The Emperor Reigns Them All

Chapter 337 Second Realm

It was not known how much time had passed before Li Ye opened his eyes again to be able to look at things. It might have been only a moment, or it might have been a few days, and even ten days or a half a month was possible.

He found himself amongst rubble, surrounded by collapsed courtyards and houses. It was too old to tell the layout of the courtyard, and you could only tell that it was a large courtyard. The weeds were so tall that they could drown people’s heads. There were tall trees everywhere, and the ruins of the barren city had been swallowed up by the forest.

This was a completely strange scene. Li Ye had never seen it, and he did not know the place or where it was located. He looked around and saw nothing but the ruins hidden in the excessively tall woods.

Soon, Li Ye squinted. There was a collapsed courtyard on his left, and there were patterns on the bronze color bricks. These ornaments were not what were currently popular in the Tang Empire. It was ancient and age defined, much different from the present.

“I was just about to grab Chen Jizhen and Huang Jingyuan’s Magic Treasure. Unexpectedly, Feihong Bodhisattva was able to attack me in that situation. At the time, the situation was quite dangerous. The extreme white light suddenly enveloped the earth. It seemed that I was wrapped up in it. That white light seemed like a beam of light from the heavens...”

Li Ye shook his head and tried to sort out the thoughts in his head.

He stood up and prepared to fly to a high altitude for a look. After he circulated his Spiritual Qi, he could only jump a distance of ten or twenty feet. He could not fly at high altitude at all. His body fell clumsily.

Such a change made Li Ye’s heart heavy, and if his cultivation went wrong inexplicably, something had gone terribly wrong. He quickly inspected his meridians, the Ocean of Qi and Dragon Qi. Soon, he found that everything was as usual without any damage to the foundation.

Li Ye was perplexed. He utilized his Spiritual Qi and punched a large tree with the trunk that required three people to wrap around.

After the punch, Li Ye was stunned. A few steps away, the trunk was motionless, and only the leaves fluttered slightly, like a breeze brushed past. However, there was no wind, nothing but Li Ye’s all-out strike. With his current fighting power, the city wall could be blown away with one punch, but he could do nothing with this big tree before him!

Everything was strange like a haze, which instantly permeated every corner of the ruins.

Soon, Li Ye climbed up to the tallest tree nearby and looked around.

Beyond the ruins, what came into view was an endless hilly area. The terrain was undulating and gentle, and there was the odd flat ground squeezed in between. The two rivers near him meandered like a belt and flowed quietly. Aside from the forests, the surface was also covered by wild grass fields, gravel hills, and even abandoned fields.

In addition, there were many ruins, like scattered chess pieces, separated from each other by dozens of miles.

From the vaguely recognizable outlines, Li Ye found that these ruins were of different sizes, most of which were the size of a county or a state.

In the middle of the vast forest and ruins, at the bend where the river was winding the most, there was a thick cloud that reached the sky. The dense white fog covered a large area and occupied a quarter of the view. Thus, the dense fog seemed extremely thick.

At the end of Li Ye’s sight, there were hundreds of miles between them.

Outside the circular boundary of the field of vision, blue-violet lights flickered from time to time, connecting the sky and earth like the power grid. But it just looked rather thin, and the distance was quite long, which seemed there was not much threat.

After a while, Li Ye sat on a ruin of the city wall with his hand on his jaw, and studied the surroundings further. After surveying many times, he had a better knowledge of the current situation.

There was no doubt that this was no longer Hedong. At least not the place where he fought with the Buddhist and Taoist sects. And according to Li Ye’s knowledge, there was probably no such place in the Tang Empire. Such a vast area with so many cities in ruins, it did not look like mortal world at all.

Li Ye’s cultivation had not decreased, but his environment had changed. So the power of his techniques had greatly decreased. He was able to fly to the sky and drill into the ground before, but now he could only jump up ten to twenty feet. More precisely, his mass had been greatly increased.

Of course, not only was his mass increased, this strange rubble sight had weakened his overall cultivation. It was as though Li Ye’s cultivation was equivalent to a Warrior Mentor Realm here. A cultivator who was still a step behind the Qi-refining level.

“If my predictions are right, all of this is caused by that white beam of light. It’s very likely that we were all drawn to another space, which is the mystery.” Li Ye remembered that he was not unfamiliar with the current situation. The Holy Child even mentioned to him that when the mystery of the Tao of Heaven materialized in Taiyuan, it might cause abnormal change. Now it seemed that this was the abnormal change.”

Li Ye pondered, “The Tao of heaven mystery should have revealed itself in Taiyuan City. Now it is not known what kind of situation Taiyuan City is in, but this place seemed important too. It is just that no one knows what the Tao of Heaven mystery is, what form and state it exists in. I’ve never seen it and I don’t know how to take it.”

With this in mind, Li Ye jumped from the wall and went to see the other ruins. The next closest ruins was just ten kilometers away. Although Li Ye was not able to fly at the moment, ten kilometers wasn’t too far. He also wanted to see if he could find anyone else.

Just as Li Ye just jumped off the city wall, a white light shield suddenly appeared outside and Li Ye was still airborne. Li Ye was caught off guard and crashed onto the light shield. Just like a ball, he bounced back and fell back onto the city wall.

Li Ye’s face was pale, and he hadn’t sensed any Spiritual Qi fluctuation before. Unexpectedly, there were formations outside the city, which showed that the people who set the Barrier were very clever. The point was that beyond such ruins, there was a light shield that prevented people from going out. What did this mean?

