On the main street, chaos reigned. The blaring of horns and screams filled the air. Number Seven had considered stopping, but the noisier his surroundings beca, the more irritated he felt. Yielding to his whims, he resud his rampage, savoring the thrill of wanton destruction!
No thod could counter him. Even when helicopters swooped in to strafe him with machine guns, the hail of bullets couldn't breach his defenses.
"re scrap tal!" Number Seven scorned. With a fierce stomp, he leaped like a flea, covering a distance a hundred tis his own height. Like a cannonball, he shot straight into the sky and kicked a helicopter, blowing it to pieces.
This scene terrified the arriving elites, driving them to the brink of collapse.
Damn it! Even Long Tianji never displayed such terrifying power!
They fled en masse while continuing to call for reinforcents from higher up.
Number Seven's henchman laughed arrogantly. "Hahaha, a bunch of worthless rabble daring to try and stop a chariot with your bare hands! Don't you know who you're facing? We are from the Langhuan Holy Land, and this Senior is a Martial Saint! Senior, please, continue! Let's slaughter our way to Jiangbei!"
"What?"
"A Martial Saint?!"
"There's actually a living Martial Saint in this world?"
"No wonder..."
The crowd was overco with shock, and so even fell into despair.
Number Seven smiled faintly. "Slaughter our way through? That does sound sowhat interesting."
He was about to do just that when he suddenly clutched his chest, feeling a sharp discomfort in his heart. He frowned, "What a nuisance!"
He wasn't a true Martial Saint, but a Puppet! If he were still alive, he could have squandered his True Qi endlessly. Now, however, he had to be frugal with it. Once it ran out, he would have to enter a deep sleep once again.
"Hm? Senior, why have you stopped?" the henchman asked, sidling closer with a fawning expression.
SLAP!
Number Seven backhanded him, mangling half his face. "Who do you think you are, telling what to do? If you weren't sowhat useful, I'd have killed you first!"
The henchman trembled, ignoring the excruciating pain, and imdiately kowtowed to admit his mistake. Number Seven then grabbed him like a dead dog and vanished in a flash.
***
SLAP!
A table was smashed to pieces.
Guo Jufeng and several other Grandmasters stared at the video feed that had just arrived, their faces a mixture of anger, trepidation, fear, and unease.
This motherfucker is a Martial Saint!
They were already at their wits' end facing a Heavenly King, let alone confronting a Martial Saint. They were utterly helpless!
Back in the day, they had managed to purge the various factions and force them into hiding because the world of martial arts was in decline, lacking high-end combatants. That was why those factions couldn't resist modern weaponry.
Now, a Martial Saint had suddenly appeared, making modern weapons seem like a joke. Sniper rifles, Gatling guns, rocket launchers... none of them could touch him.
Thermobaric bombs? Nuclear bombs? Yes, those could probably kill him, but only if he were willing to go to an unpopulated area. You couldn't just launch one at him in the middle of a major city, could you? What about all the other people?
"Sigh, thankfully he stopped and left."
"Let's just hope he doesn't continue his indiscriminate slaughter."
"He's going after Long Tianji, right? Long Tianji is completely dood this ti!"
No one believed that a Heavenly King could stand against a Martial Saint. The gap between them was simply too imnse.
"Speaking of which, hasn't Old Xiao already gone to the ultimate lab?"
"Yes, he actually had the courage to take that gamble. I could never..."
"I wonder if he'll succeed."
"Even if he succeeds in becoming a cybernetically enhanced human, how would he stack up against a Martial Saint?"
"That's..."
Guo Jufeng and the others exchanged wry smiles. The answer was cruel. With current biotechnology, even an enhanced human probably couldn't defeat a Martial Saint.
It's completely hopeless!
Just then, they received a video call from Yan Qinghe, an elder from the capital.
As soon as they connected, their faces fell.
"What? The Soul Hooking Envoy from the Underworld has appeared again?!"
"He's also causing trouble for Long Tianji and has kidnapped Old Xiao's adopted daughter?"
"HISS... Why does it feel like ever since Long Tianji broke through to the Heavenly King realm, all sorts of monstrous fiends have been crawling out of the woodwork?"
"This Long Tianji is a walking disaster!"
"So the question is, between the Soul Hooking Envoy and this Martial Saint who are both after him, who is more terrifying?"
"It's hard to say..."
For a mont, they were sick with worry, a cloud of concern hanging over them. With no solutions, they could only hope that the two enemies would engage in a dog-eat-dog fight and annihilate each other.
「In the capital.」
Several great elders wore equally grave expressions. These uncontrollable, destabilizing elents were erging one after another, like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. It was profoundly unsettling.
"Should we... go and awaken *that one*...?"
"Sigh, it seems we have no other choice."
"Which of us will go?"
"You are all too old. I'll make the trip," Yan Qinghe sighed, volunteering for the task.
Before long, a helicopter took off from the capital, heading toward the summit of the Heavenly Mountains. There, a secret unknown to the world lay hidden—one of the governnt's greatest trump cards.
「Jiangbei. Heavenly chanism Martial Alliance.」
The henchman bowed and scraped as he escorted Number Seven inside.
"It's you!" Zhao Xinghe and the others recognized him. They tensed up as if facing a great enemy, trembling with fear.
In fact, a seed of doubt had already taken root in their minds. Was becoming Long Tianji's subordinate really a good thing? Why do we have to endure such hardship all the ti?
"Senior, they're Long Tianji's lackeys. They must know where he is," the henchman said.
