Only now did Chen Yan finally understand.

He had been wrong all along.

It turned out the Sovereign of Xia had told him long ago; what he, Chen Yan, had seen and perceived had always been a false world.

And the real world was just that chaotic and evil.

The Sovereign of Xia had long understood the truth of the world and had been seeking a possibility, a possibility for the human race to survive.

So that was it...

Chen Yan raised his head.

So, everything had already been told to him.

Just like those two lines of historical record, the Sovereign of Xia had already told everyone in the world everything, yet no one would have thought the truth was so cruel.

In the depths of this endless starry sky, in this dilapidated human race forgotten by the Sages.

Everything the human race took for granted, all its emotions and values, were ridiculously weak.

"I want you to give me that strand of the true meaning of the Death Realm."

Chen Yan spoke, looking at the Sovereign of Chen:

"If I have lived my whole life in falsehood, what face do I have to delusionally seek a future for the human race?"

The Sovereign of Chen's pupils constricted, looking at Chen Yan in disbelief.

He was mad.

Or perhaps too rampant, too bold.

He watched Chen Yan quietly, many emotions surfacing in his mind.

Perhaps disdain, perhaps contempt, or perhaps disgust.

But in the end, they all returned to calm.

"If you can survive, perhaps you really will gain a sliver of a chance to defeat me and change the human race," the Sovereign of Chen laughed:

"If you lose, you will return to assist me and complete all my arrangements for me."

The Sovereign of Chen believed this was what Chen Yan was thinking at this moment.

Yet he saw the young man smile.

The corners of the lips of the young man standing in the center of the lake curled into a smile.

That smile washed over his trembling eyelashes, mixed with the determination surging in the depths of his eyes.

Like a candle burning to its end.

Knowing it would return to darkness in the next second, yet in the final instant, it burned all its unwillingness and solitary courage until it was scorching hot.

"You are wrong, Chen Yuan," Chen Yan's eye sockets were somewhat glistening:

"Why do you think that after I lose, I would acknowledge you?"

Chen Yuan narrowed his eyes.

Yet he saw Chen Yan's eyes were extremely earnest:

"If I lose, I will die!"

He said decisively:

"If I must live on in humiliation, if I must live on while enduring endless panic and submissive humbleness toward fate.

I, Chen Yan, would rather head toward death; I would rather be a broken jade than a whole tile!"

Chen Yuan's body stiffened, and he narrowed his eyes.

"Chen Yuan, you have always believed that as long as the human race lives, the human race survives.

In my heart, Chen Yan, the human race is not a life, but a flame."

Chen Yan laughed loudly:

"You always think that bowing and scraping is the way to long-term survival, and that all humbleness and submission are the unchangeable results of natural selection.

I, Chen Yan, insist on telling you that some people would rather die than submit; as long as they are still alive, they will keep walking forward!"

At this moment.

The glow of the setting sun no longer appeared, blocked by the distant mountain ranges.

But above this lake, a golden-red glow of will flickered, incomparably brilliant.

Chen Yuan watched Chen Yan at this moment quietly, his pupils reflecting something that made his Adam's apple bob heavily twice.

He seemed to see his former self, to see himself in the endless darkness, desperate and helpless.

He had wandered all his days, becoming a criminal official in the eyes of Great Xia, becoming the ultimate evil in the eyes of the world.

Even he himself was about to forget what he had once been like.

He had been lost his whole life, having long since become the existence he had hated most in his childhood.

But he had no choice; he had been driven mad.

He had always been gentle toward Chen Yan because he only acted this way when dealing with Chen Yan.

Even in the eyes of the Five Races themselves, he, Chen Yuan, was hypocritical, sinful, and powerful.

He had hoped that Chen Yan might be able to understand everything he had done.

Yet he had not expected that, even now, the other party still denied all his value.

Chen Yuan opened his mouth, not even realizing himself that a smile had appeared at the corners of his lips.

"In that case... in that case, go and find a path to certain death..."

He pursed his lips:

"It seems... I overestimated you; no, I didn't overestimate you... no..."

He paused, finally organizing all his phrasing:

"Chen Yan, you have never played a game of chess against me, and you have never entered my, Chen Yuan's, chessboard.

The one you have been playing against has always been yourself, always..."