These powerhouses, who stood at the very pinnacle of the Heavenly Human Realm, finally understood that something unimaginably terrifying was being born there.
And the power they had spent their entire lives cultivating was nothing more than nourishment for that thing.
Chen Du stood atop the ruins of the Dragon Tomb, looking up at the golden dragon coiling within the golden light.
All for this?
All for this, war had raged without end for centuries.
Countless villages had been reduced to scorched earth, countless common people trampled to death beneath iron hooves?
All for this,
Wang Tiezhu, Li Erniu, Auntie Wang, Xiaohu, Mr. Wang of Qinghe Village, and tens of thousands of others whose names had never even been recorded had all become cold corpses?
All for this,
Niuwa had been only twelve when he died amid broken walls and rubble, still clutching the steamed bun he had saved for his brother?
All for this,
Grandma had been pinned by a spear in a pool of blood at the village entrance, and the deaths of hundreds of millions had been merely to fulfill one man's ambition?
Countless lives sacrificed, living beings plunged into misery, all merely to elevate one man?
The loss of the land, this boundless fortune, all merely to elevate one man?
Utterly cold-blooded!
Treating all people like blades of grass!
Treating human lives like ants! Such cold-bloodedness existed in this world.
Utterly pointless!
Piling millions of skeletons into a throne and forging a crown in the fires of centuries of war—how pointless such ambition was.
Utterly despicable!
Hiding in his ancestors' tomb to steal centuries of national fortune, treading on countless bones while claiming to be chosen by fate—how despicable such methods were.
And... he deserved death above all!
Chen Du's anger had already reached its current peak!
At that moment, the panel, too, seemed to be issuing notifications in a frenzy:
[Enlightenment Through Anger · Becoming an Immortal Through Anger experience +1] [Enlightenment Through Anger · Becoming an Immortal Through Anger experience +1] [Enlightenment Through Anger · Becoming an Immortal Through Anger experience +1] [Current progress: Becoming an Immortal Through Anger Lv8 (231/248) → Becoming an Immortal Through Anger Lv9 (12/496)] [Becoming an Immortal Through Anger upgraded to Lv9. Ability greatly enhanced. The effects of all comprehension and talent-type abilities will be amplified ninefold. [After stacking in synergy with Lie Dormant, the amplification multiplier has reached its limit.] ["Becoming an Immortal Through Anger" detected crossing the critical threshold. The two great talents are resonating—] [Resonance complete. All talent effects stacked!]
In that instant, Chen Du's aura broke through the limits of the Heaven-Human Realm.
His aura erupted with a tremendous boom, like a volcano exploding.
The dark-gold flames burning around him suddenly shot up dozens of zhang, dyeing half the sky dark gold.
He gripped his wooden sword tightly. Every grain in the blade glowed, as though infused with life.
Then he slashed.
There was only anger in that slash,
the roar of all the souls who had died unjustly on this land, raised as one.
That roar was like a monstrous blaze, burning through the golden light filling the sky, burning through the formation diagram shrouding the earth, burning through the barrier of fortune around the golden dragon.
That roar was also like a surging river, boundless and endless, tearing open layer upon layer of centuries-old blood debts and shaking every stone coffin in the Dragon Tomb until it hummed.
This fury was the unwillingness and anger that every forebear who had died in war on this land had entrusted to his sword; what it burned was the blood debt of these centuries, not the living beings of this world.
With a single slash, the golden light shattered, and a fire dragon soared into the sky.
Above the Dragon Tomb, the dust slowly settled.
The sword scar that spanned heaven and earth stretched from the vault of the underground palace to the distant horizon. Wherever it passed, mountains and rocks shattered, and rivers changed course.
The immense golden dragon coiling in the sky let out one final mournful cry, and the light on its body ebbed away like the tide.
Its dark-gold scales peeled away one by one, turning to ash as they fell.
The Yan Emperor tumbled out of his dragon form. Half his body had been shredded by sword intent, his dragon robe was scorched black, and his crown was shattered. Only one eye could still barely open.
He lay amid the ruins, watching the barefoot figure carrying a sword slowly approach, and suddenly burst into laughter.
His laughter was hoarse and manic, echoing again and again across the empty ruins. "You think you've won? You think that by killing me and destroying Great Yan, the world will be at peace?"
His voice was halting, bloody froth spilling from the corners of his mouth each time he spoke, yet his tone carried a strange mockery.
It was as if he were watching a naïve child do something irreparably foolish. "A final secret is hidden in this Dragon Tomb. When you discover it, you will learn a truth that will shock and terrify you beyond measure.
"Then you'll know that what you destroyed today was not my ambition, but this world's only hope!"
He began coughing violently. Half his chest had caved in, and his life was like a candle flickering in the wind. "Generation after generation, we will become slaves, forever unable to escape this cycle."
His one remaining eye stared straight at Chen Du, its pupil gradually losing focus. "I'd like to see who that wooden sword of yours can save when the time comes."
As his voice fell, his life came to an end.
The Yan Emperor's head lolled to one side, his eye still open, fixed on the gash torn through the Dragon Tomb's vault by sword qi.
Beyond the gash, the daylight changed from grayish yellow to deep blue, then from deep blue to dark red. The lingering glow of sunset streamed through the opening, casting long shadows over the ruins.
Chen Du stood beside the Yan Emperor's corpse in silence for a long time.
He planted his wooden sword among the ruins, then turned and walked deeper into the Dragon Tomb.
He passed collapsed stone coffins and shattered luminous pearls, and the tombstones of emperors from successive generations, knocked askew by the backlash of fortune.
At the deepest end of the underground palace was another stone chamber, its shelves stacked with roll after roll of bamboo slips and animal-hide scrolls.
This was Great Yan's historical archive. After their deaths, the emperors of successive generations would have the most important documents and historical records from their reigns stored in the Dragon Tomb for later emperors to consult.
And the ages of these histories reached back far beyond the few centuries since Great Yan's founding.
Chen Du picked up the outermost roll of bamboo slips at random, brushed off the dust, and unrolled it.
He found that this historical record had not been written by anyone from the Yan Kingdom. It had been seized from the royal palace of a small kingdom when Yan destroyed it, and successive Yan Emperors had regarded it as a precious historical source and stored it in the Dragon Tomb.
He picked up another roll. It was from an even earlier dynasty, one whose name he had never heard in Gouwa's memories: "Yu."
The Yu Dynasty's history dated back five thousand years, but it, too, had already fallen.
He put the roll of bamboo slips back and began systematically reading through every historical record on the stone shelves.
Time trickled by. Beyond the crack in the Dragon Tomb's vault, the sky turned from dark red to pitch-black, then from pitch-black to grayish white.
He unrolled, read, and put back every roll of bamboo slips and every animal hide on the stone shelves.
Five thousand years ago, eight thousand years ago, ten thousand years ago... The further back the histories went, the more damaged they were, and the more shocking their contents became.
The writing changed from the Yan Kingdom's seal script to the ancient script of the Yu Dynasty, then from variants of that ancient script to a form of primordial writing he could barely recognize.
Fortunately, his comprehension defied the heavens, and with the aid of his vast Heaven-Human Realm Spiritual Power to work things out, he could just barely understand these oldest records.
When he finally unrolled the damaged animal hide at the very back of the stone shelves, a record dating back twelve thousand years, his hand paused slightly.
Just as the Emperor of Great Yan had said, a look of horror immediately appeared on Chen Du's face,
as though he had realized something,
He had uncovered a secret hidden in the Heavenly Human Realm for tens of thousands of years!