Chapter 444: The Terrifying Existence Who Died in All the Heavens and Worlds Has Come Back to Life

Japan, Mount Fuji.

On the mountain, people lay scattered all over the ground, and nobody paid them any attention at all.

In the face of such an opportunity, who cared whether you were a king, marquis, or general—charge forward like mad, that was the way. With mountains of people packed together, stampede incidents followed.

But nobody cared about the stampedes.

Even those with relatively light injuries charged up along with the rest, becoming an unremarkable speck among the dense crowd on the immortal bridge.

The next moment.

"Ah!!!! Help!!!!"

A trailing cry that grew ever more distant.

In the horrified gazes of those behind, among the first batch of people who had stepped onto the immortal bridge, one of them took a step into empty air. The immortal bridge seemed not to exist for him; he passed straight through the resplendent, dazzling immortal bridge and fell from a height equivalent to several skyscrapers stacked together, tumbling down to the mountainside.

The crowd was struck with dread.

"That son of a bitch is probably smashed to paste," someone said in a trembling voice.

"The mortal world is like a purgatory, all sentient beings suffer like dust. This is the Bridge of Merit. Without cultivating merit, you cannot cross."

The ethereal immortal voice was like gentle air.

Neither loud nor soft, yet on the mountain and below it all could hear it clearly.

No one knew what language the voice spoke; it sounded more like a sound of the Great Dao. The meaning of its words was transmitted directly into the mind, letting one instantly understand its intent.

The existence within Xianshan had spoken.

A burst of intense venting— what did this existence's words represent?

They meant this existence truly intended to let people obtain the opportunity, deliberately letting them step onto the immortal bridge. They absolutely refused to believe this existence was unaware of their purpose. Since it did not refuse, then this truly was an immortal-seeking opportunity!

It took a long while before the crowd calmed down.

First, they had to pass this trial!

On the other side, Huaguo, Taishan.

Cases of people stepping onto the immortal bridge into empty air and falling off the mountain also occurred—not only at Taishan and Mount Fuji, but at the immortal bridges on famous mountains in every country, and at every immortal bridge across all the heavens and worlds.

Especially the beings of all the heavens and worlds—far more of them stepped into empty air. The vast majority of people who stepped on found nothing underfoot; only a very small portion could walk across.

For a time, the beings who had been about to step onto the immortal bridge afterward halted, not daring to act rashly, pondering what the reason for crossing the immortal bridge might be.

Without cultivating merit, one cannot cross?

What counts as having cultivated merit? Who the hell knows how it's calculated?

……

Lord Tianhong's Greater World.

Boom boom boom!

In a Death Swamp, the heavens shook and the earth trembled, as if the sky itself were changing, as if heaven and earth would sink into ruin at this moment.

Countless beings panicked in terror, their gazes fearful.

The heavenly change was triggered within the Death Swamp. A might burst forth there that would make even ordinary gods and demons tremble—its aura unmatched, causing heaven and earth to quake, as if the very world were trembling because of the one who wielded this power.

"The Death Swamp has no living beings, so how could there be such a terrifying fluctuation?"

Some beings were seized with dread, pressed flat to the ground by this aura, unable to straighten their backs, able only to lift their heads and stare at the Death Swamp.

"There are living beings here… have you forgotten the origin of the Death Swamp?"

At this moment, a companion beside him said in a trembling voice.

The former froze abruptly upon hearing this, his body trembling uncontrollably: "Impossible. Didn't that one already die? It was precisely because of its death that this became the Death Swamp."

The answer was quickly slapped back in his face—reality confirmed that his companion's guess was correct.

There, in the very Death Swamp—one of the forbidden grounds of gods and demons in Lord Tianhong's Greater World, a place even immortals and demons were unwilling to approach—a black shadow surged up from beneath the Death Swamp, which was saturated with death and darkness.

The black shadow was enormous.

Like an ancient titan who had slept beneath the Death Swamp, now awakening, rising to blot out the heavens and the earth, to cover and press down upon the sun, moon, and stars.

It was a colossal black shadow, wreathed in darkness and death. Its pair of pupils were like the lanterns of reincarnation from a dim Yellow Springs, illuminating the road to the abyss of darkness.

