In the far west, the heavens were cold and the earth frozen, with nothing but ice and snow for ten thousand miles. At the foot of a snowy mountain, two men had lit a fire to roast a rabbit, chatting as they ate.
"Fourth Brother, we've been wandering around here for two months now. Apart from snow, we really haven't seen a thing."
"Third Brother, then I have to ask whether you saw it wrong last time. Where's this spatial turbulence you keep talking about?"
"How could I have? That turbulence was less than a thousand meters away from me."
Both wore silver masks. They were none other than Xuan San and Xuan Si, who had been ordered to search for spatial turbulence.
Ten kilometers away, a man in long white robes with a sword on his back was walking through the snow. He was Ximen Di, who had left the Ten Thousand Swords Sect. He had originally planned to cultivate and recover from his injuries here, but had ended up lost. Suddenly, he looked up and saw a wisp of cooking smoke rising in the distance, and immediately headed toward it.
Xuan San abruptly stopped chatting. "Someone's coming."
Xuan Si looked up ahead, where a white figure was flying swiftly toward them.
After flying all the way over, Ximen Di finally spotted the two men sitting on the ground eating rabbit. Both wore silver masks, but he thought little of it. "Friends up ahead, I've lost my way in the snow. Could you point me in the right direction?"
Xuan San suddenly laughed and said to Xuan Si, "These past few days weren't wasted. We might not have found anything, but we've run into a big fish. We two brothers were destined to earn some merit."
Xuan Si chuckled too, looking at the white-robed man. "Ximen Di, there was a road to heaven, yet you refused to take it. Hell had no gate, yet you barged right in."
Ximen Di also realized something was wrong. He suddenly remembered hearing someone say that Zhou Qiong, the Demon Sect's sect master, had mysterious men around him who wore diamond, gold, silver, and bronze masks, each of them an expert in the Martial Emperor Realm. It seemed the two he had encountered today were among them.
In the past, Ximen Di would not have cared, but his injuries had yet to heal, and he could only bring out fifty percent of his strength. He silently cursed his rotten luck.
But Xuan San and Xuan Si gave him no chance to react and attacked immediately.
"Mystic Demon Palm!"
"Mystic Demon Fist!"
Fist and palm struck together through the air. More terrifying still, the two attacks actually complemented each other, and even the snow and ice filling the sky seemed to have been sealed in place. Though Xuan San and Xuan Si were only at mid Martial Emperor, they unleashed an attack at peak Martial Emperor.
The two had grown up together, then joined the Demon Sect together, passed the selection together, and entered the Profound Division at the same time. Years of spending every day together, coupled with cultivating the same cultivation method, had long since brought their minds into harmony. When they attacked together, their power surged. Even the head of the Profound Division could not subdue them quickly, let alone the already injured Ximen Di.
Ximen Di felt the threat of death sweep over him. He immediately drew his sword and roared, "Heavenly Flying Immortal!"
Boom! A sound like a mountain collapsing rang out, shaking the surrounding snowy mountains until they began to crumble. Ximen Di was blasted over a thousand meters away. Without hesitation, he turned and fled swiftly into the distance.
"Ximen Di, where do you think you're running?!"
Xuan San and Xuan Si swiftly gave chase.
Ximen Di spat blood as he ran. Already severely wounded, a single heavy blow from Xuan San and Xuan Si had caused his injuries to flare up again, and he was beginning to lose the ability to suppress them. Half an hour later, his vision began to darken. He felt he had reached his limit.
The two men from the Demon Sect pursued relentlessly behind him. In his current state, he could not shake them off at all. If he kept running, he would only exhaust himself completely, leaving him no chance whatsoever. He might as well fight the two now; he would still have a thread of hope for survival.
Ximen Di bit the tip of his tongue to rouse himself, then turned and drew his sword, his expression that of a man who regarded death as a homecoming. Yet when Xuan San and Xuan Si were still two hundred meters away from him, they suddenly stopped and shot backward.
Confusion covered Ximen Di's face. The two looked as though they had seen some terrifying existence. Seeming to sense something, Ximen Di whipped his head around. The space behind him had actually formed a turbulent flow, slowly turning into a black hole like a passage through space and time.
Before Ximen Di could react, the turbulence rushed toward him. After enveloping him, it slowly disappeared.
Xuan San and Xuan Si hurriedly retreated over a hundred li.
"Fourth Brother, go report to the sect master at once. Tell him spatial turbulence is indeed in this area, and Ximen Di was swept away by it and disappeared."
A massive city stood on a plain. Over a thousand li long and more than ten meters high, it resembled an enormous city from ancient times. Above it were three large characters: "Black King City."
If anyone from the Great Yu Dynasty on the Cangwu Continent had seen this city, they would surely have been scared to death. The imperial capital they believed to be the largest city in the world was not even one hundredth its size.
The city gates stood open, with countless figures moving in and out. Among them were members of other races. Some stood three meters tall like giants, while others were dark green all over, with four arms, like emissaries from hell.
They came in every strange and wondrous form, with all kinds of species present. What they shared, however, was the presence of the strong emanating from them. At a glance, those in the Martial Emperor Realm were everywhere, and those in the Martial God Realm were a common sight. Occasionally, one could even spot figures above Martial God.
Truly, Martial Gods walked everywhere, while Martial Sovereigns were worth less than dogs.
In a huge square at the center of the city stood several hundred enormous stone steles. Most were lit, but a small portion remained dark.
The square held a group of beings four meters tall, blue all over like stretched-out Smurfs. All wore armor and appeared to be the square's overseers.
The illuminated teleportation arrays in the square occasionally flashed, and members of various species walked out. The armored figures in the square would then approach and lead them away, briefly saying something before taking them to an open space nearby. In half a day, ninety-nine had gathered there.
There would originally have been more, but some of those who emerged from the stone steles were not taken to the open space. Instead, other groups received them.
Just then, a dark stone stele at the edge suddenly lit up. A white-robed man fell out of it, coughing up blood. He raised his head to look at the scene before him, a trace of bewilderment flashing across his face.
A flicker of surprise crossed the eyes of the leader of the armored group. If he remembered correctly, that stone stele was said to have remained dark for over a thousand years. Yet today, a human had appeared from it, and a severely injured human at that.
He took the initiative to walk over, looked the man up and down, and asked in a clear voice, "Who are you? What faction do you come from? Is there any faction in the upper realm to receive you? Your cultivation is actually only at the mortal realm."