Chapter 2905: Searching

In the night of Da Chu, the starlight still shone.

Ji Ningshuang emerged from the chaos and left the Zhutian Gate.

After half a year of slumber, she entered the starry sky for the first time.

With every step she took, an emperor’s avatar manifested and dashed toward the four corners of the cosmos, searching for lingering souls and scattered fragments of emperor weapons.

Naturally, what she most wanted to find was the Honghuang Clan.

Before becoming an emperor, her words still held true: to raze the Honghuang to the ground.

In the past, she could not achieve it.

Now, she could.

Whether for Ye Fan, Ye Chen, or for all living beings, she would slaughter the Honghuang Clan to extinction.

Emperors did not easily kill or massacre ants, but she would break that rule. What previous emperors had not done, she would do for them all, making the Honghuang Clan pay a bloody price.

“We have seen the Female Emperor.”

Many people passed by and, upon spotting her from afar, bowed respectfully. Each avatar nodded slightly, offering a forced smile that could not hide her deep sorrow.

Ah!

The world sighed for the heavens, for themselves, and for the Female Emperor.

That great calamity had taken too many lives, and the Female Emperor was no exception. She had attained the Dao and become an emperor, yet lost her two closest ones: her husband and her child.

The most brilliant Female Emperor was also the most tragic, at least more so than the Donghua Female Emperor.

As the people watched, the Female Emperor’s many avatars gradually faded into the distance, heading in various directions. The cultivators of the heavens took deep breaths, their eyes filled with hope.

Anyone could see a hidden killing intent in the Female Emperor’s gaze, directed at the Honghuang Clan, the first beings of that world.

In the near future, the Female Emperor would unleash a massacre.

On the other side of the star river, one of the Female Emperor’s avatars stopped and fished a wisp of a remnant soul from the blood-red river.

It was Long Jie’s remnant soul.

The avatar waved her hand, summoning an ever-burning lamp and placing Long Jie’s remnant soul inside, sending it back to the Xuanhuang Continent.

In that battle, the Canglong Clan, one of the eight ancient races, had been nearly wiped out. Counting Long Jie with his remnant soul, only eight members of the entire Canglong Clan remained.

Even worse off than the Canglong Clan was the Wuzu Clan, another of the eight ancient races. Including their divine son, all had perished, and that ancient race’s lineage was severed.

On a shattered ancient star, Ji Ningshuang descended from the sky and found another wisp of a remnant soul in a ruined ancient palace. The soul force was extremely weak, nearly extinguished.

It was Di Xuan’s remnant soul.

The nine great divine generals of the Emperor had fallen in battle, but Di Xuan had survived. With this remnant soul, she could be revived.

Over the years, Ji Ningshuang had learned of the relationship between Ye Chen and the Xianwu Emperor.

From the Emperor’s side, Di Xuan was like Ye Chen’s sister.

From Ye Chen’s side, Di Xuan should call her sister-in-law.

Ji Ningshuang sacrificed the ever-burning lamp, igniting Di Xuan’s soul. She would revive her, for Ye Chen’s family was her family, even across nine great cycles of reincarnation.

She continued on, traveling through many starry skies, her avatars everywhere.

“We have seen the Female Emperor.”

Such words echoed frequently in the starry sky. No matter who they were or how high their status, upon seeing her from afar, they would cup their hands and bow.

The Female Emperor’s state of mind was one of sorrow.

She traveled far and long, and what she saw was pitiful: quasi-emperors were scarce, great saints even rarer, with most beings below the great saint level.

She grieved, and so did the Tianming Emperors.

That calamity had wiped out two generations in the heavens and human realm, breaking two lines of succession.

In short, aside from Ji Ningshuang’s imperial self, the heavens’ remaining core forces were no longer great saints or quasi-emperors, but saint kings, saints, and sovereign realm experts.

The era of the new emperor was also an era of weakness, with too many deaths and peak forces nearly extinct.

Was it worth fighting so fiercely to protect her ascension to emperor?

This question had been asked by the world, and the Tianming Emperors had pondered it in their hearts.

Yet, no one could provide an answer.

War was that cruel.

To produce a supreme being required a price.

“The Honghuang Clan is doomed.”

The Ming Emperor took a deep breath. He understood Ye Chen all too well, and those close to him were just as resolute. Once they set their minds on something, they would not turn back. If not for the Honghuang Clan, Ye Chen would not have been trapped in Tianhuang, Ye Fan would not have died, and the heavens would not have suffered so terribly—at least, not to this extent.

So, the Female Emperor would kill, turning the Honghuang lands into mountains of corpses and rivers of blood.

She was an emperor, true, but she was also a wife and a mother. Her madness in slaughtering peak emperors would be matched in exterminating the Honghuang.

The Dao Ancestor remained silent.

He neither stopped nor encouraged this.

An emperor’s state of mind was supreme and did not easily kill ants.

But that did not mean supremes could not feel anger.

If he were Ji Ningshuang, he would likely settle scores with the Honghuang as well. They dared not fight the heavenly demons or the evil demons, yet they fought fiercely against the beings of the heavens. What use was such a race? The mercy of past emperors had not led to prosperity, but to endless bloodbaths.

In the desolate starry sky, Ji Ningshuang halted.

For a long time, she did not move.

This patch of starry sky was still blood-red, as if washed in fresh blood. It was here that her Ye Chen, Ye Fan’s father, had fallen.

The Female Emperor’s eyes grew misty once more.

Her emperor’s divine sense searched inch by inch, hoping to find a wisp of Ye Chen’s remnant soul. She knew it was impossible, and she had searched before, yet some hope lingered as an unbreakable obsession.

