The Human Emperor

Wang Chong’s heart tightened. Putting down the tea cup, he stood up.

He was immensely shocked. From the moment this gray-robed elder appeared, Wang Chong had been completely focused on him, not letting down his guard in the slightest. That he had failed to realize when the gray-robed elder appeared could be put down to carelessness. But even though he was prepared now, that seemingly weak gray-robed elder had vanished right before his eyes. This was simply unbelievable.

Not even someone in the Grotto Heaven realm was capable of this.

Perhaps this gray-robed elder had used some special technique.

“Over there!”

Wang Chong’s eyes flashed as he quickly tracked him down. Several thousand feet away from him, he spotted an extremely faint figure flitting past a roof eave.

Even though it had only been for the briefest of moments, so brief that it almost seemed like an illusion, Wang Chong was certain that this was the mysterious elder.

That elder arrived and departed without a trace, and Wang Chong still had no idea who he was. But this was the only person who had appeared after he had brewed the tea leaves the Origin Immortal Lord had left him, the only person he had seen for hours.

This person also had a completely different taste for tea than anyone else, so he was the most suspicious person, the only clue Wang Chong had.

Whoosh!

Waving his sleeve, Wang Chong took the tea and the tea leaves into the halo divine tool and left the roof in pursuit of the elder.

A few moments later, Wang Chong grimaced.

“So fast!”

He had believed that he could easily catch up, but it turned out that the elder was constantly changing positions. Even with Wang Chong’s speed, he had almost lost him. Every time, he was just barely keeping up to that blurry figure.

It would be understandable if this was an expert on Heaven’s level, but Wang Chong couldn’t sense any powerful pulses of energy from him.

There was someone in the capital that he couldn’t keep up with? This matter was getting stranger and stranger.

His constant shifting around made it seem like he had no specific destination. Vermillion Bird Street, Stone Dragon Street, Green Moss Street… Wang Chong followed him through more than half of the capital.

The gray-robed elder didn’t linger on the street. At times, he would blink away, and Wang Chong would spot him on a roof, or perhaps on a large, flourishing scholar tree, or perhaps within a mansion used by a rich merchant, quietly staring at the calm lake in the garden and seemingly lost in thought.

“Just what is he up to?”

Wang Chong grew more and more suspicious. This man’s movements were growing increasingly bizarre.

If this man hadn’t come for the tea, Wang Chong would have never paid any attention to these places within the vast capital.

But regardless of the place, the elder never lingered for long. Not long after Wang Chong caught up, the gray-robed elder would disappear.

Buzz!

As Wang Chong was thinking, the gray-robed elder disappeared again, but this time was different. This time, he vanished completely, disappearing without a trace like a bubble popping out of existence.

“Not good!”

Wang Chong was aghast. He immediately jumped out from the shadows, unleashing his Psychic Energy without any attempt to conceal himself.

But there was nothing around him.

He spread out his sense for tens of thousands of feet, but he could not sense any trace of the elder.

“How could it be like this?”

Wang Chong jumped high into the sky, hoping to find something from a higher vantage point.

The darkness was tinged with a chill, and the capital was still and quiet. He could see all of the buildings spread out before him, but there was no sign of the elder on the streets, roofs, or residences.

It was like he had truly disappeared!

Wang Chong began to panic.

If the gray-robed elder disappeared, the last thread the Origin Immortal Lord had left him would be cut.

Bang!

Wang Chong used the power of spacetime, spreading out Halos of Spacetime from his body. Wang Chong utilized every power available to him to track down the elder.

“True World!

“Stone of Destiny, activate the highest privilege, the Archon of Destiny!”

With winds howling around him, Wang Chong floated high in the sky and took in the entire world.

A few moments later, through the Stone of Destiny, Wang Chong finally found a trace of the gray-robed elder.

“Over there!”

At the edge of the Great Tang Imperial Palace, Wang Chong caught a sliver of his aura, a very faint gray sliver of energy. It had quickly vanished, but Wang Chong was certain that it belonged to the gray-robed elder.

However, Wang Chong soon frowned.

“What’s going on? He went to the Imperial Palace?”

In the True World state, Wang Chong was able to trace the elder’s journey. He had been on the streets outside the Imperial Palace, and then he had jumped onto the wall and vanished within.

Wang Chong had wanted to know the elder’s background the moment he had appeared, but he had never imagined that this person would disappear into the Great Tang Imperial Palace, one of the most heavily guarded places in the world.

