Chapter 357 - 356: The World’s Great Trend!
Chapter 357: Chapter 356: The World’s Great Trend!
Du Gang originally thought that Kou Yingwu’s side wouldn’t be able to get much useful information, but to his surprise, they actually managed to capture a person and obtained a lot of information.
“They caught a demon, a mole rat. Luckily, Kou Yingwu knows a bit about earth escape techniques, that’s how they caught him!”
Kou Yingwu, getting more information than Du Gang, bragged a few times and was promptly muted by Du Gang. So, Tao Xuanzhu was the one in charge of communication on that end.
Du Gang nodded and straightforwardly said: “Get to the point, what’s the situation in this world?”
Tao Xuanzhu quickly said: “From what we got out of the demon, this world has three realms: Heaven, Earth, and Human.”
“We are currently in the Earth realm, the Heavenly realm is damaged, and the Human realm can only be accessed through specific channels…”
She first briefly explained the geographical division before continuing:
“This world just experienced a huge upheaval, leading to major force consolidations…”
“All in all, it can be divided into three major forces!”
“The first one consists of three forces in the Earth realm, named Heavenly Court, Divine Church, and Demon Court. Although these three forces are from different organizations, they form an alliance in offense and defense…”
Tao Xuanzhu thought for a while, then added: “Apparently, these three major forces didn’t see eye to eye before, but with the other two forces being strong and united, they had to join forces. In summary, this force can be called the Earthly Force!”
“The representative figures number seven; the four leaders of the Heavenly Court are Hong Yu, Li Zhu, the Seal-Bearer, and Feng; in the Divine Church, they are Hong Kun and Qian Emperor; the Demon Court, being the weakest, has just one Demon Emperor.”
“According to that mole rat,” Tao Xuanzhu continued, “these seven, or rather, the most powerful in this world are now of this tier, known as the Transcending-Eight powerful, and can be considered to have reached the Heavenly King level of cultivation.”
Heavenly King? Transcending-Eight?
Du Gang was taken aback and quickly asked: “What about the Emperors? And the Heavenly Emperor?”
It was their mission to kill Emperors and the Heavenly Emperor, and this force didn’t have any Emperors or a Heavenly Emperor amongst them?
Tao Xuanzhu shook her head, “The mole rat said the Emperors disappeared tens of thousands of years ago, and haven’t appeared since. For the last few thousand years, the Earth realm was supposedly ruled by someone called the Earth Emperor. However, this has been proven to be a hoax, and it’s actually the Earth Emperor son pretending to be him…”
Du Gang frowned. Could it be that these Emperors are lurking in the shadows?
He shook his head, not dwelling on the thought and said, “Keep going!”
Tao Xuanzhu nodded and continued:
“The second force is also in the Earth realm, but not on this continent. One must cross the Sea of Death to reach another place called the Original Martial Continent…”
“This second force is said to mainly practice body cultivation, known as ancient martial artists, with every one of them being incredibly strong after their body transcends into holiness!”
“There are nine individuals at the Transcending-Eight Heavenly King level, they are: Holy Martial God, Fist God, Underworld God, Spear God, Palm Sky, Illusion, Sky Arm, Stick Holy, and Broken Knowledge.”
She paused for a bit, noticing Du Gang not interrupting, and continued:
“The third force resides in the Human realm, and there are three Transcendental-Eight strong individuals- Fang Ping, the God-Casting Sage, and Wang Jinyang…”
“The reason why the Human realm could form the third force is because there’s a Transcending-Nine strong individual called the Ruling Heavenly King…”
“Under the Heavenly King level, this force doesn’t bother to mention, while those reaches Heavenly King level are based on the number of heavens they can break. If you can break several heavens, you can be considered a Transcending-N Heavens King. Hence, a Transcending-Nine Heavens King means one can break through the ninth heaven. Their attack power is terrifying.”
Du Gang nodded and asked: “The demon you caught, what’s his strength?”
Tao Xuanzhu sighed, “Not very strong, this mole rat only has the strength of a Sector Lord level, not even considered a spirit god.”
Du Gang frowned, “At that level, can he really know about the strongest existence of the three major forces? Didn’t you just say that the forces just recently consolidated?”
When he was a Sector Lord, he didn’t have any idea about the Primordial Continent. He didn’t even begin to understand some of the continent’s situation until he reached the True God Level.
He finds it hard to believe that a Sector Lord level demon could already know the division of the major forces’ most powerful beings?
