The Undying Immortal System-Chapter 317: Life 76, Age 157, Martial Emperor Peak

Six months later, Dragon Gate Kingdom stood empty.

20,000 youths, along with their caretakers, had been moved into my inner world. Everyone else had been sent to live in the territories of the sects. The only people who remained were some of our Emperors, but not even they were in the cities. They were all stationed along the borders of the various sects, waiting.

Dragon Gate City was a ghost town. The only two people left were me and my trusty sidekick, TongBin. While I sat upon the throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, TongBin was deep underground, waiting.

Was all of this necessary? Was taking people out of our best-defended city, the city that sat at the heart of our empire, and sending them to the front line of an invasion really the right call? Maybe not. I didn’t know if there was a right call. I could only do what I thought best.

Two hours before noon, I tapped on a formation plate to send a signal to all of our forces. It was time.

A group of Peak Rank 5 body cultivators was stationed deep beneath Mount Jiang, Rosehill, the Twin Mountains Sect, and the Verdant Fields Sect. Each person had been given a formation plate.

When I tapped on my plate, each of these plates lit up simultaneously.

Upon seeing this, all of the body cultivators rushed forward to destroy their assigned gem.

The third ring of each formation dropped at almost exactly the same time.

With this task complete, these cultivators rushed back up to the surface to prepare for what came next.

When the formation plates in the hands of our Emperors lit up, they started counting to 10.

At the count of 5, there they were able to feel a series of earthquakes as the formations were destroyed.

At the count of 10, they rushed forward, into the sects, to take up their assigned positions.

Most were heading to meet up with our armies, but Mo, Shi YuLong, and two others dashed away to begin setting up Rank 6 defensive formations. While each city was already shielded with Rank 5 formations, if a sufficient number of Emperors attacked, Rank 5 wouldn’t be enough.

A minute passed, then two.

We had eight armies of Kings and Lords arranged to defend our sects, but we didn’t know when, or if, there would be an attack.

Finally, after 15 minutes, I received a signal from the group at Mount Jiang. Then, only a moment later, I got one from Rosehill. Then, the Verdant Fields, and finally, the Twin Mountains.

Four large portals had opened up in the four cardinal directions, and hundreds of cultivators were streaming out of them.

As I had hoped, the cultivators in this first wave were not members of the Sovereign clans. They were members of vassal forces.

The north was being attacked by a coalition led by the Verdant Forest Sect. The east and south were being attacked by similar groups led by the Rising Sun Empire and the Flowing Mountain Sect.

The attack on the west was being carried out by people from the Nine Rivers Sect. However, unlike the groups attacking from other directions, this force from the Nine Rivers wasn’t a unified army.

The instant the Nine Rivers cultivators arrived, they broke apart into countless smaller factions. Some groups only had a handful of people in them, and some groups had dozens. The biggest faction was led by a striking, muscular woman with a scarred face and close-cropped black hair. Her jet-black leather armor gave her an intimidating aura, but what was truly scary was her mount—an enormous, vicious deer with large, sharp fangs.

Each of the four invading armies received a signal, and most of them began marching on our empire in unison.

On the Nine Rivers Sect’s side, however, the various factions began racing forward so that they could be the first to reach us. The only faction that held back was the one led by the woman on the deer. That one advanced more slowly and stayed at the rear of the assault.

The target of these charging factions was the army under the command of LiTing.

As the Sect Master of the Rosehill Sect, she had been focused on guiding our people in the art of refining. While most of the weapons the sect made were handed off to others in the empire, that was only because all of the members of the Rosehill Sect were already kitted out in the best refined items possible.

However, this wasn’t the sect’s only advantage.

Nearly everyone who joined the Rosehill Sect was a metal cultivator who would have faced endless suppression on the Nine Rivers Continent. Without the sect, even the most talented disciple would have led a life of misery. Because of this, because the Rosehill Sect changed the fates of its members so dramatically, Rosehill had generated far more karma than any of our other sects. So, it had been able to raise dozens of Peak Kings over the years.

Still, while Rosehill was well equipped and had a large number of Kings, they were facing a force with hundreds of Kings and dozens of Emperors. With Rank 6 equipment, a Martial King could fight a Martial Emperor, but that was only if the Emperor lacked equipment of their own. As members of the Nine Rivers Sect, these invaders were better prepared than most.

