If you're made a fake emperor, why did you change the country's name?

The wheels of the carriage turned, the sound of them pressing against the bluestone pavement was dull and monotonous.

The last star in the nine-star alignment is slowly moving closer to the center.

Zhao Yu was roughly hoisted onto the guard's shoulder, his body bouncing up and down with each step he took.

The effects of the Sealing Spirit Pill had completely locked his meridians, making even his physical body's reactions somewhat sluggish, but his spiritual consciousness showed signs of improvement.

After examining his inner self, Zhao Yu discovered that the golden power of national destiny was engaged in a fierce battle with the scarlet medicinal power.

Although the battle situation was not ideal, it still gave him a chance to catch his breath.

Zhao Yu assessed the situation and found that, apart from being unable to attack, scouting was still quite easy.

So he quietly spread out his divine sense.

The carriage finally stopped at the gate of the Prince of Zhennan's Mansion.

Qian Batian took out a completely black token from his pocket and held it up to the sky.

A surge of energy emanated from the token.

The next instant, all the lights in the once brightly lit Zhennan Prince's Mansion went out, plunging it into a deathly silence and darkness.

The patrolling guards seemed to receive a silent command and quietly retreated, turning the entire palace into a ghost town in an instant.

Zhao Yu's divine sense clearly "saw" that the streets surrounding the Prince's mansion had been blocked by heavily armored Zhennan Army soldiers at some point, making them completely impassable.

This place has become a dead end.

Qian Batian strode into the center of the main courtyard of the Prince's Mansion and stopped.

He formed an extremely strange hand seal with both hands, and uttered a single word in a low voice towards the ground beneath his feet.

"open."

Rumble!

The foundation of the entire palace shook violently.

The bluestone floor tiles in the main courtyard cracked from the inside, and the surrounding pavilions, towers, beams, and corridors did not turn into ruins, but collapsed towards the center in a very impactful way.

All the bricks, stones, earth, and even the foundation rolled outwards and slid down at a predetermined angle.

It resembled a giant flower made of steel and rock, slowly blooming in the darkness.

At the heart of the flower, a massive, dark blue altar rises inch by inch from the unfathomable darkness.

A faint blue glow seeped from the altar's array patterns, like an ancient creature that had been dormant for thousands of years finally smelling fresh air and slowly opening its eyes.

As Zhao Yu's divine sense swept across the altar, a ripple stirred within him.

The scale and sophistication of this formation far exceeded the cognitive limits of this low-level martial arts world. The energy fluctuations contained within it even made his Foundation Establishment realm divine sense feel palpitations.

The guards carried Zhao Yu up the steps of the altar, brought him close to Qian Batian, and roughly threw him to the ground.

They then retreated outside the altar.

Zhao Yu then realized that the altar had seven layers.

On the top floor, there are five independent stone pillars.

Each stone pillar had a person bound to it with black chains, their mouths gagged, but judging from their violent struggles and mental state, they were all still alive.

Three men and two women, of varying ages.

With a sweep of his divine sense, Zhao Yu confirmed his guess.

These five people all carried a faint but distinct aura of dragon bloodline.

As the five men watched Qian Batian walk onto the altar, they struggled even more violently, making muffled sounds in their throats, their eyes bulging with fear.

Zhao Yu's gaze swept over the five people one by one, finally landing on Qian Batian.

"These five people, are they sacrifices?"

Zhao Yu's tone was calm, as if he had accepted the outcome.

This calm gave Qian Batian, who was confident of victory, a strange sense of pleasure.

He enjoyed the thrill of conquering geniuses in the cultivation world.

He grinned and casually pointed to a young man on his left.

"The thirteenth prince of the Great Yan Dynasty, of the Golden Dragon bloodline."

He then pointed to a young man on his right.

"The Crown Prince of Western Chu, with the bloodline of a fire dragon."

Qian Batian pointed at each of them one by one, and finally his finger landed on the youngest-looking girl in the middle. She was tied to the stone platform and her body was trembling.

"This is a bit troublesome. It has the bloodline of a water dragon and was kidnapped from the palace of the Southernmost small country, the South Sea Dynasty."

The journey is by no means short, but there's no other way; the formation requires it.

His words were understated, as if he were talking about a trivial matter rather than the life and death of five royal nobles.

After saying that, Qian Batian refocused his gaze on Zhao Yu, revealing a sinister smile.

"Originally, I only had one target, which was my good nephew, Zhao Yu."

He is the royal family with the highest concentration of earth dragon bloodline I have ever seen. After possessing his body, he is enough for me to break the shackles of this world.

Therefore, I had prepared two offerings of fire dragon blood beforehand, thinking that everything would be foolproof.

"And then, you came."

Qian Batian looked at Zhao Yu and nodded in satisfaction, as if admiring a perfect work of art.

"The bloodline of the First Dragon, the origin of all dragon bloodlines."

It possesses all five elements, and the five elements generate each other, making it a whole level higher than any single bloodline.

For you, I've been working tirelessly these past three months to gather all five elements of offerings: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

This feeling of being treated as someone's possession made Zhao Yu feel somewhat uncomfortable.

Tap tap tap...

Footsteps sounded, and a dark figure emerged from the shadows along the outer edge of the altar.

The newcomer, dressed in a black robe, approached and slowly lifted his hood.

