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The River Styx.

 When the figure in the skies stepped forth, the air filled with surging demonic energy, enveloping everything in the area.

This new arrival was a demon in deep indigo armor, which covered him from head to toe. It was striking to behold. Purple demonic energy hovered around him, as if showing its respect. 

“To think you were here!” When he saw the man beneath the dark smog, Emperor Hades’ expression wavered.

Su Yiyun tightly knit his brows. He could sense this demon’s surging aura, but he didn’t recognize who this was. Still, one look at his swirling demonic energy, and it was clear this was a demon expert.

“It’s been at least ten thousand years since we last met!” The man in the smog grinned.

“Indeed, it’s been ten thousand years. We haven’t seen each other since you joined forces with the God Emperor to target Five Elements, resulting in him taking severe injuries.” Emperor Hades’ expression was flat. “But I’m rather surprised to see you here today. And here I thought you’d gone with your followers to attack the foxes, or perhaps, that you’d led a group to take Zhou Wu’s head. To think you’d come here to see me…. You’ve always been hard to predict, Demon Emperor!”  

The Demon Emperor!

When Emperor Hades announced this new arrival’s identity, everyone, from the yao of the Southern Kingdom to the vicious beasts of the River Styx, was visibly terrified.

They naturally had never seen the Demon Emperor before; they simply weren’t on a high enough level for that.

Su Yiyun was stunned too. He stared at the black-robed man. It was indeed the Demon Emperor, Kui Lin!

Emperor Hades was known as the top expert beneath the realm emperor level; this was out of recognition of his strength. If he were to fight Jiao Hai, Su Yiyun wouldn’t worry about him at all.

But this was the Demon Emperor! One of the three realm emperors!

“So, the Demon Emperor is here! It seems I can no longer just sit back and watch!” 

The waters of the River Styx suddenly flowed in reverse, and a towering wave soared into the skies. Xue Yang, whose real body was stationed under the river, arrived riding on the wave. His aura billowed out, no weaker than any of those prosent. His Ocean Emperor’s Trident shone with radiant golden light.

“Ocean Emperor.” Kui Lin cupped his fist respectfully.

“The entire Southern Kingdom rallying its forces to attack the River Styx is already rather excessive, now you’re here too. Surely you won’t complain if I step in now too?” laughed the Ocean Emperor.

“Naturally.” Kui Lin nodded.

“Well... Come on, then!” Ocean Emperor Xue Yang raised his hand and pointed up at the sky. If emperors at their level were to fight, just the resulting shockwaves were enough to obliterate any cultivator at or below the diviner level.  

He’d pointed at the sky to say that they should fight in the sky so as not to interfere with the battle below.

Kui Lin was keenly aware of his intentions. He smiled, nodded, and followed Xue Yang into the sky. The King of the Southern Kingdom, Jiao Hai, soon followed them as well.

“Master.”

Seeing the worry in Su Yiyun’s eyes, Emperor Hades patted him on the shoulder. “No need to worry. Xue Yang’s real body is here. If the two of us fight against the two of them, we won’t necessarily lose. I’ll leave everything here to you. Whatever you do, don’t let them take so much as a single step past the river. Got it?”

“Your apprentice understands.” 

Emperor Hades smiled at him, but when he looked away, his gaze was grim. Hands behind his back, he stepped into the sky.

 Su Yiyun remained in place and narrowed his eyes. He looked at the yao horde. They were champing at the bit, eager for slaughter. Su Yiyun’s expression harded, and he roared, “Kill!”

….

“Auntie Xuan Ji, where did you open this door to?” Ye Zichen looked ahead, taking in a vast stretch of wasteland. He couldn’t quite tell where he was, so he hovered in the sky and stared in confusion.

Traveling from the Divine Mountains to the Lower Lands required a spatial tunnel, but the tunnels of the God Realm weren’t quite equipped to contain such a vast army of cultivators. That was why Xuan Ji and her Divine Generals had joined forces to create their own path down to the Lower Lands. 

But when they exited the tunnel, they found themselves in a barren waste, empty as far as the eye could see.

There were countless wastes just like this one in the Lower Lands. Even Ye Zichen, who’d lived in the Lower Lands before, couldn’t immediately figure out where they were.

If not even he could tell where this was, there was no doubt about it: his followers had no idea either.

The vast majority of the Upheaval Alliance’s members had been born and raised on the Divine Mountains. 

“Didn’t you spend years living in the Lower Lands? But you don’t even know something this simple?” Xuan Ji pursed her lips. “We’re about an hour away from the River Styx on foot. What, do you think I’d open a door to the wrong location or something?”  

“Why not take us directly to the riverbank?” Ye Zichen didn’t quite know what to say.

 Whap! Ye Zichen’s head suddenly started ringing. His eyes bulged, and he saw Xuan Ji sneering at him. 

“You’d have us appear right by the river? Surely you know they’re fighting a war there as we speak? With so many people fighting, how could the space possibly be stable? Open a portal there directly? Are you so sick of living that you’ve got insane? If you ran into spatial turbulence en route, you’d die without even knowing what had hit you.” 

“You could have just said that. You didn’t have to hit me,” muttered Ye Zichen.

“What did you say just now? I didn’t quite hear you. Mind repeating yourself?” Xuan Ji glared at him, like a lady gang boss. Ye Zichen smiled and nodded sheepishly, but he didn’t dare repeat himself.

Yang Jian and the Great Sage, meanwhile, watched. They were beside themselves with laughter…

“Aha, only Lady Providence can scare Ye Zichen into such a state!”

“Hee hee hee….!”

They laughed heartlessly from the sidelines, only for Ye Zichen to shoot them a look. They immediately fell silent.

But this time, it was Pu Jingwan’s turn to laugh heartlessly. “Ahaha, look at yourselves!”

They were obviously on the verge of heading into battle, and they ought to have been tense. But after watching this three-man circus, the onlookers suddenly weren’t half as nervous.

But at that moment, the stench of blood flowed through the air and lingered around them, assailing their nostrils. The atmosphere, which had briefly livened up, instantly grew solemn and heavy again. Xuan Ji and Ye Zichen looked at each other, then headed straight towards the source of the bloody smell: the River Styx.

“Get in formation!” 

The yao army was simply too vast. Even if each denizen of the River Styx could fend off one hundred invaders, they’d still be hard-pressed to maintain their defenses.

Furthermore, although Su Yiyun was supposedly Emperor Hades’ disciple, his master had yet to teach him even a single combat technique.

All of his methods were the fruit of his own comprehension of the art of spiritual formations.

The formation he’d prepared activated, and the vicious beasts marched dutifully inside. But the yao invaders had suffered heavy losses due to his formations already; how could they just let him complete another one? The instant Su Yiyun finished placing his Five Elements, Eight Trigrams formation, the yao rushed in like mad, desperate to kill the beasts taking their place inside.

It was suddenly extremely difficult for the river denizens to take up position in the formation.

At the same time, the yao of the Southern Kingdom charged in like mad. Before long, they’d push the front lines all the way back to the riverbank.

Crunch.

Su Yiyun audibly gnashed his teeth as he watched the yao advance without pause, as well as the river beasts’ desperate counterattack. They were already fighting at one hundred and twenty percent, but they were clearly being overwhelmed anyway. 

“It seems there’s no other choice.” Suddenly, Su Yiyun bit down hard, piercing right through his lip, and an enormous spiritual formation appeared overhead.

“This spiritual formation….” The commander of the Southern Kingdom’s yao knit his brows in thought, then roared, “This is...an eighth-level soul-locking formation. Hurry… Hurry up and stop him!”