Chapter 2914: The Story of Blackheart Demon Lord
Zhang Ruochen, Bai Qinger, and Chi Yao inside the teleportation array sensed chaos in time and space, darkness before their eyes, and a powerful spatial pressure that seemed about to crush their divine bodies.
Based on Zhang Ruochen's understanding of space, he knew this was what happened when a teleportation failed.
Unfortunately, he had only outlined life rules and death rules, and could only use the power of the Way of Life and the Way of Death. Otherwise, with his spatial mastery, he could have manipulated space to maintain the array's normal teleportation.
Zhang Ruochen did not sit idly by. He immediately summoned the Vajra Moon Wheel and concealed it in his sleeve, gripping the Ten-Thousand Curse Heavenly Bead tightly in his other hand.
"Whoosh!"
The light of the space teleportation array faded. Before Zhang Ruochen, Bai Qinger, and Chi Yao could observe their surroundings, they sensed Blackheart Demon Lord's aura.
Chi Yao struck first. The Heavenly Sword Soul manifested above her head, and the divine sword erupted with unparalleled sharpness.
"Sword Thirteen!"
She merged with the sword, transforming into a blinding beam of light, stabbing toward Blackheart Demon Lord.
Having just suffered a loss to a divine sword, Blackheart Demon Lord dared not clash head-on with one again.
However, Chi Yao's timing and sword speed left him no room to evade. An ordinary god would have been unable to react and would have been pierced by the divine sword.
But Blackheart Demon Lord was no ordinary being. He acted after the fact yet arrived first, summoning four Heavenly Demon Stone Inscription Divine Stele to block in front of him, colliding with the divine sword.
The sound of metal striking stone rang out, sharp and ear-piercing.
This was a collision of divine artifacts!
Even Chi Yao, the wielder, could barely withstand it. Her body flew backward, unable to maintain her transformation technique, reverting to her original appearance, with blood seeping from both eyes and ears.
"Haha! Chi Yao, when you swung that sword earlier, I already guessed it was you. Truly unexpected, in just a thousand years, your cultivation has reached the peak of a mid-level god." Blackheart Demon Lord laughed.
Chi Yao stood proudly with her sword, the blood from her eyes and ears turning into blood qi and vanishing.
"You, a great god, were wounded by me, a mid-level god, and yet you can still laugh?"
Within her graceful figure, thirty-three bright light points emerged, thirty-three layers of heavenly realms rose above her head, and five-colored chaotic qi spread beneath her feet, greatly increasing the divine power fluctuations she emitted.
"Thirty-Three Heavens! How could you have cultivated the Immovable Bright King Great Venerable's technique? And succeeded at that?" Blackheart Demon Lord was greatly shocked, finding it hard to believe.
Bai Qinger knew that the moment when someone was most astonished was also when their mind was weakest.
"Seven Souls Fear Dream!"
Bai Qinger bit her finger and pointed forward, using divine blood as a medium to unleash this trump card spiritual power divine technique.
Blackheart Demon Lord's eyes grew weary, and his expression momentarily blurred.
In that instant, Chi Yao and Yu Longxian, who stood beside Zhang Ruochen, both swung their swords. Two dazzling sword lights flew out in a cross formation, one in front and one behind.
"Do you think your spiritual power can shatter my mind with a fear dream technique?"
Blackheart Demon Lord controlled the four Heavenly Demon Stone Inscription Divine Stele to guard the four directions, manifesting four different scenes to counterattack the two incoming sword lights.
"Boom!"
Chi Yao and Bai Qinger could not withstand the power of a great god. Both spat blood, flew backward, and slammed into the stone wall, sustaining severe injuries.
Even the strongest, Yu Longxian, could not hold out. She flew over Zhang Ruochen's head and fell into the gray space behind.
This space teleportation array was located in a place filled with gray death qi, containing a powerful corrosive force.
Beyond that, nothing was visible.
Clearly, this was not Star Cliff Heaven at all. The space teleportation had gone wrong. It was likely related to the purple crystal array tower that Blackheart Demon Lord had shattered earlier.
Blackheart Demon Lord laughed loudly: "Now do you understand why you could wound me earlier? When I get serious, with your cultivation levels, even wielding the strongest weapons, you have no chance."
