Those time travelers that year

But these are not enough to bridge the gap between the two sides.

Even in his beast form, the Mad King, having regrouped, was utterly helpless against Xia Er. His purple Tiger Soul Blade, sharp enough to overturn rivers and seas and shatter mountains, was always blocked by a magnetic field heavenly blade. What did it matter how many blades there were? To Xia Er, they were all clearly visible.

From the very beginning, the two were not even on the same level as each other.

Calculation, analysis, counterattack. Every strike, in Xia Er's eyes, clearly revealed its trajectory, energy intensity, and all its changes. Xia Er didn't need to expend any effort to calculate any of this, nor did he need any senses like intuition; simply by observing it, with a vision superior to the Mad King's, he could directly obtain the answers from a short period of time in the future.

One cut, ten cuts, a hundred cuts, a thousand cuts...

The sky and the earth were filled with the crisscrossing light of blades. All the blade energy unleashed by the beast-transformed Mad King was intercepted, and his leaping slash with the Tiger Soul Blade was blocked by Xia Er with his chains. For the time being, no matter how the Mad King attacked, he could not harm even a single piece of Xia Er's clothing.

"This is impossible!"

Faced with this situation—having bombarded the opponent for over ten breaths without even managing to touch the hem of their clothes—even the Mad King, who had entered beast form and whose rationality was waning, was dumbfounded, unable to believe what he was seeing.

"Impossible! The final sacrifice of my Divine Alliance, the sacrifices of my brothers and sisters—it's impossible that they couldn't even kill a little girl!" Enraged, the Mad King disregarded the strain on his meridians, channeling even more ferocious and immense power into the Tiger Soul. Then, with even greater ferocity, he slashed towards Xia Er.

However, it was clear that Xia Er wasn't concerned about the Mad King's increasingly ferocious offensive. On the contrary, Xia Er was more concerned about other things. For example, "Hey! Who are you calling a little brat!" Looking at the Mad King swinging the Tiger Soul Blade at him with hostility, Xia Er didn't summon chains to intercept the blade this time. Instead, he let the Tiger Soul Blade fall, drew his Luo Yang sword, assembled it, and directly countered.

"Are you brainless?! Or did your brain get burned out after turning into a beast?! Bastard!" Luo Yang slashed out, meeting Tiger Soul's blade light head-on. Although Luo Yang seemed much thinner than Tiger Soul's large cleaver, he withstood the blade light. The two exchanged blows wildly, continuously slashing dozens of times.

A draw? No, in the end, the Mad King was still a step behind, unable to intercept Charles's two slashes, and was badly slashed with two cuts on his body.

"Ah! Damn it! You deserve to die!" Under the constant exertion of his power, the Mad King's originally silver fur gradually turned blood red. "How can the combined power of my entire Divine Alliance be defeated? How can we possibly fail!"

"Humans and gods are different, how could you possibly be invincible?!" Facing the Mad King who seemed about to explode, Charles completely ignored his rage and killing intent. Unable to fully control his own energy and lacking a sufficiently strong will, the Mad King's seemingly boundless rage and endless hatred appeared utterly baseless to Charles. Hatred should be taken to its extreme, anger to its peak, but to Charles, the Mad King's mental weaknesses were far too obvious. That seemingly ferocious demeanor, that relentless confidence, was nothing more than an illusion born from the expansion of power.

Especially his beastly bloodline—the inferiority complex, hatred, and resentment he harbors about it—all these constitute vulnerabilities in the Mad King's psyche. If he suffers a setback in battle, his beastly instinct to avoid danger could easily diminish his fighting spirit. Unless he can let go of his inner burdens and accept rather than reject and loathe them, which he cannot do, it's all too easy for Charles to completely break this guy down.

However, the Mad King was unaware of this, so after unleashing all his power, he vowed to utterly destroy the person before him. The purple Tiger Soul Blade was swung out, its blade energy cascading for miles, the swirling blade momentum seemingly endless, even soaring directly into the sky, pulling down the clouds above. Unparalleled blade energy from heaven and earth condensed on the Tiger Soul Blade's edge, poised to strike.

