Chapter 316: Does Pride Like This King?

Su Mu arrived at the Blood Bank. The facility was already a wasteland of collapsed walls and shattered rubble. Raging fires burned across the ruins, sending thick black smoke surging into the sky.

He found Taoist Priest Xuanqing amid the rubble.

Taoist Priest Xuanqing was in terrible shape. His mask was utterly shattered, looking as though it had been obliterated by a single punch. Countless tiny silver shards were embedded in his face, leaving his flesh a bloody, mangled mess.

For a Gold powerhouse, that was barely a flesh wound. The truly serious issue was his massive blood loss. In fact, it wasn't just blood—he seemed to have lost a significant amount of flesh as well.

He was reduced to skin and bones, the stark outlines of his skeleton protruding sharply.

Taoist Priest Xuanqing's eyes were hollow and lifeless, as if he were already dead.

However, when Su Mu injected lifespan into him, his eyes refocused and gradually regained their luster.

"Lord... Lord Divine Envoy!" Taoist Priest Xuanqing burst into tears upon regaining consciousness. "This poor Daoist... I have suffered so much! I was almost sucked dry by that woman!"

Woman?

Su Mu's eyes flickered. The Blood Clan Progenitor was a woman?

"Hurry! Flee! That woman might come back at any moment!" Taoist Priest Xuanqing suddenly cried out in terror.

"How did you survive?" Su Mu asked, somewhat bewildered. Given Taoist Priest Xuanqing's strength, encountering the Blood Clan Progenitor should have had only one outcome: death. Yet he was still breathing, and the Progenitor was nowhere to be found.

"That woman... she treated this poor Daoist like a toy and kept torturing me. She's an absolute lunatic. There was no communicating with her. She dismantled and pieced me back together like building blocks.

"I thought I was definitely dead, but it shouldn't have been so. I clearly cast a hexagram before coming, and I wasn't supposed to die this time. Sure enough, just as I was about to die, the aura of an evil god appeared in the Imperial Palace!

"That lunatic seemed incredibly sensitive to it. The moment she sensed the evil god's aura, she vanished," Taoist Priest Xuanqing explained, trembling from head to toe.

So that was it. By summoning the Sea God, he had inadvertently saved Taoist Priest Xuanqing.

"Let's go." Su Mu waved his hand, putting Taoist Priest Xuanqing into the Dream World.

Immediately after, he went to find Specter. The heavily injured Specter was struggling to move forward.

"Leader..." Specter looked at Su Mu with complex eyes. "The commotion in the Imperial Palace just now was..."

Su Mu nodded calmly. Specter's heart violently seized with shock. He was incomparably grateful that he had accepted this mission. Had he refused, the Revolutionary Army's fate would have been scarcely better than the Blood Moon Empire's.

He didn't know what Pride had done to force the Undead King to release the Seven Deadly Sins, and that unknown was exactly what terrified him. According to everything he knew about the world, such a feat was utterly impossible.

The dignified Undead King, a peak powerhouse of the world, had the enemy kick down his front door, slaughter an entire city, and destroy his Imperial Palace, resulting in countless casualties. How could anyone simply let go of a blood feud of that magnitude?

Even if the world's number one powerhouse, the Dragon King, had come, the Undead King wouldn't possibly give him that kind of face. Yet Pride had done it. Didn't that mean...

He didn't dare to think about it anymore. Ultimately, he silently followed Su Mu away.

Su Mu subsequently took Lin Canyang away as well. As for Sikong Zhen and the others, he ignored them. The Blood Clan had already released them; if they wanted to leave, they naturally wouldn't be stopped.

The heavily injured Dongfang Yuan panted for a moment and drank a Divine Healing Potion. Only then did he regain his strength. He activated his gravity to drag the unconscious Sikong Zhen and the others over, wanting to help them heal.

But to his dismay, he discovered that aside from Sikong Zhen, the other three Gold powerhouses had long since breathed their last.

Too much time had passed. If the battle had ended a bit earlier, perhaps with the help of the potion, these three Gold powerhouses wouldn't have died. But now, he was powerless to reverse the situation.

Dongfang Yuan sighed heavily, his heart weighing on him. Losing three Gold powerhouses in succession—and three veteran Gold powerhouses at that—was a massive blow to the Chiyan Empire.

