The Empire's territory expanded, and with it, the blood of its soldiers stained the land red. Humanity, too, slowly grew stronger through this process, even though the transformed earth now rejected humankind.
Yet the ties of the past could not simply be severed. Since the earth was unwilling to give, then they would seize it themselves, fight for it themselves!
Just as when humanity had once stood at the summit of all living things, it had never been due to any deliberate favor from the earth. They had defeated every enemy before ascending the throne atop all creation.
This war stretched on for six or seven years. Inch by inch, every stretch of land paid for in blood, the Empire's spirit was forged into something firmer than ever before. It was precisely at this time that the spirit of humanity temporarily reached an absolute pinnacle.
It was also then that Zhao Xiang reached the limit of the fifth rank.
Almost at the same moment, the thought-form of the great willow tree, or rather, the King of All Spirits, who had remained still all this time, set down the book in his hand.
The newborn myriad spirits instinctively loathed humanity and rejected the human path. Thus, not one of them evolved toward human form. Yet the thought-form of the great willow tree, the King of All Spirits, had taken on a human shape.
He appeared as a refined, elegant middle-aged man. At a glance, he looked like a profoundly learned scholar.
Without doubt, the King of All Spirits was powerful, for he had overcome something engraved into the instincts of life itself, something almost as unyielding as a decree.
That was why he was the King of All Spirits, the strongest king, rather than merely a puppet in Tai Jia's hand.