Chapter 777.1 – A Fortuitous Encounter, Together with Danger

Mysterious Snowy Plains, ancient ruins.

The looming mountain range that had originally hidden the ancient ruins, formerly was

an off-the-beaten-path place, right now however, it had become a bustling camp. Tens of thousands of mercenaries, merchants, and Heaven Rankers who had got wind of the news gathered here and formed a huge bustling camp.

Even from a distance, one could see it from the sky, a very distinct black spot in the vast whiteness of the snow below. When getting a little closer, that black spot would reveal itself to be a huge snowfield camp. The most impressive thing is that, in order to allow visitors from afar to find their target accurately, a huge pillar of fire up to three hundred meters tall was erected in the center of the Snowfield Camp, and the fire burns continuously day and night.

The pillar of fire guided adventurers from all over the place to the camp.

Lord Ling Yun looked at it and was instantly envious in his heart.

As the lord of a country in the Heaven Realm, there had been several occasions where he had wanted to set up a pillar of fire in his own capital to show off his majesty.

However, in addition to the fact that the erection of such a fire pillar would require the prior approval from the Central Palace Hall, the cost to build such a huge fire pillar would require hundreds of millions of gold coins and these two facts discouraged Lord Ling Yun from pursuing this idea. It wasn’t that he didn’t have hundreds of millions of gold, he did, but even if he had way more gold than this, he didn’t feel that his money should be squandered so extravagantly.

“It seems that the Central Palace Hall is one step ahead of us.” In fact, since arriving at the Conquering City, other than Yue Yang, the others had more or less experienced a sense of inferiority and no longer gave off the prideful aura they once had before coming here.

If one kept on comparing oneself with the people they met, they would soon die of exasperation. In the Conquering City, even a powerhouse above Heaven Rank 5 slept on the streets like a beggar. This made Lord Ling Yun, who was only at the peak of Heaven Rank 5 feel inferior, not to mention Tu Hai, who was not even a Heaven Rank 5. Their ego had taken a battering, and were different from Fatty Hai, Ye Kong and the rest of Yue Yang’s companions. Fatty Hai, Ye Kong and the others had never been ahead in terms of strength, apart from anomalies like Yue Yang, they had also come across many outstanding predecessors of various different strengths, which had resulted in them always playing catch-up all these while.

Therefore, the inferiority that Fatty Hai, Ye Kong and the others felt were more akin to a sense of awe and respect for the strong.

However for Lord Ling Yun and City Lord Tu Hai, this was definitely a huge setback.

If they were unable to overcome this setback they had experienced, it would become a mental demon that would hinder their progress in the future.

Although mentality was not directly equal to strength, as having a strong mentality does not necessarily mean that one can become strong immediately, but without a strong mentality, one will certainly not be able to get strong. The path of cultivation had always been like trying to row a boat against the current.

If you don’t improve, you will definitely slide back.

“This is just for show to attract more people, some worthless tricks, the greed of some powerful people cannot be curbed.” Yue Yang let out a dark sneer.

Of course, he would not directly say that a Palace Lord from the Central Palace Hall had already took control of the fallen martial artists from the Dark Realm and ordered them to come here and kill all the Heaven Rankers who came to these ancient ruins, in hopes to strengthen and expand their scope of influence through this incident.

Yue Yang could already figure out the motive behind these tricks even with his toes.

The reason was that although the Three Great Leaders of the Heaven Realm had recently returned to the Heaven Realm after being sealed in the Temple of the Prison Emperor for 6000 years, their strength had not yet been fully restored, and the Central Palace Hall wanted to seize this opportunity to expand and solidify their influence in the Western Heaven Realm. If the Three Great Leaders had never come back, the Central Palace Hall would have supported a few candidates of their choice from the backup leaders and pushed them to take over the position of the Great Leaders, using this to fully take control of the Western Heaven Realm. For the backup leaders, if they wanted to be formally recognized as a legitimate Great Leader, they would have to first obtain the support of the Divine Palace Hall, this way the Central Palace Hall would be able to do as they please in the Western Heaven Realm. However, Xu Kong, Jiu Xiao and Ming Yue Guang had returned. All the effort that the Central Palace Hall had put in previously and all the plans that they had made had all come to naught, if they did not take this opportunity before the original Three Great Leaders regained their peak strength to create some trouble, they would surely be unable to have any say once the Western Heaven Realm regained its peace. Therefore the appearance of the fallen martial artist from the Dark Realm must surely be the doing of the Central Palace Hall, hoping to use these death row convicts to create a mess and use this opportunity to quickly solidify their power in the Western Heaven Realm.

This was something that Yue Yang would never disclose to any of the citizens of the Heaven Realm.

Instead it will be kept as a secret.

Because the power struggle between the Central Palace Hall and the Three Great Leaders of the Heaven Realm was in fact very beneficial to Yue Yang. It could be said that this was the best time for him to sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight. What Yue Yang wanted to do right now was to secretly aid in escalating this in-fighting among the powers of the Heaven Realm and create an even bigger mess. The messier the situation in the Heaven Realm, the more favorable it will be for the rise of the Tong Tian Tower, not to mention Yue Yang would gain more time and opportunities to constantly grow stronger.

When the snipe and the clam fights, the fisherman benefits. (yes this is proverb, erudite gambateh wuhuu!!)

What this implied was that for Yue Yang who was currently facing such a situation, he had to take advantage of this opportunity.

This is not only for himself, but also for Empress Fei Wen Li who had yet to come out from the black hole, for the Prison Emperor who died in battle, for Zhi Zun, the Night Queen, the Heaven Punisher, the Dragon Emperor, the Emperor of the Underworld…Xue Wu Xia, Princess Xixi, Luo Hua, the Phoenix Beauty, Yi Nan, Yue Yu, Yue Bing, Yue Shuang, Hai Ying Wu, the Drunken Cat Royal Sister, the Southern Demon King, Fatty Hai, Ye Kong, Xue Tan Lang,Prince Tian Luo, and so on who were still growing in the Tong Tian Tower.

They had fallen behind for six thousand years, if they did not have a good chance to to grow, not to mention overtake, even catching up to the experts of the Heaven Realm would require the effort of a few generations.

Yue Yang didn’t want that.

He felt that he should step up and lead the way forward.

Catching up to the rankers of the Heaven Realm, and even surpa.s.sing them like what their predecessors did, trampling the experts of the Heaven Realm underfoot.

The ultimate goal in Yue Yang’s heart had never been the Heaven Realm, but rather the extremely mysterious and inscrutable world beyond, where those legendary G.o.ds resided in, perhaps the G.o.d Realm, perhaps it was the Immortal Realm of the Eastern Immortal Tribe.

In any case, that kind of incredible world was what Yue Yang was aiming for.

He was close.