Chapter 68: Rebirth as the Great Villain (6) |
Venerable?
Su Chen frowned. A faint sense of foreboding rose in his heart.
"The 'Venerable' he mentioned… it couldn't be Lin Zhan, could it?"
One of the Gu Clan prodigies, Gu Lan, sneered at the blue-skinned creature's arrogance. "Just you? What a joke. Your hide would make a decent footrest once it's peeled off."
Without another word, he attacked, determined to crush this insolent extraterrestrial being.
In the outer starfield, countless domains coexisted, and myriad races flourished. The Heavenly Profound Domain had produced several Great Emperors in its history and ranked among the stronger ones. Its natives naturally carried a quiet pride when walking among the stars. For an unknown blue-skinned race to treat them as prey was intolerable—they would make him pay dearly.
Gu Lan struck first. The other Gu Clan prodigies watched calmly from the sidelines. None of them believed this blue-skinned creature could match him. After all, Gu Lan had reached the seventh layer of Profound Connection, placing him among the stronger cultivators, even among the tens of thousands of prodigies who had entered the ancient ruin.
The blue-skinned being was likewise provoked. The scales around his mouth flared. His entire body shimmered and changed color—then he vanished from his spot.
Gu Lan's attack passed straight through empty air and obliterated a distant mountain peak instead.
Su Chen stared at the spot where the creature had stood. He recalled the parting words Gu Yixian had given him before departure.
"Chen'er, the outer void teems with countless lifeforms. Every extraterrestrial race possesses unique innate divine abilities. Never underestimate even the weakest among them, or you will pay a terrible price."
Seeing this unfamiliar technique now, Su Chen finally understood why Gu Yixian had taken the time to warn him specifically. Such an eerie method was truly unprecedented.
Gu Lan scanned the empty space and laughed mockingly. "With that kind of trick, you dare stand against my Gu Clan? Come out if you have the guts! A rat who won't even show his face—I thought you had more backbone!"
From somewhere in the sky came a cold chuckle. "Rest assured. I said I would take your head, so I will take your head."
Gu Lan's eyes lit up. He blasted toward the source of the voice—yet his attack once again struck nothing. No one was there. He tried several more times, each strike passing harmlessly through empty air. Frustration began to creep in.
The leader of this expedition, Gu Tiangang, spoke coldly. "Gu Lan, finish it quickly. Don't waste time here."
Gu Lan gritted his teeth. Without hesitation, he bit open a finger, let a drop of blood fall onto a jade pendant at his waist, and placed it on the ground. Ripples spread outward from beneath his feet. A powerful aura of destruction radiated in all directions.
At that exact moment, a dagger plunged straight into his chest. The blade extended into a long sword and pierced clean through him.
In the same instant, Su Chen acted. The sword at his waist flew free. Sword light split into countless shadows. A single slash hurtled toward the blue-skinned creature. Seeing the attack coming, the creature was forced to abandon the dagger and attempt his vanishing trick again.
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But Su Chen gave him no second chance. From top to bottom, his figure transformed into a perfect full moon. One sword descended. The blue-skinned being was cleaved in half at the waist.
The Gu Clan prodigies were stunned. That was one of the clan's supreme techniques—the Eclipse Moon Sword Art.
Su Chen stepped forward and stood beside the dying creature. He spoke indifferently. "Who are you? Where is Lin Zhan?"
The blue-skinned being clung to life long enough to rasp, "I have already reported your location to the Venerable… you won't escape…"
Su Chen's expression remained blank. He raised his sword and severed the creature's head in one clean stroke.
Gu Lan looked at Su Chen with gratitude. "Thank you."
He had come within a hair's breadth of death.
The other prodigies hurried over. Gu Tiangang fixed Su Chen with a displeased stare. "Gu Chen, this was Gu Lan's battlefield. Why did you interfere?"
Su Chen glanced at him. "So I should have just stood there and watched him die?"
Gu Tiangang replied coldly, "The blood of Saints flows in our Gu Clan's veins. How noble we are. How could we stoop to ambushing from the shadows or ganging up on a single opponent?"
Su Chen silently concluded that this man was an arrogant idiot.
"So you plan to use Gu Lan as bait?"
Su Chen ripped away Gu Tiangang's pretense in a single sentence, causing the other man's face to flush crimson with fury.
"Enough! The crisis hasn't been resolved yet!"
Another prodigy from the Gu Clan stepped forward and cut through the tense atmosphere before it could escalate further.
In the following days, Su Chen encountered numerous opportunities, large and small, within the ancient empire's ruins. His cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds. Yet he never forgot his true priority: gathering intelligence on Lin Zhan.
Finally, his persistence paid off. From the mouth of one extraterrestrial being, Su Chen learned the news he had been waiting for.
Lin Zhan had taken a renowned quasi-saint from the outer void as his master. Moreover, he had founded an organization called the War God Hall, which had already attracted a flood of extraterrestrial geniuses. It had grown into one of the more prominent young forces in the outer realm.
This time, Lin Zhan had arrived at the ancient ruin together with members of the War God Hall.
"At least this 'Venerable' isn't a true Venerable," Su Chen thought with relief.
No matter how heaven-defying a Child of Destiny might be, jumping from the Spirit Soul Realm to the Nirvana Realm in merely a dozen or twenty years was impossible. The gap between those realms was simply too vast.
While continuing to collect opportunities, Su Chen kept probing for more information about Lin Zhan. Then, one day, Seven-colored radiance spilled across the sky. Endless dao rhythms converged into an ocean, and at its center bloomed a single flower.
"It's a saint herb! A legendary saint herb has appeared!"
Countless prodigies went mad with greed. The Gu Clan members were no exception.
"With a saint herb, we might give birth to a new saint within the clan and restore the Gu Clan's former glory!"
Gu Tiangang laughed wildly, trembling with excitement. "This saint herb must belong to our Gu Clan—no matter what!"
Su Chen lifted his gaze to the heavens. Innumerable prodigies were already surging toward the saint herb's location like a swarm of moths hurtling toward flame, dense as a field of stars. Even in his own mind, a terrifying impulse arose—the desire to seize the saint herb for himself.
A saint herb! Even sacred lands drooled over such a treasure. Back then, the ancestor of the Profound Origin Sacred Land had charged into the Burial Soul Forbidden Zone for the sake of one, willing to sacrifice the entire sacred land to obtain it. Now such a prize had appeared right before their eyes, unguarded. There were no saints here. No Nirvana Realm powerhouses. Not even a single Void Refining Realm cultivator.
Yet amid the swarming crowd, Su Chen caught sight of a familiar figure.
Lin Zhan!
"Damn it—the saint herb can wait. First, I have to kill the Child of Destiny!"
Determination hardened in Su Chen's heart. Here, prodigies no weaker than him numbered in the thousands. Some were true monsters—sacred sons and maidens of sacred lands among them. If he joined the scramble for the herb, he would most likely end up as mere background noise, or worse, pave the way for Lin Zhan's success. Better to fix his eyes on Lin Zhan alone.
As long as Lin Zhan failed to obtain the saint herb, it didn't matter who eventually claimed it. Su Chen would still come out ahead. He hadn't forgotten: the one who accepted Lin Zhan as a disciple was a quasi-saint. If Lin Zhan acquired the saint herb and allowed that quasi-saint to break through into true sainthood, it would spell the end of the entire Gu Clan—and strip Su Chen of every last card he had left to turn the tables.