Dark True Immortal

The Law Mighty Pass that had once guarded the entrance to the Immortal Ascension Road had been turned around.

Its front gate no longer faced the entrance to the Immortal Ascension Road. Instead, it faced the depths of what had once been the Immortal Ascension Road.

And the deeper reaches of the Immortal Ascension Road no longer looked as they once had. They had been eroded by boundless darkness.

Taiyin could clearly see that, at the end of that darkness, the broken world-waves surging within the Boundary Sea had been completely shrouded in darkness.

Dark mist continuously spread through the Boundary Sea, encroaching toward this end of the Immortal Ascension Road.

If the entire universe of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands were regarded as a sphere, then the Immortal Ascension Road was an air vent through which that sphere could connect to the outside.

It was a passage that allowed outsiders to enter more easily when the Realm Barrier had sealed itself off.

The Law Mighty Pass, which had once automatically attacked every invader from the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands attempting to enter the Immortal Ascension Road, was strangely calm at this moment.

Millions of God-Demon Phantoms possessing combat power at the peak of Quasi-Emperor Ninth Heaven stood guard atop the walls, utterly ignoring the arrival of Taiyin and the others.

After entering the Law Mighty Pass, several Emperor-level beings greeted Taiyin and the others along the way.

Taiyin could sense an incomparably dense aura of blood and slaughter permeating the entire Law Mighty Pass.

This indicated that an immensely terrifying battle had taken place here not long ago.

At the center of the Law Mighty Pass stood an enormous blood pool—or rather, something like a lake of blood.

It was the product of the cube Fang Zheng had once left behind, which could endlessly produce Taiyin's Essence Blood.

It was a lake of Essence Blood that could not be drained dry even if another million, or even ten million, Taiyin Sacred Emperors were squeezed dry.

Several Emperor-level beings unfamiliar to Taiyin were soaking in the blood pool.

Their bodies were covered in wounds, and their Weapons of Proving the Dao were nearly shattered. Yet they still circulated secret techniques, absorbing the Taiyin Essence Blood in the pool as quickly as possible to rapidly repair the injuries to themselves and their weapons.

Taiyin noticed that the wounds on them and their weapons were strange. They did not seem to have been inflicted by outsiders, but rather wounds they had inflicted upon themselves.

Clang...

As a bell rang out, Taiyin heard himself mutter, "They've come again? Then let's fight."

Taiyin Sacred Emperor, Sun Holy Emperor, Great Emperor Wushi, Ruthless Great Emperor, Undying Heavenly Emperor...

Several Heavenly Emperor-level powerhouses, some born in the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands and some raised in this universe, walked together toward the gates of the Law Mighty Pass.

Within the spreading black mist, a storm suddenly rose. Amid the storm, a bloodstained Black Iron Coffin fell from the sky.

Then, a narrow crack opened in it.

At once, a dark river of stars poured from the crack. Countless warships carrying densely packed armies spilled forth with it, charging toward the Law Mighty Pass.

At the same time, heavy footsteps echoed through the darkness.

More than three hundred armored powerhouses radiating undying auras stepped out of the coffin.

Every one of them exuded the aura of True Immortal-level laws.

Their expressions were blank and their eyes hollow. They seemed to possess no reason, merely physical bodies that were empty shells.

Endless darkness spread as more than three hundred powerhouses, each capable of contending with a Great Emperor, attacked at once.

This was not a difficult battle, but it was an extremely troublesome one.

During the battle, Taiyin of the past could sense that these Dark True Immortals, who seemed to lack reason, were not particularly strong.

What they cultivated was not a Secret Realm method like Taiyin's, but one ancient cultivation method after another that had never been heard of before.

Compared to the Secret Realm method, their combat power was somewhat weaker.

They seemed to come from a strange world different from the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands.

Though they possessed Immortal Dao Laws, and both their physical bodies and Primordial Spirits were immensely powerful—barely reaching the level of an ordinary Great Emperor of a single lifetime—their Primordial Spirits remained in a state of ignorance.

Their Immortal Dao Laws could also be easily resisted, even suppressed, by the Supreme Dao Laws of Emperor-level powerhouses like Taiyin.