Tao Xuanzhu began, “I thought about this issue too. The reason why the mole rat knew this was because a man called Wind-Cloud Daoist appeared in these three realms. He created a ranking list called the Wind-Cloud List and inscribed the strongest beings of all major forces onto steles, and spread them out to the world…”
“Wind-Cloud Daoist?”
Du Gang squinted his eyes, among the three major forces Tao Xuanzhu just introduced this man isn’t mentioned at all.
Tao Xuanzhu quickly said: “This world is not only made up of these three forces with Transcending-Eight powerhouses.”
“According to the mole rat, there are other Transcending-Eight powerhouses in the world, they just didn’t join any of the three forces…”
“Among them, this Wind-Cloud Daoist is one of them, and is said to also have Transcending-Eight strength.”
“Apart from that, outside the Sea of Death is a Chaotic Divine Kingdom with four Transcending-Eight individuals. Because it’s far from the mainland and too far from the center of the turbulence, they weren’t considered as the fourth major force…”
“These four Transcending-Eight powerhouses are Chaos, Tian Chen, Heavenly Dog, and Stone Break.”
Tao Xuanzhu paused once again, and then continued: “Also, there are some lone practitioners with strength transcending eight, the most famous among them is Moon Spirit, said to be the daughter of an Emperor…”
Du Gang’s eyes lit up, “What is the name of that Emperor?”
“North Emperor!”
Tao Xuanzhu was surprised, she didn’t understand why Du Gang was asking about the name. They all came from the True Heavenly Court, it’s not like they could know the natives here, right?!
Zhang Xinyi didn’t pay attention to Du Gang and continued laughing, “The Heavenly Court is always powerful, casting its image across the heavens, even here, there is a Heavenly Court…”
Du Gang, however, didn’t hear what she said. At this moment, he recalled the novel he once read on Earth called “Global High Martial Arts”.
Because he found that these names just mentioned almost coincide with that novel he had read before.
At first, he didn’t think the names had any relation to the novel, he was imagining possible connections with some movie or television drama series.
It wasn’t until Fang Ping and Wang Jinyang’s names appeared that Du Gang remembered that novel.
However, the problem was that Du Gang did not finish reading the novel back then.
Back then, the novel was not completely updated on the piracy website before the apocalypse happened.
“What a pity…”
He shook his head and sighed. If he had finished reading that novel, he might have some idea about the plot development in the future.
“What’s a pity?”
Zhang Xinyi looked at him in confusion.
Du Gang shook his head, not saying anything.
While he was on Earth, he only read the part of “Global High Martial Arts” where Fang Ping accomplishes supreme success. After that, he barely read anything.
It seems that now Fang Ping has achieved even greater success, reaching the stage of Transcending-Eight Heavenly King.
After a sigh, he gathered his emotions and quickly analyzed the intelligence in front of him, weighing it against what he already knew.
It took him almost quarter of an hour before he looked up, speaking to Zhang Xinyi, while simultaneously sending messages to Tao Xuanzhu and the others.
“From what I can see, those who have broken through the eighth and ninth tiers, might well be entities just as powerful as us…”
He paused, not bothering to hide the truth: “I think I have encountered Fang Ping, an eighth tier powerhouse from the Human World. His strength is at the initial stage of True God Level, so accordingly, those at the ninth tier might be at the peak of the True God Level.”
The now ungagged Kou Yingwu posed a serious question: “Then why can’t those at the ninth tier possibly be at the Celestial God Level?”
Du Gang, expecting such a question, explained calmly: “If those at the ninth tier were Celestial Gods, then the Earthly World would have long been overrun by the Human World’s Titan King, unifying all the other factions…”
The gap between Celestial Gods and True Gods is significant–several peak True Gods would not be able to withstand a Celestial God.
Even in this world, where it is limited in size, torn by conflict, and the boundaries of power levels are blurred, it’s not so easy to cross over these boundaries.
Therefore, the Titan King is most likely an entity at the ninth tier.
Du Gang nodded, making a definitive conclusion: “The Imperial Seat, undoubtedly, represents an entity at the Celestial God Level!”
Kou Yingwu frowned, “That’s not right. Our task is to ascend from the True God to the Celestial God level. Does it require us to kill a Celestial God? Isn’t that a joke?!”
Du Gang smiled, “What you said appears to be correct, but please consider: our task is a team task!”
“We, as a team of four, are undertaking this mission. It doesn’t feel like much to us, but think about it, typically such advancement missions are attempted by teams of 20.”
“This implies that it takes 20 peak True Gods to complete this task. Do you believe that the Emperor can only be at the peak of the True God Level?”
Kou Yingwu opened his mouth to rebuff, but found no grounds to argue. He had to admit Du Gang was right.
