Chapter 17 The Five Emperors of Ancient Humanity

The towering, boundless Mount Wubao.

Ji Ning was watching the sword techniques on the cliff face of the first peak from afar, feeling the sword intent washing over him, when suddenly the surrounding space-time twisted and blurred, and an old man in a Daoist robe coalesced into being.

"Master." Ji Ning saw him and immediately said respectfully.

"Study the Wubao Sword Art well. Once you master it, you'll have an extra skill to protect your life in this great calamity," Puti said with a smile. "Weren't you planning to deal with the Seamless Gate before?"

Ji Ning's eyes lit up, and he nodded quickly: "Yes."

"The Seamless Gate is spread across the Three Realms. Some major worlds have more experts, some have fewer," Puti said. "For example, the Chiming territory ruled by Chiming... is relatively weak. Take your homeland, the Daxia world: before the Seamless Gate made its move, there were no Celestial Immortals or True Immortals within Daxia."

Ji Ning nodded and said, "Master, I want to go to a major world with top-tier experts. Killing Celestial Immortals or Earth Immortals won't hurt the Seamless Gate unless I kill a shocking number. But since I'm relying on sneak attacks, hitting one lair after another, it's hard to kill a massive number of immortals. So I mainly want to target Celestial Immortals and True Immortals."

Killing Celestial Immortals and True Immortals would make them feel the pain.

"Among the Three Realms, the strongest force on our side is the human race," Puti said. "The foremost great experts among humans are the Three Sovereigns: Suiren, Fuxi, and Shennong. These three are on the same level as the leaders of the Daoist and Buddhist schools. Next are the Five Emperors of ancient humanity. These five emperors once successively unified humanity. The last one, Xia Yu, after unifying humanity, truly consolidated imperial power, and from then on, the imperial clan of humanity became the Xia clan."

Ji Ning nodded.

He also knew that in ancient times, Xia Yu tamed the floods, was immensely powerful, and showed great kindness to the world. Even the Three Sovereigns recognized and supported him, which made his rule extremely stable. Of course, Xia Yu's strength was also astonishing—how could someone who claimed the title of emperor among humans be weak? Even his senior apprentice-brother Sun Wukong's Golden Cudgel was forged by Xia Yu.

"So, among the many major worlds..."

"The many major worlds directly ruled by the ancient imperial Xia clan are very powerful. The Seamless Gate has also deployed a large number of troops and experts to check each other. It's too crazy there. Once you make a move, the Seamless Gate can immediately send a large army to surround you. You'd better not go there." Puti said.

Ji Ning understood. The standoff between the ancient imperial clan and the Seamless Gate was the most terrifying place in the Three Realms, with both sides amassing immense forces there.

"The territories ruled by the other four emperors of the ancient human Five Emperors are relatively weaker, though still much stronger than the Chiming territory," Puti said. "Which of these four emperors' territories do you plan to go to?"

"Which one? Any one will do." Ji Ning said quickly.

As long as he could kill Seamless Gate members, it didn't matter where.

"In one of Emperor Zhuanxu's major worlds, the Dongxuan major world, the target you want to kill, Shaoyan Chou, has eighteen avatars across the Three Realms, sixteen of which are in the Dongxuan major world," Puti said. Although Shaoyan Chou's life-preserving methods were formidable, they were nothing in Puti's eyes.

Ji Ning's eyes lit up, then he asked, "Are there many Celestial Immortals and True Immortals in the Dongxuan major world?"

"Although war hasn't broken out in the Dongxuan major world, the Seamless Gate has stationed a full nine Celestial Immortals and True Immortals there," Puti said.

Ji Ning was amazed.

Emperor Zhuanxu was one of the Five Emperors of humanity and had once unified the human race. Moreover, he was extremely powerful himself, so naturally many human experts followed him. In fact, the 'Zhuanxu clan' in the Daxia world was a branch of the 'Zhuanxu tribe.' Of course, in terms of background, the Zhuanxu clan was a step below the Xiamang clan.

"Nine Celestial Immortals and True Immortals... Good, I'll go there." Ji Ning nodded.

"This is the Seamless Gate's force distribution map for the entire Zhuanxu territory." Puti took out a scroll and handed it to Ji Ning, then instructed, "Don't get bogged down in battle!"

"Disciple understands." Ji Ning nodded.

"Memorize it quickly, then destroy it." Puti ordered.

Ji Ning immediately began to memorize.

The scroll detailed the force distribution of both sides across the thirty-nine major worlds of the entire Zhuanxu territory, with special annotations for Shaoyan Chou's sixteen avatars.

"Whoosh." Divine power surged in Ji Ning's hand, and the scroll turned to ashes.

"Mm." Puti nodded, then vanished into thin air.

A hint of killing intent flashed in Ji Ning's eyes: "Finally, it's time."

"Ninefang."

Ji Ning moved and appeared beside the Ninefang Celestial Immortal, who was sitting in meditation in a wooden hut not far away.

"Lord of the manor." Ninefang Celestial Immortal immediately woke and stood up.

"You go back to the Zhaixing major world first," Ji Ning ordered. "Follow what we discussed earlier."

Ninefang Celestial Immortal was startled and immediately understood what Ji Ning was about to do.

"Yes." Ninefang Celestial Immortal replied respectfully, then was taken into the Zhaixing major world by Ji Ning. Now that Ji Ning had fully refined the 'Water Mansion,' he had discovered that the Zhaixing major world was actually hidden in one area of the Water Mansion. It was in this area that Nuwa had once opened up a major world.

Ji Ning could directly take them into the Zhaixing major world or teleport them out of it without going through the Water Mansion.