"Oh?" Number Seven's gaze swept over them, and his aura erupted with crushing force.
PFFT—
Even from a distance, Zhao Xinghe and the others coughed up blood. They collapsed to their knees, looking like toads that had been stepped on by an elephant.
"rcy! Please, spare our lives!"
"We swear, we truly don't know where Heavenly King Long is! He never involves himself with us."
"The Soul Hooking Envoys from the Underworld ca looking for us before. They said Heavenly King Long had three days to go see them at the Strange Grotto in Luofu City."
"After getting the ssage, Heavenly King Long might actually go..."
Seeing that they knew nothing and had no further use, Number Seven was about to casually slaughter them all. But the mont he heard the word "Underworld," his pupils constricted. Even as a Martial Saint, his expression turned grave.
He looked up and saw the "Life-Death" talisman embedded in the alliance's signboard. With a grasping motion of his hand, the talisman flew into his palm.
"It really is that disgusting aura from the Underworld..."
The henchman's status in the Langhuan Holy Land was low, so he had never heard of the Underworld. He cautiously mustered his courage and inquired about it.
Number Seven replied coldly, "Since it's called the Underworld, it obviously cos from the world underground. Surely you don't think the Langhuan Holy Land is the deepest place humanity has ever reached? There are humans living even deeper below the Langhuan Holy Land. Those are the people of the Underworld!"
"What?"
"That's..."
"An underground world?"
"Deep underground... isn't it all magma? How could humans possibly survive in such high temperatures?"
"Unbelievable..."
Zhao Xinghe and the others stared with wide eyes. If this man weren't so overwhelmingly powerful, they would have accused him of spouting utter nonsense. It was common knowledge that temperatures surpassed one hundred degrees just a few kiloters underground. An ordinary creature would be cooked alive. At a depth of ten thousand ters, the heat would be even more terrifying.
Number Seven, of course, didn't deign to explain further. His gaze flickered as he considered sothing, and he lost interest in killing these ants. He ordered his henchman to lead the way to Luofu City.
Only after they were long gone did Zhao Xinghe and the others finally let out a huge sigh of relief.
"We survived... again."
"That man was terrifying. His presence was even more intimidating than Heavenly King Long's!"
"Of course he is! If he were weaker than Heavenly King Long, why would he be sent on a suicide mission? The Langhuan Holy Land isn't stupid; they'd obviously send soone stronger!"
"Ah? If that's the case, isn't Heavenly King Long in grave danger?"
"If he dies, our Heavenly chanism Martial Alliance will beco a total joke, won't it?"
As the others were lost in their own thoughts, Wei Zichu quietly slipped back to his room. Following the thod Lin Tang had taught him, he activated the Jade Talisman.
"Hello? Lin Tang, can you hear ? I have to tell you..."
When Lin Tang had heard everything, he was astonished.
So the Langhuan Holy Land is located deep underground? And the Underworld is even deeper? By that logic, the top combatants of the Underworld must be incredibly powerful!
He was already a Golden Core cultivator and could take a bath in magma without issue, provided his True Qi wasn't depleted. But even he couldn't survive long-term in an underground environnt with temperatures of several hundred or even a thousand degrees.
That raised a question. How did weaklings like the Vice Hall Master and Xiao Qingcang survive there?
The underground world might not be entirely high-temperature. There must be areas that maintain normal temperatures for so reason, Lin Tang theorized.
For example, once a cultivator like him broke through from the Nascent Soul Stage to the Divinity Transformation Realm, they could create a special dinsional space known as a Grotto Heaven. Such a paradise could allow ordinary people to live inside it, no matter how harsh the external environnt was. Perhaps the master of the Underworld was a cultivator from the Ancient Tis who had reached the Divinity Transformation Stage, or even a higher realm.
Because Lin Tang had been flying, he had already arrived in Luofu City. He asked a few locals for the location of the Strange Grotto, then gave it so thought. He bought a new set of clothes and changed into them. Then, he took the circlet he had snatched from Zhao Xingyun out of his Storage Ring. He placed it on his head and, in a flash, transford into the spitting image of Long Tianji before striding toward the Strange Grotto.
So what if it's the Underworld? I don't care how deep its foundations run or how powerful its masters are. They dared to take my wife. I'll kill every last one of them!
Upon reaching the Strange Grotto, he found that there wasn't a single person on guard. In the deepest part of the cave, runes covered every surface, forming a large teleportation tunnel. It was just sitting there, completely exposed.
Perhaps the people of the Underworld were overconfident, believing no one in the surface world would recognize a teleportation tunnel, let alone be able to destroy it. That might be why they hadn't bothered to post any guards.
"Hmph. With my Golden Core Stage cultivation, I can't yet comprehend or create a teleportation Formation. But tampering with one that's already built? That's child's play," Lin Tang muttered with a mischievous grin. He imdiately set to work, sabotaging the tunnel.
The next day, the Soul Hooking Envoys finally entered Luofu City with Shen Youling in tow. They didn't head directly to the Strange Grotto. Instead, they made their way to the mansion of the city's wealthiest man, Wan Santong.
"Is the feast we requested ready?"
"Reporting to the esteed envoys, it is all prepared. This way, please!"
"Good, very good."
They entered a room and scanned its contents, looking very pleased. Shen Youling followed them in, and when she saw what was there, her face went white with horror.
"Why... why is it all babies?"
"You're treating them as a delicacy?!"
"Stop! Stop it right now!!!"
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