prynovel Chapter 76 : Chapter 76
Chapter 76 : Chapter 76
Chapter 76: Xiao Xuan Had Already Arrived Four Thousand Years Earlier! Mu Xiying’s Shock!!
Even though Ouyang Xun was a peak Martial Saint, under Xiao Xuan’s terrifying assault he was still slashed until he was covered in wounds by those endless, ghostlike attacks.
Although Xiao Xuan’s own injuries were even worse, the more serious his wounds became, the stronger he grew.
And with Spatial Power and the support of a High Silver Healing-Type Trait, his injuries were hardly a problem at all.
The battle between Xiao Xuan and Ouyang Xun lasted for several hours.
It was only when the strongest expert of the human race, Long Jue, discovered the battle that things changed.
By then, Xiao Xuan had already been on the verge of victory.
After all, once hours of bitter fighting had passed and Ouyang Xun still could not kill Xiao Xuan in a single blow, Xiao Xuan had already become effectively unbeatable.
Xiao Xuan’s combat power was still quite a bit weaker than Ouyang Xun’s, because without the Scavenger Trait, the grade of his Bloodthirsty Demonic Art was much lower than before.
But he was nearly impossible to kill and had what was essentially endless stamina.
Whenever he was wounded so badly that he could no longer keep fighting, he would teleport to an extremely distant place, wait until his injuries had mostly healed, and then return.
He had already locked onto Ouyang Xun.
There was no way for Ouyang Xun to escape.
And what enraged Ouyang Xun even more was that in the gaps between their clashes, Xiao Xuan actually kept delivering the heads of Ouyang family members one by one to him.
Already exhausted in both body and mind and covered in wounds, Ouyang Xun finally collapsed completely after suffering that kind of mental blow as well.
In the end, Xiao Xuan blasted him to the ground, then raised the giant blade in his hand and prepared to kill him.
However, the battle between the two of them could be called one of the highest-level battles on Earth.
Naturally, the commotion it caused was enormous. When Long Jue arrived and saw Xiao Xuan, he mistook him for a demon expert from that demonic cavern.
The moment he saw Xiao Xuan about to finish Ouyang Xun with a single slash, Long Jue struck out with one claw.
A terrifying dragon claw formed from Dragon God True Qi slammed Xiao Xuan into the earth and crushed him apart in an instant!
Fortunately, Long Jue had arrived a little too late. If he had seen Xiao Xuan’s terrifying rate of regeneration, he would definitely have gone all out at once and blasted Xiao Xuan into ashes.
But simply crushing him apart was still not enough to kill Xiao Xuan.
By the time Ouyang Xun tried to warn Long Jue, Xiao Xuan’s enormous body had already vanished.
...
Although Long Jue failed to kill Xiao Xuan, the attack had already damaged his very foundation. Even healing-type talents could no longer restore him completely.
The first thing Xiao Xuan did after that was return to Imperial Capital University.
He took Mu Long and Su Qian with him.
At the same time, he found Su Qingwu and Gu Xuan.
He gave his Nanotech Battle Armor to Su Qingwu, and the Thunderflame Frenzy Saber to Gu Xuan.
After telling the two of them to protect themselves as best they could, Xiao Xuan vanished completely.
As Mu Xiying watched the scene of Xiao Xuan’s body twisting and his flesh being corroded by demonic aura, an indescribable pain rose in her heart.
Xiao Xuan’s injuries had already damaged his essence, and on top of that, he had been tainted by demonic aura.
Even if he survived, he would most likely become completely demonized.
From that day on, Su Qingwu and Gu Xuan never saw Xiao Xuan again.
As for Ouyang Xun, although he had been saved, Xiao Xuan had still beaten him so badly that he was left gravely wounded. Without any healing trait of his own, even under treatment from humanity’s strongest healing expert, he still died within a few days.
And the disappearance of every member of the Ouyang family became a massive unsolved mystery as well.
The whole incident caused an enormous uproar across the planet.
Of course, aside from Su Qingwu and Gu Xuan, perhaps no one knew that Xiao Xuan was the one who killed him.
As for Xiao Xuan’s disappearance, because he had kept such a low profile over those years, it ironically did not cause too great a stir.
