Chapter 71: Zuo Xinghe Encounters an Old Acquaintance, Arriving at the Heavenly Talent Assembly
Chapter 71 – Zuo Xinghe Encounters an Old Acquaintance, Arriving at the Heavenly Talent Assembly
After a brief exchange, Ye Hensheng and the python-robed young man finally settled on how to handle Chen Changsheng.
They would simply let him be.
Regardless of the circumstances, The Undertaker remained an old acquaintance of the Wolf Emperor; his cultivation base could not possibly be weak.
As his disciple, even if Chen Changsheng lacked raw power and combat experience, they still had to grant him a modicum of face.
The Heavenly Talent Assembly was fraught with peril, but as long as he avoided provoking the wrong people, he should avoid any mortal danger.
They would treat him as a tagalong brought merely to witness the grander world.
With their decision made, the python-robed young man immediately strode toward Chen Changsheng, a warm smile plastered on his face.
“So Brother Chen is the esteemed disciple of The Undertaker!”
“A profound honor to finally meet you.”
“The Undertaker has always walked shrouded in mystery. Should the heavens permit, I, Su Tian, must pay my respects to that Senior.”
Meeting the young man’s greeting, Chen Changsheng returned a polite, unreadable smile.
“My master has always favored the quiet life of a recluse. Yet, since Brother Su wishes an audience, he would likely grant it.”
“After all, my master shares a certain karmic tie with the Xuanwu Kingdom.”
“Oh?”
“Such ties exist?”
“Indeed. I have heard him mention it in passing, though the exact truths remain veiled to me.”
“In that case, I absolutely must seek an opportunity to call upon the Senior.”
Su Tian and Chen Changsheng exchanged a few more hollow pleasantries before Su Tian arranged a place for him to rest.
The surface courtesy was flawless, yet in truth, Su Tian possessed no intention of actually including Chen Changsheng in their inner circle.
Sensing the subtle ostracization, Chen Changsheng merely offered a faint smile, entirely unbothered.
He wasn’t traveling to the Middle Heavens to bleed for some empty title of supreme genius. Remaining an unnoticed shadow suited his purposes perfectly.
……
After lingering in the Xuanwu Kingdom for a few days, the grand teleportation Formation was finally fully charged with Spiritual Energy.
The gathered prodigies from the Night Moon Country and the Xuanwu Kingdom stood assembled within the intricate array.
Curiously, the leading figures of both nations did not possess a single drop of direct imperial blood.
The Night Moon Country, hailed as a sovereign dynasty of the demon race, was led by Ye Hensheng—a mortal human.
The Xuanwu Kingdom’s vanguard was Su Tian, an outsider to the royal lineage.
Through the sheer tyranny of his innate talent, the Zuo Emperor had taken him as a foster son, crowning him the Prince of Equal Standing.
Just as they prepared to pierce the void toward the Middle Heavens, Zuo Xinghe—the current ruler of the Xuanwu Kingdom who had long remained in Secluded Cultivation—made a rare emergence.
Sweeping his gaze over the youth within the grand Formation, Zuo Xinghe delivered a customary, morale-boosting speech before commanding the array to activate.
While the talents of these two nations were not lacking, a chasm of difference separated them from the true monsters lurking in the Middle Heavens.
For them, the Heavenly Talent Assembly was merely a brutal lesson in acknowledging the wider heaven and earth.
Zuo Xinghe harbored absolutely no delusions of his kingdom’s youth carving their names into the legends there.
Watching the blinding spiritual light swallow the Formation, Zuo Xinghe turned his sleeves to depart.
But in that fleeting fraction of a breath, his eyes snagged upon a familiar silhouette hidden deep within the crowd.
Though the aura felt altered and the features smoothed by youth, Zuo Xinghe could grind his own bones to dust and still never forget that face.
At that exact moment, Chen Changsheng caught the emperor’s gaze.
Acknowledging the terrified stare of an old acquaintance, Chen Changsheng’s lips peeled back into a brilliant, unbothered smile.
“Whoosh!”
Before Zuo Xinghe could force a single sound from his throat, the Formation howled, and the dozen prodigies vanished into the void.
