Chapter 1731: Kings Block the Demons

This was an empty city, desolate and deathly still; its citizens had long since been fully relocated years ago, and the drifting sands had gradually buried what had once been a place of prosperity.

On the mottled city wall, a middle-aged man draped in a yellow robe, refined and scholarly in appearance, stepped out from the void, then sat cross-legged upon the wall.

It was Wang Xuanjin.

He held a bronze ruler in his hand, upon which countless origin-source talisman scripts were inscribed; when he swung it, it seemed as though destructive wind and thunder surged within. At his waist, there also hung a golden gourd, its light flickering in and out, emanating a dangerous aura.

Wang Xuanjin had descended upon this place. His gaze swept once over the deathly still empty city, and he sighed with a touch of melancholy. In these ten years of Tianyun, the former prosperity of the ten great Outer Shenzhou was no more; if this decisive battle were lost, one could not imagine how many living beings would be slaughtered.

"What a loathsome aberration."

Wang Xuanjin's palm brushed across the bronze ruler, then his gaze gradually grew sharp. He raised his head, looking toward the great road beyond the city, only to see surging from the end of that road an overwhelming tide of ashen-black qi. That ashen-black hue was chillingly cold to the extreme, and wherever it passed, even the roadside weeds gradually crumbled into ashen-black ash.

This was death qi.

Endless skeletons, like a pale-white flood, flowed forth from within the ashen-black qi, transforming this great road into a road of corpses.

Jingle!

A crisp bell sound came from within the ashen-black fog. Immediately after, a tall, thin figure holding a white banner—upon which hung a red bell—and wearing a black-and-white tall hat, tottered along the road of corpses, walking toward the empty city.

Finally, it stopped beneath the city wall, raised its head, and revealed a pale and ordinary face. The corners of its mouth split apart, exposing a smile that made one's hair stand on end.

"Wang. Zhu Xuan. Jin."

Its voice was like the final death-rattle exhaled by the dying, each word halting, faint to the extreme.

But if an ordinary Marquis Realm expert were standing here—even a top-tier ninth-rank marquis—that single utterance from it would have been enough to corrupt them with death qi and transform them into a corpse.

Above Wang Xuanjin's head, three layers of a thick and vast king's crown slowly manifested. Origin-source power of the purest essence surged forth, and within the heavens and earth, wind and thunder roared.

From within the wind and thunder came Wang Xuanjin's calm voice.

"Dead Sin Demon King—this road, is closed!"

Amidst the boundless mountain ranges.

Zhen Linshuang stood upon the mountain peak, Shou Chi Zhong in hand, dragon-scale battle armor covering her tall, well-proportioned, slender form, extending into a voluptuous and fiery curve. Her pair of purple-gold dragon pupils radiated endless, terrifying dragon might, her gaze locked upon the depths of the mountain ranges.

The mountains there were constantly trembling and collapsing.

It seemed as though an extremely terrifying force was rampaging through, crushing into dust everything material in its path.

In the next instant, Zhen Linshuang's beautiful eyes suddenly narrowed.

Boom!

Only to see the continuous mountain ranges ahead instantly collapse at this moment, dust filling the sky. A fist-light erupted with a heaven-shaking roar, directly crushing the mountains and the firmament alike.

A single fist capable of destroying the heavens!

Yet facing such a terrifying killing strike, Zhen Linshuang merely gave a cold snort. Her Bai Xi slender five fingers extended, their tips tinged with a purple-gold hue, and she violently tore at the void ahead.

The void shattered. Only to see a ten-thousand-zhang purple-gold dragon claw emerge from within, then clash ferociously against that deep-green, frenzied fist-light.

Boom!

A visible destructive shockwave ravaged outward, covering an area of tens of thousands of li, and towering mountain peaks were at this moment crushed to pieces.

A massive crater, like a black hole, appeared at the point where the dragon claw and fist-light collided.

Zhen Linshuang's gaze locked sharply upon the distance. That earlier fist-light contained a frenzied origin-source power, a force so violently extreme, so brimming with aggression, that it left not the slightest retreat for itself.

Such frenzied power... if it were an ordinary king-realm expert, they likely would have been corrupted by that frenzied aura into losing their sanity the moment they took this fist, becoming a madman who could not distinguish friend from foe.

"Mad Sin Demon King."

Zhen Linshuang's crimson lips parted slightly, and an icy voice rang out across the mountain ranges.

It is said that this Mad Sin Demon King is also the strongest in physical strength among the ten Sin Demon Kings.

Boom!

The hundred-li mountain range violently trembled at this moment, and then the very earth actually began to rise. Beneath the mountains and earth, a colossal figure actually appeared, lifting this entire stretch of land up.

That figure was entirely a dark-green hue, its face appearing extremely twisted and ferocious. From its back, eighteen bizarre arms burrowed out from flesh and blood, each one wrapped around by a black python.

A terrifying frenzied aura poured forth like a flood.

"Zhen Linshuang, I will crush you, inch by inch!" The Mad Sin Demon King raised its eighteen arms, lifting the hundred-li of mountains and earth, and let out a frenzied roar. Then it actually hurled that mass of mountains and earth violently down at Zhen Linshuang.

Like a meteor falling from the heavens!

"Just because of you? Watch this king tear off your eighteen arms, one by one!"

