After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

The edges of the sheepskin picture on the stone table were lifted by the cold wind.

Zhou Ran stared at the two characters "Heavenly Corpse" on the picture, gently tapping the edge of the table with his fingertips.

"The Central Ghost Emperor has been missing for three months."

He looked up at Emperor Song.

"Is it related to this thing?"

Emperor Song did not answer immediately.

He picked up the chess piece from the parchment and twirled it halfway between his two fingers.

"The geological features of Baodu Mountain are connected to Jiangcheng."

"The spine of the Heavenly Corpse runs through the Yin and Yang realms, while its limbs are pressed into four mountain ranges."

Emperor Song marked four places on the sheepskin map.

Finally, the fingertip stopped at one of the points.

"Baodu Mountain is its left hand."

Zhou Ran twitched her eyelids.

King Qin Guang's projection floated forward half a step, his aged voice lowered.

"In the last message Zhou Qi sent back, he said that something was turning over at the foot of Baodu Mountain."

Zhou Ran asked:

"Turn over?"

King Qin Guang's Way:

"The Heavenly Corpse's left hand has moved."

The main hall paused for three breaths.

Meng Po stood at the door with a chipped porcelain bowl in her hand, and she hadn't said a word since she came in.

At this moment, she finally spoke.

"The Grand Commander wants to know just how powerful this thing is."

After she finished speaking, she stepped into the hall and placed the porcelain bowl on a corner of the stone table.

The brownish-yellow broth in the bowl reflected the sheepskin pattern.

The soup noodles sloshed around a couple of times, and a huge human-shaped silhouette emerged from within.

"The years I've guarded the Bridge of Helplessness are longer than the ten Kings of Hell combined."

Meng Po stretched out her withered finger and touched the reflection in the soup.

"I was present when the first Yama, the King of Hell, suppressed this thing."

Zhou Ran glanced at her.

The projections of Emperor Song and King Qin Guang also turned towards Meng Po.

Meng Po's cloudy old eyes darted around, and she dug up old stories from the depths of her memory.

"In that battle, three of the first Yama Kings died."

"Three people?"

Qiao Kun's voice came in from outside the door, the last syllable weak.

He had been waiting outside, but now he couldn't resist sticking his head into the hall.

"The first generation of Yama Kings were all at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage."

"It took three peak Nascent Soul cultivators risking their lives to force this thing into the ground."

She paused for a moment.

"Because it was in the process of undergoing tribulation when it was alive."

The period of tribulation.

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Ran's finger stopped on the edge of the table.

Above the Nascent Soul stage lies the Tribulation Transcending stage.

The Tribulation Transcending Stage is not recorded in any ancient texts of the cultivation world on Earth.

Even at his peak, Li Chengfeng was only at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage.

This celestial corpse had already reached the stage of tribulation in its previous life.

King Qin Guang's projection added a sentence.

"It has no cultivation process."

"Creators of the Void Realm need not cultivate."

"They were standing there the day they were created."

Zhou Ran leaned back in his chair and interlocked his fingers.

"Himezuki".

He uttered the name.

Emperor Song's expression changed.

"You know her?"

"I've seen it."

Zhou Ran's tone was flat.

"Six months ago, I went into the virtual realm to spy, and she glanced at me."

The projection of King Qin Guang shook.

"You've been to the Void Realm?"

Zhou Ran did not explain.

He stared at the human figure outline on the sheepskin map.

"This celestial corpse belongs to her."

As soon as these words were spoken, everyone in the hall understood them.

Emperor Song nodded slowly.

"The Creator is driven by the will of the illusory realm."

"Ji Yue is the embodiment of the will of the Void Realm in the human world."

"in other words……"

Zhou Ran continued with the second half of the sentence.

"The Heavenly Corpse is under her command."

He paused.

"To be more precise, it's a weapon she left behind here."

Emperor Song pressed the chess pieces back onto the table.

"A weapon that was left at our doorstep."

"No one has come to claim it for tens of thousands of years."

"Now, someone wants to pick it up again."