After graduation, Su Qingwu returned to Blackwater City.
Carrying Xiao Xuan’s hopes with her, she began reforming Blackwater City. With the help of the absorption-type traits, her strength rose rapidly, and in less than a hundred years, she had grown into a Martial Venerable-level expert.
For someone with only a High Purple Talent, that was already far beyond the limit.
Even so, the speed of her improvement grew slower and slower.
As for Gu Xuan, the last time Su Qingwu had seen him had been several thousand years ago!
After graduation, Gu Xuan traveled across Earth the entire time.
His only goal was to find Xiao Xuan.
Naturally, his strength rose far faster than Su Qingwu’s, because the Thunderflame Frenzy Saber Xiao Xuan had given him also possessed absorption traits.
And because the principles behind blade and sword were of the same root, he switched his main weapon to a saber as well.
Within the same hundred years, Gu Xuan had already reached the Martial Thearch Realm.
Later, in a life-and-death battle, Gu Xuan awakened two gold traits.
From that point onward, both his strength and his talent underwent a qualitative leap.
In just over eight hundred years, he had already grown into a Martial God-level superpower of the human race!
Then the Shadow Demon Cavern appeared, and Gu Xuan went there as well. Aside from Long Jue, he was one of the several Martial God-level experts among humanity.
He was also Huaxia’s second Martial God.
But after that battle, every Martial God of the human race fell!
The number of Martial Saint experts left alive also dwindled to almost nothing.
As the Shadow Demon Sovereign expanded its power, Earth was plunged into a world-ending cataclysm.
Su Qingwu, who had long prepared for such a day, led the people of Blackwater City into the cavern where they now lived.
They hid there for four thousand years.
And because her talent had already reached its limit, once she advanced to the First Heaven of the Martial Saint Realm, she could not improve even a little more.
Fortunately, with the powerful combat strength built into the armor, even ordinary mid- to late-stage Martial Saints were no match for her.
And with the armor’s powerful analytical capabilities, the people in this cavern lived quite well.
She also severed every connection with the outside world and even filled the cavern entrance with earth.
Finding this place should have been impossible.
If Mu Xiying had not come here and realized something was wrong, no one would have found it.
Because this place was the very Fifth-Rank cavern near Blackwater City where that Fifth-Rank Ferocious Beast had once appeared, the one that had brought disaster to Blackwater City back then!
As the years passed, the cavern’s rank had risen to the level of an ordinary Seventh-Rank cavern.
Naturally, Mu Xiying remembered it vividly. There was no way she could have forgotten where it was.
So when this cavern suddenly seemed to have disappeared, she naturally knew there might be humans hidden here. She had simply never expected that inside a small cavern only a thousand kilometers across, such an enormous city would be concealed.
Then again, if what had been hidden here were a higher-ranked Eighth- or even Ninth-Rank cavern,
it might have been found long ago. After all, large caverns were all clearly recorded in humanity’s information archives.
In the end, Su Qingwu’s method had perfectly protected the people within this cavern.
“I understand now. I never expected all of that to have happened back then!”
The Nanotech Battle Armor on Mu Xiying slowly receded, and when she looked at Su Qingwu, a trace of gentleness appeared in her eyes as well.
Then, after speaking, she slowly removed the Nanotech Battle Armor core from her hand and passed it to Su Qingwu.
“Senior Mu, this was left behind by Xiao Xuan. You should keep it!”
Su Qingwu hurriedly said.
“No. He gave it to you, and you have already been its master for five thousand years. It is yours now.
“And only you deserve to have it.”
Mu Xiying slowly placed the Nanotech Battle Armor core into Su Qingwu’s hand.
From those memories, she could see clearly that throughout the five thousand years Su Qingwu had spent protecting the people of Blackwater City, she had spent nearly every day and night touching that armor core before she could fall asleep.
It was no longer just an object.
It had become a token of Su Qingwu’s longing for Xiao Xuan, and the thing in which she had placed her feelings.
【Permission Level Detected: Sequence One! Battle Armor Reconnected!】
In an instant, the core turned back into an AI Core Smartwatch and returned to Su Qingwu’s wrist.