"The Death-Darkness Immortal King—it's really him."

Many beings near the Death Swamp trembled; gods and demons shivered too, their eyes fixed dead on that titan-like figure rising from within the Death Swamp.

The Death Swamp—legend has it that this place was once a land of curling immortal qi, rich and beautiful.

It would not be an exaggeration to call it a paradise on earth.

Everything became the death-filled, life-annihilating Death Swamp it is today for only one reason: a terrifying existence died here.

That terrifying existence bore the title Death-Darkness Immortal King—the meaning was plain: King among Immortals!

He was an incomparably fearsome existence, yet just as he was one last step away from proving the Dao and attaining immortality, he was sabotaged by treacherous men, causing his Dao-proving to fail and his life to perish.

His Dao-proving of immortality failed, and it was not by his own doing. The Death-Darkness Immortal King died with unwillingness; before death, only resentment, fury, and an intense desire for revenge remained.

Dying bearing these intense emotions, the place where the Death-Darkness Immortal King perished transformed into an eternal land of annihilation for living beings, becoming the Death Swamp of today.

The Death-Darkness Immortal King could be said to have achieved immortality, and yet could also be said not to have—because he died. But after his death, he turned this place into an eternal ruin, imperishable and indestructible; his Dao of immortality was proven.

"Ten thousand years—I've finally waited for this day."

That terrifying black shadow, its twin death-gaze pupils stared fixedly in one direction, crossing a thousand mountains and ten thousand waters, vast and boundless.

At that moment, every living being on the Immortal-Severing Mountain of Lord Tianhong's Greater World shivered involuntarily, feeling as if they were being peered at by something.

Ten thousand years…

The beings and gods and demons near the Death Swamp shuddered in their hearts—the black shadow was indeed the Death-Darkness Immortal King!

The Death-Darkness Immortal King truly had died ten thousand years ago.

So the legends were wrong—the Death-Darkness Immortal King had not died. He had been alive all along, sleeping in this Death Swamp, and now he had revived.

"Why would he revive on this day?"

There were living beings who, in their terror, were also bewildered—the Deathly Dark Immortal King had slumbered for a hundred thousand years, and his awakening now could not possibly be as simple as having slept enough; combined with the words he had spoken, one could conclude he had revived for some reason.

Unconsciously, the living beings all looked toward the direction the Deathly Dark Immortal King had been gazing at earlier, which seemed to be the place where a heaven-shaking wave had surged not long ago.

If memory served, that should be the direction of Immortal Mountain.

The next moment.

Under the horrified gazes of countless living beings, the Deathly Dark Immortal King rose and took a single step that crossed ten million li, striding toward Immortal Mountain.

Lord Tianhong's Great Realm fell into chaos—utter, complete chaos—as if this era had plunged into turmoil and was about to welcome an epochal calamity of annihilation.

Some were ancient forbidden grounds, some were rumored sites where ancient beings had passed away in meditation, or perhaps…

From all manner of places steeped in terror and legend, terrifying beings emerged into the world.

These beings were all ancient—either rumored to have already passed away in meditation, or rumored to have mysteriously vanished many years ago—without exception extremely powerful, hailing from a hundred thousand or several hundred thousand years ago.

Even!

Beings from over a million years ago had appeared!

Everything happening in Lord Tianhong's Great Realm was like a template; across all the myriad worlds of the heavens, similar situations were unfolding.

"My heavens! That's the Extreme Dao Undying One!? He's still alive…"

"Are my eyes playing tricks on me? I actually saw… the Radiant Light Heavenly Emperor—the statue of the Radiant Light Heavenly Emperor that has stood in Radiant Light Valley for over a million years is actually the Radiant Light Heavenly Emperor himself!"

"The Laozu Sect is still alive, ha ha, our clan's Laozu Sect is still alive! Laozu Sect! We are your clansmen! Laozu Sect, where are you heading?"

…

As Kamikawa Mitsu's scripts were expended one after another, querying the myriad worlds for those beings who had either died or mysteriously vanished—in truth already dead—he turned them all into virtual characters.

Under Kamikawa Mitsu's series of operations, the myriad worlds of the heavens were undergoing earth-shattering transformations.

……