For this reason, once we confirmed that it was the Nine Rivers attacking Rosehill, I signaled both the LuYao’s Shimmering Radiance Sect and Mei’s Grain Jar Sect to move to support Rosehill from the north and south.

Then, the moment the people from the Nine Rivers entered beneath the Wastes’ formation, LiTing signaled her army to retreat.

Seeing their targets fleeing like helpless lambs, the people from the Nine Rivers got a bit too excited.

At that exact moment, the woman on the deer signaled her faction to attack.

They fell on the people of the Nine Rivers from behind and began butchering them without mercy.

JiaQi, who I hadn’t even heard from since the very start of this life, had become a core disciple of the Nine Rivers Sect. Her ‘faction’ was composed of people who had been expelled from our sects after turning 50. She had gathered up the ones who were still loyal to us—partially as a result of the Core of Fellowship—and arranged for them to join in this assault.

Upon being attacked from the rear, the cultivators from the Nine Rivers fell into disarray.

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Seeing this, LiTing wheeled her army around and charged them.

Even after all of this, the cultivators from the Nine Rivers still maintained an advantage due to their numbers, but when the groups from the Shimmering Radiance and Grain Jar Sects arrived, the now surrounded invaders were swiftly defeated.

Once our armies’ victory was assured, JiaQi took her group to the south to support the Twin Mountains, and LuYao took hers north to support the Verdant Fields. LiTing and Mei stayed in Rosehill to guard against any further assaults.

While most of the members of the Nine Rivers Sect appeared on the western battlefield, some did appear on each of the others as well. These were cultivators who had deep ties to one of the sects or empires involved in this war.

The fight on the northern battlefield was being led by just such a cultivator, a man I once knew as Young Master Wang.

Unlike the battle in the west, the Verdant Forest Sect was firmly in control of the attack on the north. So, when they received the order to attack, no one charged ahead recklessly. The group advanced as a united whole.

Young Master Wang not only had operational control of this assault, but he had also been the one who had planned it out. He knew that he would be attacking a sect of powerful wood cultivators, and while the Verdant Forest Sect might have a greater number of high-level cultivators, a clash between two wood-focused sects might drag on for far too long.

He wanted to finish off the Verdant Fields before we had time to send reinforcements.

To do this, he needed an elemental advantage. While fire might work, metal was ideal for dealing with wood. So, he made the fateful choice of contacting the most powerful organization of metal cultivators on the continent, an organization that everyone knew had a deep grudge against both the Wastes and the Rosehill Sect.

He contacted Shi YuHua, the leader of the Guild of Refiners.

While YuHua had little interest in the bounty that the Sovereigns had placed on us, she was eager for a chance at ‘revenge.’ After only a token resistance, she agreed to join in Young Master Wang’s attack.

As a result, Young Master Wang’s assault fared no better than the Nine Rivers’ attack on Rosehill. Once protected from the Sovereigns by the Wastes’ formation, YuHua and her guild turned on their purported allies and crippled them.

However, the army from the Verdant Forest was not annihilated, and Young Master Wang was not killed.

Instead, following my instructions, SuYin, as Sect Master of the Verdant Fields, pardoned him.

In a past life, Young Master Wang had helped me by sheltering the families of the members of my clan. In return, I would spare him—once. This made us even. If he was foolish enough to attack us again, he would be crushed.

In a similar fashion, the Guild of Alchemists ‘assisted’ in the assault on their rival, the Twin Mountains Sect, and the Guild of Formation Specialists ‘helped’ with the attack on Mount Jiang.

After less than two hours of fighting, the first wave of attacks was defeated.

At this point, there was a brief lull, but only an hour later, four new portals opened up in the same places as before. This time, though, each army was composed solely of members from the four Sovereign clans.

Fighting alongside the guilds, our armies were able to hold their own against these new attackers, but we were being pushed back one step at a time.

Eventually, each of our armies retreated into the cities where they would be protected by our formations. However, while this would allow us to survive a little longer, it wasn’t a long-term solution. The enemy had Formation Emperors among their ranks, and in time, they would be able to break through our defenses.

It was clear to everyone that, if nothing changed, the only possible outcome of this war would be our complete destruction.

Sitting on the throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, I rubbed my forehead as I listened to reports from the battlefields.

Everything was going too smoothly. It was all happening just as we had planned, and that had me worried.

Where was the catch? What had we missed?

Just the fact that the forces from the guilds were allowed to join us so seamlessly was more than a little suspicious. The fact that they had allowed former members of our sects to join the attack on Rosehill was absurd.