Zhen Linshuang's pretty face was filled with killing intent. Her figure shot straight up into the sky, purple-gold light sweeping across heaven and earth. In the next moment, a deafening heavenly dragon's cry rang out, and a colossal dragon body of several tens of thousands of zhang surged forth from within the purple-gold light, directly and viciously clashing against the mountains and earth.

Boom boom!

The terrifying collision seemed to have shattered even the firmament. Countless fragments of rock turned into meteorites falling from the sky, transforming this region into a land of destruction.

And the two colossal figures, both wrapped in vast origin-source power, clashed together in an extremely forceful stance.

Upon a cold, gloomy plain, a foul-smelling river flowed past, with floating corpses stretching for ten thousand li.

Lü Taiyi carried the Green Edge Sword on his back, strolling through the corpse-strewn plain. That aged face, which had always appeared kindly in the past, now flowed with killing intent.

From ahead suddenly came a strange sound of chewing.

Lü Taiyi raised his head, his gaze looking into the distance, only to see upon a river littered with floating corpses a withered, skeletal-thin figure sitting within it, constantly stuffing corpses from the ground into its mouth, ceaselessly chewing.

Black corpse-fluid spurted out from between its teeth.

"Hungry Sin Demon King, we meet again." Lü Taiyi said lightly.

Hearing Lü Taiyi's voice, that skeletal figure slowly rose, its oily-green gaze lingering upon him.

"Your old bones look quite chewy." It emitted a cold and eerie voice.

"These old bones of mine are very hard; I'm afraid you won't be able to gnaw through them."

Lü Taiyi smiled, then drew the Green Edge Sword from behind him. In an instant, silver-frost sword-light cascaded like an inverted Tianhe, sweeping up rolling freezing currents, and slashed directly at the Hungry Sin Demon King.

Screech!

Space shattered layer upon layer. A massive Jin Chida roc spread its wings and swept past, like a divine blade of space, slashing toward the void.

From within that void came endless origin-source of resentment. Deep within that origin-source, a black monstrous bird with nine infant heads was bred. A piercing wail rang out, transforming into tangible black sound waves, which completely dissolved the divine spatial blade from the Jin Chida roc.

"Golden Feather! The taste of you Golden-Winged Roc birds is the finest delicacy in the world!" it wailed.

"Phantom Demon King!"

The Golden-Winged Roc's eyes blazed with murderous light, its massive claws descending to suppress the heavens and earth.

A crystal-clear lake, like a silver mirror, was set into the earth.

Jiang Jiang Qinge stood on a green stone by the lake's edge, gazing down at the water's surface. The lake rippled, and in the next instant countless illusions materialized—and every one of those illusions contained a familiar figure: Li Luo.

The Li Luo within the mirror was utterly wanton and wild, drifting among a host of beauties, rolling among the clouds and rain, thoroughly carefree.

And those beauties were all faces Jiang Jiang Qinge knew intimately—Lü Qing'er, Li Hongyou, Li Li Lingjing, Qin Yi, the Eldest Princess, Bai Bai Mengmeng...

These scenes struck at the deepest part of her heart, as real as anything.

Yet Jiang Jiang Qinge, gazing upon these filthy visions, showed no sign of fury on her jade-like features. She said coolly, "Phantom Demon King, is this all you've got?"

The lake's surface rippled, and the countless illusions scattered one by one. At last, a figure emerged from the water, standing upon the lake, flashing a brilliant smile at Jiang Jiang Qinge: "Sister Jiang Qinge."

It wore Li Luo's appearance.

Then a strange smile surfaced on the handsome face of "Li Luo," and it chuckled lightly: "Tell me—using this form, the one etched deepest in your heart, to slay you... wouldn't that be rather entertaining?"

It clenched its hand, and ten thousand streams of flowing light gathered within its palm, condensing into a primitive straight blade, across which lightning seemed to flow.

It was the Dragon-Elephant Thunder Blade.

It had pushed the essence of illusion to its absolute limit—enough to beguile the mind and make truth and falsehood impossible to tell apart.

On Jiang Jiang Qinge's usually calm and composed, breathtakingly beautiful jade countenance, an unprecedentedly fierce killing intent now surged forth like a tide. At her smooth brow, sacred light-patterns emerged, weaving and outlining one another until they finally formed the pattern of a tree of light.

Beyond Nine Grades—the Position-Grade Divine Aspect Tree!

Upon that Position-Grade Divine Aspect Tree, four radiant crystal nuclei hung suspended like fruits, gleaming with dazzling luster.

And at this moment, those four radiant crystal nuclei actually began to ignite on their own. Blazing holy flames of light surged forth, then set the entire Position-Grade Divine Aspect Tree alight.

Indescribably sacred radiance emerged at Jiang Jiang Qinge's brow.

And the light-origin within Jiang Jiang Qinge's body, at this very instant, climbed higher and higher at a terrifying speed.

Surging straight toward the absolute peak!

Faced with the terrifying wave of power Jiang Jiang Qinge had suddenly unleashed, even the "Li Luo" formed by the Phantom Demon King stiffened slightly. It felt as though it had done something wrong...

And Jiang Jiang Qinge's beautiful eyes, burning with golden holy flames, brimmed with endless, icy killing intent, locked dead onto the Phantom Demon King. A voice, cold to the bone, rose eerily:

"I don't usually get angry—but you've found the one way to make me angriest."

"So right now, I only want you dead."