“Gulp!”
Swallowing a heavy lump of dread, Zuo Xinghe—the undisputed sovereign of a kingdom—began to tremble uncontrollably.
He was alive. He had actually walked out from the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land alive.
His shell might have shed years, but that suffocating composure, that dead calm in his eyes—those would never change.
The Undertaker, Chen Changsheng, the Xuanwu Kingdom’s ephemeral State Preceptor… he had returned!
Mind racing with terrifying implications, Zuo Xinghe barked an order.
“Guards!”
“Reactivate the grand Formation. I am personally crossing into the Middle Heavens.”
An elderly array master stumbled forward, bowing deeply. “Your Majesty, the grand Formation… it has sustained catastrophic dissonance.”
“To stabilize the spatial rifts and reignite the core, it will require at least two months.”
Cold sweat beaded heavily across the old man’s forehead as he spoke.
He had no logical explanation for why an array functioning perfectly mere breaths ago had suddenly collapsed upon itself.
By the grace of the heavens, the departure had succeeded. Had the prodigies been shredded in the spatial turbulence, a hundred executions would not have paid for his failure.
Surprisingly, Zuo Xinghe directed no wrath toward the weeping array masters.
He knew exactly whose invisible hand had choked the life out of the array. Chen Changsheng.
With that monster’s mastery over Formations, planting a latent disruption to sever pursuit would be as effortless as breathing.
“Then repair it immediately. I demand this Formation restored to perfect order as soon as humanly possible.”
Flinging his sleeves, Zuo Xinghe turned and strode away.
His heart churned like a tempestuous sea. The resurrection of a ghost carried far too many terrifying secrets, and Zuo Xinghe had a hundred questions he needed answered.
……
Within the Spatial Passageway.
A translucent barrier of spiritual light enveloped the group, tearing through the endless void at terrifying speeds.
The dozen youths stood rigid, hands clasped strictly behind their backs, staring silently into the chaotic currents as if they had collectively been struck mute.
Chen Changsheng found the display utterly amusing, yet logical.
These ‘Heavenly Talents’ were obsessed with cultivating an aura of unfathomable profoundness. Prattling on like mortal merchants would shatter their carefully crafted illusions of grandeur.
Ignoring their posturing, Chen Changsheng found a quiet corner to sit, casually tossing a Pill into the mouth of the lethargic little white dog bundled in his robes.
Stroking the beast’s soft fur, his mind began to calculate.
Since emerging from the forbidden lands, he noticed the Heavenly Dao’s shifting laws had shackled the world’s cultivators with suffocating weight.
It was why the old monsters had all sealed themselves in Secluded Cultivation. The more tyrannical a cultivator’s foundation, the deeper the death-seclusion they required to survive the changing era.
“Forging an entirely new path to the Dao is no simple feat,” Chen Changsheng murmured inwardly.
“To think the suppression of the Heavenly Dao would not merely cripple the power of the old methods, but violently burn away the lifespans of those bound to them.”
“No wonder the Middle Heavens orchestrated this ‘Heavenly Talent Assembly.’ Those ancient fossils are watching their life lamps flicker out.”
His gaze drifted over the rigid backs of the prodigies standing nearby.
Various Qi signatures rippled from their flesh, but as his Divine Sense washed over them, he noticed a stark anomaly.
The foundations they cultivated completely defied the orthodox laws of the ancient eras.
In blunt, cold logic: these glowing youths were nothing more than sacrificial test subjects for the dying masters attempting to forge new paths to immortality.
If the new methods held true, they would ascend the heavens in a single bound. If flawed, their bodies would detonate, their Dao dissipating into nothingness.
Having untangled the bloody truth behind the assembly, a predatory arc touched the corners of Chen Changsheng’s mouth.
He knew the universal truth of the cultivation world. The only crucible to temper a new Dao and prove a technique’s validity was absolute violence.
To slaughter the enemy was to prove the Dao true.
To be slaughtered was to prove the Dao false.
Thus, this Heavenly Talent Assembly was destined to be a meat grinder, fought until the skies wept blood and the earth shattered into dust!