And as she looked at the AI Core Smartwatch resting on her wrist once more, Su Qingwu, who had protected this city for five thousand years, could not help but let her eyes redden slightly.
“By the way, Senior Mu, how did you end up like this? Where is your body?”
Suddenly remembering something, Su Qingwu hurriedly asked Mu Xiying.
“Didn’t you already see it? My body died five thousand years ago!”
Mu Xiying replied calmly. She seemed utterly indifferent to her own death.
“Then your current body...?”
Su Qingwu asked curiously.
“I borrowed it temporarily. It is just that I have already developed this body’s potential to its limit, so it seems I will need to change to one with higher talent.”
Mu Xiying sounded somewhat helpless.
“My talent is too weak. The outside world may say my talent is Gold, but only I know the truth. I am still the same weakling I used to be!
“If not for Xiao Xuan’s armor, I probably would have died of old age long ago, unable even to break through to the Martial Venerable Realm!”
Su Qingwu said somewhat dejectedly.
A High Purple Talent generally only allowed someone to reach the Martial Emperor Realm at best.
Reaching the Martial Venerable Realm was almost impossible!
Unless one happened to possess a Purple aptitude-type trait that came extremely close to Silver.
And even for a Martial Venerable, the upper limit of one’s lifespan was only one thousand years.
A Martial Thearch, meanwhile, could live up to three thousand years.
Fortunately, she had at least just barely reached the Martial Saint Realm.
No one knew exactly how long a Martial Saint could live, since none had ever died of old age.
But based on her current vitality, living another four or five thousand years should not be a problem.
“It does not matter. After seeing you, I am now certain that the human race must still have extremely powerful survivors!”
Mu Xiying did not mind.
Of course, the real reason was that the world-ending calamity was only a few decades away now. Even if Su Qingwu truly had a High Gold Talent, it probably would not make any difference anymore.
Before this, Mu Xiying had been searching everywhere for powerful people for only one reason: to find out why the future had become like this.
Because only by finding the cause could she understand what had happened.
And now, she had found that cause.
The source of everything was her own death.
But if she died, then humanity’s world-ending crisis should not have arrived until more than two thousand years later, not only nine hundred years later!
Because even without her, the human race should still have been able to survive for two thousand years without any real problem.
“It seems that only by finding Xiao Xuan can we learn the answer to everything!”
Mu Xiying let out a faint sigh.
“Find Xiao Xuan?”
“But... is Xiao Xuan really still alive?”
At that thought, Su Qingwu’s mood darkened.
“He is absolutely still alive. In fact, the reason your city has continued to exist must have something to do with him.”
Mu Xiying said calmly.
“You mean... Xiao Xuan has been protecting us from the shadows?”
At once, Su Qingwu grew excited.
“Yes, definitely. So we need to find him as soon as possible.”
Mu Xiying spoke seriously.
“But the world is so vast! How are we supposed to find Xiao Xuan?”
Su Qingwu asked in confusion.
“I know where to look. Will you come with me? It is just that... he may no longer be the Xiao Xuan you once knew.”
Mu Xiying looked at Su Qingwu with deep, unreadable eyes.
“I’ll go! I have to go!”
Su Qingwu nodded seriously, without the slightest hesitation.
...
...
Two days later, Su Qingwu and Mu Xiying set out.
Over those two days, Su Qingwu handed everything over to the successor she had chosen long ago, a mid-stage Martial Thearch expert.
With him there, this cavern was still quite safe.
Of course, that was assuming no one chose to go outside and court death.
After leaving the cavern, Su Qingwu followed Mu Xiying directly toward the location of the Shadow Demon Cavern.
“We are only going to the Shadow Demon Cavern? Is Xiao Xuan in the Shadow Demon Cavern?”
Along the way, Su Qingwu was puzzled.
“You will know once we get there.”
Mu Xiying did not explain further. She simply led Su Qingwu swiftly toward the Shadow Demon Cavern.
Earth had now become so vast that even for two Martial Saint-level experts, it still took a long time to reach the location of the Shadow Demon Cavern.
Back then, the Shadow Demon Cavern had been extremely powerful. It was a cavern that housed a Demon Sovereign-class expert, a being at the Supreme Realm above the Martial God Realm.
Powerful as it had been, though, thousands of years had passed.