“Twenty peak True Gods battling a single peak True God… Ok, you win, the Emperor is a Celestial God. But isn’t this task a bit hostile towards us?!”
Du Gang pondered for a moment before speaking: “If the task merely required twenty peak True Gods to kill a Celestial God, it would be meaningless…”
“Because in that case, the purpose of the reincarnators is to find a way to break through to the Celestial God Level in this world. If just one of the twenty manages to break through, they can complete the mission. But the chances of that happening are slim…”
“After all, we’re here with our True God cultivation levels in order to complete our ascension!”
If True Gods could easily evolve into Celestial Gods, there would be no reason for so many people to abandon the comfort of their lives, taking the risk of death by entering the Heavenly Court.
Du Gang nodded: “I speculate that this Celestial God entity, in all likelihood, has certain limitations, or more specifically, the Celestial Gods in our small world here are not complete, and less powerful than those in the main world!”
“Despite not being as powerful, the Emperor here must still be greater than the combined power of twenty peak True Gods. Otherwise, the mission would have no meaning.”
He recalled his memory of observing the global high martial arts world and finally said: “You guys should come back. Let’s all work together!”
He now had a general understanding of the current situation.
Mission two, Mission three, and Mission four are essentially related to the Emperor, who has managed to remain hidden until now, steering the game from outside the board.
It wouldn’t be too difficult to find them. After all, the world is only so big; if they ever make a move, they’re bound to expose themselves.
Since they are the puppeteers of this world, they must control some pieces.
He didn’t completely finish reading “Global High Martial Arts”, but he does know that the protagonist Fang Ping has a golden hand.
So he wondered, could Fang Ping be the so-called piece of the Heavenly Emperor?
Could these other entities, who have broken through the eighth or even the ninth tiers, also be pieces moved by other Emperors?
In the past, these Emperors could lie low and take their time making moves.
But now, with the arrival of the Reincarnators, each one a peak True God equivalent to a ninth tier entity, total chaos is inevitable.
So, he just needs to find a place to sit back and enjoy the spectacle.
There are three major forces in this world; wanting to know the workings of this world, the Reincarnators would certainly go to these three forces.
Leave aside whether these three forces can withstand the onslaught, the moment the Reincarnators meet, they’ll most likely find themselves at odds with each other.
After all, there’s a limited number of Emperors, and there might be only one Heavenly Emperor. This means that there can only be one victorious team in the end.
Not to mention, Mission One, which requires each team to hunt down at least 20 other Reincarnators, making peaceful coexistence all but impossible.
Soon, Kou Yingwu and Tao Xuanzhu returned without any trouble.
“Du Gang, why the sudden change of mind?”
Tao Xuanzhu was surprised; this was the first time she had seen Du Gang change his mind.
In every world, Du Gang always acted like a prophet, with each step certain of its purpose.
The strategy initially planned was for the four of them to split into pairs. That way they could avoid detection… but now…
Du Gang chuckled, “In this world, nearly all of the strongest entities are out in the open, with few hidden ones. We would still be suspected by any other Reincarnators we run into even if we split into pairs, so there’s not much point to it…”
At first, he wanted to lie low amidst the masses, hiding among the human cities, just as in the previous world.
But now, with a limited number of strong entities and with that Rank of the World’s List by the Daoist Wind and Cloud in existence, pretending to be natives would be foolish.
“So where do we go?”
Tao Xuanzhu was somewhat worried, “On my way back I was thinking, since the Emperor is hiding, it must be related to those three forces, or even connected. Therefore, if we wish to complete the task, we still need to make contact with them…”
Du Gang smiled, shaking his head: “There’s no need to be impatient!”
“Even if the other Reincarnators find the Emperor, do you think they can beat him?”
He laughed saying: “And besides, the Reincarnators are also in a kill-or-be-killed state. Apart from us, there are nine other teams. Let them fight while we enjoy the show!”
“Enjoy the show? And where are we supposed to do that?!”
Tao Xuanzhu was taken aback. Even if they want to watch the show, they need to be aware of other Reincarnators’ situations and the various forces in play.
Suddenly, her eyes lit up, “Are you saying, Death Sea’s Chaotic Divine Kingdom?!”
“Correct!”
Du Gang nodded, laughing: “Given the current state of affairs, the Reincarnators’ teams, unless completely stupid, will head for the three forces at the center of the vortex… After all, the Sea of Death is far from the mainland’s center, it’s a barren land with limited information, and not a battlefield…”
“So, we’ll head for the Sea of Death!”