Chapter 1573 - 146: Never Left

Chapter 1573: Chapter 146: Never Left

"Where is the Holy Emperor?"

Master Ni Yu lifted her head to look at the mountain wall, speaking in a daze, her voice hoarse.

She looked as if she had seen a ghost.

Her eyes were locked firmly on the scene before her, unable to move in the slightest.

"What are you talking about..."

Mountain Shifting Venerable frowned, not understanding what Master Ni Yu meant.

"Earlier..."

"His Majesty was here."

Master Ni Yu raised a hand, pointed at the distant rock face, and spoke with difficulty: "The Saint Prince said, he cultivated here, and in the end merged with the mountains and stones of Heaven and Earth as one."

At that time.

She had still been feeling emotional.

The Strongest, who ruled half the Demon Country, had just "died" like that...

"What?"

Venerable Sea Overturning also voiced his confusion.

He tilted his head, looking at Master Ni Yu.

"Just now, I saw it with my own eyes."

Master Ni Yu’s voice trembled: "You’ve been here so many... you don’t believe me? Peacock, Wu Jiu, Silver Moon, they all saw it too!"

"We are in no position to come to a place like this."

The two, Mountain Shifting and Sea Overturning, exchanged looks and shook their heads.

If not for today, with the Ten Thousand Demon Array pressing down, and the Nether Sea Venerable launching his rebellion...

Even they would not be qualified to step into the Fighting Holy Peak...

Only.

After the two looked at each other, smiles appeared on their faces.

"You two... what are you laughing at..."

Master Ni Yu’s expression was strange; she only felt it was eerie that the dignified Holy Emperor, the "shadow" carved onto the mountain wall, could just disappear without a trace!

If the Holy Emperor had never appeared at all.

Then who was the shadow on the mountain wall she saw earlier?

"His Majesty has never left."

Unexpectedly.

Mountain Shifting and Sea Overturning gave an answer completely beyond Master Ni Yu’s expectations.

"Never left?"

Master Ni Yu stood there, dumbfounded; the amount of information in that sentence was simply too great, and she took quite a while to digest it.

"Yes."

Mountain Shifting Venerable said calmly: "All these years, His Majesty has never appeared before All Living Beings... but that does not mean His Majesty truly met with disaster. Not long ago, both I and Sea Overturning were granted an ’audience’ with His Majesty. This birthday banquet was convened by Nether Sea in obedience to His Majesty’s command."

Nether Sea wanted to celebrate a birthday.

The Holy Emperor... tacitly permitted this act.

"What?"

Master Ni Yu looked bewildered.

If the Holy Emperor was still alive.

Then... why did he not appear sooner?

Nether Sea laid out this Ten Thousand Demon Array and slaughtered a massive number of Demon Cultivators from Great Ape Mountain...

"What’s there to be so shocked about."

Venerable Sea Overturning said blandly: "His Majesty’s means, His Majesty’s scope... how could Nether Sea possibly compare? This birthday feast has caused many elders of the Third Realm to reveal their true faces. If His Majesty had shown himself early, how could there be such an effect as now?"

The two of them took the lead in "rebelling."

Those fence-sitters that Great Saint Mountain had hidden for many years all emerged, choosing to defect at the very moment when the Saint Prince was down and out.

The Nether Sea Venerable thought it was all due to his own brilliant schemes.

Unexpectedly.

All of this unfolded under the gaze of the Holy Emperor.

Those who defected, Nether Sea would in the end refine them.

As for them... naturally the Holy Emperor would not intervene to protect them.

As for those who made the correct choice, at this moment they are all within Great Saint Mountain.

"The Holy Emperor is still alive..."

Master Ni Yu gradually recovered from her shock.

If the Holy Emperor is still alive.

Then what she had seen earlier was a false image purposely forged by the Holy Emperor.

He "deceived" the Saint Prince.