"God? I don't care if you're a god or anything else, anyone who stands in front of the Divine Alliance today will die!"

"Is that so?!" Charles laughed sarcastically. "The Divine Alliance, is there anyone else left? No, there is none left but you, only you!" His voice carried an eerie power, penetrating directly into the Mad King's heart, as if a bloody truth had been revealed. "Only you! And can you even be considered human? You must know, over a hundred years ago, the Divine Alliance was composed of humans, not half-human, half-beast bastards like you!"

"Shut up!" The Mad King paused, then roared in fury.

"What's there to deny? You're a half-human, half-beast hybrid. The other half of your bloodline flows with the blood of a wild beast. Fear is etched into your bones, terror is imprinted on your soul." Xia Er continued, "The most important reason you can't defeat the Evil Emperor is that you're all a bunch of bastards who are ashamed of your identity, aren't you? Inbreeding, being half-human and half-beast, is incompatible with this era. Plus, for over a hundred years, you've been trembling and barely surviving. Your Divine Alliance has actually long been a bunch of cowards, a bunch of cowards who have willingly fallen into depravity and humility..."

"Shut up!" Rage completely shattered the Mad King's reason; his bestial nature completely consumed him. The Mad King, who had been holding back, could no longer contain himself and roared. Perhaps, in his heart, everything Charles said was the absolute truth, and only the truth is truly terrifying. Especially when the truth is revealed…

"Die! This is an eternal feud, kill without mercy!" The Mad King drew his blade, carrying killing intent, wind and clouds, and the giant ape blade energy formed from condensed qi, slashing towards Xia Er, intending to slaughter him completely.

Unfortunately, the Mad King was unaware that at the moment he unleashed his fury, his already fragile mental defenses were breached.

Well, the Mad King probably has more screen time. In my opinion, he's a rather pathetic character, so I ended up writing a bit more about him. Please forgive me.

401. The Mad King (Part 2)

The mind is a mysterious and inexplicable thing. Even a master psychologist might not be able to fully understand the human mind. In the Marvel universe, even Professor X, the master of psychology, wouldn't dare claim to truly understand the human heart, because the human heart is the most complex thing in the entire biosphere.

However, it's undeniable that different people possess varying degrees of mental fortitude. Take, for example, the Demon Slayer, who, wounded by the Heavenly Punishment Arrow, endured years without sunlight, forced to live in darkness while constantly suffering the flare-ups of his wound. This experience, enough to drive anyone mad, was something he stubbornly endured through sheer willpower. It could be said that, in terms of sheer willpower, even the sect leader might be slightly inferior to him. Besides, many other factors can influence a person's will.

Like the sect leader, whose days are numbered, he has long since let go of everything he can, whether it's the legacy left by his ancestors or his own family. These things will no longer cause him any worry. Once the curse of the twenty-seventh lifespan on Yongwu is lifted, the sect leader will completely let go of everything and embrace his final moments.

The Sect Leader's disregard for life and death meant that even Professor X wouldn't be able to influence him! While a mind master certainly possesses unquestionable authority, that authority is utterly insignificant to someone like the Sect Leader who has abandoned life and death for so long. Professor X's ability to control, let alone even slightly influence the Sect Leader's mind, or even probe into his mind with his powers, is questionable.

However, just as there are those with unwavering willpower and flawless character like the Demon Slayer and the Sect Master, there are also those like the Mad King, whose minds are riddled with countless flaws. Hatred, responsibility, inheritance, bloodline… these are things that the Mad King should not have to bear, yet he has to shoulder them all. All of this, along with the hatred of the Divine Alliance over the past century, is actually completely unrelated to him. His worldview, values, and even his entire thought process are all imposed upon him by others.

Under such circumstances, one can only imagine how deep his psychological wounds must be!

Just as the Mad King, enraged by Charles's words, attacked, his mental vulnerabilities were also magnified and exposed. The mental barrier he had built up through the rage of his beastly transformation was now completely revealed to Charles. Before an evil god cloaked in a seemingly harmless facade, his mental defenses crumbled, leaving numerous gaps. Heh...

