Mythical Three Kingdoms: Martial Arts Reach Divine Ranks, I Alone Rule the World

Emperor Liu Hong was burning himself.

Using the emperor's blood as fuel and his life as fire, he forcibly absorbed the imperial fortune accumulated by the Han dynasty over hundreds of years into himself, and ascended to the realm of the emperor in one step.

High in the sky, Zhang Jiao watched all this quietly, his eyes showing no murderous intent, no pleasure, only a faint pity.

Why bother?

Zhang Jiao sighed softly.

No one knew better than him that Emperor Liu Hong could have avoided death.

Since he started his rebellion, his target has never been any particular emperor, but rather the shackles formed by the imperial dynasty's destiny that weighed on everyone's heads.

Whether it was the Han Dynasty or the Han Ji, it was a source of glory in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of spiritual practitioners, it was a prison.

Without that cage, cultivators across the land can finally look towards higher realms.

Zhang Jiao did not interrupt Liu Hong's transformation.

It wasn't arrogance, but rather that he wanted to see just how powerful the emperor, who carried the destiny and will of the Han dynasty, could be.

Could he become powerful enough to pose a crisis to Zhang Jiao, allowing him to glimpse the ancestral realm he had been searching for so long, even as he teetered on the brink of life and death?

Just then, a young figure arrived, stepping through the air.

His face was exactly the same as the old Zhang Jiao's, his blood and qi were as deep as an abyss, and he held a whisk upside down in his hand. He was Zhang Jiao's younger self, one of Zhang Jiao's Daoist corpses.

The young Zhang Jiao, having shaken off his daughter Zhang Ning's entanglement, came to the side of the true form. He looked at the Han emperor who was burning himself to gain greater power, his eyes gleaming with fighting spirit.

"My Lord, are you just going to stand by and do nothing? Aren't you afraid of being caught off guard and losing your life?"

The young Zhang Jiao spoke with a hint of arrogance.

"If you don't make a move, I, the Daoist, can take care of this Han emperor for you! Otherwise, things might get complicated and unforeseen circumstances might arise."

As soon as he finished speaking, he took a step forward and lashed out at Emperor Liu Hong with his whisk.

With a flick of the whisk, ten thousand thunderbolts fell in response.

The already gloomy sky exploded instantly, and amidst the surging sea of ​​lightning, hundreds of bolts of lightning, thicker than water tanks, poured down from the heavens.

Each strike contained an aura of world-destroying power, as if it would cleave Liu Hong into ashes.

Lightning illuminated the entire Ji Province, leaving countless cultivators with only a purple haze in their eyes.

Its power was enough to make even ordinary imperial experts change color.

But Emperor Liu Hong did not dodge.

He looked up, but only glanced at it.

With just a glance, the purple lightning that was about to strike him vanished into thin air, as if it had never existed.

When his gaze fell on the young Zhang Jiao again, there was no longer any humanity in his eyes, only a cold indifference that looked down on all living beings from a high place.

"With the skills of an ant, how dare they overturn the heavens?"

Liu Hong spoke, his voice seemingly emanating from an ancient imperial throne, causing the void to rumble.

His imperial robes fluttered in the wind, and his aura of imperial authority swept outwards like a vast ocean.

"die!"

He made a claw with his five fingers and grabbed at the ground.

The earth veins beneath Jizhou erupted violently under this grasp, and the dragon energy of the earth veins for thousands of miles was forcibly extracted by him, transforming into five ferocious dragons that strangled the young Zhang Jiao.

Each of the five dragons was thousands of feet long, with gleaming scales and armor. They breathed out earth vein essence fire from their mouths, exuding a majestic aura. Each of them possessed power approaching that of an ordinary imperial-level expert.

They roared, tearing through the void, trying to rip the young Zhang Jiao apart, body and soul.

Seeing his attack easily neutralized, the young Zhang Jiao's face immediately fell. He let out a cold snort.

"Hmph, watch how I, the Daoist, kill you five worms!"

With a flick of his whisk, he stirred the remaining thunderclouds in the sky, and immediately five lightning dragons, formed entirely of lightning, swooped down.

Each thunder dragon was entirely purple-glowing, its scales formed from crystallized lightning. It bared its fangs and claws as it faced the five earth vein dragons.

In an instant, dragons and serpents danced wildly in mid-air, fighting endlessly.

The Thunder Dragon and the Flood Dragon were entangled together, and each clash was like two worlds colliding.

Dragon scales and dragon armor shattered in the air, scattering like a metal storm, but before they hit the ground, they dissipated as purple lightning and earth vein dragon energy.

The mountains were flattened by the aftershocks, the rivers were dried up, and within a radius of a thousand miles, there was no intact land left; the scene was as if the heavens had collapsed.

The young Zhang Jiao paid no attention to the battle between the dragon and the water dragon; his gaze remained fixed on Emperor Liu Hong from beginning to end.

After his brief probing attack, even he had to admit that Liu Hong's strength had exceeded his expectations.

"Use whatever other tricks you have up your sleeve, I'll take them all," the younger Zhang Jiao continued.

The elderly Zhang Jiao remained silent. As the true form of Zhang Jiao, he naturally wouldn't expose the truth about his own Dao Corpse, but he was also silently calculating Liu Hong's trump cards.

He knew that the real storm had not yet begun.

"Catch it? Can you catch it?"

Emperor Liu Hong's gaze turned sinister. He suddenly spread his arms wide, as if his imperial bloodline had been activated.

Within his body, countless fragments of bloodline belonging to the Liu family ancestors lit up, some as dim as dust, others as brilliant as stars.

