Chapter 536: Chapter 536

The entire southeastern region of the Hongli Empire was shaken to its core. Deep in the Ten Thousand Mountains, the Totem Temple stirred. A Lava Shaman carried the will of the Totem King and began calling every Totem Shaman active across the southern counties back to their ancestral lair. He also notified the other Great Shamans so they could gather for council.

The looming storm set the local transcendent factions around the mountains on edge, all fearing the mighty Totem Temple might turn on them. Yet, to their relief, the temple's gaze had shifted eastward.

Far away in the Eternal Archipelago, the lineage of the Ripple Practitioners faced its own upheaval. Its influence was spread across the empire's southeast and even the tiny island-states between the Northern and Southern Reef Continents. The mother tree had birthed three supreme bone rings, and the coming struggle would decide who was worthy to inherit them.

Within a hidden base of the Gate Organization in the southeastern seas, several General Kings rallied their forces. Core members streamed in from abroad and at home, each bristling with the strength they had cultivated. However, Holy Fist Demon Phoenix was nowhere to be found, and Whale King Arlington remained in seclusion, healing grievous wounds.

In the Anta Mountains, Black Rain Manor buzzed with unrest as a steady flow of top-tier knight-level Hellsings returned home. They usually roamed the empire alone on secret assignments, hardly ever gathering, and their sudden assembly made it clear that something monumental was afoot.

Nosy onlookers even tallied heads outside the Baptism Chapel and discovered that nearly twenty top-tier knight-level marked-ones had entered within the past week. Counting the earlier arrivals, more than two-thirds of Black Rain Manor's top-tier knights had come home.

A storm was brewing, though none could tell whether it heralded fortune or disaster. Only one thing was certain. It was an event of the highest magnitude.

Across East Sea County, Huaifeng County, and Shuiyun County, every Covert Martial Art sect sprang into motion the moment venerable elders or sect masters issued their orders.

Pooling contacts, coin, and supplies, they assembled a formidable fleet in the coastal harbors. This included two decommissioned sailing warships of the Hongli imperial navy, towering giants capable of bearing great crowds.

The Eternal Archipelago' fogs and tempests would be easier to face with such ships, especially when every passenger was a combat artist. Even if someone fell overboard in coastal waters, so long as they had the mainland's bearing, they could swim back through sheer monstrous stamina and endurance. Barring absurd rogue waves or abyssal monsters, they would return unscathed. Even a great white shark, lord of its ocean arena, would be butchered by such warriors.

Beyond ships, the sects offered hefty bounties and hired several local fishermen familiar with the routes as guides. The Eternal Archipelago were shrouded year-round in mists and storms, making them treacherous waters. Navigators could easily lose their bearings or run aground on hidden reefs, and only a brief lull each year allowed relatively safe passage. Yet this was not that season.

Sailing to the Eternal Archipelago during the stormy season was notoriously lethal. Even seasoned fishermen balked at staking their lives on such a run. Still, when heavy rewards gleamed, brave men always emerged.

They wanted to refuse, knowing the peril, yet the sects' blank-check bounties were simply too much to ignore. A man's entire clan could live in luxury for ten generations with the pay on offer.

Gold greased many hinges, and matters progressed smoothly. At least four or five veteran fishermen agreed to guide them, and even a retired naval navigator let the glitter of gold cloud his judgment. He was a consummate professional who had piloted ships for twenty years through every imaginable sea hazard.

The sects were anything but frugal. If money solved problems, they hired everyone. It took only three to four days for everything to be settled. By the time the contingent was set to depart, every path had been paved.

Many sects worked with unusual zeal, clearly acting on instructions from elders. They likely aimed to contribute more so they could empty the fist technique armoury later and claim the lion's share of the bounty.

If a small fortune could buy a formidable Secret Technique, every sect would be delirious with joy. How could they pass up free profit?

All in all, the preparations went off without a hitch.

On August 6, four days after the exchange tournament had ended, a large number of fighters lingered in East Sea City.

They had gathered at Kafka Hall for another brief meeting, confirming every point they had hashed out over the past few days; no one objected. When the meeting adjourned, the powerhouse fighters poured out like sardines and strode off toward their own sects.

Half an hour later, dozens of Covert Martial Art sects rolled out in horse-drawn carriages, forming a colossal column down the broad road. Their destination was plain: the Huaifeng coast.

That shore was the shortest distance to the Eternal Archipelago.

From the sky, one would have seen black carriages racing along a yellow-gray highway through endless emerald plains. The spectacular sight put that old armored train from back when Cassius smuggled the Northern Covert Martial Arts community into Black Rain Manor to shame.

Cassius sat inside a roomy carriage at the tail of the convoy. Eyes closed, he let the Golem Covert Martial Arts flow on its own, warping the surrounding air. The Golem's mighty life magnetic field clung tightly to his skin instead of flaring outward, proof of his control and ever-growing mastery.

Twin streams of dense, scalding white air seeped from his nostrils. The coach carriage fogged in a heartbeat and a tiny mist whirled up. The mist cleared just as swiftly as Cassius ended his Golem training and ignited the Southern Dipper Covert Martial Inheritance.

Forty-six purple stars, forty-six red stars... They glimmered together, resonating.

A faint spiraling ascent took shape inside the carriage. A half hour later, he pulled a sheaf of parchment from his cloak. He opened it gently, and a potent martial Will burst forth, forming a small Qi domain inside the coach.

