"Dao brother, staying in the Assassin Heavenly Court is truly a waste of your talents... If you are interested, I can recommend you to the Jade Lake Holy Land. All its resources would be open to you."
Wushi said.
Feng Jiu's eyes lit up, and for an instant, his air of an enlightened sage nearly crumbled.
But then he reconsidered.
-Wait, that's not right!
If he really entered the Jade Lake Holy Land, wouldn't heaven ignore his cries and earth refuse his pleas? He would truly have no road to heaven and no door into the earth!
Surrounded by an Emperor Formation and pinned down by an Emperor Weapon... he would be dead and cold!
After all, the Jade Lake Holy Land had not relocated yet!
What did that mean?
It meant that two corpses lay buried beneath the Jade Lake Holy Land-the Great Accomplishment Sacred Body and the Western Emperor!
Good grief.
An Emperor Weapon, an Emperor Formation, imperial corpses... throw in an Emperor's Son, and that lineup would be enough to fight a Forbidden Zone Supreme to the bloody end!
"Jade Pool is not my Dao," Feng Jiu said calmly. "However, I would be interested in reading the Western Emperor Scripture."
"I have heard that this imperial scripture offers the most profound exposition of the Dao Palace Secret Realm. Perhaps it could help me open a path of reincarnation."
"Very well!" Wushi nodded without much hesitation. Raising his hand, he offered a scripture whose pages were divine jade, bearing the title-Western Emperor Scripture!
One dared to ask, and the other dared to give!
"You certainly are generous... Western Emperor's Son." Feng Jiu accepted the scripture.
"Oh, you figured it out?" Wushi was momentarily speechless, then chuckled. "Of course. I did unleash quite a few imperial arts."
After laughing, he asked teasingly, "Since you know my origins, Dao brother, aren't you afraid that one day I will descend upon the Assassin Heavenly Court with an Emperor Weapon and wipe out everyone in it?"
"You mean I could get that lucky?" Feng Jiu remained perfectly composed. "When you destroy the Heavenly Court, Fellow Daoist Wushi, remember to erect a memorial stone for me and deliver the final verdict on them."
"???" Wushi was baffled, unable to understand what he meant.
"From the very beginning, I never wanted to be an assassin... I simply had no choice back then."
Feng Jiu continued leisurely, "By now, I don't object to it, but I can't claim much loyalty either... I'm just a hired hand. One coin buys one coin's worth of effort."
"However, if you refuse to play by the rules, Fellow Daoist Wushi, I will abandon all shame as well and unleash my strongest trump card."
"I imagine that after this trump card, you would never enjoy another peaceful day for the rest of your life. You would live in constant dread."
"Really? Why don't I believe you?" Wushi scoffed.
With an Emperor Weapon in his hand and the deterrent might of the ultimate Dao, what trump card could destroy him?
With an Emperor Weapon in hand, he was invincible beneath heaven!
"Then what if I said I would visit the Immortal Mausoleum and seek out the Underworld?" Feng Jiu asked quietly.
"The biological son of the Great Accomplishment Sacred Body and the Western Emperor, with an ultimate constitution surpassing both the sacred body and the innate Dao embryo... Do you know how tempting you are in certain people's eyes?"
Feng Jiu was perfectly calm.
Once he learned that the sacred body was Wushi, he no longer cared quite so much.
Because a brand-new outsourcing partner had appeared!
No, not just one outsourcing partner!
Outsourcing, too, was a grand road to heaven, provided he chose the right targets.
-I'll outsource this to the Immortal Mausoleum!
-I'll outsource this to the Underworld!
-I'll outsource this to the Reincarnation Sea!
Longevity Heavenly Venerable, Carefree Heavenly Venerate, the Heavenly Passage Underworld Treasure...
What realm was Wushi in right now?
Could he lead the Undying Mountain around like a dog on a leash?
He was merely an Immortal Second Realm Mighty Figure. He could not overturn heaven!
The forbidden zones would ignore an ordinary Emperor's Son.