Of course, only after refining the Water Mansion could Ji Ning do this.

...

Zhuanxu territory, Dongxuan major world.

The Dongxuan major world was where the 'Dongxuan Army,' which had followed Emperor Zhuanxu in unifying humanity, was stationed. The affairs of the Dongxuan major world were jointly decided by three deputy generals and the general. It was usually very peaceful, but since the Seamless Gate had infiltrated, there had been many small-scale conflicts, putting the Dongxuan major world on high alert.

Of course...

These were just small-scale skirmishes, far from a full-scale war on a major world, let alone a territory war. After all, going to war with Emperor Zhuanxu, one of the Five Emperors of ancient humanity, would definitely be one of the last things to happen among the Three Thousand Major Worlds. What the Seamless Gate was doing now was tying down the forces under Emperor Zhuanxu, preventing them from easily supporting other Dao Ancestors.

"It's indeed different." Ji Ning stood atop a snow-covered peak, gazing at the vast world.

His heartforce had already spread out, enveloping the entire major world.

Heartforce is ethereal and elusive... To envelop a major world, one must reach the fourth level. Most importantly, the envelopment of heartforce leaves no trace; unless one has reached the same level of heartforce, it cannot be detected. When Ji Ning had broken through in the Daxia world before, his heartforce had unconsciously enveloped the entire Daxia world, but neither Mozhu Dao Ancestor nor Chiming Dao Ancestor had sensed it, because both were True Gods (True Devils) by birth, powerful from the start, but weak in heartforce, neither having reached the fourth level.

Top experts like Source Elder in the Three Realms were only at the fourth level of heartforce.

Only Houyi had reached the fifth level.

Of course, the Seamless Gate's 'God King' could have detected Ji Ning with his heartforce, but at that time the God King was in the Fifth World, using his 'heart-consciousness' to traverse endless void and descend upon the Daxia world, allowing him to communicate with Mozhu Dao Ancestor and observe the battle closely. Heart-consciousness alone cannot detect heartforce.

"The Dongxuan major world is orderly and heavily guarded. Celestial Immortals and divine demons are like armies," Ji Ning mused. "Daxia was pushed to the brink before its immortals formed legions. But the armies under Emperor Zhuanxu have been like this since ancient times. Their coordination is probably much stronger."

"Mm, first, I'll destroy Shaoyan Chou's sixteen avatars."

"That Shaoyan Chou is truly cautious. Ostensibly, he follows Qinghu in the Chiming territory, but his other avatars have come to the Zhuanxu territory." Ji Ning transformed, using the Eighty-Nine Arcane Art, becoming slightly taller and emitting the aura of a Celestial Immortal.

Swoosh.

Ji Ning vanished into thin air.

...

In the Dongxuan major world, the Seamless Gate had three lairs, each guarded by three Celestial Immortals or True Immortals and a large number of Celestial Immortals and Earth Immortals. The lairs were heavily fortified with formations and restrictions, capable of withstanding an attack even from the Dongxuan major world's own forces.

Apart from the three lairs, there were 182 strongholds scattered across the entire major world. These small strongholds could retreat at any time and occasionally launch sneak attacks, completely disrupting the Dongxuan major world. To the Dongxuan major world, these small strongholds were like mosquitoes, biting from time to time. But if they tried to attack them?

Given the Seamless Gate's intelligence, these small strongholds would slip away quickly. Most importantly, these strongholds were very weak—even if destroyed, what difference would it make?

"Heh heh, kill, kill. So many died in the Chiming territory war, and now they still want us to fight?" An ugly old man was eating meat in large mouthfuls, a cold glint flashing in his eyes. "But I don't care. Even if I lose that one avatar, so what? My sixteen avatars are all hidden here."

"The Zhuanxu territory... it'll probably be a long time before the final war starts. By then, I'll slip away to another territory."

The two camps were at war.

Celestial Immortals couldn't escape; they had to have a 'legitimate' identity. The Chiming territory and the Zhuanxu territory were very far apart. Moreover, Shaoyan Chou was very low-key in the 'Daxia world,' rarely appearing, so very few Celestial Immortals had seen him. His avatars in the Dongxuan major world were equally low-key, with very few Celestial Immortals having seen them.

One had to see Shaoyan Ancestor in person to recognize this as Shaoyan Chou's avatar. But obviously, 'Shaoyan Chou' wasn't that unlucky.

He had lurked for countless years, and his false identity, 'Blood Demon Immortal,' had become known and recognized. No one suspected his connection to Shaoyan Chou. Now that he had joined the Seamless Gate and was stationed here, he remained low-key.

Shaoyan Chou... was famous, but he had only two avatars, one overt and one covert.

Blood Demon Immortal... was little known, with one overt and fifteen covert avatars—a total of sixteen avatars all hidden here.

"This great calamity is said to be very dangerous. Maybe I can survive it again. Hmph, so what if they're powerful? Living long is what matters. That Ji Ning? I can't be bothered to deal with you. You're so sharp—let's see if you can survive this calamity." Shaoyan Chou drank and ate heartily, feeling quite pleased with himself.

"In this small stronghold, I won't go on a killing spree. There are plenty of strongholds more arrogant than mine. The Dongxuan major world won't target me. I'm not the weakest stronghold either, so I can explain myself to the Seamless Gate. How comfortable and carefree!" Thinking of other immortals and demons fighting desperately, especially the countless deaths in the territory war,

Shaoyan Chou felt even more smug.

He was too clever!

"Living long is what—" Suddenly, Shaoyan Chou's expression changed. "An enemy is attacking? No, they shouldn't be attacking me." Ignoring everything else, he flew out.

...