But whether it was the Imperial Army, the city guard, or the Dragon Guards, no one had noticed this elder entering the Imperial Palace.

Amateurs hid in the wilderness while masters hid in court. Wang Chong had never imagined that this person would have emerged from the Imperial Palace.

As the most illustrious subject of the Great Tang, Wang Chong had often been to the Imperial Palace. During the Rebellion of the Three Princes, Wang Chong had even infiltrated the place. He could not be considered a stranger to the palace.

Moreover, the Sage Emperor had presided over the Imperial Palace, and the place was still guarded by the powerful Dragon Guards and imperial servitors. Besides that, the Imperial Palace was frequently patrolled. It should have been impossible for someone to hide in the palace.

For a few moments, Wang Chong floated in the air, dumbfounded.

Could he be an imperial servitor?

Wang Chong narrowed his eyes as the thought occurred to him, but he quickly rejected the idea. Putting aside the fact that the servitors did not have such high levels of cultivation, imperial servitors had tokens on their waists, and they had no need to enter the palace by jumping over the wall.

So is he someone from the Celestial God Organization? Wang Chong’s mind immediately went to another possibility.

The capital was no longer what it once was. The Sage Emperor had passed away and the entire capital, including the Imperial Palace, was completely under Heaven’s control. In secret, this place had already become the territory of the Celestial God Organization.

This gray-robed elder was very strange, but all of it could be explained if he was part of the Celestial God Organization.

But Wang Chong quickly shook his head again.

He was mortal foes with Heaven, and after what had happened on the steppe, no one from the Celestial God Organization would come to see him in secret. More importantly, this person didn’t seem like a member of the Celestial God Organization.

This was intuition!

The gray-robed elder was not part of the Celestial God Organization!

However, this conclusion only made the gray-robed elder seem even stranger.

Wang Chong couldn’t think of a party in the capital besides his own side and the Celestial God Organization, much less one that was connected to the Origin Immortal Lord’s prophecy.

Wang Chong was growing more and more curious.

“Let’s go!”

Wang Chong quickly suppressed these thoughts and entered the Imperial Palace.

The Imperial Palace was quiet, the golden-armored Imperial Army soldiers manning their posts. Even though it was affected by the Celestial Palace, the Imperial Palace was still the center of the realm and heavily guarded.

Wang Chong quickly landed on a cinnabar wall.

The gray-robed elder was already gone, but with the power of the Archon of Destiny, Wang Chong quickly found his trail.

It was a barely visible wisp of gray energy, drifting in the air and rapidly dissipating. But it was enough to point Wang Chong in the right direction.

“Over there!’

Wang Chong continued his pursuit of that blurred figure.

A few moments later, at the northwestern side of the Imperial Palace, that elder’s energy once more disappeared.

“This is the Western Mausoleum!”

Wang Chong was shocked as he stared at the building before him.

In front of Wang Chong was a set of white jade stairs, flanked by a set of white jade railings, and at the top was a massive stele in the form of a dragon and an enormous tomb.

The Western Mausoleum!

Everyone in the Great Tang knew that this was where Emperor Taizu of the Great Tang was buried—Emperor Taizong’s father and the founder of the Great Tang.

When Taizu died, Emperor Taizong had been overcome with grief, so he buried him near the Imperial Palace to honor him.

But there was something else special about the Western Mausoleum. It wasn’t just Taizu’s burial place, but also where the sovereigns of the Sui Dynasty had been buried, including Emperor Wen of Sui. Even Emperors of the Han Dynasty and some sovereigns from the Warring States Period had been buried here.

According to the number one astrologer and diviner of Emperor Taizu’s time, Heavenly Master Yuan, the Western Mausoleum was the dragon’s den of the realm, where the true dragon rested.

This was why the sovereigns of so many generations had favored it.

But the grounds of the Western Mausoleum were limited, and after so many sovereigns had been buried here, it could not take much more.

Though there had been a proposal to have the sovereigns of the Sui moved out, Emperor Taizong was benevolent and believed that the new dynasty should not do this, as it could be imitated by future generations and lead to discord.

Thus, he had chosen another place to be the imperial mausoleum.

After the burial of Taizu, the Western Mausoleum became a forbidden ground. No eunuchs, maids, guards, or even members of the imperial household could enter.

For one hundred years now, the Western Mausoleum had been completely sealed off, no one even talking about it.