Charles immediately extended his power into it.

Therefore, the Mad King, who drew his sword, had unknowingly fallen into a trap. The moment he drew his sword, a thought suddenly appeared in the Mad King's mind—'What if I fail?' Once this thought appeared, the Mad King couldn't help but follow it, and suddenly, time seemed to stand still in the whole world, and more and more complicated thoughts kept appearing in the Mad King's mind.

'I cannot lose; I embody the power and faith of all my brothers and sisters in the Shinto Alliance.'

'Is this belief truly one's own? Or rather, does it truly belong to one's brothers and sisters? The truth is, all of this, its origin, is nothing more than what those losers and cowardly refugees imposed on their descendants over a hundred years ago.'

'No, no, it's all the fault of the Evil Emperor and those self-righteous martial arts practitioners who spout platitudes about benevolence and morality.'

'But the Evil Emperor has been sealed away for over a hundred years, and those righteous martial artists who besieged the Divine Alliance back then are long gone, reduced to mere bones. What they did back then is not the same as what their descendants will do.'

No, the sins of the father must be visited upon the son; they must pay the price.

"But this price shouldn't be paid by your generation to sacrifice, fight, and shed blood. Think about it! For the sake of those deserters and cowards from over a hundred years ago, for the wealth and glory they were unwilling to lose, you sacrificed your lives. Look at you, what have you become? You are human beings! You are upright human beings! Your fathers and ancestors were human beings! But what about you now? Do you still consider yourselves human?"

Shut up, shut up!

'Beastly blood, inferior blood. Since when did humans, the masters of all creation, need to accept the gifts of food? Need to lower themselves to the same level as prey?'

'Shut up, don't say anymore...'

"Look! Look at the outstanding figures of this era! The Sect Master, Nangong Wentian, the Elder and Leader of the Heaven and Earth Alliance, Mie Cangqiong, the Prince of Yan—aren't they all human? They are all human!"

'Shut up! Shut up! Please, don't say another word...'

"And your enemy, the Evil Emperor you've painstakingly sought to defeat, he fell into demonic possession over a hundred years ago, but what about now? After his resurrection, has he chosen the path of demonhood again? No, he has chosen the identity of a human!"

'No! Don't, don't say anymore...'

'The Evil Emperor became human. Because he became human, he finally surpassed his past self, surpassing himself from over a hundred years ago. The Evil Emperor of today, wielding divine swordsmanship, is completely different from the fallen demon of over a hundred years ago; he is even several times stronger. Simply because he has now chosen the identity of a human…'

'Shut up, shut up, shut up!'

"Do you truly accept this inferior bloodline within you? This bloodline of a beast? Moreover, perhaps, if you had been born human, your martial arts talent would have surpassed that of the Evil Emperor, instead of relying on the sacrifices of your own people, your brothers and sisters, to acquire this power etched with their sorrowful blood and tears."

……

"Shut up! Shut up! Ah!!!" Time finally began to pass, but in that instant, for the Mad King, those heartfelt questions and those past scenes that passed before his eyes completely shattered his already fragile heart.

No matter how much he denies it, no matter how much he questions it, he cannot change the view that he has already accepted from the bottom of his heart—that all of this should not be his responsibility, and that all of this is nothing more than the hatred that his ancestors, who deserted and became cowards more than a hundred years ago, imposed on him for the lost status and wealth.

His life, and the lives of his brothers and sisters, had absolutely nothing to do with themselves; they were merely tools used by their ancestors from over a hundred years ago to perpetuate hatred.

For this, they sacrificed everything, including their entire lives...

"No!" The Mad King roared in sorrow and rage, his hand, about to strike, involuntarily halting its movement. This was fatal; even more fatal was that, at this moment, darkness had seeped into his heart and taken deep root. And despair followed.

