181: Chapter 181 Ask the Sword in My Hand

She had only seen the first half of this Hehuan Canon.

Only by being moved to the point of absolute sincerity and true nature could one awaken.

The moment she awakened, her strength would explode from being mediocre to an unimaginably terrifying level.

"The Su family... little girl..."

"Su Hu, Hehuan Sect..."

She murmured the names, her fox-like eyes casting a somewhat humble gaze toward Su Chen.

The man noticed her gaze.

He gripped her hand a little tighter.

On that face, there was only an understanding, light smile.

It was as if he had already seen through everything.

He knew all along!

A thunderclap echoed in Su Daji's heart, and she stood frozen on the spot.

Inside her, something seemed to quietly shatter, then surge up layer by layer.

Su Chen didn't pay attention to Su Daji's situation.

Instead, he looked at the young man in white before him and asked with a smile.

"So..."

"Your Excellency—oh no, I should say, Fellow Daoist."

"Are you going to keep pretending?"

"Hehehe... Hehe."

The gentle and peaceful mask on the white-clad youth's face quietly faded away.

In its place was a mocking and indifferent expression.

His figure distorted slightly in the snowy light.

Surprisingly, he slowly transformed from a man into a woman with a graceful and hot figure.

Her original green robe turned into an ethereal and eerie purple gauze dress, and her white hair instantly turned into a waterfall of black silk, tied up with a simple wooden hairpin.

Her features hadn't changed much; the face that was too soft and even seductive for a man was just right for a woman.

Those eyes, swirling with charm, looked toward Su Chen.

"The King of Yin is indeed meticulous, worthy of being regarded as a major threat by those old fellows."

Her voice had also changed. Her gaze swept over the trembling Su Daji, making no effort to hide her contempt and disappointment.

"It's just that this Martial Niece of mine is truly useless. After dawdling for so long, she actually let you investigate this far and let you walk into Wenli alive."

"Mar... Martial Aunt."

The person before her was Su Daji's Second Martial Aunt, and also her master's junior sister.

Li Yingran.

Her cultivation was definitely ranked among the top three in the Hehuan Sect.

Never mind a mortal emperor like Su Chen and a half-baked cultivator like herself.

Even the three Secret Guards behind Su Chen, who seemed to have some cultivation...

...would have absolutely no hope of victory against her.

Could it be...

Sensing Su Daji's panic and fear, Li Yingran smiled even more cheerfully.

She ignored Su Daji's instantly miserable gaze and looked back at Su Chen.

"Great King, your guess is correct."

"Su Hu is nothing more than an obedient dog. What happened back then was done by my Hehuan Sect following the decree of a certain Immortal Elder."

"The massacre of the city was to frame you, to completely ruin the hearts of the people toward the Yin Shang Dynasty in Jizhou and even the East, and to conveniently seize that little girl..."

Her gaze fell on Su Daji again, as if sizing up an object.

"She possesses a rare constitution, making her the perfect candidate to practice my Hehuan Sect's supreme secret canon, the 'Supreme Forgetting Joy and Union Canon'."

"And sending her to your side... was also an important means to facilitate her completion of this canon."

She shook her head, appearing truly somewhat regretful.

"It's a pity this girl is indecisive and stubborn, wasting this good skin and natural spiritual body for nothing, and hindering my Hehuan Sect's grand design."

"Since you've seen through it today, then I shall personally finish you off. As for the price..."

An astonishing aura suddenly erupted from her entire body.

Purple spiritual light soared into the sky, churning the wind and snow, completely enveloping the small stall for dozens of meters around.

That spiritual light contained charm, and even more so, killing intent.

"For the Hehuan Sect to occupy a place in the new era, and for a position on that 'Investiture of the Gods Merit List'..."

"I shall bear this heavenly backlash on behalf of my Senior Sister and completely erase you—Di Xin, the Lord of the Yin Shang Dynasty—right here!"

The snow danced wildly.

The killing intent was like a tide.

Su Chen slowly stood up and gently pulled Su Daji—who was cold all over, her eyes hollow as if she had lost all human perception, like a soft doll—behind him.

He faced the Vice Sect Leader of the Hehuan Sect, who radiated a terrifying spiritual pressure at the peak of the Houtian Realm, perhaps even approaching the Xiantian level.

(PS: The cultivation realms for mundane cultivators in the Great Yin world, from low to high, are Body Tempering, Qi Condensation, Houtian, and Xiantian.)

There wasn't a hint of fear on his face.

After all, as a mortal emperor...

...no matter what, he couldn't lose his dignity.

"So that's how it is."

He turned his head and glanced at Su Daji behind him, who looked as if her soul had dissipated; a flash of extremely complex emotion crossed his eyes.

There was pity, and there was a sigh.

Then, he faced the purple-clad woman again.

He slowly drew the bronze longsword at his waist, which had followed him for many days and tasted much blood.

"Vice Sect Leader, is it?"

Su Chen grinned, his smile unrestrained and arrogant.

"You want to kill me and take my head to exchange for merit."

"Coincidentally, today I also want to see if the blood of you immortal sect cultivators—who toy with people's hearts and treat all living beings like grass..."

"...is actually warm!"

Before his voice had even faded, he moved.

"Mundane immortal sect cultivators... even if you don't have the strength of immortals to overturn mountains and seas, you still always look down on mortals."

"Do you think that having some cultivation makes you superior to mortals?"

"Then... what if I use this power from mortals to strangle you here?"

"I, the thirty-first ruler of the Yin Dynasty, Di Xin Su Chen."

"Hereby offer my thanks to the ancestors and the Great Yin's lands."

"I request... that the Power of National Destiny be bestowed upon my body."

"Human Emperor Sword!"

In almost an instant.

Su Chen struck.

A seemingly ordinary sword light shot out from the bronze sword in his hand.

It tore through the wind and snow, piercing straight toward the center of the sky-filling purple light.

Buzz—!

The moment the bronze longsword thrust out, the blade vibrated violently.

The black commoner's robes around Su Chen's body fluttered without wind.

An extremely powerful and majestic aura erupted from within his body with a boom.

Streaks of golden-yellow light shot out from the ground and from the sky.

They shot out from every corner of the Yin Dynasty's territory.

All of them converged onto Su Chen's body.

That was not spiritual power, nor was it true essence.

Rather, it was a more vast power, carrying the will of millions of people and the fortune of the mountains and rivers.

The National Fortune of the Yin Shang Dynasty.

Yes, this was also Su Chen's trump card.

As one of the Human Emperor's lineage, although his own cultivation was almost negligible...

...he always had some means to resist these cultivators.

Under the shroud of the golden-yellow fortune, many ancient bronze patterns appeared on the originally plain sword blade.

On the spine of the sword, phantoms of mountains and rivers, farming and fishing, officials worshipping, and people living in peace vaguely emerged.

They finally condensed into two ancient and majestic Seal Script characters.

Human Emperor!

The Human Emperor Sword was formed!

Although the power of this temporarily condensed Human Emperor Sword was less than half of its peak due to being far from the center of the National Fortune in Chaoge...

...the Yin Shang Dynasty's National Fortune still briefly pushed Su Chen's cultivation to the early Houtian stage.