But... why was Sikong Zhen, the weakest of them, the only one to survive?

As the empire's top general, Dongfang Yuan's discernment naturally told him that Sikong Zhen was nowhere near as powerful as the rumors claimed. Yet he was the one who hadn't died.

He didn't have time to investigate deeply. He activated his gravity again, carrying the unconscious Sikong Zhen and the corpses of the three Gold powerhouses into the clouds as he rushed back toward the Chiyan Empire.

By the time he returned to the Chiyan Empire, it was already the early hours of the morning.

Inside the Chiyan Imperial Palace, King Chi and Gongsun Quan were pacing back and forth, though their expressions were completely opposite.

King Chi was brimming with excitement. She was so thrilled that a faint flush even appeared on her peerlessly beautiful face.

Gongsun Quan, on the other hand, had his brows tightly furrowed and an expression as dark as still water, looking as though he were faced with an insurmountable crisis.

"Your Majesty, this matter is not worth rejoicing over," Gongsun Quan reminded her, unable to stand watching any longer.

"The Blood Moon Empire had a city slaughtered, and their Imperial Palace was destroyed in a single day. The Undead King has lost all face. Isn't that worth rejoicing over? This king can already imagine tomorrow's news. This is absolutely world-shocking news!

"With such a massive commotion, the Blood Moon Empire couldn't cover it up even if they tried. The spies from various nations inside the Blood Moon Empire have long since sent the news back, hahaha..."

King Chi stood with her hands on her hips, throwing her head back in a wild, unladylike guffaw. Her grin was so wide that her back molars were visible.

Gongsun Quan felt a headache coming on. "Your Majesty, the problem we should care about right now is not this, but the Seven Deadly Sins! The Seven Deadly Sins actually appeared this time, and Pride even displayed the suspected ability to summon gods. Even the Undead King compromised when facing him. Do you know what this means?"

"It means this king is infinitely more formidable than the Undead King! At the very least, when Pride stirred up trouble in the Chiyan Empire, he didn't cause nearly as much destruction. What does that prove? It proves that my brilliance and martial prowess far surpass the Undead King's!"

Gongsun Quan pressed a hand to his forehead, feeling increasingly helpless. "Your Majesty, do you still not understand? This means at least two things. One, there is a spy from the Seven Deadly Sins inside the empire! Only a few people knew about this plan, yet the Seven Deadly Sins obtained the information in advance and used the operation as an opportunity to wreak havoc in the Blood Moon Empire.

"Two, the era has changed! Pride's emergence has completely shattered the balance of the seven empires vying for hegemony. He calls himself the god of the new era. Today, he casually trampled upon the Blood Moon Empire; tomorrow, it could be the Chiyan Empire. The fact that he didn't lay waste to our nation last time was a stroke of absolute fortune. If even the Undead King had to compromise in the face of Pride, it means he has already become an existence transcending the Gold Kings!

"Do you realize how terrifying Pride's reputation will be once the world news breaks tomorrow? When that time comes, he will only need to raise his arm and call out, and the entire world will rally to his banner!"

King Chi's expression gradually grew solemn, her slender brows knitting tightly together. "Pride didn't lay waste to the Chiyan Empire, nor did he even attempt to strike at this king. But the moment he arrived at the Blood Moon Empire, he unleashed heavy blows against the Undead King. We are both rulers of empires—why the difference in treatment?

"Could it be... Pride likes this king!?"

Gongsun Quan: "..."

If Su Mu were here, he would definitely sigh at King Chi's train of thought. Last time when he wreaked havoc in Prison 749, he hadn't obtained the Twisted Divinity yet, and the Dream World hadn't been strengthened, so he couldn't open the Two Worlds Passage. Naturally, he couldn't cause massive destruction. He couldn't exactly reveal his Silver Immortal Emperor true body and act personally, right?

He never would have expected to be misunderstood by King Chi because of this.

"No, no, absolutely not. Although Pride is powerful, he hides his face and skulks in the shadows. He's definitely ugly and has a terrible temper to match. Besides, this king already has someone I like..."

"Your Majesty!" Gongsun Quan roared angrily. "Have you listened to a single word your subject just said?"