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
Two Heavenly Demon Stone Inscription Divine Stele flew out, manifesting Heavenly Demon scenes, pressing down toward Bai Qinger and Chi Yao respectively.
Bai Qinger immediately summoned sixty-five bronze chime bells, surrounding herself. One after another, bell sounds rang out, resisting the descending divine stele. She managed to hold on.
On the other side, the thirty-three illusory heavenly realms above Chi Yao's head were shattered by the divine stele, leaving only ten solid heavenly realms to resist it.
Blackheart Demon Lord showed a surprised expression, clearly not expecting the two to be so accomplished. He sighed: "Truly peerless talents. To achieve such feats as mid-level gods, their futures are unimaginable."
Bai Qinger and Chi Yao could not speak.
In fact, Bai Qinger had already begun burning divine blood within her body.
Blackheart Demon Lord looked at Zhang Ruochen with envious eyes, saying: "Back in the Kunlun Realm, no matter how hard I tried, no matter what realm I reached, I was always just a follower of Qiangu Nüdi. I couldn't even get her to look at me directly. Do you know what it feels like to be ignored? You wouldn't understand, because you can win the favor of two proud daughters of heaven at once."
"Is that why you betrayed the Kunlun Realm?" Zhang Ruochen asked.
In truth, when Bai Qinger and Chi Yao had attacked Blackheart Demon Lord earlier, Zhang Ruochen had had a chance to escape.
But he didn't.
Blackheart Demon Lord seemed convinced he could deal with Zhang Ruochen and the others, so he didn't rush to act.
He fell into recollection, his gaze shifting between anger, cold cruelty, and struggle. "Betrayal? That's one way to put it."
Zhang Ruochen glanced at Chi Yao, who was suppressed beneath the Heavenly Demon Stone Inscription Divine Stele. He saw the ten heavenly realms above her head beginning to grow—she was forcibly condensing an eleventh heavenly realm to break through to upper-level god.
Their eyes met.
Zhang Ruochen understood she wanted him to buy her some time.
Blackheart Demon Lord was lost in his own emotions and didn't notice Chi Yao's change.
Seeing his gaze gradually sharpen, Zhang Ruochen quickly said: "You seem reluctant to accept the word 'betrayal.' Why not tell your story?"
"You want to hear it?" Blackheart Demon Lord asked.
Zhang Ruochen said: "Standing this close to a great god, I couldn't even self-destruct my divine source if I wanted to. Since I'm destined to die by your hand today, let me at least know what kind of person I'm dying at the hands of."
"You couldn't possibly pull any tricks."
As a great god, Blackheart Demon Lord naturally had absolute confidence facing a few Heaven-Repairing Realm gods.
Zhang Ruochen felt slightly relieved, knowing Blackheart Demon Lord had let down his guard.
"You should know better than I do how absurd the word 'betrayal' is. In the eyes of those Heavenly Court cultivators, aren't you also a traitor? A eon-level villain? But how much of the truth do they know? They're just a bunch of fools who only see the surface." Blackheart Demon Lord said.
Zhang Ruochen said: "I agree with that."
Blackheart Demon Lord's expression turned solemn, fully lost in recollection, though he remained wary of Zhang Ruochen. He said: "One hundred thousand years ago, in the Kunlun Realm, I and a large group of cultivators listened to the Sky-Connecting Divine Tree preach. When Desolate Heaven arrived, we saint-level cultivators were all extremely excited."
"You can hardly imagine how much the younger generation of cultivators admired eon-level geniuses. Moreover, by then, Desolate Heaven had already stepped into the god realm, reaching the realm we were all pursuing at the time."
Zhang Ruochen wanted to say he could imagine, because he himself was an eon-level genius. But he didn't want to interrupt Blackheart Demon Lord's thoughts, so he listened quietly.
Blackheart Demon Lord laughed mockingly: "But what we didn't expect was that Desolate Heaven would swing his axe and cut down the Sky-Connecting Divine Tree. The power of that single axe blast knocked all of us unconscious."
"When I woke up, I and the other saint-level cultivators were already outside the Kunlun Realm."
"As soon as I woke up, before I could figure out what had happened, we were surrounded and attacked by the Hell Realm army. In the end, all the cultivators died. Only I broke through the encirclement and escaped."