With his mind clouded, the swordsmanship, originally fueled by anger and hatred, finally revealed numerous flaws. Just then, a bolt of lightning struck head-on. Unfortunately, the Mad King was unable to react. The drawbacks of his bloodline fusion, the inability to fully control his power, caused a momentary sluggishness, resulting in his sword technique being shattered by the lightning, which then pierced through his body with its remaining force!

'I lost!'

This thought then surfaced in the Mad King's mind.

402.Candy

Excruciating pain coursed through the Mad King's body. Faced with lightning, a symbol of divine wrath, the beastly genes within him began to retreat. This retreat triggered a chain reaction: the Mad King, whose surname included the character "Mad," began to feel fear.

This is normal. The reason why humanity has been able to rise to the top of the food chain, stepping over countless other creatures, is not simply due to intelligence and tools, but also to certain unwavering principles originating from within. Whether it's responsibility or hatred, the foundation upon which humanity continues to move forward, progress, and advance towards the future is, in fact, that unwavering commitment.

Just like hatred.

However, the Mad King's hatred is not his own. Now that he is the only one left in the Divine Alliance, it is not the fault of the Evil Emperor or anyone else. The true demise of the Divine Alliance lies in the issue of bloodline fusion. It is tantamount to the Mad King himself causing the complete destruction of the Divine Alliance.

Before that, this reality would be masked by a kind of illusory hatred and a sense of duty to avenge the Evil Emperor and the righteous path of the martial world. However, those were just illusions. For the Mad King, no, for every member of the Divine Alliance, the hatred and responsibility for revenge that they had persisted in, for which they had made countless sacrifices and efforts and endured countless torments, were all illusions.

Those were the hatreds of their ancestors from over a hundred years ago, not the hatreds of their generation. It could be said that the misfortune of the Mad King and his companions was caused by the resentment of those who were already dead, reduced to mere bones. Whether it was the Evil Emperor's fault, or the fault of the righteous sects of the martial world, no one could say for sure; it was a complete mess.

However, what is illusory is ultimately just an illusion. For the Mad King, he could never truly understand that kind of hatred. Everything he saw and heard during his birth and growth, and this hatred, were simply imposed upon him, to the point that he ultimately became a victim of this hatred.

Because it is an illusion, it is like a rootless duckweed...

How can rootless hatred ignite the power of perseverance within humanity? This is why he was so easily exposed by Charles, simply because all of this was baseless and baseless hatred and duty.

All the hidden facts were laid bare, all the truth was violently revealed... At this moment, the Mad King was bewildered. Hatred was fake, duty was fake, then what else did he have that wasn't fake? Anger, pain, sorrow, and so on—weren't they also fake? In other words, his life, the lives of his brothers and sisters, the goal for which his people sacrificed everything, were all illusory.

'Brother Mad King...run away...'

'...You can't win this battle...'

'Life...is precious...go quickly...'

In a daze, the Mad King seemed to hear the voices of his brothers and sisters. Whether these were truly their voices or merely an illusion created by his own cowardice, he couldn't tell. At that moment, all his anger and fighting spirit vanished. Without the support of anger and fighting spirit, his beastly transformation subsided. The cowardly side of his humanity surfaced, accompanied by the fear of lightning, the fear of even more powerful monsters, and the instinct to avoid danger and disaster—all stemming from his wild bloodline.

'You can't do anything about it, run!'

'Forget about this century-old feud!'

"Ah!" Overwhelmed by self-doubt, instinctive fear, and the uncertainty of whether the voice was an illusion or reality, the Mad King cried out in anguish, grabbed his Tiger Soul Blade, and ran away without looking back, running, fleeing far, far away...

"Poor wretch! Everything you have is an illusion, even your hatred is imposed upon you by others..." Watching the Mad King, whose body had been pierced by a weakened version of the Electric Collapse, though it hadn't pierced his chest, the electrical energy had directly destroyed his dantian and rendered him powerless, flee in a sorry state, Xia Er said in a low voice, "...No one cares about your life. Your lives are nothing more than pawns used to train qualified warriors...Those who play the game won't care and will even actively push you to your deaths. Your duty is simply to hone the 'protagonist'...Recognize your reality!"

