Aspiring to the Immortal Path

The three Nether Emperors turned around, but all they saw was an amorphous shadow. This shadow was constantly twisting and writhing, and black smoke would occasionally rise from it.

The sight of this shadow made the Nether Emperors shiver.

A rare hint of fear appeared on Kilday’s face. “Shadoweater Nether Emperor… you… When did you come back?”

Nether God Nirvana had ten Nether Emperors under him. Other than the deceased Zoros and the three traitor emperors, there was still one emperor unaccounted for. This was the Shadoweater Nether Emperor. He was considered the strongest of Nirvana’s Nether Emperors, his cultivation at the peak of the Emperor rank, close to Godhood.

In order to search for a breakthrough, he had wandered the world, even leaving the Nether Domain and entering Primordial Fog. While humans paled at the mention of the Primordial Fog Domain, the Nether Domain had little to fear from it, since they were allies. Of course, the chaotic nature of the negative plane meant that they would often fight with each other—which was technically also true with the positive plane—so there was still some level of danger.

There had been no news of him ever since he had entered the Primordial Fog Domain, and many Nether Emperors thought that he was dead, so the three Nether Emperors had never considered him in their calculations. His presence today was an unwelcome surprise.

The three Nether Emperors knew that things were much worse than they had anticipated when they saw Shadoweater. Nirvana had been prepared from the start, perhaps never having trusted them.

But at this point, they had no other options. They exchanged a look, ready to attack in unison.

At the same time, numerous palace guards rushed in, consisting of countless ghost generals and Ghost Kings.

While there were only two Nether Emperors on Nirvana’s side, they were actually stronger than the three Nether Emperors. This was particularly true for the Shadoweater Nether Emperor, who was like an omnipresent darkness, able to attack from any shadow, each one of his attacks containing a lethal power. Occasionally, a dark fog would rush out of the shadow of some Ghost King, enveloping that Ghost King and corroding them into nothingness before vanishing back into the shadows.

In this period, no attacks worked against him. It was a truly frightening and terrifying attack, and he lived up to his name of Shadoweater.

Gold Extinction was also not easy to deal with. His skeleton was extremely tough and able to endure the majority of attacks, and he had the number one defense among the ten Nether Emperors. As for his attacks, they were the fierce and profound attacks of a body cultivator, each strike accompanied by a clap of thunder.

Gold Extinction and Shadoweater were both the type of Nether Emperor that was extremely hard to kill, and besides them, their numerous subordinates and the traps in the hall were also playing a major role. The Nether Domain had always been a world where numbers ruled, and there was no time or place where one could ignore the meaning of quantity.

When the battle began, the Nether God palace seemed to have an endless number of ghosts. In comparison, the ten-some Ghost Kings and three Nether Emperors seemed rather lacking. Gradually, the tables began to turn against the traitors.

Tang Jie was planning to help the three emperors a little when he spotted Mei Huaping sneak out of the hall.

This was the Nether God palace, and the Soul-Sealing Death Prison meant that there was nowhere to run, so nobody had thought about escaping once they were inside. Since anyone who ran would ultimately be found and killed later, it was better to fight to the end.

In this situation, nobody paid attention to Mei Huaping retreating. Only Tang Jie narrowed his eyes.

As Mei Huaping retreated, Tang Jie took stock of the situation in the hall. He felt like the three emperors could hold on for a little longer, so he decided to follow Mei Huaping.

After leaving the hall, Mei Huaping ran off in another direction, seeming to be very familiar with the place.

He quickly arrived at a small hall.

He threw himself into this unremarkable small hall without hesitation.

Tang Jie inwardly chortled as he followed. Within the hall was a long corridor from which strange sounds could be heard.

“The Gloom Corridor?” A term appeared in Tang Jie’s mind.

The Gloom Corridor was the passage leading to Nirvana’s treasury. Just now, he had silently activated his will hidden within Mei Huaping’s body to obtain this information.

So Mei Huaping was after Nirvana’s treasury instead? Realizing that he had no chance at a Nether God’s Primal Soul, he had decided to go after the treasury? It wasn’t a bad choice, though there was still the question of how he was going to escape.

Tang Jie followed Mei Huaping to a door.