"At that time, I only wanted to return to the Kunlun Realm immediately and tell the gods that the Sky-Connecting Divine Tree had been cut down by Desolate Heaven, that Desolate Heaven had betrayed the Heavenly Court. But when I reached the outside of the Kunlun Realm, I found the entire world had sealed itself off. From afar, it looked like a giant fireball. I couldn't even get close."
Zhang Ruochen thought to himself that Blackheart Demon Lord and those saint-level cultivators must have been teleported away by the power of Xumi Saint Monk before his death.
Or perhaps Xumi Saint Monk had teleported them along with Desolate Heaven.
Regardless, what Blackheart Demon Lord described differed greatly from what Xiao Hei and other cultivators outside said. Under these circumstances, Blackheart Demon Lord had no reason to lie to him.
"Since I couldn't return to the Kunlun Realm, I had to go to the Heavenly Court."
Blackheart Demon Lord grew angry, his emotions intense: "But I never imagined the Hell Realm cultivators would be so shameless. When they failed to kill me, they spread rumors that I had led Desolate Heaven to cut down the Sky-Connecting Divine Tree, trying to kill me by another's hand."
Zhang Ruochen said: "The Heavenly Palace shouldn't have believed such a low-level rumor."
"The Heavenly Palace? Haha! The Heavenly Palace is such an exalted place, how could it notice a saint-level cultivator like me? The rumor didn't kill me, but it turned me into a traitor in the eyes of countless cultivators, especially those who had grudges against me."
"When Qiangu Nüdi was still around, they dared not do anything to me. But in the eyes of cultivators from all realms of the Heavenly Court, the Kunlun Realm's gods had fallen, and it was no different from being destroyed."
"So, because of a rumor spread by Hell Realm cultivators, these people began to oppress me. At that time, I endured endless insults, bullying, and persecution. I even dragged down the cultivators of the Black Demon Realm."
"Zhang Ruochen, you have no idea what I went through back then. Because although you were treated as a traitor, in the Heavenly Court, you had the Moon God protecting you, and in the Hell Realm, you had the Blood Absolute War God backing you. I had nothing."
"When a cultivator stronger than me broke both my legs, I had to crawl between his legs. There was no second Moon God to stand up for me!"
"When the cultivators of the Black Demon Realm were sold as slaves and toyed with as playthings, I was powerless, because behind them were gods. There was no second Blood Absolute War God to step forward, kill until the heavens turned upside down, and tell them that Blackheart was not someone to mess with. No!"
Zhang Ruochen fell silent. Compared to Blackheart Demon Lord, he had indeed been luckier.
Blackheart Demon Lord said: "But later, there was someone. It was Yi Tianjun. Yi Tianjun appreciated my indomitable spirit, thought I was worth cultivating, and so had the Paradise Realm, as the ruler of the Western Universe, step forward to help me, accept the Black Demon Realm, and truly make it a part of the Western Universe."
Zhang Ruochen said: "Have you ever considered that the one who oppressed the Black Demon Realm and persecuted you might have been the same person?"
"Does that matter? Zhang Ruochen, it doesn't matter!"
Blackheart Demon Lord said: "I know I'm just a pawn of the Paradise Realm... no, I'm not even at that level. I know I'm just a pawn of Yi Tianjun, doing all the dirty, tiring work with the Black Demon Realm. But it doesn't matter anymore. It's already good enough!"
"One hundred thousand years, the Black Demon Realm has developed into a strong realm, and I have reached the level of a great god. The cultivators who once humiliated me have all been slaughtered by me, their clans wiped out."
"The ruling world is the chess player, the strong realm is the chess piece, and the weak realm is the chessboard. That's the rule! To become a useful chess piece for a chess player is already fortunate."
"If a chess piece dares to doubt the right or wrong of the chess player, that piece is not far from being discarded!"
Zhang Ruochen found it ridiculous. Who would willingly be a chess piece? "Don't you want to become a chess player yourself?"
"I do! I dream of it every day. That's why, knowing the great danger, I still stayed. To become a chess player, I have to take you down, Zhang Ruochen. Risking my life is worth it." Blackheart Demon Lord said.
"Boom!"
The eleventh heavenly realm was successfully condensed. Chi Yao broke through to the upper-level god realm. The Space-Time Chaos Lotus unfolded in her palm, sending the Heavenly Demon Stone Inscription Divine Stele pressing down from above flying away.