But the biological son of the Great Accomplishment Sacred Body and the Western Emperor, with a constitution potentially comparable to a chaos body?
Once certain Supremes in the forbidden zones learned this information... Wushi had better hope he truly had the ability to escape capture by several Forbidden Zone Supremes.
Wushi immediately stopped smiling.
Invincible beneath heaven?
An enemy would come from above heaven!
The Forbidden Zone Supremes had once merged with heaven's heart. Without question, they were beings above heaven.
"Dao brother, what I said just now was merely a joke!"
Wushi sighed softly.
How many times had this happened now?
Once again, he felt helpless.
Whenever he thought he could seize the initiative, the words were shoved back down his throat-and he could not even argue against them.
Then again...
When people spoke of the Life Forbidden Zones, they felt either hatred or fear... Who the hell would actively approach them, outsource a job, and kill with a borrowed blade?!
Wasn't there something wrong with this picture?
Wushi thought back over their battle and was speechless again.
From beginning to end, he had been the only one behaving normally. His opponent had never once played by the usual rules!
"What about the imperial arts?"
Suddenly, Feng Jiu spoke. He had read through the entire Western Emperor Scripture and committed its passages on the five great secret realms to memory, only to find that it ended abruptly.
"The imperial arts are not passed on to outsiders," Wushi said, collecting himself. "Unless you belong to Jade Pool..."
Thump!
A booklet fell to the ground. Feng Jiu looked left and right. "Huh? How did my Nine Secrets: Xing fall out?"
"But then again..." Wushi took a deep breath. "This is my mother's legacy. Jade Pool's rules have no authority over me..."
Nine Secrets: Xing had truly struck fear into him.
Thousands of words boasting of the glory of the Nine Secrets could not compare to a real fight.
Even now, Wushi ached terribly all over. Those blade flashes had washed over him in relentless waves, hacking away at such extreme speed that they had beaten every last bit of temper out of him.
Although his health bar was very thick... getting beaten without being able to strike back still hurt!
After this battle, his desire to obtain Nine Secrets: Xing was no longer what it had been at the beginning.
The two young prodigies understood each other without a word. Both accidentally dropped the core inheritances of their respective traditions, utterly defying all rules.
Unseen, the deity within an Emperor Tower was speechless, while a Saint wanted to speak but hesitated. In the end, neither said anything.
Whatever else might be said, Nine Secrets: Xing had shone far too brilliantly in this battle!
"I hear that uniting the Nine Secrets can open a path to immortality... As an Emperor's Son, do you know the whereabouts of any of the other Nine Secrets?"
Feng Jiu asked as he leafed through the imperial arts.
"My mother was confident that her secret arts were no worse than the Nine Secrets, so she never seriously searched for them," Wushi answered, imprinting Nine Secrets: Xing upon his heart and carefully working through its intricacies.
"Looking at it now, Mother was far too confident back then."
"However, she did encounter some opponents on her Emperor Road who possessed the Nine Secrets... She left that information behind. I'll look for it when I return."
"Of course, don't get your hopes up. Those encounters all took place on the Emperor Road deep in the starry sky, not on this ancient planet."
Wushi answered, briefly sharing a few clues.
At the same time, he asked in turn, "In your Assassin Heavenly Court,
"are there many people like you who have mastered Xing of the Nine Secrets?"
Wushi could not help caring about this question.
If the Assassin Heavenly Court had eight or ten people like Feng Jiu...
Then... fine.
He would return to Jade Pool immediately and seal himself away, only emerging in the era when the Road to Immortality opened.
Although many Emperor's Sons would appear then, all competing for the Road to Immortality in that same era.
The Chaotic Ancient Great Emperor's path to attaining the Dao had certainly been inspiring. A group of fierce men stronger than him had surrounded and battered him, yet he had ultimately managed to turn the tables and kill them.
But... for him to become the Chaotic Ancient Great Emperor?
Better spare him that.
"Rest assured, fellow Daoist. If there were more people like me... even I would be afraid."
Feng Jiu sighed softly.
One person like him was enough for an entire world.