Volume 5, Chapter 26 – Sweeping Across

In the heartland of Northern Yu, Gaoyuan City.

Beneath the thirty-meter city wall, endless crowds surged back and forth. Both sides of the broad street were packed with shops and market stalls, while clusters of shacks built from plastic, hollow piping, and demon-beast hides stood propped up on the ground. Everywhere, there were cries of bargaining and shouting.

“Recruiting! Recruiting!”

“Frontier-expansion mission! We only want people above the Third Body Tribulation! Listen up! Nobody below the Third Tribulation! Don’t even ask!”

“Come look at a Fourth-Tribulation demon beast hide! Anyone want one? Hide from a Fourth-Tribulation ‘Plateau Swordhorn Deer’! Discount price! Fair to young and old alike!”

“Hey there, customer! Want a hide?”

Amid the crowd, a peddler caught sight of a traveling party at a glance. At the front were several enormous black oxen being led along, the backward spikes on their backs enough to send a chill through anyone’s heart. Flanking them were warrior cultivators in technological battle suits, armed with war swords and sabers.

These people protected a group of young men and women in their midst. Among them, one could vaguely make out a withered, shriveled old man and a fair-skinned, solidly built middle-aged man dressed in luxurious robes. The peddler, meanwhile, accurately picked out a lively young girl standing on the outer edge of the group, clearly intending to squeeze the softest persimmon.

“Plateau Swordhorn Deer?” The girl wore her hair in twin maiden buns. Her features were delicate, her manner lively and cute. She wore a modified emerald gauze dress, and only from the white tight-fitting trousers extending beneath her skirt could one tell that she was probably wearing battle gear underneath as well.

She bounced up to the stall, picked up the hide laid out on the table, and felt and examined it. Then, under the peddler’s expectant gaze, she revealed a look of disdain and said, “The hide of a Fourth-Tribulation Swordhorn Deer is indeed very good, but you didn’t skin it cleanly. You scavenged this, didn’t you?”

“Uh…” The peddler choked and forced out an awkward smile. “What are you saying, miss? Look carefully, this is the hide of a Fourth-Tribulation demon beast. If you took it to a company workshop and had it custom-made into a battlesuit…”

“Don’t say so much to me.” The girl waved him off. “The most valuable thing on a Swordhorn Deer is obviously that pair of hard horns. If they’re used properly, they’re enough to forge seven or eight fine swords. If you really hunted it yourself, then why aren’t you selling those too?”

This little girl knows quite a bit, doesn’t she?

The peddler frowned and had just been about to argue when, from the side, a bag suddenly came flying over and landed askew on the table. Its mouth fell open, spilling several irregular crystals out onto the surface.

Void crystals!

The peddler was startled. In the next instant, though, his vision darkened. Looking up, he caught sight of one of the Thornspine Black Oxen looming close, while a voice came from nearby.

“That’s enough, Ling’er. Don’t waste too many words on people like this. The hide’s decent enough. Take it.”

“Yes, Father!”

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The girl glared at the peddler once more, snatched up the hide on the table, and happily returned to the group.

Even so, she was still a little dissatisfied. She sidled up to the richly robed middle-aged man who had spoken and quietly asked, “Father, why wouldn’t you let me press him about it?”

She did not care about weapons forged from the horns of a Fourth-Tribulation demon beast, since her family had better ones already. But the horns of a Plateau Swordhorn Deer carried a subtle poison and were excellent materials for making arrowheads and even bullets.

She did not lack swords, but the firearms hanging at her waist needed more high-quality ammunition.

“You simply think that if he can scavenge something like this in an environment like this, then there must be an entire team and supply chain behind him, and those horns were definitely sold off through some other channel.”

The middle-aged man spoke lightly.

The girl nodded. That was exactly what she had been thinking.

“You’d be right under normal circumstances. An underground organization with the channels to handle a Fourth-Tribulation demon beast isn’t hard for your father to deal with.” The middle-aged man lifted his eyes and looked around, frowning slightly. “But not right now.”

“Why not?” the girl asked, puzzled.

“Why not?” The middle-aged man frowned and lightly tapped her forehead. “Dull.”

“You should look around you more. Haven’t you noticed that the atmosphere’s a little off?”

Huh?

The girl in the green dress widened her eyes slightly and obediently took a careful look around. Sure enough, she found that the atmosphere in the morning market was not quite normal.

It was too tense.

A great many people were hurrying along. The demon-beast materials being hawked along the street were obviously one or even two grades higher than expected. From time to time, one could even see someone in the street test-firing a large-caliber firearm, letting off a deafening bang at the sky without warning. Even the big black oxen were becoming restless and irritable.

This… There isn’t even a high-tier fragment entrance near Gaoyuan City. Did things really need to get this exaggerated?

The girl in green had good judgment. She had not noticed before, but now that she looked carefully, she immediately saw that the crowd was mixed with many experts above the Fourth and Fifth Tribulations. There were even some whose cultivation she could not read at all, meaning they were at least above the Seventh Tribulation.

She was extremely curious and was just about to ask the middle-aged man what was going on when a burst of conversation drifted into her ears.

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“Where has she reached?”

“She covered nearly a hundred li in a single night. By the time the news got out, she’d already broken through nineteen cities, including Qingchuan and Jiangyuan. She should be reaching Gaoyuan soon. Today, we might get a good show.”

“So who’s arrived by now?”

“The sect master of Qianyuan Sect, the imperial court’s Imperial Preceptor, and the three newly and formerly imperially appointed Sword Lords! I heard even the Immortal Alliance, the Sacred Court, and Patrol Wardens are sending people! If they run into her, they’ll definitely make her pay!”

