Zhao Wuji's eyes were bloodshot, and he was just about to attack.
At this critical moment!
"Senior Zhao Wuji, please hold your hand."
From a private room with an exceptionally wide view on the second floor came a gentle, jade-like voice.
A moment later, a handsome young man in a luxurious swan-velvet robe, with an air of elegance, slowly stepped up to the railing.
It was none other than Xue Qinghe, crown prince of the Tiandou Empire!
Looking down at Zhao Wuji, Xue Qinghe spoke calmly. "Listening Rain Pavilion is a refined place. Why lose your temper here, Senior Zhao?"
"Your Highness?"
At the sight of him, Zhao Wuji's mighty fist stopped dead in midair.
Though he was a hotheaded brute, he knew that the crown prince of the Tiandou Empire was someone he absolutely could not afford to offend.
"Your Highness, it's not that I went looking for trouble. This brat's been spewing filth and insulting my Martial Soul!" Zhao Wuji gritted his teeth as he defended himself.
However, Xue Qinghe paid him no heed. Instead, he turned back to Su Chen on the raised platform and cupped his hands.
"Mr. Su."
Xue Qinghe dipped his head slightly, his tone courteous. "I'm extremely interested in the era of Shrouding the Heavens you spoke of, as well as that so-called Holy Fighting Ape clan."
"Since you say that even ten thousand Titan Giant Apes wouldn't be worthy of a single blow from one of them, could you tell me—and everyone here—in detail about the splendor of the Holy Fighting Ape clan?"
As Xue Qinghe spoke, the other Spirit Masters and nobles in the hall, who had been frightened by Zhao Wuji's oppressive presence, came to their senses and quickly chimed in.
"That's right, sir! Tell us about them!"
"What kind of existence is the Holy Fighting Ape, to be able to kill ten thousand Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts with a single blow?"
"Please enlighten us, sir!"
Looking at the agitated crowd around him and Xue Qinghe smiling on the second floor, Zhao Wuji could only swallow his resentment, however deep it ran. He dispelled the Martial Soul phantom behind him, grunted, and retreated to the side.
Up on the platform, Su Chen had taken it all in.
"Since His Highness the Crown Prince and all of you want to hear it..."
Su Chen snapped open his folding fan and waved it gently.
"Then I, Su, shall tell you an undying legend of defying heaven and earth!"
The noisy hall fell silent at once, and everyone listened quietly to what Su Chen had to say.
"In the magnificent age of Shrouding the Heavens, myriad races stood side by side, while the Primordial Royal Clan looked down upon the stars."
"And the Holy Fighting Ape clan was one of the rarest, yet most terrifying, royal clans among the Primordial Myriad Races!"
"Their numbers were vanishingly small, with only one heir in each generation. Even at their most prosperous, their entire clan had no more than three or five members—perhaps even fewer."
"But as soon as a Holy Fighting Ape appeared, it could reign supreme beneath the heavens and sweep across the Eight Desolations and Six Directions!"
"They were born to fight! Proud and untamed, they bowed to neither heaven nor earth and feared neither gods nor ghosts!"
"An overbearing golden holy bloodline flowed through their veins, and their bodies were strong enough to take on an Extreme Dao Emperor Weapon bare-handed!"
"And the most dazzling figure among them was that clan's Ancient Emperor, the Holy Fighting Emperor!"
The moment the words "Holy Fighting Emperor" left Su Chen's lips, the whole Listening Rain Pavilion seemed to tremble.
"That Holy Emperor never suffered a single defeat in his life!"
"Wielding a black Immortal Iron Staff, he fought his way through the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, undefeated, until the Primordial Myriad Races all submitted before him and revered him as a god!"
"Not only that, he defied heaven's will, seeking to become a Battle Immortal in the mortal world!"
"With a single roar, he could shatter countless stars beyond the heavens!"
"With one swing of his staff, he could cleave a vast, boundless galaxy clean in two!"
"What were Titan Giant Apes? Vajra Bears?"
"Under the Holy Fighting Emperor's Immortal Iron Staff, they weren't even worthy of being cannon fodder."
As Su Chen's stirring account washed over them, everyone could almost see an invincible Holy Fighting Ape towering between heaven and earth, brimming with battle intent.
Down below, the muscles in Zhao Wuji's face twitched wildly. He still wasn't convinced, but he couldn't find a single word to refute Su Chen.
Yet Su Chen's tale wasn't over.
"Besides the Holy Fighting Emperor, there was also his son, Prince of the Holy Emperor!"
As Su Chen finished speaking, the entire Listening Rain Pavilion fell silent once more, eager to hear what he would say next.
But in the blink of an eye, the familiar tables, chairs, and redwood halls around them began to ripple like water and gradually fade away.
In their place stretched a vast, boundless land!
Without the slightest warning, everyone present felt as if they had been forcibly dragged into an age from time immemorial.
"Th-this... Where are we?"
Behind Ning Fengzhi, Bone Douluo's pupils suddenly contracted. He instinctively tried to release his Martial Soul, only to discover in horror that before this world, his vaunted cultivation as a Titled Douluo was so insignificant that he couldn't muster even the slightest power to resist.
Just as everyone was filled with unease, a peal of thunder rang out.
The Soul Beasts looked up and saw a huge Divine Source splitting apart over the land.
Then a figure bathed in golden light stepped out of the Divine Source.
It was an ape!
A giant ape covered in golden fur, its eyes like golden lamps!
At the same time, Su Chen's storytelling voice drifted through the air.
"Prince of the Holy Emperor was the biological son whom the Holy Fighting Emperor sealed inside a Divine Source in the Primordial Era."
"After a million years, he reappeared in the world during a golden age when prodigies arose and myriad races returned!"
"He was born with the same invincible bloodline as his father, one that defied heaven and earth. He was called Prince of the Holy Emperor!"
In the hall, Tang San, who had picked a fight earlier, was also staring at the golden figure in midair.
He wished he could hunt him down and turn him into a Soul Ring for his Clear Sky Hammer!
"However, by the time he was born, the Holy Fighting Emperor had already passed away."
"The Primordial Myriad Races had returned, and the royal clans of old had reappeared one after another."
"Most powerful of all were the children of the Undying Heavenly Emperor, revered as gods by the myriad races—the Heavenly Emperor's Son!"
"As soon as the Heavenly Emperor's Son was born, the Eight Divine Generals left behind by the Undying Heavenly Emperor swore to follow him to the death. He commanded the universe's finest divine treasures and immortal materials, while countless Primordial Royal Clans bowed before him, eager to raise him to the divine altar."
"And Prince of the Holy Emperor?"
"He had nothing."
"No protectors, no endless supply of resources. He didn't even have the Extreme Dao Emperor Weapon his father left behind, the Immortal Iron Staff."
"Alone, he faced the oppression and pursuit of the entire Primordial Myriad Races!"
At this, everyone couldn't help but draw in a sharp breath.
Alone, facing all the races under heaven?
It was like an ordinary Spirit Master with no backing stepping outside, only to be hunted by Spirit Hall, the Upper Three Sects, and every Spirit Master on the continent!
How could anyone survive that?
But then the scene before them shifted once more.
Before you continue