Zhou Ran shifted his gaze from the sheepskin map to Emperor Song.

"How do the rebels intend to use it?"

The scholarly air that the Song emperor possessed vanished completely after that sentence.

He stood up, bracing himself on the stone table with both hands, the veins on the back of his hands bulging.

"That idiot Yama, the King of Hell."

These words were squeezed out from between his teeth.

"He thought he could control a weapon at the Tribulation Transcending stage."

The projection of King Qin Guang took over the conversation, speaking a few steps faster.

"King Yama made a deal with the Sheng Hui Consortium."

"The corporations provide Western necromancy, while the rebels provide Eastern souls."

"With their combined efforts, they awakened the Heavenly Corpse."

"King Yama wants to use the Heavenly Corpse to restore order in the underworld and proclaim himself the sole Emperor of the Underworld."

"The Holy Radiance Consortium intends to use the Heavenly Corpse to rewrite the supernatural order of the mortal realm, allowing Western superpower systems to overshadow Eastern cultivation."

Zhou Ran scoffed after hearing this.

"Two idiots."

Emperor Song smashed a corner of the stone table with a single palm strike.

The pebbles flew up, one of them passing through King Qin Guang's projection without leaving a trace.

"They had no idea what they had touched!"

The Song emperor raised his voice.

"Once the Heavenly Corpse is fully awakened, it will not obey anyone's orders."

It will only execute one instruction.

"Erase".

"At that time, the rebels in the underworld, the mortal realm, the underworld itself, and even the void realm itself will all be emptied and redefined."

Clear and reset.

When these four words reached Zhou Ran's ears, only one meaning remained.

format.

The Primordial Bone in his spine emitted a low hum.

The vibration climbed up the spine from the tailbone and finally penetrated into the sea of ​​consciousness.

The scenes he glimpsed in the virtual world six months ago are now appearing frame by frame.

A shattered continent.

A depleted galaxy.

The remains of a god lying across the void.

The Graveyard of the Gods.

Those ruins, those dead civilizations, those erased worlds.

All traces were left by the Heavenly Corpse.

Zhou Ran closed his eyes for a moment.

When I opened my eyes again, the light in the purple-gold demonic eyes had faded.

"Three days."

He held up three fingers.

"The River of Oblivion will remain sealed for three days."

"Three days later, the number of lingering souls in the mortal realm increased dramatically, and the rebel army harvested these wronged souls, increasing their troop strength."

"The three palaces cannot hold out."

"Once the three palaces are breached, the rebels will be able to reach the spine of the Heavenly Corpse from the side of the Underworld."

"In the mortal realm, the corpse's torso beneath Jiangcheng has already opened its two eyes."

"A pincer attack from above and below."

Emperor Song sat back down in his chair, his fatigue now impossible to conceal.

That's why I called you here.

Zhou Ran did not respond.

He is waiting.

Wait until Emperor Song reveals his true purpose.

The Song emperor looked at him with scrutiny and apprehension in his eyes.

"Your ideal golden elixir."

Zhou Ran's eyelids twitched.

"At its core, it is self-definition."

Emperor Song walked around the stone table with a broken corner and came to Zhou Ran.

"The duty of the Heavenly Corpse is to define."

"It will erase the old rules and build new ones according to the instructions of the virtual realm."

"Your golden core is me, the rule itself."

"One that executes external instructions."

"A system that sets boundaries and legislates according to its own will."

Emperor Song stopped in front of Zhou Ran and looked down at the young man sitting in the chair.

"You have a very good chance of becoming the only person in the Three Realms who can intervene when the Heavenly Corpse awakens."

The voice just fell.

Deep within Zhou Ran's dantian, the Golden Core of the Heart suddenly trembled.

He closed his eyes and looked inward.

On the surface of the golden core, a gray crack is extending downwards from the top.

The cracks were extremely fine, yet they penetrated the surface of the golden core.

The air seeping from the cracks was cold, withered, and empty.

The aura emanating from that celestial corpse thousands of feet below them shared the same frequency.

Completely synchronized.