“The sect master of Qianyuan Sect? Tsk, tsk… I heard that when it happened, the sect master’s beloved disciple, that Marquis Wenchang, was inspecting the southern region. Doesn’t that mean he ran straight into that person’s sword edge?”

“Chances are he’s more dead than alive… They say the sect master of Qianyuan was so enraged because of that that he paid a huge price to invite a whole group of friends from the Immortal Alliance to help, all for the sake of surrounding and killing Emperor Xiang here.”

Once one person started, the whole surrounding area was immediately affected, and everyone began discussing the subject among themselves.

The same went for the girl in green’s group. She moved back over and asked, “Father? They’re talking about Emperor Xiang…?”

“Mhm.” The middle-aged man nodded. “Emperor Xiang is probably coming this way.”

“What?” the girl exclaimed in surprise. “She still hasn’t left?”

Emperor Xiang had gone north with a sword alone and broken through nineteen cities in succession. That had been the biggest news story last night. She had seen it all over her phone too.

Then… then isn’t it possible we might run into her here?

The girl in green was secretly alarmed. She felt that her father was really too bold. He had obviously gotten the news in advance and yet had told no one else.

And in that case, doesn’t that mean we shouldn’t go into the city first?

That was Emperor Xiang. Emperor Xiang, the legendary “supreme Dao Realm” existence who could command heaven and earth with a single decree. If someone like that took a dislike to Gaoyuan City and casually swept a sword across it, wouldn’t they all be wiped out along with it?

“There’s no need to be afraid.”

The middle-aged man lowered his voice to reassure her.

“The fact that she could command heaven and earth by decree back then doesn’t mean she can still do it now.”

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“Otherwise, why would she still be personally hacking people down? She’d just have to say a few words to the sky, and Northern Yu’s imperial court would all drop dead.”

“Father!” The girl’s eyes shone with intense curiosity. “Is there some hidden reason behind this?”

“The ‘quality’ of heaven and earth is different now.” The middle-aged man shook his head. “The heaven and earth she commanded back then and the heaven and earth of now aren’t the same thing. That’s the first point.”

“Secondly, some people suspect that what let her do it back then was the power of the Guarding-Order treasure. And at that time, the main world had only just begun merging with the Sky Sea, while also taking the brunt of the Void Tribulation. Order itself was very unstable then, so naturally it was easier for her to influence it.”

So that means she’s gotten weaker?

The girl mulled it over.

From the sound of what these people were saying, Northern Yu had gathered a whole host of experts and was rushing this way. Maybe they would even get to witness a world-shaking battle?

Rumble, rumble…

Suddenly, the ground gave a violent tremor. Dirty lime dust began sifting down from the buildings lining the street. Furious shouting and shrill screams mixed together, and in the distance one could vaguely see a huge plume of dust rising into the air.

“Emperor Xiang! You’ve gone too far!!”

A furious roar rang out abruptly. The first word sounded as though it were still far away on the horizon, but by the time the last word fell, it was already overhead!

Whoosh—

Like everyone else, the girl in green lifted her head and only managed to glimpse a black shadow streaking across the sky. But then it collided with a rapidly incoming semi-transparent sword qi, and without the slightest ability to resist, both the body and the weapon in its hand were split cleanly in two.

“The Bibo War Sword!” someone recognized the broken weapon. “That’s Heaven-Patrol Gao from the Immortal Alliance! He was actually defeated?”

Everyone stared with eyes wide, hardly daring to believe what they had just seen.

Gao Renxing, a Heaven-Patrol of the Immortal Alliance, was nearly forty years old. Bold by temperament, he was the Immortal Alliance’s stationed Heaven-Patrol guardian for the Gaoyuan region. It was said that he had already refined a field-domain.

Even among Venerables, someone like him counted as a major expert. Usually, people like them, who had not even finished crossing their Body Tribulations, could only look up at him from below. Yet who could have imagined that one day they would witness his crushing defeat with their own eyes? He could not even block a single streak of sword qi?

“Emperor Xiang!!!”

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“Insolence!!”

“What do you think this place is? Get down here!!”

Gao Renxing’s death immediately triggered a chain reaction. In an instant, countless thunderous shouts burst out from all directions, followed at once by seven, eight, then more than a dozen enormous violet-black blasts of force slicing through the city. They sent people tumbling in every direction, but they also finally forced the culprit into view, descending lightly onto the rooftop of a tall building.

That was Emperor Xiang… the Taizu High Emperor of Eastern Xia?

From this angle, the girl in green happened to be able to catch sight of the newcomer. Her eyesight was excellent, and she saw a slender black-dressed woman with loose white hair standing atop the building with sword in hand. Immediately afterward, more than a dozen figures landed in swift succession around the rooftop, forming a ring around her.

“Emperor Xiang! You’ve already killed ten million of Great Yu’s soldiers! Yet you still won’t retreat!? What exactly do you want?”

An angry shout came from far away, though it was impossible to tell who had said it.

“How strange. Why should I leave?”

What came next was a low, hoarse woman’s voice.

“If I can do it, then why shouldn’t I just keep killing my way straight into your imperial palace and slaughter every last one of you?”

What did she say?

Nearly everyone who heard it was stunned out of their minds.

This woman… the reason she had not left was actually… that she truly wanted to kill her way through the entirety of Northern Yu?

“You’d better be able to stop me.”

The view closed in. Bai Xiang’s hair drifted before her face, and only through the occasional gap could one catch sight of those eerie golden eyes.

“If you can’t stop me,”

“then Northern Yu falls today.”