Imperial God Emperor

Fortunately, he was not disturbed while using his qi to heal this time.

But his strength still had not yet completely recovered when he walked out of the cave that was situated in a mountain wall.

Although the [Supreme Ice Flame] was nearly unsurpassed in dispelling unwanted forces, there were not just such forces in Ye Qingyu's body, but also law injuries caused by the law attacks of the Immortal Step Realm experts. These injuries needed several days to be completely healed. Unfortunately, he did not have that much time.

With a face that was somewhat pale, he continued advancing toward the depths of the Black Demon Pool.

Descending the spiraling steps and overlooking the entire abyss, he would have enthused over the marvels of this underground world if he did not know that it was built by a martial emperor.

He paused his footsteps when he was still approximately an incense stick's worth of time away from the 14th zone.

Clenching his hand in the void behind his back, an ice longsword appeared.

"Come out!" Ye Qingyu shouted coldly.

Trouble arrived once more.

An extremely obscure murderous spirit pervaded the road ahead. Silver ripples formed in the air, while even stronger enemies than before hid in the dark, and there were more than just one...

In a chaotic and slaughterous world like this, Ye Qingyu did not entertain the idea of retreating at all.

He was very clear that the only way was to fight his way out.

Holding his sword, moving forward.

Anyone who dared to obstruct him would be slashed into two.

Sword light suffused, and a chill rose and fell.

A bloodbath took place once more.

...

Two hours later.

In the 14th zone of the Black Demon Pool.

Ye Qingyu slowly walked on the main street, his hooded top and robes covered with bloodstains and sword marks, and his aura somewhat feeble.

His aura was a lot weaker than before, his hair was dyed in blood, and his white robes had turned dark red. A pale green scar on his cheek made it seem like he had been scratched by a sharp claw. A thick layer of cloth wrapped around his waist, while on his left leg was a hole perforated by a spear, revealing his thick white bones and the surging of the strange power of laws within.

However, Ye Qingyu seemed to be in great spirits.

As if he could not feel the pain, he walked on unhurriedly, using a random red spear with a broken head as a walking stick in his left hand.

The experts and peddlers who passed by seemed to be accustomed to seeing a person getting injured in the Black Demon Pool, and thus they paid scant attention as he walked past.

But when some people noticed the headless red coiled-dragon spear in his hand, they revealed shocked expressions on their faces and began to regard him with awe and amazement.

This was because the spear's owner was notorious for his crafty and sinister ways in the Black Demon Pool. He possessed great strength, and was an important figure in the [Bloodthorn Hall]. He had assassinated countless experts who were stronger than him, and could be considered a fearsome person who did not fear death. But now...

His spear had broken and fallen into this young man's hands. He was, without question, dead.

Could he have tried but failed to kill this young man, and was counter-killed instead?

This young man looks haggard but blood qi is plentiful all over his body, and he oozes murderous spirit which is near-substantial. He doesn't seem to be from the Black Demon Pool. Just where could he be from?

A bout of whispered discussions took place.

Everywhere he went, the other beings would move out of the way as fast as they could.

As he became aware of what was going on, the corners of his lips arched upward.

After traversing the main street, he turned into a forked road without ever pausing his footsteps, seeming as if he had an objective. He proceeded toward a gambling house, which had walls that were made of black rocks and a roof which consisted of formation demon qi, on the north street.

According to the information he received in the administration hall, the 14th-placed felony on the Alliance of Domains' top wanted list, Ge Ming, was very likely to be hiding in this gambling house.

This was an oddball who had gambled incessantly for several hundred years, a renowned gambler in the Alliance.

Rumor had it that he had a quirk of offering him as a stake.

Anyone who won against him would be able to ask him for a favor, which he had always been able to fulfill, whether it be killing someone else or them.

After losing a bet two hundred years ago, he was asked to massacre the entire ruling race of an independent lower domain. It was after he completed the deed that he, most reasonably, got on the Alliance's wanted list.

But ever since then, there had been zero traces of him in the myriad domains.

However, several experts from other races had spotted him in the Black Demon Pool.

In other words, Ge Ming was very likely to be hiding among the various gambling houses in the depths of the Black Demon Pool at present.

The place Ye Qingyu was heading to was the [Easy Wins Joint] on the North street, hailed as the most famous and unique gambling house throughout the eighteen zones. While ordinary gambling houses used gold and silver as stakes, [Easy Wins Joint] was completely different. Here, gold was worth as much as muck, and instead, weapon formations medicinal pills, divine herbs, books of martial secrets, etc. were exchanged according to their value.

It could be said that the people who came here to gamble mostly did so to exchange cultivation items which were mutually needed but were extremely hard to find.

Ye Qingyu had chosen Ge Ming as his target for simple reasons. First, his whereabouts were relatively certain and happened to be in the Black Demon Pool. Second, according to the Alliance's information, his strength was at the fourth stage of the Immortal Step, which meant that he was the weakest felon among those who could be hiding in the Black Demon Pool... And of course, the final reason was that Ge Ming had massacred an entire race of a lower domain. To someone like Ye Qingyu who was also from a lower domain, this was the type of person he abhorred the most.