"Fate will return to its original path. The Tiger Soul Blade will be given to you to take to the Demon Cowherd, to the battlefield of the final battle. As for you, in the original storyline, you would only die as a beast under the demon soldier's powers..."

"Hehe..." With a flick of his right hand, a twilight-colored flame began to burn in Xia Er's hand, transforming into a lifelike fire lotus. "However..." Looking down at the fire lotus in his hand, especially at the center of the fire lotus, a small figure was clearly visible, which was none other than the Mad King who had fled in a sorry state.

"Gods, hypocritical and arrogant, cannot save you, for you are merely a pawn in their game," Charles whispered. "And demons will only devour your hope, for the source of all this vain sorrow, hatred, and sacrifice is that demon known as the Primordial Heavenly Demon..."

"However, I will not! I will affirm and support your vain lives and everything you have insisted on in the past... Therefore, I will give you one last hope. I am neither a god nor a demon. I am somewhere in between, an evil god who exists independently outside the Three Realms and Six Paths!"

"Kindness is meaningless, evil never exists, and when all beings are plunged into disaster—I will save them, and I will destroy them."

"And when all beings lose hope—I will give you the final salvation."

He crushed the fire lotus in his hand, and amidst the swirling sparks, Charles's soft laughter echoed. Then, Charles released his grip, and a small, translucent, green crystal, about the size of a thumb, floated in his palm. At the center of this green crystal burned a wisp of twilight-colored fire.

Then, Charles moved his hand away, and the suspended crystal fell and disappeared into the ripples that appeared out of nowhere in mid-air.

Having lost his power, his will to fight, and everything else, the Mad King, now controlled by the Tiger Soul, was unaware that at that very moment, a green, translucent crystal, about the size of a thumb, appeared in the location of his heart. Within the crystal, a twilight-colored flame was slowly burning, and from it, wisps of dark shadows extended towards his heart.

This is a gift, a last hope in despair, and the most real and undeniable power and truth. A gift powerful enough to transform the Mad King from his current state of a stray dog ​​into an unparalleled madman!

This gift will soon take root and sprout, giving the Mad King, who has lost everything, new power, new goals, new hatred and anger, to target the demon known as the Primordial Heavenly Demon, and also a feast coveted by some evil god.

"Oh dear... Time to hand out candy!" With a light laugh, Charles flicked his cloak, turned, and vanished from the spot. No one would know what happened here; Charles had deliberately concealed the secrets of the world and even the timeline.

Perhaps, within this world, across the Three Realms and Six Paths, only a great sage known as Fuxi possessed this knowledge. However, with the primary objective of confronting the Primordial Demon, this great sage, who might or might not have known, did not pay attention to this matter…

403. There are only a few divine weapons left.

The Mad King was defeated; not only was his power crippled, but his mind was also riddled with flaws. At this moment, facing the Mad King, who had lost all his power and whose mind was full of weaknesses, Tiger Soul completely reversed control and took over the control of the original War Lord. For Tiger Soul's primordial spirit, being allowed to use this half-beast bloodline was already a huge concession. But now, having lost all faith and even power, the Mad King, in Tiger Soul's judgment, was a complete waste, unfit even to be used as a puppet.

In this situation, Tiger Soul, guided by some unseen force, controlled Mad King to run day and night in search of the successor who had inherited the Seven Limitless Blade Techniques.

A few days later, the disheveled Mad King stopped by a mountain road. Looking at the deserted road ahead, Tiger Soul sensed that Cowherd was right in front of him and began to urge Mad King to hand over Tiger Soul to Cowherd.

"Tiger Soul has bound me here... Cowherd!" The Mad King, now fully aware, shouted, "Where are you? Come out!" His words had barely faded when, in a flash, the Cowherd and a white horse appeared out of thin air on the road. "You really are here!"

"Mad King?! What happened?" The Cowherd asked with surprise and delight upon seeing Mad King's miserable state. "He looks like a stray dog!"