Chapter 3093: Fang Lingzi
After Zhang Ruochen and Ailianjun returned, they smelled a strong bloody scent outside the Yecha Ancestral God Temple.
Inside the temple, the gods of the Yecha Clan were silent as cicadas in winter, their arrogance gone, no divine might released. They all gazed with reverence at Yuling Shen, who sat in the upper seat.
Two divine corpses lay in the hall, blood flowing in streams.
Three upper-level gods knelt on the ground, not daring to lift their heads.
Ailianjun was stunned on the spot, never imagining that his master could be so ruthless and merciless.
Zhang Ruochen secretly admired. Although she was a woman, Yuling Shen possessed extraordinary boldness and was someone capable of great deeds. In extraordinary times, one must employ extraordinary methods.
If the internal affairs of the Yecha Clan were not properly handled and their thoughts unified, and they attacked the Hundred Clans Royal City only to have a fire start in their own backyard, the outcome would inevitably be failure.
"I will say this one last time," Yuling Shen said. "Whoever dares to propose compromising with the Darkness Temple again is committing treason and will be killed without mercy. Properly control the realm-protecting formation and prepare for the war of extermination. If the Darkness Temple dares to make a move, we will ensure they come but never return. We are determined to live or die together with the Ancestral Realm."
Bone-chilling cold air emanated from Yuling Shen's body, freezing the temple. "All of you, withdraw."
The gods of the Yecha Clan filed out of the temple. As they passed by Zhang Ruochen, no one dared to show hostility.
Yuling Shen stood up, her posture heroic and upright. "You returned so quickly?"
Zhang Ruochen said, "Taking down the Fire Ghost Clan is hardly a difficult matter."
Yuling Shen nodded slightly. "When do we go to the Hundred Clans Royal City? Will the Dragon Lord take action?"
The Darkness Temple's Hall Master, Wubian, was a taboo-like existence, making Yuling Shen very cautious. The Ice King had imprisoned himself on the Ice King Star, so now only the Dragon Lord could act.
Coincidentally, the Dragon Lord was in this star region.
"No rush," Zhang Ruochen said, his voice filled with infinite coldness. "How can we go to the Hundred Clans Royal City empty-handed? How can we not bring a few gifts?"
...
The Sansheng Realm was one of the realms Zhang Ruochen had seized on the Ten Realms Battlefield and the one that had developed the best among the ten. This was because, after the war between Hell and the Heavenly Court broke out, the Sansheng Realm had been moved to the spatial meridians where the Heavenly Beginning Civilization once existed, becoming an important war base behind the Starry Sky Battlefield.
With this excellent geographical advantage, the Sansheng Realm underwent transformation every day. The Saint Qi grew increasingly rich, nurturing a large number of heavenly treasures and earthly rarities.
Countless forces coveted it.
However, the Blood Absolute Family managed and operated the Sansheng Realm. Blood Absolute War God himself had even personally stationed there for many years. Who could succeed?
It was only recently that the Sansheng Realm changed hands.
Xue Hou, who had been stationed there in place of Blood Absolute War God, was attacked, severely injured, and fled. The Saint realm warriors of the Blood Absolute Family were purged by cultivators of the Darkness Temple, suffering countless casualties, with blood dyeing city after city.
Those with higher cultivation were captured and imprisoned, to be devoured and refined by the gods and Great Saints of the Darkness Temple as soul food and life pills.
The god who injured Xue Hou that day was none other than Fang Lingzi, a disciple of the Darkness Temple's Hall Master.
Fang Lingzi was born into the Underworld Clan and had reached the upper-level god Great Perfection level. He appeared to be in his twenties or thirties, his body covered in black serpentine patterns. He wore no armor, his upper body bare, giving off a sinister and evil aura.
He sat in a hundred-zhang-wide divine temple, holding a spear-shaped sharp weapon, tempering it with Nether Fire.
In his battle with Xue Hou, this weapon of his had suffered some damage.
Xue Hou had only been born a few thousand years ago, yet she had already reached the peak of upper-level god cultivation, shocking and enraging Fang Lingzi. Failing to capture her, in Fang Lingzi's eyes, was a great humiliation.
This would be a major stain on his record.
It would significantly impact his chances of becoming the successor to the Darkness Temple's Hall Master.
Just as Fang Lingzi was thinking about how to remedy the situation, two divine generals escorted two Great Saints of the Undying Blood Clan into the temple.
"Kneel!"
A divine general, whose body exuded a stench of corpses, kicked at Xue Ningxiao's leg, shattering her kneecap. She groaned in pain and fell to her knees, her knees covered in blood.
On the other side, Xue Chen was treated the same way.
"Reporting to the True God, these two Undying Blood Clan Great Saints have been brought up," said a divine general who looked like a white bone skeleton.
Fang Lingzi kept the Nether Fire burning in his hand, staring at the two kneeling Undying Blood Clan members. Just this one glance contained a spiritual power attack, terrifying Xue Chen and Xue Ningxiao, making them tremble all over, as if they had seen some extremely horrifying scene.
Fang Lingzi sneered disdainfully. "Ming Li, Ming Hai, you have some nerve. How can you treat them like this? Don't you know they are the blood-related grandchildren of Blood Absolute War God?"
The bone clan divine general named Ming Li sneered coldly. "What is Blood Absolute War God? When we took the Sansheng Realm, did he show himself? When his own son was beaten to a pulp, his blood drained dry, and he died in the Hundred Clans Royal City, he didn't show himself either. In the face of the great Darkness Temple, let alone a mere Blood Absolute War God, what is the entire Undying Blood Clan?"
"Watch your words!"
