Necropolis Immortal

The azure dragon, white tiger, vermilion bird, and black tortoise ancestral gods had come with the black qilin from the lost ancient city, the one that'd forfeited its position as an ancestral god.

"Shoo, shoo, go on, get. Don't hang around that bastard Curse King or you'll all be in for it." The black qilin sneezed explosively and called out leisurely to the three thousand true kings. "You've got some nerve, kid! You know this is a deviated path, but you still plunged headfirst into it!"

The black qilin turned around and harrumphed at Lu Yun. "Your two dao partners are different. One shattered her ninth rule before it stabilized and returned to being an eighth step king. The other took the final step to true kinghood before she became a ninth step king. And what are you doing?

"Your nine dao rules have stabilized, so it's almost impossible for you to take that step anymore." While the black qilin usually looked befuddled and distracted, he was actually keenly aware of a lot of things.

"Don't worry, senior, this junior has a plan." Lu Yun calmed his slightly disorderly qi and raised a cupped fist salute at the black qilin. He then paused as wisps of goodwill collected from all directions and melded into his body. These were stronger than any goodwill he'd absorbed in the third realm thus far.

It would seem that those watching in the crowds were finally moved by what they were witnessing. Even the black qilin felt that the Immortal King had sent himself to a dead end in directly becoming a ninth step king. Yet the king had striven forward without a doubt, shaking them to the core of their being.

……

"Black qilin, you're just the equivalent of a potentate and those ancestral gods are half crippled true kings. What right do you have to stop us?" sneered the eleven potentates. "Don't think we aren't willing or are afraid to kill you. You sealed your doom the second you stepped out of the lost ancient city."

"You'll have to tread over my dead body first if you want to touch him." The black qilin was massive at several tens of thousands of kilometers tall. The eleven potentates weren't even a speck of dust in its eyes and it fully suppressed their combined aura.

Battle was joined again.

Although the qilin had said that Lu Yun's path was a dead end, the potentates still didn't dare let the young man walk out of here alive.

Roaring, the black qilin released balls of pitch-black energy from its mouth. Its target was the true kings instead of the eleven potentates!

The true kings were locked in a pitched melee with the king soldier and other soldiers; they hadn't stopped when the ancestral gods appeared on the scene. With the black qilin also attacking them, they were quickly decimated in a frenzied mess of wails and shrieks.

"Piss off or you'll all die here!" the black qilin snarled.

The azure dragon and others made their move as well, utilizing their core strength of creation, origin, eternity, and truth. These four most marvelous sources of power that defined order itself assimilated as one and blossomed as a lotus flower.

Kaboom!

The eleven potentates were sent flying by the blooming flower as soon as they stepped forward.

"Idiots!" Sitting cross-legged in the air, the Curse King scowled.

"Do you have any other tricks up your sleeve?" The Dao King relaxed ever so slightly and smiled at his opponent.

"I wasn't actually counting on those eleven idiots to take down someone like Lu Yun." The Curse King looked sideways at the Dao King. "Are you disappointed that the mistress of the Hongmeng hasn't appeared?"

The Dao King didn't respond; his heart tightened with sudden anxiety.

Aouuuuuu!

A bright dragon croon sounded over Azure Dragon Region as the dead dragon that the Fish King had previously utilized came to life once more.

"What?? Why is that dead dragon alive again??" Fretfully watching the battle from the walls of Azure Dragon City, the Fish King exclaimed with shock when she sensed the familiar power. She'd used it against Lu Yun before, so she knew it well. But right now, it'd somehow turned into the force of a living dragon!

A dragon that shared nearly the same origin as the azure dragon ancestral god!

The azure dragon hadn't told Lu Yun the truth about the dead dragon, and neither had the black dragon king in the Hongmeng Sea nor the Azure Dragon Divine King.

"You… my self of evil!" Busily directing the power of creation in the sky, the Azure Dragon Divine King gasped with dismay.

Self of evil!

The black dragon king was something that the Azure Dragon Divine King had cut off from himself—a replica that'd broken free of his control!

A bird croon, tiger snarl, and tortoise snap followed close behind before a black vermilion bird, white tiger, and black tortoise came on the clouds of black smoke. They were wreathed in dense qi of death, just like a black azure dragon.

"Bastard, bastard, absolutely fucking bastard!" raged the black dragon king in the Hongmeng Sea. He was the owner of the dead dragon corpse—the black azure dragon. He was the new spirit that'd been born in the replica severed by the Azure Dragon Divine King.

But now, that body had shaken off his grasp and was more like a living zombie. A thick chain shot out of the depths of the Hongmeng Sea and confined the black dragon king's soul within the waters.

A ray of black light also floated up from Dragonhollow Mountain; a terrible curse was rising.

This was the Curse King's strength.

The four ancestral gods keened in agony before their bodies turned black and they became one with their selves of evil. Jointly attacking the eleven potentates just a moment ago, they immediately turned around and leapt at the black qilin.

Caught off guard, the black qilin's body exploded.

……

"See, that black qilin wouldn't have died if you didn't seek help from Dragonhollow Mountain," the Curse King laughed heartily.

"So you'd cursed Dragonhollow Mountain a long time ago… and the Dragonling Assembly and Ranking are all apart of it!" The Dao King's expression flickered uncertainly. Nearly all of the geniuses who participated in historic Dragonling Assemblies were met with a grisly end—this was plainly the work of a curse!

"That's right," nodded the Curse King. "It's also my doing that there's only Dragonhollow Mountain left out of the residences for the ancestral gods. I used the mountain to curse them all.

"What a pity that there's only Lu Yun on the ranking. I wouldn't need to go to all this effort if it wasn't for that. I would need to levy just one small curse to destroy the root of this Hongmeng.

"But it's not too late, the True King Pact has been formed. I've won over all of the true kings and eleven potentates in the realm, using them as a sacrifice for my curse. This Hongmeng will wither, sooner or later," chuckled the Curse King. "So does it matter whether I'm on the battlefield or not? It's not you restricting me, but me keeping you in check."

"Did you lure the Fire Virtue Potentate here too?" The Dao King glowered.

"That mistress of the Hongmeng is about to show herself," the Curse King suddenly lifted his head. "She was the one who regathered the third realm after the original Hongmeng collapsed and ensured the survival of its foundations. It's all over once she's dead."