Chapter 420 - 389: Thunder Realm, the 10 Great Peak Demon Races of Ancient Times, the Bloodthirsty White Tiger Demon Marshal

With this thought in mind, the freshly recharged Jiang Qiu took a deep breath. He brought the Dragon Maiden, Snow, with him as he once again tore through the void, advancing toward the next world.

During the many months of their pursuit, he and Snow had merged multiple times. Their Soul Power grew increasingly stronger, and they were on the verge of reaching a new level—one situated between the Fusion Realm and the Harmonization Realm, a state where further improvement was nearly impossible without a breakthrough.

In common parlance, this was known as Half-Step Unity!

The synchronous advancement of Jiang Qiu and Snow’s Realms was rapidly honing them toward this state. Now, after crossing an immeasurably vast void, the two had descended into a Great Realm. It resembled a colossal, Broken Space-Time, with wind, fire, and thunder roaring all around—a truly hellish scene.

This location was very close to the Eight-direction Reversing Ship—only a few worlds away, one might say. If its occupants intended to come here, they could likely arrive in about a month.

And it now seemed highly likely that the Eight-direction Reversing Ship was indeed heading here, for this place was in dire straits. Various conflicts were causing the vast Great Realm to fracture in places.

Even Jiang Qiu was surprised; he hadn’t expected the war in this Great Realm to have escalated to such an extent. In truth, he never knew what kind of world he was entering. At most, he could only determine whether there were dense settlements of living beings. If there were, it was a Life Realm—an exceedingly rare type of world, perhaps one in a hundred thousand.

If a world had no life, it was a desolate world. These were quite numerous and were what Jiang Qiu encountered most often.

But to encounter a large-scale war in a Great Realm like this was rarer still—perhaps one in a hundred thousand, times a hundred thousand, times a hundred thousand. Great Realms themselves were few and far between, let alone one embroiled in such a brutal conflict.

After leaving the Desolate Realm, Jiang Qiu had encountered several hundred small life worlds, but only one or two Great Realms. Their overall power levels weren’t particularly high; their mid-tier combat strength was perhaps one notch above the Desolate Realm’s, but their peak strength was unknown.

This Great Realm, however, was the most brutal he had personally witnessed. It seemed that quite a few Harmonization Realm experts had already joined the fray, but the tide of the war was still turning against them, the situation growing more tragic with every battle.

Jiang Qiu found a relatively intact city and effortlessly slipped past the city guards. He bought some local communication devices and connected to the network, only to be stunned by his discovery: this was the famous Thunder Realm!

The Thunder Realm wasn’t a top-tier Great Realm like the Yin Yang Great Realm or the Nine Venerable Great Realm, but it was one of the more unique ones. The Vast Thunder Spirit Charm here was exceptionally dense, giving rise to a Thunder Restricted Area that even Harmonization Realm experts dared not enter. Throughout its history, many experts from the Outer Realm had come to visit, making it quite a bustling place.

But now, it was a complete wreck. Even the world’s consciousness had been shaken into a daze, and its various Law Powers were draining away in the ensuing chaos.

"Jiang Qiu, what happened to this world? The people living here look so dispirited..." Snow, in her Dragon Maiden form, said as she curiously observed the passersby. Many were dressed in rags and begging, and most of them were ordinary people who didn’t practice Cultivation.

A prosperous city in a thriving Great Realm shouldn’t look like this. Clearly, the area had suffered unimaginable devastation.

After all, even in a smaller world like the Desolate Realm, Jiang Qiu had never seen such a pathetic sight, not even in the more established Great Oasis Cities. The gap between slaves and nobles was mostly confined to the Little Oasis Cities there.

But the city they were in now, within the Thunder Realm, was a major one—at least equivalent in status to a metropolitan district back on Blue Star. And yet, it was filled with beggars.

Jiang Qiu furrowed his brow and began searching for information about the Thunder Realm online. As he expected, he found what he was looking for. It turned out the Thunder Realm had suffered a major calamity ten years ago. Something unknown had suddenly burst into the Thunder Restricted Area, where it inherited an ancient legacy. It began to subject the local beasts to Demonization, proclaimed itself the "Bloodthirsty White Tiger Demon Marshal," and vowed to liberate the entire Thunder Realm.