Many even stronger caverns had appeared.
In some of them, there were even peerless experts who had surpassed the Supreme Realm!
And yet the Shadow Demon Cavern still existed to this day, something that had already made Mu Xiying suspicious from the beginning.
At first, she had thought it might be because she had killed the Shadow Demon Sovereign too early back then. It might originally have had the potential to become a Demon Thearch beyond the Demon Sovereign Realm.
But because she had killed it in advance, it had never had the chance to grow.
However, after hearing from Su Qingwu about the battle Xiao Xuan had once fought against Ouyang Xun, a different suspicion rose in her mind.
...
...
Finally, several days later, the two of them arrived at the location of the Shadow Demon Cavern.
A great number of Shadow Demons wandered all around the cavern.
Individually, these Shadow Demons were not overwhelmingly powerful, but Su Qingwu and Mu Xiying still could not deal with them easily.
Because among them were actually Demon Emperors at the Martial God level!
And those were only the gatekeepers!
“Qingwu, use the armor’s Invisibility trait!”
Mu Xiying said directly to Su Qingwu.
“All right!!”
Without hesitation, Su Qingwu grabbed Mu Xiying’s hand.
BZZZ!!!
In an instant, the Nanotech Battle Armor began flowing wildly and wrapped itself around Mu Xiying as well!
Although the Nanotech Battle Armor had only one core, as long as all of its nanotech material remained connected, it could be used by hundreds or even thousands of people at once!
Of course, the prerequisite was exactly that—the armor had to remain connected.
That was why Mu Xiying and Su Qingwu could not separate from each other.
Once the armor’s Invisibility trait activated, their figures gradually faded away and finally vanished from the sky. Even the air disturbances they would have caused disappeared completely!
Then, carried by the armor, the two of them flew down toward the enormous cavern tunnel below, one several thousand kilometers in diameter!
Inside the tunnel, large numbers of Shadow Demons still wandered about on patrol.
Fortunately, with the help of the armor, even late-stage Demon Emperors could not detect them.
After passing through the underground tunnel, which stretched for several thousand kilometers, the two of them saw the spatial rift leading to another world!
They rushed straight into it, and after a burst of spatial fluctuation, they instantly arrived upon a boundless continent!
Across the entire continent stood countless demon-style buildings.
There were also many Other Races living there, though all of them were slaves.
Among those slaves, there were even large numbers of humans.
There were more humans here than all the humans Mu Xiying had seen in all her wandering over these years put together!
And yet those humans were slaves of the demons just the same.
“Those damned Shadow Demons! They actually turned our human race into slaves!”
When Su Qingwu saw this, she was so furious she could not help cursing.
“At least they survived, did they not?”
“And besides, these people are not from Huaxia.”
To Su Qingwu’s surprise, Mu Xiying was not especially enraged. She replied like this instead.
Looking closely, Su Qingwu realized it was true. Most of the enslaved humans were people of other ethnicities that had once lived on Earth, mostly Black and white people.
There were Asians as well, but from their features it was obvious that many of them came from places like Southeast Asia.
“That may be true, but...”
Su Qingwu still wanted to say something.
“Come. Let us first see whether he is here.”
But Mu Xiying directly cut her off.
The moment she heard that, Su Qingwu’s pupils contracted.
He?
Could the “he” Mu Xiying was referring to be...?
Even so, she urged the armor onward, and the two of them flew at great speed toward the center of the entire demon cavern. Very soon, they saw an enormous demonic palace towering into the clouds.
That palace stood millions of meters tall, and its footprint stretched for thousands of kilometers.
It lay across the earth like some colossal beast crouching in wait.
Merely looking at it filled one with a deep, instinctive oppression.
To their surprise, the entire journey there was completely unobstructed.
They did not encounter a single Demon Sovereign-level expert!
“Could it be that this cavern has no Demon Sovereigns other than the Shadow Demon Sovereign?”
“But if it does not, then how has it managed to remain on Earth until now?”
Su Qingwu was baffled.
The alien races within the caverns were mortal enemies of one another as well. If the human race still existed, they might prioritize wiping out humanity first, but now that the human race had already been exterminated,
then only one race should have been able to remain on Earth.