The Qi domain was infectious. One could glimpse glowing fist, whipping kicks, rooted stances, and savage elbow strikes hanging in the air. They were the simplest yet most vital fundamentals.

The visions flickered from single moves to chained sequences to killing blows—each motion brutal and deadly. A powerful fist traced a crescent afterimage through the air, only to shatter like moonlit glass a heartbeat later. It was both beautiful and merciless, as though space itself had cracked.

Cassius nodded slowly and turned the page.

Fire Stone Fist—complete.

Azure Wind Fist—half finished.

He had yet to start on Ripple Fist; he would wait until the Eternal Archipelago affair was settled and he claimed the Southern Dipper Waterbird Fist.

At that very moment, in the World of Calamity...

At the south of the Silent Rain Zone, an endless black sea lay at the end of the Pitch Black Mountains. Its tar-like waters slapped the shore with sticky thuds instead of clear splashes.

It mirrored the world's palette—oppressive and hopeless.

Two hulking beasts clashed with brute force that quaked the land on the nearest mountain beside the coastline. They slammed into the rock face, gouging craters and blasting debris. Every impact sent a shockwave rushing over the sea in concentric ripples.

One beast burst from behind the peak. It was a deformed demon-bull whose limbs bulged with tumor-like steel sinew, each mass aflame and belching black smoke. Its foe was a ten-headed serpent of the sea with ten segmented torsos, and a swollen trunk below. A pair of fleshy wings sprouted between the upper and lower body. They resembled a bat's, yet were shingled in eerie blue scales.

When they fought, the demon-bull erupted in fire from horn to hoof while the serpent's scales lit up, their seams flashing razor-sharp. The clash of titans roused sleeping darklings that fled in terror. Slower creatures died where they lay, pulped by stray shocks. The shoreline lay in ruins, littered with colossal footprints.

"Huun!" The demon-bull bellowed again, its head turning translucent crimson. Its maw yawned as a spiral of energy hotter than molten rock coalesced.

The next instant promised a blow to shake earth and mountain.

High above, a terrifying roar like a giant jet tore across the heavens. Heavy clouds parted as if fearing the oncoming streak.

The sky itself shuddered. A white waterbird dove, graceful and light. It was unimaginably vast; the span of its wings blotted out the land, plunging everything into dusk. The pristine feathers were so exquisite they seemed crafted by an artist's hand.

Another tremor. The world-spanning sound came from the bird's wings beating. Who knew how many kilometers each stroke carried it?

The two colossal beasts on the shore roared at the sky. However, the white bird ignored them entirely, maintaining its elegant course inland.

Something seemed to fall from the sky. Meteors? No, it was feathers! Feathers plunging so fast they created gold sparks against the air!

Bang, bang, bang! Boom, boom, boom!

Explosions lit up the far end of the black mountains. Peaks collapsed, the coast flattened, and a tsunami brewed. A thirty-meter-wide fissure ripped across the ground from the dark range all the way to the continental edge.

The two titans? Gone—nothing left but scattered atoms.

They suffered neither struggle nor pain; the moment the feather fell, overwhelming force erased them. Every organ, every tissue, and every cell evaporated under that lethal pressure.

In the heights, chaotic gales exploded and bizarre clouds bristled with alien energy. An aircraft of the toughest alloy could not last a single kilometer before it would be shredded to slag and rained down.

Yet a pure-white titan glided along at high speed, forcing a vast corridor through the chaos. Every force that touched the bird vanished, devoured as if it had never existed. It was holy, mighty, sublime. Any mortal who looked up would feel dwarfed, perhaps dropping to their knees to worship this feathery god.

The bird swooped on, returning from untold leagues of the deep ocean, abandoning its hunt of the abyssal leviathans. Its destination lay within the Silent Rain Zone. A flicker of human emotion flashed across its vast pupils.

"The Totem King, the True Progenitor of Blood, and those still-active Dark Ultimate Forms will never let that little one in the surface world keep growing. They'll reach across and interfere. Blood Vulture and Sonic Snake are tied up and can't break free... So I shall go. It's about time I saw the child for myself..."

The white bird whipped its head toward the edge of the Silent Rain Zone, toward the Eternal Archipelago in the surface world, where a certain ruin lay...

Within that ruin lay the mortal body it had once left behind!

Back in the surface world, on August 7.

The convoy rumbled along the border of Huaifeng County and East Sea County as it passed through a narrow gorge. As they entered, a small mishap struck. Boulders blocked the exit, forming the perfect ambush scenario. However, those who leaped out were no bandits; they were a horde of over a hundred dark creatures.

Their auras were fierce and their grins cruel as they bared jagged fangs. Blood clung to claws, skin, and bristles. It was proof they had slaughtered innocents for food.

"Heheheh... At last you're here. By my reckoning, you should've arrived two or three days ago! Making me wait so long... How vexing," the leader hissed, raking its cheek with talons and carving deep, wet grooves. “I'll smash your bones inch by inch, draw your tendons, and drink your blood!"

Clearly it was the same playbook as the attack on Flying Sparrow Sect, only this pack had chosen the wrong prey.

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The carriages ground to a halt and doors swung wide. Figure after dangerous figure emerged, each inhumanly strong and mildly perplexed.

Some stood on footboards, while others vaulted down and others merely lifted curtains. Young and old, men and women, tall and short.

Seventy-odd fighters turned their gazes on the dark creature leader, eyes like searing blades that nearly skewered it.

"You shitty mongrel," one of them growled, "what did you just say? Say it again..."