Though the Holy Emperor left behind the Golden Decree and the Spirit Sun Rod, he pushed the Saint Prince onto the brink of despair; this rebellion triggered by a grand birthday is the greatest upheaval the Demon Country has seen in a thousand years!

Perhaps what he wanted to see...

Was precisely such a desperate situation.

"His Majesty has been alive all along."

Mountain Shifting Venerable said with a smile: "It is just that before today, only the two of us knew of this."

Those who cultivate the Fighting Path.

Must remain unwavering in moments of despair, only then can they climb to the highest peak.

"And now, this news no longer needs to be concealed."

Venerable Sea Overturning said indifferently: "His Highness has already stepped onto Corpse Mountain; His Majesty’s aim has been fulfilled."

At the most desperate moment.

The Saint Prince, without hesitation, made the one correct choice—

Enter the mountain!

Ascend to the summit!

In this great game, everyone is a ’chess piece.’ Mountain Shifting and Sea Overturning, Ling Chenzi, the Nether Sea Venerable... these are forces borrowed by the Holy Emperor to lay down his grand design, and he has but one objective: to let the heroes of the world jointly witness the enthronement of the new emperor of Great Ape Mountain.

"..."

Master Ni Yu’s expression was complicated.

She suddenly felt a faint sense of powerlessness.

Before she knew the truth, she had once thought she herself had been driven to the very edge of death, and so she had been anxious to enter the mountain a second time for audience, to decipher the secret inscriptions of the Bronze Ancient Sword, to see if she could offer a measure of strength.

Now.

She felt as if she had been "played."

Yet this feeling was not unpleasant.

The bad news: the sky has collapsed.

The good news: someone is holding it up... and that person is the Holy Emperor.

"I don’t understand."

Master Ni Yu pinched her brow, asking in confusion: "If all of this is a game laid down by His Majesty the Holy Emperor... then Xie Xuanyi..."

The calamity today.

Has a very critical variable.

Xie Xuanyi—

This Sword Cultivator of the Human Race is not under the control of Great Ape Mountain.

If Xie Xuanyi had never appeared.

Then the Saint Prince might not have had the opportunity to step into this Fighting Holy Peak.

"Though we received a summons from the Holy Emperor a while back, our task was actually very simple."

Mountain Shifting Venerable shook his head and said: "So long as this birthday banquet is held... the rest would follow naturally."

The two of them had, only today, spent a bit of thought to draw out the [Golden Decree] and illuminate those fence-sitters.

As for other arrangements.

They themselves do not know much.

"So Xie Xuanyi’s appearance was merely an accident?"

Master Ni Yu murmured.

She still felt it somewhat inconceivable.

"Rather than call it an accident, better call it an inevitability."

Venerable Sea Overturning said earnestly: "I do not understand Xie Xuanyi, but I understand His Majesty... Since he arranged all of this, then everything must lie within his plans. Xie Xuanyi’s appearance is certainly not a coincidence. Just like how we are now bringing you back to your former land—His Majesty deliberately left instructions, hoping that Daoist Ni you might take command of the secret inscriptions on the Bronze Ancient Sword."

"So that is how it is..."

Master Ni Yu was in a daze.

She only felt that such means were too inconceivable, already beyond the limits of her comprehension.

It was as if...

The Holy Emperor had personally gone to a distant Future, witnessed what was about to happen, and then returned to the Past to place down his chess pieces one by one, with exquisite precision, without a seam. Event after event then unfolded with incomparable smoothness.

He personally planted the "causes" of the past, to repay the "effects" of the future.

Thinking it through carefully.

She truly was laughable; the first time she came to this stone mountain, she had even felt pity for the Holy Emperor, lamenting that a peerless hero of an era had perished in a forgotten corner.

So in truth, such a Great Divine Ability User was merely constrained by the shackles of Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi, unable to transcend, unable to reach a higher Realm...

The Holy Emperor’s own Divine Thought has likely long since roamed freely through the River of Destiny.

In this killing game, from beginning to end, he has never appeared, yet he has also never departed.