Were the Sovereigns playing a deeper game? Or were they just so confident in their victory that they were happy to use this attack as an opportunity to root out traitors?

In the end, it didn’t matter. At this late date, all I could do was press forward.

I took out a blue formation plate made of pure kyanrolite.

I stared at it for several long seconds.

Then, I placed my palm on it and injected my qi.

Deep below Dragon Gate City, a similar kyanrolite plate began to glow.

Seeing this, TongBin stood up and walked to the formation at the center of the cavern.

Then, he punched, and a white gem shattered into pieces.

A powerful earthquake rocked the city.

TongBin moved and punched a second gem. Another earthquake.

The quake caused by the third gem being destroyed was powerful enough to fracture the rafters of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

After the fourth gem was destroyed, my body tensed in anticipation.

Minutes passed.

Then, TongBin threw one final punch, shattered the last gem, and destroyed the formation beneath Dragon Gate.

When the formation over Dragon Gate dropped, the city—the entire kingdom—was rocked by an earthquake powerful enough to destroy countless qi-reinforced buildings. Not even the Hall of Supreme Harmony was immune.

As I sat on the throne, the walls around me cracked, and parts of the ceiling fell down, but I barely noticed this commotion.

I was focused on my dantian.

When the formation fell, karmic energy—energy even more powerful than the Emperor-level energy that I was accustomed to—began trickling into me.

However, both my dantian and core were already packed with Emperor-level energy. There was no room for this new, Sovereign-level energy, so I had to act fast.

Grabbing the Emperor-level energy, I began shoving it into my core.

I expected this to cause the world to break like it had always done when I packed my core with qi, but that didn’t happen. The pressure just continued to build.

By the time a quarter of the energy in my dantian was exhausted, the pressure had caused the innermost part of my core, the piece that I had crafted when ascending to Lord, to expand to the point that it was directly pushing against the middle layer of my core.

After expending half of my stored energy, both the innermost and middle sections of my core had expanded, and they were pushing against the outermost section, the part that I had made when ascending to Emperor.

By the time I had expended three-quarters of my energy, the outermost layer of my core had grown to be nearly 50% larger than it had started, and the weaknesses of my Emperor-level technique started to show themselves.

While the Lord and King sections of my core were still struggling to hold on, strands of the lace in the Emperor section started snapping. Each time a strand snapped, a ripple of energy washed through my body, causing me to wince in pain.

I didn’t know what to do, but I knew that I couldn’t stop. My core already contained far too much compressed energy. If it exploded before I ascended, I would die, and I would probably take half the kingdom with me. All I could do was put my trust in what Emperor Li had told me.

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So, I pushed more energy into my core and hoped that I was doing the right thing.

By the time my Emperor-level energy was exhausted, the outer layer of my core was nothing but shreds. Even the middle layer had burst apart. Only the innermost layer, the layer that I perfectly sculpted as a Lord and then refined with both King- and Emperor-level energy, was still holding on.

If I wanted to advance, I needed more energy.

In the short time since the formation had fallen, I had only been able to gather a wisp of Sovereign-level karmic energy, but what I had would have to do.

I sorted through this new energy, pulled out the threads that were connected to both my body and soul, and shoved.

The last layer of my core snaped, and all the energy that had been pent up inside of it exploded.

Compressed karmic energy shattered my dantian, ruptured my meridians, and annihilated my energy body in its entirety.

However… only my energy body. My physical form remained intact, and energy did not spill out into the world around me.

The karmic energy that had burst from my core remained locked inside whatever alternate space it was that my energy body existed within.

After expanding beyond the scope of my senses, this energy returned to me and condensed into an entirely new, untouched energy body.

I was alive. However, my cultivation base had been eradicated.

The moment I realized this, five black portals appeared at the entrance of the throne room, and five elderly men stepped through them.

I didn’t recognize three of these men, but the faces of Sovereigns Ning ZeKun and Zhuge YeDu were enough to tell me who these five were.

The man in the center, the man who had to be the Emissary of the Nine River Saint, clapped his hands together lightly in a sarcastic applause.

“Congratulations on your ascension, Sovereign Su.” He reached the storage bag at his waist, pulled out an ornate pedestal, and placed an oath stone atop it. “You have broken the rules of the Nine Rivers Continent, but, considering your… situation, that can be overlooked. It is time for you to swear your allegiance to the Nine Rivers Saint.”