The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment.

In the end, she found nothing. Her gaze darkened further, her tears flowing more freely, blurring her vision.

Only after a long while did she wave her hand.

Immediately, wisps of dust, all tinged with dim light, gathered from all directions and were collected into her sleeve.

It was not dust, but tiny fragments of emperor weapons smaller than grains of sand—from the Wujin iron staff, the Xuanyuan Sword, the Phoenix Zither, the Xianwang Tower, and many more. She would reassemble them and, in the endless years to come, reforge the emperor weapons for past emperors.

She collected as she went, searched as she went—for the remnant souls of heavenly cultivators, for the shattered fragments of emperor weapons, and for the Honghuang Clan.

As an emperor, her vision was supreme; if the Honghuang Clan hid, they could not escape her eyes.

Yet, along this path, she found not a single one.

Her expression remained indifferent, not surprised. The starry skies of the heavens were vast and boundless; even a great emperor could spend a lifetime without traversing them all. Finding the Honghuang Clan was like searching for a needle in the sea.

Still, she would search, tracking them one by one. She would place the memorial tablets of Ye Chen, Ye Fan, and the heroic spirits of the heavens on the Honghuang ancestral lands, using the blood and bones of the Honghuang to honor their spirits in the afterlife.

On a floating meteor, she found another wisp of a remnant soul.

It belonged to Dongzhou Wuwang, of her generation, a true emperor’s son level expert. He had fought the heavenly demons to his death, but luckily, a trace of his soul remained.

Equally lucky was the Riyue Shenzi, not far from Dongzhou Wuwang. In a blood-red sea of stars, the two had likely fallen together in battle.

Once, in a stretch of starry sky, she raised a hand and reached into a spatial black hole, pulling out a battle axe. It was a blood-stained axe, badly damaged, with only the handle left.

It was the emperor weapon of the Kuiniu Clan. That day, to protect Ye Chen, it had withstood a peak supreme and nearly shattered. The emperor seals on it were also broken, extremely difficult to repair.

In the nearby starry sky, she found the emperor weapon of the Douzhan Shengyuan Clan.

The Wujin iron staff was fractured, stained with supreme blood and Ye Chen’s blood, but that blood turned to ash upon touch.

Later, she found many more remnant souls—some from elders, some from juniors, some she recognized, some she did not—all in extremely limited numbers.

As for the ultimate emperor weapons, they were all damaged, mostly in small fragments, with their seals destroyed.

One could imagine how difficult Ye Chen’s solo battle against the nine emperors had been; so many emperor weapons had been shattered, and none of the heavens’ emperor weapons escaped unscathed.

In the ancient battlefield, amid the flowing river of blood, she found Ye Chen’s life weapon.

Indeed, it was the Chaos Cauldron.

To call it a cauldron was not quite accurate, for it was merely a fragment, palm-sized, its divine light extinguished, with an incomplete Dunjia Tianzi engraved on it.

Ji Ningshuang’s eyes filled with tears as she held the Chaos Cauldron fragment. In that patch of starry sky, she painstakingly searched and found more pieces, though still incomplete. She would continue searching and reforge that domineering cauldron for Ye Chen.

When she returned to Tianhuang, the blood mist had not yet dissipated.

She lingered there for a full three days, her emperor’s divine sense scanning and searching repeatedly, hoping to find a trace of Ye Fan’s soul—even just a wisp, enough to revive him.

Unfortunately, she found nothing.

The world saw her again three months later.

Three months later, in a distant starry sky, she stood at the hazy peak, her emperor’s radiance dazzling and magnificent, the most brilliant star in the cosmos.

Many came, most having just emerged from seclusion, just to glimpse the Female Emperor’s divine form.

What a formidable younger generation!

The elders murmured. Ascension to emperor cared not for order or seniority; it was not about who was older. Though of Ye Chen’s generation, and from Dongshen Yaochi, her seniority was not high. Counting her years, she was only over a thousand years old. If all past emperors were alive, they would surely smile with pride. The youngest emperor was indeed astonishing.

Splash! Splash!

At some point, the sound of chains clashing suddenly rang out.

Looking up, they saw the sound came from Ji Ningshuang. Strands of rune chains flew from her emperor’s body—the laws of the emperor’s Dao, their clashes crisp and clear, interwoven with emperor’s heavenly sounds. Each chain embodied the ways of all things and was dyed with emperor’s immortal light, piercing to the eyes.

Amid the splashing sounds, chain after chain of order extended infinitely into the void.

“What is the Female Emperor doing?”

The people were puzzled, many asking.

“She intends to unite all domains.”

The perceptive elders made this guess.

And indeed, they were correct.

The Female Emperor aimed to unite all domains. Those extending chains of order had already entered various domains, locking onto their fundamental roots, and would then pull each domain back to the heavens for fusion.

“Doing this will likely disrupt the universe.”

The Ming Emperor said leisurely, his brows furrowed slightly.

“Would Yaochi agree to this?”

The Dao Ancestor remarked calmly, seeing more clearly.

Each domain was a foundation.

Now, the Donghuang Female Emperor wanted to unite all domains, which would certainly disrupt the universe. However, it must be that Ruoxi had said something to her, leading her to merge the domains.

PS: Today, two chapters.

(February 20, 2020)

Recently, I’ve been preparing for a new book, so updates for Xianwu might be fewer. I’ve been delayed by some matters these past couple of days, so replies to comments might be late.

Thank you all for your continued support!!!