Heavendoom City.
Carnage was unfolding everywhere.
Death qi flooded the city.
That night, death spirits appeared everywhere, causing countless beings to tremble in fear. They all huddled indoors, ignoring all the chaos happening outside. The rise of every powerhouse was paved by countless corpses. The only thing that would change between individuals was the identities of the corpses paving the road to prominence.
Could Su Yu complete his rise? Or would he meet his end here? Nobody knew the answer.
Back then, Mo Duona's rise had been accompanied by blood and carnage as well. He wouldn't have accomplished the feat of killing a seventh-stage Mountainsea otherwise. Invincibles wouldn't have been forced to act on his behalf if it wasn't for the sheer amount of blood he had spilled.
This was also the case during Ye Batian's rise. He unleashed carnage in all directions and reaped countless lives. At the time, numerous human Invincibles had also acted to shelter him from the consequences of his actions.
Great Xia King had personally fought numerous battles for his sake. Alas, he had ultimately perished before he could affirm his dao. Some geniuses would be able to walk their path to the end. Some would end their journey prematurely.
Just take the victims of Su Yu as an example. Red Armor, Green Armor, and Lei Jue were no weaklings. How could a weakling enter the Heavenly Hunt Index? Who among them wasn't someone who had killed their way to prominence?
But all of them had perished one after another in a short period of time.
Thus was the way of the Allheaven Battlefield.
A battlefield of the myriad realms.
A place of death.
One would need to fall for another to rise.
***
Death filled the city.
Dao Cheng of the immortal race was hovering in the sky. With a smile, he asked, "Su Yu, why don't you have a fight with me? This is an earnest invite. If you win, you may leave the city. If I win, I'll invite you to be a guest at the Immortal Realm. Why drag the other humans in the city down with you?"
Without the death spirits trailing Su Yu, the death qi around him had reduced considerably. The entire city was too chaotic with death spirits everywhere. Thus, Final Armor and company lost track of Su Yu. Dao Cheng was left with no choice but to provoke Su Yu out of hiding with words.
"You are someone capable of entering the Heaven Index in only a few days. Do you not have the courage to face me in battle?"
As he was saying all that, the characters floating above his palm continued spinning, attempting to determine Su Yu's position. Su Yu felt extremely dangerous to him. That was someone as murderous as Xia Longwu and as talented as Ye Batian. He was akin to a combination of the two.
A single Ye Batian was enough for everyone in the Myriad Realms to lose sleep. Two Invincibles had perished to get rid of him. As for Xia Longwu, he had taken the lives of countless Sunmoons before even completing his dao affirmation. His attempt to affirm his dao would most certainly cause even Invincibles to die regardless of the ultimate result.
The myriad races could tolerate the existence of Qin Fang and Huang Teng, but they would not allow a second Ye Batian or Xia Longwu to emerge. Despite Dao Cheng's provocations, no reply came.
***
Somewhere hidden.
Su Yu did not intend to rise to the provocation.
Screw that!
An old immortal who was already a ninth-stage Cloudbreach trying to provoke him into a fight? Was that a joke? Sure, Dao Cheng was from the younger generation as well, but he might as well be a grandpa for Su Yu.
In the span of one year, he had suffered thousands of defeats. Growing up, he had suffered countless deaths. Why would he care about the loss of face here?
This would never work on him. Su Yu would gladly rise to the challenge if Dao Cheng had offered the immortal fairy to fight instead. As for fighting Dao Cheng himself, that would not happen. Dao Cheng simply felt too unsettling for Su Yu.
Just by looking at Dao Cheng, his tribulation character would start going crazy. That was someone who was dangerous to even look at.
Dao Cheng said, "I'm aware. Also, the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion is here to do business. Do not do anything that will ruin your reputation. Since I've purchased his location, you better not leak this to him."
"Of course."
Then, the masked figure vanished.
Final Armor suddenly said, "He's only a Mountainsea. We could have detained him if we wanted."
"Forget it." Dao Cheng shook his head, "These people are mere puppets, not the mastermind. It's pointless to kill them."
At this time, the paper crane in his hand started moving. He said, "We either don't try to look for him at all or act when we have the absolute certainty in success. With ten drops of Sunmoon blood essence, we can only track him for an hour. If he learns what we're doing and leaves his index copy behind, it will be much harder for us to find him again."
Final Armor was quite puzzled, "With so many death spirits on his tail and a low-level medallion, how did he manage to disappear?"
Dao Cheng nonchalantly replied, "Can't you see it?"
"What?" A realization dawned on Final Armor, "You mean..."
"It was the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion."
Dao Cheng coldly said, "Since they could do business with us, they could certainly do business with Su Yu as well."
Final Armor cursed inwardly.
So that was why.
Dao Cheng added, "In fact, he might have learned about our operation in advance from the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion as well. The Heavenly Hunt Pavilion...only cares about profit, not justice and fairness."
Final Armor furiously said, "The major races should have hunted those greedy bastards down."
"It's too hard." Dao Cheng shook his head, "That organization is not weak at all. Just a few days ago, they revealed an Invincible among their ranks. That could very well be a powerful Invincible who had completed their dao affirmation in the Allheaven Battlefield. We don't even know who that person is. It is very hard to trace an expert at that level when they're focusing on concealment. And who can be sure that they only have one Invincible?"
"The Heavenly Hunt Pavilion is known to have Four Departments, the Heaven, Earth, Profound, and Yellow Departments. They also have the East and West Spires and the South and North Chambers. As far as we know, the Invincible that had appeared previously was merely the chamber master of the South Chamber. Who knows if the leaders of the other chamber, the two spires, and the four departments are also Invincibles as well? Anything is possible."
"..."
Final Armor was greatly shocked, "Is that even possible?"
If that was the cause, wouldn't they have eight Invincibles? Were they really so powerful? In that case, no race could contend against them apart from the major races like the immortals, devils, and divines.
"I'm not sure."
Dao Cheng gave no further elaboration as he would need to touch upon some secrets to say more. But that was most certainly possible. If the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion was so weak, they would have been wiped out or taken over long ago.
After all, the Heavenly Hunt Index in their possession was a divine weapon. Divine weapon. An existence beyond even a heaven weapon. If they weren't strong, would the divines, devils, humans, demonic beasts, and other major races tolerate their existence and their control over the Heavenly Hunt Index?
Their strength was the only reason they were still around. They were also the biggest information broker among the myriad races. Back when Ye Batian of the human race died, Great Qin King and the other human Invincibles performed an investigation into the death.
They ultimately concluded that the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion might have sold the whereabouts of the active human Invincibles at the time, allowing the myriad races to make the proper arrangements to get Ye Batian killed. They spent many years investigating that matter.
Eventually, a spire master of the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion was forced to step forth and clarify things, ensuring the humans that they had zero involvement in Ye Batian's death. It was rumored that the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion had ultimately reached a deal with the human race to end the hunt launched by Great Qin King and the others.
During that period of time, the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion lost a large number of experts. Of course, a lot of humans had perished in the process as well.
Dao Cheng stopped entertaining the random thoughts that had been appearing in his mind. After paying such a big price, they had to succeed in killing or capturing Su Yu. The paper crane in his hand continued stirring. Finally, he released the crane, allowing it to soar into the sky.
Countless characters orbited the crane, rendering it invisible. After doing all that, Dao Cheng said, "Follow it. But don't make it too obvious."
The experts around him nodded. They understood the importance of stealth.