A painting was hung above the door, depicting a beautiful woman that gazed down at all who visited.

As Mei Huaping charged over, the woman opened her eyes and gazed at them. Mei Huaping immediately felt something pull on his soul, and even Tang Jie felt himself losing focus. Fortunately, the black grain protected his soul, instinctively purging his mind of that wicked will that had snuck its way in.

If Tang Jie had not stopped it, the black grain would have rushed out and exterminated the spirit of the portrait.

Even so, the power of the black grain fired off a mental needle at the portrait. The beautiful woman immediately felt danger, fear appearing on her face. Her mouth opened as if to beg for mercy, but it was too late, the needle stabbing into her. As she shrieked, the portrait began to burn.

Once the portrait was burned to ashes, Mei Huaping trembled and came to his senses. “That illusion was so powerful!”

Tang Jie chuckled to himself. “Illusion”? That was clearly some powerful parasitic ghost, able to take over the body and seduce various kinds of ghosts. Unfortunately, the black grain in Tang Jie’s mind was its bane, and it had died after a single counterattack. Mei Huaping was unaware of all this, believing that his resistance had caused the illusion to dissipate.

Having overcome this trial, Mei Huaping pushed upon the door.

But he had barely opened it a crack when a wisp of smoke blew out. It transformed into a Ghost King and glared at Mei Huaping. “Such audacity, daring to covet His Majesty’s treasury? Accept your death!”

While Mei Huaping reeled in shock at the surprise presence of a Ghost King, that Ghost King blew a gust of corrosive wind at him.

Mei Huaping had no choice but to bellow and swing his arms, fending off the attack while sending a sonic wave at his foe.

The two Ghost Kings began to fight, and Tang Jie seized this chance to transform into a gust of wind and fly in through the crack in the door.

Tang Jie was greeted by the sight of a room with many shelves.

It wasn’t a large room, but it was thick with suppressive power, and Tang Jie sensed that it was difficult to use his powers here.

This energy was not targeted at him, but at the treasures on the shelves.

Yes, the shelves were full of treasure.

There were three shelves in total, each one carrying large numbers of treasures and resources. As some treasures had spirituality, each one had seals and restrictions applied to them to prevent them from causing trouble.

Tang Jie could tell that taking any of these items would trigger the restrictions.

The first thing that would happen was that the seals would instantly strengthen, and one would not be able to take away the treasure until the seal was destroyed. The second thing that would happen was that Nirvana would immediately be notified.

In other words, just taking one item from this treasury would alarm Nirvana.

Tang Jie chuckled. In normal circumstances, this arrangement would work.

But what was happening right now?

Everyone had come together to kill the Nether God.

The greatest fear was not that he would show up in person, but that he wouldn’t show up.

So what did it matter if he would be notified?

Come and kill me if you have the guts!

The strengthening of the seal was more problematic. Tang Jie had calculated that once the seal was strengthened, even someone at peak Violet Palace would find it hard to undo. Only a Nether God could ignore this seal.

Tang Jie was able to fight Soul Projection cultivators, but in terms of absolute strength, he was still far from peak Soul Projection True Lords.

In the past, Tang Jie would have needed to use another formation, but now, he had an easier way.

He looked around and reached for one of the treasures.

As the restriction was triggered, the seals on all the treasures were strengthened.

Tang Jie chuckled. “Open!”

An invisible halo spread out: Tang Jie’s Heavenly Dao Realm.

In this realm, he was the Heavenly Dao, and all things moved according to his will. What was a puny seal compared to that? Thus, Tang Jie reached out and grabbed another treasure, completely ignoring the seal.

He could have activated the Heavenly Dao Realm first and then taken the treasure, thus not even activating the restriction, but Tang Jie didn’t want to. He wanted to tell Nirvana that someone had intruded into his treasury and started to take his treasures.

He proceeded to trigger the seal for each treasure he took.

Thus, in his hidden resting spot, Nirvana began to receive alarm after alarm.

“How could this be?” Nirvana was stunned.

Someone was audacious enough to steal his treasures? Who was it? Who would dare? Was it another Nether God?

But how could that be? The Soul-Sealing Death Prison was still active, so how could a Nether God break into the palace?

As he inwardly raged, the alarms came one after another, pounding against his heart like stormy waves.