In the blink of an eye, the [Easy Wins Joint] came into sight.

However, Ye Qingyu suddenly stopped several hundred meters away from the [Easy Wins Joint]. As his pupils flashed, he detected that an extremely strong and complex smell of blood was coming from this gambling house.

The smell of blood was not only way too strong but also contained battle aura.

Experts had died.

Died in the [Easy Wins Joint].

And it was not just one or two of them, or a single race of beings.

"What's going on? Could it be that someone has discovered Ge Ming's tracks and acted before me?"

Ye Qingyu's heart budged a little.

The felons on the wanted list were legally allowed to be killed, and so this sort of thing was very likely to happen.

He quickened his footsteps as he headed toward the gambling house.

In the air above the gambling house.

An extremely terrifying and potent residual yuan qi power and surging blood qi crept over the air.

As he drew nearer, he saw that the formation lamps on both sides of the dark-colored porch had all been put out, and the smell of blood that dispersed in the air formed an extremely gruesome and terrifying power which continually twined. It was like several venom-spitting red-scaled pythons, that twirled around the gambling house such that its interior was completely devoid of vitality.

On the surrounding streets stood several experts of various races who had taken notice of the strange occurrence and came forth to observe. However, they were unable to immediately break the evil blood qi and enter the gambling house.

Without batting an eyelid, Ye Qingyu disjoined a wisp of divine sense and sent it into the gambling house.

He discovered that the interior was in complete disarray. Lying in pools of undried blood were hundreds of corpses. Everyone had been killed, whether they be demons, humans, or other races, and even the waiters and singing girls had not been spared.

The hundreds of experts from various races in the gambling house were all dead!

And, judging from the situation, it was a completely one-sided and swift affair initiated by a small group.

Ye Qingyu gulped a mouthful of cold air.

The various experts in the 14th zone were certainly no slouches, and those who dared to gamble in the [Easy Wins Joint] were all the more the important figures of some locality. Yet, they were slaughtered like dogs and pigs in this place, which had existed for hundreds of years and could be considered a prominent local landmark. It had seemed unlikely to be uprooted overnight...

What kind of expert was capable of doing this?

What exactly happened?

Could it have something to do with Ge Ming?

Ye Qingyu was shocked and completely clueless for a while.

In the meantime, more and more experts gathered in front of the gambling house, and the discussions grew even louder.

"What's going on? The [Easy Wins Joint] was destroyed lock, stock, and barrel?" a Black Demon expert, who was wearing a huge black robe that tightly covered his four limbs and face, asked in a soft voice.

"I don't know, I just arrived too. But I heard those five-footed scorpion demons saying everyone inside is dead," a Demon Race fox expert, which indistinctly revealed a grayish-white long tail behind its back, immediately replied softly.

"According to three mad-voice Demon Race experts who left the gambling house two hours ago, two unexpected visitors showed up today," an expert whose body seemed to be made of streams of clear water suddenly said. "One of them is a rising talent of the Divine Sky Sect..."

The crowd of experts was stunned.

The Divine Sky Sect?

It was certainly not to gamble that someone from a top-level large sect of a higher domain like this would come to the Black Demon Pool and enter the [Easy Wins Joint].

Ye Qingyu, who had been listening carefully to the discussions, trembled slightly too.

Divine Sky Sect. These three words had been engraved in his mind ever since that time with the Desert Brute Race.

Ao Tianzun, who had shades of a demonlike existence, was called one of the four small saints of the Divine Sky Sect. A doppelganger monster of his had fought impressively against Ye Qingyu in the underground palace. The latter certainly did not expect to run into the sect once more here.

What are they here for?

We became enemies when Ao Tianzun directed Jiang Xiaohan to sabotage the Heaven Wasteland Domain. Could they have come for me?

He could not help but become more cautious and vigilant.

In the meantime, several more experts whose faces could not be made out joined the crowd.

"Heh heh, aside from the rising talent of the Divine Sky Sect, heh heh, the other visitor is someone you all have heard of. Yang Wanqu, a successor of the Black Moon Divine Palace," said an expert whose shoulders burned with two clusters of green hellghost fire.

"It's him?!"

To one side, several experts of different races exclaimed in unison.

Ye Qingyu was unfamiliar with this person.

However, he had heard of the Black Moon Divine Palace.

The inspection special envoy who, while dispatching orders to the Heaven Wasteland Domain, had attempted to take advantage of and severely injured the First Princess, and even wickedly left a dark force in her body was someone from the Black Moon Divine Palace. Ye Qingyu had deliberately sought out this information when receiving the domain rating special envoys.

To the Heaven Wasteland Domain and Ye Qingyu at present, neither the Divine Sky Sect nor the Black Moon Divine Palace were a friendly camp.

The idea that these two sects were working together gave Ye Qingyu a few more conjectures in his mind.

As he was about to turn and leave after listening for a while longer to the discussions, a conversation among several Black Demon experts to one side suddenly caught his attention.