It was an extremely old face, with wrinkles so deep they could trap a mosquito, and sunken eye sockets, but those eyes were as sharp as a hawk's.

The old man's gaze fell on Zhao Yu, his naked greed making no attempt to conceal it.

But when he looked at Qian Batian, his greed was quickly suppressed by a deep-seated fear.

The coexistence of these two emotions allowed Zhao Yu to instantly grasp a key piece of information.

This person was not of the same mind as Qian Batian.

"My lord." The old man in black bowed, his voice dry and filled with barely concealed fear. "The auspicious time is approaching. Please place this child in the eye of the child formation, and you shall sit in the eye of the mother formation."

"Only when the two formations work in tandem and the nine stars close can the body-seizing technique operate smoothly."

Qian Batian had no objection. He strode towards Zhao Yu, picked him up with one hand like a chick, and casually tossed him onto a slightly smaller array eye in the center of the altar.

The entire movement was executed with perfect precision, without a single unnecessary force.

Zhao Yu couldn't even take advantage of the situation to make any buffering movements, as the effects of the Sealing Spirit Pill had sealed off most of his physical reactions.

The moment he landed, the array patterns beneath his feet suddenly lit up.

A deep blue starlight seeped from the depths of the earth, spreading rapidly along the intricate patterns and illuminating the entire altar in the blink of an eye.

The icy energy began to seep into his body from the soles of his feet.

The entire altar came to life.

Qian Batian sat cross-legged at the Mother Array Eye not far away and looked up at the night sky.

Of the nine stars, the last one is just a hair's breadth away from being fully in place.

His tense nerves finally relaxed, and he casually said:

"It's earlier than I expected. It seems that the so-called geniuses of the cultivation world are nothing special. I captured them so quickly. I thought it would take more effort."

His words carried a condescending, mocking tone.

He had already concluded that Zhao Yu was a genius disciple who had come down from some cultivation sect outside the world to gain experience.

Zhao Yu did not refute it; this misunderstanding was just what he needed.

Zhao Yu leaned against the cold stone wall at the core of the formation, adjusted himself to a slightly more comfortable position, and began to chat idly, as if he had completely accepted his fate.

"How long have you been preparing?"

Qian Batian replied calmly, "Not many, thirty-six years, seven months, and eighteen days."

Zhao Yu continued speaking.

"Is it worth spending thirty-seven years just to possess a physical body?"

This statement is not a question.

It's a thorn.

Instead of trying to provoke Qian Batian, Zhao Yu used the question "Is it worth it?" to provoke him into speaking.

After a few seconds of silence, Qian Batian let out a low laugh.

"At a point like this, what's the point of quoting the King?"

"Fine, I might as well tell you. Ask me if it's worth it."

He opened his eyes, a look of resentment in them.

"Someone like you, born with a silver spoon in your mouth and pampered by the elders of the sect, will never understand how ridiculous this statement is."

His words worked.

In Zhao Yu's mind, the progress bar of the system task was silently moving forward by a small increment.

"My mother was a concubine of the Qian family," Qian Batian continued to say. "Shortly after I was born, she was abandoned by her family and wandered with me."

When I was a child, I only heard about delicacies from my mother's stories.

My favorite food on ordinary days is the swill buckets of restaurants on the street, which often contain leftover meat.

"Besides these, all I remember is endless suffering."

"The turning point, or disaster, came when I was seventeen. With my brute strength, I made a name for myself in the martial arts world."

The Qian family found me and said they wanted to "recognize their ancestors and return to their roots."

"I happily took my mother into the mansion to 'enjoy life,' haha."

"But that's not enjoying happiness, it's suffering."

The Qian family values ​​my strength, not my bloodline. They have no need for a son with lowly blood.

He paused, recalling something.

"My first meal at the Qian family's house was in the servants' quarters. I recognized the bowl they gave me; it was for the dog by the door. I didn't say anything and just finished my meal."

"Later, when I was three years old, I broke through to the Celestial Realm and became invincible. Everyone respected and feared me, and called me the King of Zhennan."

"Then, I crashed into the ceiling of this world."

Qian Batian's voice revealed a deep-seated despair and hatred.

"Above the Celestial Realm, there are no difficult ladders to climb, but rather a dead end!"

"I just want to climb a little higher, a little higher, but where's the road?!"

Qian Batian's gaze returned to Zhao Yu, becoming utterly calm.

"You ask me if it was worth it. I'll tell you, it took me thirty-seven years. From the first time I obtained that method of possession until tonight, a full thirty-seven years."

"In these thirty-seven years, I have never stopped planning, nor have I ever regretted my decision."

His voice suddenly rose, carrying an extreme madness.

"I want to become stronger! To become the strongest! The strongest in this world! The strongest in the cultivation world! I want to become that legendary immortal who controls life and death, who controls everything!"

After he finished speaking, Zhao Yu fell silent.

It wasn't that I was moved, but rather that these words made me reassess the level of danger posed by this madman.

[The host has been detected to have a preliminary understanding of the reasons for the rebellion of the powerful minister Qian Batian. Mission completion rate: 30%...50%...70%...]

The system's notification sounds kept refreshing my mind.

But we're still 30% short!

In the night sky, the last star trembled and moved one last bit of distance toward that straight line.