Among those fragments, three were the most dazzling, like pure gold buried deep in the river of imperial blood, reflecting three blurry imperial figures.

That is the bloodline mark left by the Han emperors.

At this moment, the three bloodline fragments seemed to sense some kind of call and began to frantically absorb the imperial blood within Liu Hong's body.

Liu Hong's originally abundant vital energy, which had been boosted by his entry into the Emperor Path, rapidly withered away. His body became visibly thin, his skin clung to his bones, his eye sockets sunken, and even the aura he had just ascended to the Emperor Path realm showed signs of instability.

But he still didn't stop. There was no regret in his eyes, only an almost manic obsession.

"For the sake of the Han Dynasty, I am willing to sacrifice everything."

Liu Hong's voice was hoarse and low, carrying a sense of determination.

Finally, the three bloodline fragments stopped absorbing blood.

"Buzz!"

The void behind Liu Hong trembled violently, as if an ancient door had been pushed open. Three beings, their faces veiled by laws and surrounded by terrifying power, emerged from the depths of the river of time and descended upon this world.

They are not their true forms, but rather Dao bodies formed from bloodline imprints, yet they have already caused the entire land of Jizhou to tremble.

That oppressive aura far surpassed the aura Liu Hong exuded when he first stepped into the Imperial Path.

Of the three beings, the one standing at the very front spoke first.

He held a sword shaped like a crimson dragon in his hand, its tip lowered, yet it seemed as if billions of living beings were wailing beneath its blade.

"Is the dynasty I founded really coming to an end so soon? I thought it could last for hundreds or thousands of generations."

His tone carried a hint of disappointment, as well as a sense of indifference as if looking down upon the world.

He swept his gaze across the mountains and rivers beneath his feet, as if he could see through the fate of the Han Dynasty.

After him, another being gazed toward Guanzhong, his eyes unfathomably deep, as if he had traversed countless rivers of time and space.

"My descendants seem to have just perished in this world! Hmm? Still tainted with the aura of decay?" The being's tone suddenly turned cold.

"A bunch of good-for-nothings!"

After the first two beings finished speaking, the third being neither looked at the mountains and rivers beneath its feet nor at Guanzhong.

He fixed his gaze on the elderly Zhang Jiao, a fleeting hint of appreciation in his eyes before turning into coldness.

"Dynastic changes are inevitable!"

"But disobeying one's superiors is a crime punishable by death!"

"Take this blow from me, and if you survive, I will depart!"

As soon as the words were spoken, the third being moved.

He raised his palm, and a Qiankun Emperor Seal condensed in his palm.

The imperial seal seemed to have refined the entire world into it, with mountains and rivers, the sun and moon, the rise and fall of dynasties, and all living beings flowing within it.

An immense and boundless pressure appeared out of nowhere and crashed down upon the elderly Zhang Jiao.

This attack has already exceeded the scope of contemporary cultivators.

The younger Zhang Jiao's expression changed drastically, and he instinctively gripped his whisk, ready to fight. But before he could make a move, the older Zhang Jiao's shout rang out first:

"Get out of my way!"

"It's just an attack from the bloodline mark of the Martial Emperor; I, this old Daoist, can still neutralize it."

The elderly Zhang Jiao stepped forward, and the three books of Heaven, Earth, and Man appeared simultaneously above his head. The three ancient books were like three great suns in the sky, and as the pages were turned, countless characters flowed out, transforming into invisible patterns of laws.

At the same time, boundless power of faith surged from all directions, gathering in his palm and condensing into a great seal of mountains and rivers.

The image of Zhang Jiao traveling the world and preaching to millions of people over the decades appears on the Great Seal of Mountains and Rivers.

There were disaster victims kneeling in worship, withered trees sprouting new life, and the collective will of the people coalescing into an immortal force.

That was not the power of an emperor, nor the fortune of a kingdom, but the power of faith among all living beings.

"boom!"

The Imperial Seal of Heaven and Earth collided violently with the Great Seal of Mountains and Rivers.

The space shattered into nothingness, from which raging chaotic energy surged forth, devouring everything.

Before the five thunder dragons and five flood dragons in the distance could react, they were swept into the void rift and pulverized.

The mountains and rivers within a radius of thousands of miles were completely flattened by the aftershocks of this attack.

The deafening roar seemed to tear the entire sky apart, and countless cultivators immediately bled from their seven orifices and fainted.

After a long while, the space slowly closed up.

The world was completely silent.

The third being looked at the unharmed elderly Zhang Jiao, nodded slightly, and the coldness in his eyes lessened.

"Not bad!"

"I'll be waiting for you at the city gates of time!"

He didn't continue speaking.

It wasn't that he couldn't suppress Zhang Jiao, but if his Dao body, formed from this bloodline imprint, were to make another move, Liu Hong's body would not be able to withstand it, and he would most likely die on the spot.

He needed to keep Liu Hong alive, at least until the end of the Han Dynasty's fate.

As soon as he finished speaking, he glanced at the emaciated Emperor Liu Hong, then his figure transformed into countless showers of light and vanished without a trace.

Only two other beings remained in the world.

One of them held the Crimson Dragon Emperor Sword, while the other had eyes that seemed to hold the sun and moon. They stood silently in the sky, looking down at Old Zhang Jiao.

In that gaze, there was scrutiny, murderous intent, and some other complex emotion that was hard to describe.

The elderly Zhang Jiao did not back down; instead, he met their gazes and spoke calmly:

"You two are the imperial ancestors of Emperor Ji of Han; you may use any means necessary!"