Fang Lingzi scolded, "Quickly help the two divine grandchildren up. They are noble. Blood Absolute War God was once a hero I admired."
Ming Li and Ming Hai, the two divine generals, did not understand Fang Lingzi's intentions. They used divine Qi to help Xue Chen and Xue Ningxiao to their feet.
Under the puzzled gazes of Xue Chen and Xue Ningxiao, Fang Lingzi smiled. "We are all cultivators of the Hell Realm. What Blood Absolute War God did has nothing to do with you. As long as you are willing to cooperate with the Darkness Temple and list Blood Absolute War God's six major crimes, after he dies, you will be the family heads of the Blood Absolute Family."
"Don't refuse so quickly. You are not betraying the family; you are saving it. Without the protection of the Darkness Temple, when Void Heaven gets angry and the Heavenly Venerable issues a decree, the entire Blood Absolute Family will have no survivors and will be completely wiped out."
"With you here, at least one bloodline of the Blood Absolute Family can be preserved."
The so-called six major crimes of Blood Absolute War God were all fabricated by the hostile forces of the Blood Absolute Family. The most serious one was betraying the Hell Realm and secretly defecting to the Heavenly Court.
Among these crimes, Blood Absolute War God's attack on Tiannan and his massacre there were all orchestrated by the Heavenly Court.
Xue Chen gritted his teeth and sneered. "You want us to betray our family and denounce the War God as close relatives, creating the impression that the War God has been abandoned by everyone? You underestimate the backbone of the Blood Absolute Family's children too much."
Xue Ningxiao showed a mocking smile and spat, "Pei."
Fang Lingzi's expression was neither a smile nor a frown. "Make them kneel again."
Ming Li and Ming Hai withdrew their divine Qi and released their divine might domain, pressing down on Xue Chen and Xue Ningxiao, forcing them to kneel again, their legs bloody and mangled.
Xue Chen and Xue Ningxiao trembled in pain but stubbornly refused to cry out.
"Just wait, Fang Lingzi. The War God will make you die without a burial place... Ah..."
Xue Chen was sent flying by an invisible wall of Qi that shot out from Fang Lingzi's body. He slammed into the temple wall, his body nearly flattened into a meat patty, then fell limply to the ground.
Fang Lingzi said, "I originally wanted to give you an opportunity, to let you take charge of the Blood Absolute Family on behalf of the Darkness Temple in the future. But now, it seems I have to use spiritual power to control you and have you write a denunciation of Blood Absolute War God."
A war banner floated in front of Xue Ningxiao.
Under the control of his spiritual power, Xue Ningxiao, screaming in pain, stretched out her finger and used her own blood to write on the war banner...
Xue Chen, lying on the ground, roared hoarsely, "Fang Lingzi, you will die a miserable death... Ah... Ah..."
The two divine generals laughed incessantly, mocking his weakness and overestimation of his own abilities.
"Boom!"
A dazzling divine light surged in from outside the temple.
The four Great Saints who had been guarding outside the temple flew in haphazardly. Before they even landed, their bodies turned into bloody dust.
"How dare you! Who dares to cause trouble in Lord Fang Lingzi's temple?"
The two divine generals each summoned a yin soldier war artifact. Divine light surged from their bodies as they fiercely struck at the divine light outside the temple door.
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
The bodies of the two divine generals were blasted apart, turning into pieces of broken bone that flew into the temple.
Some of the broken bones shot straight toward Fang Lingzi, but fell to the ground three zhang away.
Fang Lingzi narrowed his eyes and looked toward the direction of the temple door. Through the dazzling divine light, he saw a tall and straight figure standing there. A flicker of surprise crossed his eyes, and then he laughed. "You actually came out of the Dark Great Triangle Star Domain?"
Zhang Ruochen walked into the temple, life energy surging from his body and flowing into Xue Chen and Xue Ningxiao. "I came here to borrow something from you."
"To borrow my head?"
Fang Lingzi was not afraid at all; on the contrary, he was very excited.
Although he had heard that Zhang Ruochen's martial arts cultivation had recovered and that he had reached the level of a Great God, he simply did not believe it.
He himself was a top-tier prodigy and knew well the difficulty of cultivation. Even if Zhang Ruochen possessed the Sundial, it was impossible for him to become a Great God in such a short time.
Even Blood Absolute War God and Desolate Heaven had not cultivated at such a speed.
Fang Lingzi had been cultivating for nearly a hundred thousand years and had heard too many exaggerated legends, all of which were eventually proven to be overblown. Therefore, he only believed what he saw with his own eyes.
He believed that Zhang Ruochen had burst out with Great God-level power, but it must have been through external forces, power bestowed upon him by another strong being.
An extremely self-centered person was like this; they simply would not believe things beyond their understanding.
Xue Chen and Xue Ningxiao stood up behind Zhang Ruochen, joy and worry mingling on their faces.
Fang Lingzi lifted his spear-shaped weapon, his aura instantly reaching its peak, as majestic as an eternal divine mountain. "Zhang Ruochen, if you had stayed hidden in the Dark Great Triangle Star Domain or remained in Xinghuantian, the Darkness Temple would indeed have had difficulty dealing with you. But since you couldn't suppress the hatred and anger in your heart and appeared in the Sansheng Realm, you are destined to die here."
Zhang Ruochen said, "With just you?"
"Although you, Zhang Ruochen, were able to contend with the Great God Lixiao, you are clearly no weakling. But I still want to give it a try," Fang Lingzi said. "This temple was forged with my life's wealth. It is equipped with two divine formations and a corner of divine patterns inscribed by my master. Here, even if you are a true Taiyi Great God, you may not be able to escape."
(End of this chapter)