At first, this Bloodthirsty White Tiger seemed to only be at the Dao Entry Realm. But after entering the Restricted Area, it emerged at the Fusion Realm—and a very powerful one at that. When it came out, it immediately alarmed the native powerful clans of the Thunder Realm, who frantically sent forces to surround and kill it. However, the creature turned the tables and slaughtered them instead. By the time the Harmonization Realm experts decided to intervene, it had already retreated back into the Restricted Area, using the world-ending thunder as a barrier to keep the myriad experts at bay.

Logically, this should have been tantamount to imprisoning itself, preventing it from causing any major trouble. Bizarrely, however, the creature possessed some strange ability. It began summoning various members of the Demon Race from within the Restricted Area, forming the Bloodthirsty White Tiger Army. It rallied forces under the banner of the Ancient White Tiger Demon Clan bloodline, attracting factions who flocked to its growing fame and power.

What was the Ancient White Tiger?

Countless epochs ago, long before the last one, there existed the Ten Peak Demon Clans. According to legend, the Human Race was an extremely vast and numerous people at the time, so all other races were collectively known as the Demon Race. The White Tiger Race was one of the most powerful clans among them.

The Ten Peak Demon Clans possessed the great power to endure the cycle of epochs. In other words, each epochal reset had little effect on them. They could guarantee the unbroken continuity of their heritage, and as a result, they monopolized vast clusters of worlds.

But this monopoly eventually came to an end. Some say it was due to internal conflict, with the Ten Great Demon Clans warring against each other over their interests. Others claim it was the rise of the Human Race that shook their status. In any case, the Ten Peak Demon Clans gradually vanished into the river of history, their very traces washed away by the relentless cycle of epochs.

One must understand that in those Ancient Times, Transcendence, however difficult, was not an unattainable dream. Each of the peak demon clans possessed at least one Transcender. Because Transcenders are immortal, their numbers accumulated to a terrifying level. It is said that if even a single one of those Transcenders were to appear in the current epoch, they could dominate the entire Primordial world cluster—and many other clusters in the outer domains—in an extremely short time.

And yet, these pinnacle races—beings whose origins modern clans wouldn’t even dare to contemplate—disappeared one after another into the river of history. The Human Race began to flourish. Eventually, even the last Transcender of the Dragon Race, the leader of the Ten Peak Demon Clans, finally fell during the previous epoch after stubbornly holding on for countless eons.

No one knows the specific reasons why. It isn’t even clear who was responsible for the fall of the most recent True Dragon. The Ancient Ten Peak Demon Clans are just that mysterious.

’And now someone is rallying support under the banner of the White Tiger Demon Clan, even claiming they’ll liberate the entire Thunder Realm?’

’The White Tiger Demon Clan vanished countless epochs ago. They weren’t like the Dragon Race, which still has numerous legacies proving its existence. The previous epoch was even called the "Dragonfall" Epoch, so the very idea of their existence hasn’t been lost, and they are still known to some Cultivators.’

’As for the White Tiger Demon Clan, most just consider them a myth, a fabrication created as part of the lore of the Ten Peak Demon Clans. Many don’t even believe such a powerful race could have ever existed. Only someone with an ulterior motive would spread such falsehoods.’

’Even if it were true, there’s no evidence left to prove the White Tiger Demon Clan ever existed. After so many epochs, any blood would have long since dried up. How could a bloodline possibly remain?’

’Even the Dragon Race has no bloodline left!’

Therefore, the consensus was that the Bloodthirsty White Tiger Demon Marshal’s bloodline was a fabrication. He had merely created a compelling story to attract factions to join him in disrupting the order of the Thunder Realm.

But after learning all this, Jiang Qiu inexplicably thought of the dragon, Chen. The Demon Marshals cultivated by that reincarnated Demon Emperor all seemed to be creatures like the White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise...