Chapter 863: Night Emperor Wuming

Chapter 863: The Nameless Night Emperor

The Sword Emperor looked up at the sky; dusk was falling.

“So alike… just like that day’s scene.” The Sword Emperor sighed softly: “The same twilight of the world, the same darkness approaching… the difference being that back then, the Four Symbols were dead or mad, while now they are so complete, and there are even more.”

The “more” clearly referred to the ancient White Tiger, who stood apart.

Yue Hongling turned her head to look around but momentarily did not see Han Wubing’s figure.

The Sword Emperor said calmly, “If the Nameless Night had been willing to trust the Four Symbols back then, or even trust the Nine Nether, things might have been much easier to handle, and she wouldn’t have ended up so stretched thin. But it was only natural that she couldn’t trust anyone… just as I don’t understand why you all trust me so readily—just because I slew the Annihilator? Their strength has fallen behind, and they can be used as bargaining chips to gain trust—a good deal. Besides, that sword of mine couldn’t actually kill it.”

The group fell silent. It wasn’t exactly deep trust, but they had subconsciously regarded him as a respectable senior…

In the understanding of ordinary people, it was hard to justify killing one’s own ally so matter-of-factly, treating it as mere leverage or a tool… Even the Four Symbols Sect, when it was still a demonic cult, wouldn’t have done such a thing, let alone Yue Hongling.

Perhaps the earlier Nine Nether Society might have, but who knew how they were now?

No wonder the Nameless Night and the Nine Nether found it hard to trust anyone… The concept of trust was too heavy in their eyes. The Ethereal had trusted the Nameless Night and nearly perished, body and soul.

Suddenly looking back, it turned out they had always been in the martial world… The weaker one was, the more this held true—meeting a beggar, one had to be wary if he was an assassin. Only after growing stronger did they begin to overlook such things, yet it turned out that gods and demons were no different from the mortal realm.

The Sword Emperor said with a sigh, “But the fact that you can trust each other, entrust your backs to one another—that is the root of Zhao Changhe’s great momentum, enough to make even us wary.”

“So why?” Yue Hongling asked coldly. “Changhe told us… at the moment of the epoch’s collapse, there was also a senior’s sword aura raging against the heavens; in the sword intent I received from that senior, there was also a desperate resolve at the end. That senior was clearly a rebel like us—so what is the purpose of your current actions?”

“Don’t you understand?” the Sword Emperor said flatly. “Did Zhao Changhe see my sword aura and realize that the enemy I, the Nameless Night, and Lie were all pointing at was the same?”

Yue Hongling’s heart stirred. Zhao Changhe hadn’t witnessed that directly; he had been exploring it back then.

“Have you never considered that the White Tiger already represents all weapons, so why did a Sword Emperor suddenly emerge? And this Sword Emperor can even reach the Third Realm of Dominion, matching the Night sisters and crushing the White Tiger by an entire level?” The Sword Emperor chuckled. “This was always deliberate—a nail planted outside the Night Emperor’s system, distinct from dark agents like the Annihilator controlled by the Heavenly Dao. I am the Heavenly Dao’s self-projection.”

Everyone stepped back half a pace, their expressions grave.

“The Nameless Night awakened, the Nine Nether saw the truth—the top existences have all made their moves, so naturally I must do my part.” The Sword Emperor continued, “Do you know what that madwoman, the Nameless Night, was doing back then?”

No one played the straight man, and none was needed. The Sword Emperor went on: “She personally destroyed the Four Symbols, shaking the world’s foundations of the four directions and four seasons. At the most chaotic and fragile moment of the Three Realms, she shattered the world’s origin and destroyed the Heavenly Book. At that time, the world could still persist for a while by inertia, but everyone felt the turmoil—the omen of heaven and earth collapsing.”

That must have been the time when Zhao Changhe and the Ethereal returned to the ancient era. By then, the Nameless Night had already given the golden foil to Shuanghua; the Heavenly Book was destroyed, and anyone with cultivation could sense the impending collapse of the world.

“At that point, the Heavenly Dao thought things were still under control and stepped in to try to repair the Heavenly Book and eliminate variables like the Nameless Night. But it fell into her trap… She never intended to destroy the world; she was waiting for the Heavenly Dao to expend immense effort on reshaping the cosmos.” The Sword Emperor sighed. “Earlier, the Heavenly Dao had bound itself by setting the Nine Nether’s chaos and destruction. With the world in such turmoil, how could the Nine Nether remain idle? She perceived the sensation of the Heavenly Book being repaired as the Nameless Night maintaining order, and launched her strongest assault on the Heavenly Book’s origin. What actually took that blow was the caught-off-guard Heavenly Dao—it never expected the Nine Nether to suddenly attack.”

The group’s expressions began to shift. No wonder it was said that if the Nameless Night could trust the Nine Nether, the sisters could have cooperated and made things much easier… But such exploitation naturally wouldn’t yield perfect results. At the very least, the sisters couldn’t work together; their sequential attacks led to the Nine Nether being gravely wounded first, barely clinging to life until she awakened in recent decades.

It was also fortunate that the Nine Nether kept all her thoughts hidden, never leaking them to the Annihilator or others, or the Heavenly Dao would have known long ago.

“The Nine Nether is no pushover. The Heavenly Dao was expending great effort to repair the Heavenly Book when it suddenly took that hit. Though the Nine Nether was nearly annihilated by the counterattack, the Heavenly Dao itself was far from unscathed. At that moment, the Nameless Night launched another assault. My task was to stop her.” The Sword Emperor finally spoke of himself. “That so-called desperate resolve at the end… facing the Nameless Night, I was prepared to perish, body and soul, and also had a premonition of the coming collapse. But what surprised me was that I, too, was intercepted.”

So the Sword Emperor’s willingness to die was actually directed at the Nameless Night… The sword intent of the end that Yue Hongling had received was likely the Sword Emperor’s final strike against the Nameless Night, its lingering will persisting through the entire epoch, claimed by this era’s favored daughter.

The Nameless Night was right not to trust anyone—in theory, all primordial gods were tied to the Heavenly Dao, and their deaths would affect its power. A seemingly righteous deity like the Sword Emperor was actually a projection planted by the Heavenly Dao. It was only natural that she couldn’t trust the Ethereal or the Four Symbols. But even so, someone still aided the Nameless Night. Who was that?

The Sword Emperor said calmly, “The Nameless Night had schemed for so long; she wouldn’t fight an unprepared battle… Do you know who her true ally was in that battle?”

Yue Hongling suddenly said, “Lie. Because he wasn’t a primordial god.”

“Correct…” The Sword Emperor’s eyes showed approval again. “Lie was not a primordial god; he was a slave of the Spirit Clan who cultivated his way up, with a clear trajectory of self-growth. What he controlled was his own blood and energy, unrelated to heaven and earth. If the Nameless Night wanted someone she could trust a little, it could only be Lie. That Zhao Changhe inherited Lie’s techniques—I suspect that was no accident on the Nameless Night’s part… I think Zhao Changhe is aware of this now.”

“So Lie’s carving of the formation disk and his furious strike at the heavens—his target was you?”

“Indeed.”

“No wonder,” Huangfu Qing couldn’t help saying. “The sword light and blade light that Changhe saw, the Nameless Night’s power appearing in different places but converging in the same direction… He thought you were all united against a common foe, but it turns out it was like this.”

“Then why did Changhe, who started on Lie’s path, later shift to inheriting the Nameless Night herself?” Huangfu Qing asked.

“How would I know?” The Sword Emperor’s eyes grew shadowed. “In that battle, Lie and I both suffered heavy losses, but it shouldn’t have been so dire. Yet who knew that madwoman, the Nameless Night, would self-destruct her body to perish together with the Heavenly Dao? We were caught in the aftermath, worsening our injuries, and couldn’t withstand the subsequent collapse. Perhaps Lie also hated the Nameless Night, and she had to guard against him—who can say?”

“Self-destruct…”

“She was well prepared. Abandoning her body, she merged directly with the Heavenly Book, in a sense replacing the Heavenly Dao. We later learned that she had long conspired with the Ethereal to preserve the human realm. With the Heavenly Book sentient and the human realm intact, even if the heavenly realm collapsed, a new human epoch could be reborn. She had it all figured out.” The Sword Emperor sneered. “But no matter how severely we were wounded, we would eventually revive. If even we could revive, how could the Heavenly Dao die completely? When the primordial gods fully awakened, the Heavenly Dao would naturally return, and the game of this epoch began.”

Everyone pieced it together. Even after merging with the Heavenly Book, the Nameless Night was in a severely wounded state, especially after using her remaining strength to backstab the Ethereal—she was likely on her last legs, only awakening in this epoch. But she still had some initiative, awakening earlier than most, and thus laid her plans in advance.

At that point, she must have realized that to completely eradicate these primordial gods, relying on the people of this world was impossible—even she couldn’t do it alone. So she went to another world to recruit help, and thus Xia Longyuan entered the stage.

But Xia Longyuan proved unreliable; perhaps she recruited others too, but none survived, and in the end, it fell to Zhao Changhe to stir up the storms of this world.

What Zhao Changhe saw sealed beneath the Han Ice Dragon should be the remnant soul of the Heavenly Dao… At that time, the remnant soul held only hatred for the Nameless Night, and perhaps for all living beings in this world, giving Zhao Changhe an extremely malevolent impression. After the Nameless Night’s self-destruction, she sealed it beneath the Han Ice Dragon, which had been locked down by the Black Tortoise, using extreme cold to suppress that hatred and prevent it from tainting living beings.

Due to the ancient collapse and Zhao Changhe’s slaughter in this epoch, the primordial gods were nearly wiped out, and the Heavenly Dao’s revival was repeatedly delayed, still unable to rise.

The heavenly punishment after killing the Annihilator and the Demon Lord might not have been passive—it was the Heavenly Dao’s fury… At this point, to have the last few primordial gods annihilated, with so few left…

Thinking back, no wonder Zhao Changhe could insult the Nameless Night at will, even wiping his gun with the Heavenly Book, and she endured it. Because the primordial gods were awakening one after another like dumplings in a pot, and there was no time to recruit new help. Zhao Changhe happened to be such a genius; the Nameless Night was counting on him, so she had to endure.

Zhao Changhe didn’t know then; if he had, he might have made excessive demands like kisses and hugs—who knew if he could have gotten away with it? Maybe there was a chance.

Was this the reason the Nameless Night went silent afterward? She didn’t want to face Zhao Changhe, who clearly desired her, because with his thick skin, he might stir up all sorts of trouble…

The things the Nameless Night did were quite ruthless, but none of those present were saints. Three of the four were former demon cultists, and hearing these tales was stirring. One person against the Heavenly Dao, stirring the cosmos, making all gods and demons her pawns. The Nine Nether and the Ethereal were mere foils in her story.

The Nameless Night Emperor… spanning ten thousand ages, almost every major event bore her name. Until she met a man named Zhao, and her aura was utterly shattered.

The Sword Emperor finally said, “Do you know why I’m telling you all these old tales?”

Xia Chichi blurted out, “It doesn’t sound like a secret that must be kept… The Nameless Night refused to tell our husband properly—maybe she had her reasons, or maybe she’s just brain-damaged. There are no primordial gods among us, so what was she afraid of?”

The Sword Emperor: “…”

Why did there need to be primordial gods among them? This was opposing the Heavenly Dao—not everyone dared to even think about it. How could the Nameless Night casually reveal it? And after all this talk, didn’t any of you realize that opposing the Heavenly Dao meant death? Why did everyone look so excited?