With their muddled minds, they could not remain within Divine Prohibition at all times like Great Emperors and Supremes such as Taiyin and the others. They could only barely reach the level of the Eight Forbidden.

If they had been in the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands, creatures like these would not merely have failed to become True Immortals. They would likely have been casually beaten to death by prodigies with the potential to become Great Emperors while competing on the Emperor Road.

In battle, whether one-on-one or even many-on-one, Heavenly Emperor-level beings like Taiyin Sacred Emperor, who could remain in Divine Prohibition, could slaughter them at will.

It was simply that there were truly too many of them. Furthermore, despite their numbers, they could form battle formations, greatly making up for the deficiencies caused by their lack of combat awareness.

During the battle, Taiyin stood shoulder to shoulder with the Sun Holy Emperor. The power of utmost yin and utmost yang transformed into a great yin-yang millstone, grinding the flesh and blood that spilled black True Immortal blood into pulp.

The Wushi Bell rang out, freezing a stretch of spacetime as Great Emperor Wushi formed a fist seal and charged forward to kill.

Ruthless Great Emperor activated the Flying Immortal Art, turning the miraculous into the mundane. Her jade-like palm pierced through a skull and reduced the Primordial Spirit to dust.

Undying Heavenly Emperor wielded his heavenly blade, severing heads as phoenix nirvana true fire burned their Primordial Spirits to nothing...

Every Emperor-level powerhouse fought desperately.

Taiyin and the Sun Holy Emperor alone slew nearly a hundred Dark True Immortals in this battle.

When the battle ended, every powerhouse who had left the city to meet the enemy was utterly exhausted and severely wounded.

Yet most of their serious injuries had been inflicted by themselves.

Slaying these Dark True Immortals was not difficult. The hard part was a certain contamination they carried.

The emperors even suspected that these ceaselessly attacking Dark True Immortals had deliberately come to be killed by them, their purpose being to corrupt them with darkness.

Once tainted by this contamination, both the physical body and the Primordial Spirit would be deeply eroded without notice.

Only by decisively severing and pulverizing the contaminated flesh and Primordial Spirit before the corruption took hold could they avoid the potential danger as much as possible.

Fortunately, the Law Mighty Pass had an inexhaustible supply of Taiyin Sacred Emperor's Essence Blood, which could serve as a miraculous elixir to replenish their losses. Otherwise, healing alone would have taken an unknown amount of time.

After the battle, Taiyin from the past heard the future Taiyin sigh. "The numbers have increased again."

The Sun Holy Emperor also sighed. "Yes. There are more and more of these Dark True Immortals, and they are growing stronger and stronger."

"After the Dark Storm began its first assault, a Dark Quasi-Emperor arrived with an army and was wiped out by the Law Mighty Pass."

"When the second storm rose, there were two."

"When the third storm rose, there were three..."

"The number of storms sweeping through the darkness keeps increasing, the intervals between them keep shortening, and the dark creatures emerging from them keep growing stronger."

"Until recently, dark creatures weaker than Quasi-Emperors had stopped coming altogether. Only an endless stream of Immortal-level powerhouses continued to attack."

The Sun Holy Emperor sighed. "This is probably the enemy that shattered the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands and the Immortal Domain of old, reducing them to what they are today."

Then he laughed at himself. "But these things probably never regarded us—nor the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands and Immortal Domain of old—as enemies."

"They are merely arrogant and calm, burying us beneath ever more numerous and ever stronger Dark True Immortals."

Looking into the distance, the black mist beyond the Law Mighty Pass had grown even thicker. Another bloodstained warship fell from within it, and more than five hundred Dark True Immortals stepped out.

Clang!

Clang!

Clang!

The bell signaling another battle rang out. The Sun Holy Emperor let out a weary sigh.

"Are two more Dark Storms arriving one after another this time? The Cosmic Boat is about to set sail. We can only keep fighting. I hope we can hold on until then."

Then another battle began.

The unending battles and slaughter nearly numbed the many Great Emperors.

Gradually, during the rest periods after battle, Taiyin finally learned from the emperors' conversations exactly how this future had become what it was.