Of course, Su Qingwu herself did not know what Earth’s overall situation was anymore.
After all, she had not gone outside the cavern in many years.
In fact, in the cavern where she had lived, not a single person had gone outside for nearly a thousand years!
Still, the closer Mu Xiying drew to the demonic palace, the graver her expression became.
At last, the two of them reached the palace entrance.
And yet, the moment they arrived, they saw a human figure clad entirely in battle armor standing in the air before the great palace gates, seemingly waiting for something!
BZZZ!!!
Suddenly, a sharp gaze shot out from beneath the helmet and instantly locked onto the hidden Su Qingwu and Mu Xiying.
“This is bad. We were discovered!!”
Su Qingwu’s expression changed.
“Classmate Su, it has been a long time.”
A familiar yet weathered voice suddenly sounded from beneath the armor.
The moment she heard that voice, Su Qingwu’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“Gu... Gu Xuan?”
Su Qingwu spoke in utter disbelief.
At the same time, the Nanotech Battle Armor on her body rapidly receded, revealing the two women who had been hidden.
In the next moment, the helmet was removed.
Revealed beneath it was an extraordinarily handsome young man with a trace of feminine beauty.
And that person was Gu Xuan.
“You’re still alive!?”
Su Qingwu asked, both shocked and delighted.
“Yes. I was fortunate enough to survive until now.”
Gu Xuan smiled faintly.
“If you didn’t die, then why—”
Su Qingwu hurriedly asked.
“Let us leave that for later. He has been waiting for you for five thousand years. Come with me.”
But Gu Xuan did not say more. He only cast a deep glance at the unfamiliar woman beside Su Qingwu.
Then he turned and flew inward.
Only after he turned around did the two women notice the blade strapped to the back of his armor.
The Thunderflame Frenzy Saber.
“The Supreme Realm. Gu Xuan’s talent seems to have risen quite a bit as well!”
“Or is it because of Xiao Xuan’s blade on his back?”
Mu Xiying could not help saying gravely.
“What? The Supreme Realm? Gu Xuan has already reached the Supreme Realm? No wonder he saw through us at a glance.”
Su Qingwu instantly sucked in a breath of cold air.
“That is not the important part. Let us go see him first.”
But Mu Xiying only drew a deep breath and hurried after Gu Xuan.
“Wait for me, Senior Mu!”
Su Qingwu quickly chased after her.
...
...
Gu Xuan led the two of them at high speed through the great palace.
As they passed, the demons they encountered all respectfully stepped aside.
“Gu Xuan, how did you survive back then?”
“Could it be that Martial God Long Jue and the others are still alive?”
Along the way, Su Qingwu could not help asking.
“No. Of all those who went that day, only I survived.
“The rest all died.”
Gu Xuan replied calmly.
At those words, Su Qingwu fell silent.
“Then... is the person we are going to see him?”
Su Qingwu asked again.
But this time, Gu Xuan did not answer.
Because after passing through a massive palace gate, he had already entered a vast central hall.
At the center of that hall stood a terrifying divine throne hundreds of thousands of meters tall!
And seated upon that throne was a demon just as calm as stone, one that itself stood a hundred thousand meters tall.
The instant Su Qingwu saw that demon, her eyes turned red at once.
Because that demon was none other than Xiao Xuan after completely falling into demonization, once he had activated Gigantification, the Blade Demon Form, and the Dark Demon Spirit Bloodline.
Although this demonized appearance was somewhat similar to the form Ouyang Zhantian had taken back then, it was also entirely different. Most of it came from the changes brought by Tian Ji’s Dark Demon Race bloodline.
Of course, even Tian Ji’s Dark Demon Race bloodline had never been this powerful.
This was an entirely new fused demon race!
As if sensing something, Xiao Xuan slowly opened his eyes.
Those golden demonic eyes instantly locked onto Mu Xiying.
The two of them gazed at one another from afar, yet neither spoke much.
“When did you arrive?”
And then, all at once, Mu Xiying asked Xiao Xuan that question.
“Four thousand years ago!!”
Xiao Xuan’s answer made Mu Xiying’s pupils contract.
“Four thousand years ago? How is that possible?”
Even Mu Xiying could not help but be shocked.