The Sword Emperor couldn’t help adding, “Opposing the Heavenly Dao can never succeed. It may seem not yet revived, but it has long laid its plans. The Nameless Night’s schemes are doomed to fail. If you repent now, there will be places for you when the gods are re-enthroned. Why must you oppose the Heavenly Dao for a woman you don’t even know?”

Sanniang yawned. “We don’t care who the Nameless Night is… The point is, this ancient Spirit Clan god’s body must not awaken. Whoever tries to mess with it, we’ll be their enemy. Simple as that.”

The Sword Emperor said coldly, “If you only came to stop this… you seem to have arrived just in time, but in truth, it’s already too late.”

Huangfu Qing smiled. “Senior told so many stories, just to stall until the moon reaches its zenith and the Four Symbols stars shine. But we were indeed curious about these matters, so we indulged your wish to delay, while also satisfying our own thirst for knowledge.”

“You are quite confident.” The Sword Emperor looked up at the sky. The last glimmer of sunset had finally vanished.

In the western sky, a corner of the White Tiger constellation faintly appeared; in the south, the Vermilion Bird spread its wings, each revealing a part, converging in the southwest.

The Vermilion Bird and White Tiger converged in the southwestern wilds.

Not every Mid-Autumn Festival saw such a star pattern—in fact, almost never. It happened only once in countless years, and even the Four Symbols Sect’s own scriptures didn’t record such a thing.

Time, space, and the stars… all aligned perfectly with the prophecy.

“Swish, swish, swish!” The Sword Emperor waved his hand, and ten thousand sword forms appeared in the sky.

The Four Symbols Grand Formation activated fully; the stars blazed. Yue Hongling took the lead, her sword thrusting straight at the Sword Emperor’s face.

Zhao Changhe was in the Spirit Clan’s secret realm, briefly resting and healing his wounds, while also listening remotely to the Sword Emperor’s conversation with his wives. Suddenly, he felt the earth beneath him tremble, mountains shaking and ground quaking.

The next moment, whether it was the sacred mountain or other lands and rivers, they all peeled away like mud covering a human body, cracking and scattering.

The false sun and moon inside the Spirit Clan’s secret realm, which he had studied before, began to return to the earth, transforming into the eyes of a giant.

He could almost feel something beneath the earth, a life about to crawl out of the soil. The overwhelming pressure of an irresistible power, even before fully emerging, already made it hard to breathe.

It was the power of a world.

Zhao Changhe’s expression remained unchanged as he looked toward the distant Spirit Clan ancestral burial ground.

Han Wubing stood there quietly, his gaze seemingly also fixed on Zhao Changhe.

“Is our duel supposed to be at this moment?” Zhao Changhe said slowly. “Can I ask you one thing…”

“Speak.”

"Some resurrect the Spirit Clan's Land to make corpse puppets. Some seek to seize this body as a vessel. What are you after?"

"This is a foreign deity—He can cleave open this very sky."

Zhao Changhe was silent for a moment, then sighed softly: "Even if His revival would cost many lives in Miaojiang?"

"He has no need to slaughter the living... Unintentional harm—we have long prepared for it. We can shield them as best we can; it is not difficult."

"Well thought." Zhao Changhe sighed. "But Wubing, do you trust me?"

"...If you speak, I will trust."

"You have been deceived." Zhao Changhe said calmly. "This land is no foreign deity sealed here at all. From the very beginning, it was part of the Heavenly Dao, forcibly planted here to weaken the Nine Nether's influence on this world—hence it seems utterly alien, a realm unto itself. Now it has become a perfect bait. Whoever covets this prize will only end up weaving a wedding gown for the Heavenly Dao."

"How can you be so certain?"

"If it were truly an external enemy of the Heavenly Dao, then Ye Wuming would have tried to awaken it in the last epoch—how could she have let it lie here? And in this epoch, when the Nine Nether attempted to stir it, Ye Wuming stopped them. Conversely, it is the Sword Emperor, a nail of the Heavenly Dao, who seeks to revive it... Wubing, this is basic logic—no harder than the cases you solved back in the jianghu..."