Li Ye thought for a while, but he was still very much in the dark himself, so he had to look around.

Just at that moment, he realized something that made his pupils shrink.

The purple-blue grid at the end of the field of vision seemed to be closer to him.

He quickly found the reference object and determined that indeed, in the past few hours, the purple-blue power grid had moved in a lot closer!

Li Ye’s eyelids dropped a little. But before he could think, there was a sudden noise behind him. He turned his head alertly, and was immediately shocked. Because a dark shadow was coming for him, it was moving very fast and arrived in a flash!

Strike!

Without thinking, Li Ye twisted his wrist and the Luke Sword appeared instantly. He circulated his Spiritual Qi fully, and wielded towards that dark shadow!

His attack did not have Sword Qi spreading a thousand feet, nor was there any storm gathering, but the long sword was still going fast.

The pallid light of the sword flashed, and the blade reached the black shadow!

A loud metal grinding bang sounded, and a few streamers splashed on the blade!

Since he countered in such a rush Li Ye was not able to exert his full strength. At this moment, his thumb was aching, and his arm was in pain from the shock he absorbed. After the sword attack, he quickly withdrew and retreated. He distanced himself from the opponent, seeking space for the next attack. It was also during this time that he saw what the opponent looked like.

It turned out that it was not a monster who attacked him, but a person!

It was a middle-aged Immortal Court cultivator in Taoist robes. He looked majestic and immortal like, yet showing the power of a middle-aged cultivator!

One of the seventy-two Earth Devils, Guan Bin of Dizang City!

He was looking at Li Ye fiercely.

Li Ye did not expect that the first living person he encountered in this mysterious ruins was from the Taoist sect of the Immortal Court. But this was also normal, after all, the people he could meet here was either a friend or foe. Either way, it was a 50% probability.

Li Ye looked towards Guan Bin with his sword in hand.

Before entering the ruins of the mystery, the opponent’s cultivation was originally of the Ground Immortal Realm, a higher level than Li Ye’s Yang Spiritual Master.

After they exchanged attacks against each other, Li Ye naturally knew that the opponent’s cultivation was the same as his, which meant they were also suppressed by the mystery.

Li Ye was stunned.

Guan Bin wielded his sword toward Li Ye with the unique pride of the Taoist sect Immortal on his face. His eyes were full of disdain like the way someone of a higher status looked at the ordinary people. “Li Ye, you have disturbed the order of the world and disrespected the Taoist sect and the Immortal Court. You should have been hacked into pieces long ago, and you shall never rise! Now that I’ve met you here, where can you go without protection from the demon clan! If you know what is good for you, surrender so as not to get my Sword dirty!”

Li Ye was speechless for a moment.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to refute. Just that the opponent’s face disgusted him so much that he had no interest in dignifying the opponent with a response.

When he was young and simple, he used to think that Immortals were just and fraternal. At that time he was in awe of the Immortals, just like kids looked up to the policeman in uniform.

Later, he realized that people who had power in their hands, no matter how they whitewashed themselves, could not conceal their arrogance over the ordinary people.

The immortals would not save the world, they would only look down from above and enjoy the worship of mortals. Just like the ministers in the court, or the nobles and the aristocrats.

Li Ye hated the so-called immortals.

The ministers in the court, those nobles and aristocrats would at least consider the common people a bit to maintain their rule and status. But immortals just kept taking from the mortals and did nothing.

There were Immortals in this world, but there were no fraternal and just Immortals. They had the ability to dominate the world, but they were just another ruling class.

Everything was about power in the end.

But why did they still pretend to be noble and righteous. It was not necessary to put on a gorgeous veil and dress themselves as every body’s darling. How could they still say that if anyone was disrespectful to them they should be hacked into pieces and never be reborn?

Such a face was extremely horrible.

Li Ye hated such existence.

He hated those who had the power to despise and bully others.

He hated such hypocrisies.

He was indignant!

He wanted to clean up these dirty things.

For the Tang Empire!

For the world, for the people, for the heavens and the earth!

Li Ye’s eyes lit up.

Guan Bin didn’t know what Li Ye was thinking. He saw Li Ye was speechless for a while, and thought that he was deterred. This made him happy and proud. But in Guan Bin’s view, this was a perfectly reasonable thing. How could mortals not be deterred when they saw Immortals?

Guan Bin was secretly proud of himself. On the surface, he had awe-inspiring righteousness. He suddenly yelled and raised his long sword to Li Ye, “Li Ye! Since you know you’re wrong, you should repent! The Immortal Court still cannot tolerate you and won’t let you reincarnate and be reborn. However, if you repent and apologize, then you will know black from white, understand the order, and your soul can be cleaner when you die...”

His words stopped there.

Guan Bin opened his mouth and did not close it for a long time.

He looked dull with shock, confusion and fear in his eyes.

Li Ye, who was standing on the wall of the collapsed city, was suddenly full of momentum. His hair and clothes were fluttering viciously when there was no wind. And his Spiritual Qi was surging madly, forming a continuously expanding whirlwind. Like flying stones, his Spiritual Qi reached the diameter of thirty feet in an instant!

“How can this be...?” Guan Bin’s teeth trembled, and he was unable to understand the scene in front of him.

In this secret territory, their strengths had been suppressed by the environment, how he could make such a big noise as he had not yet reached the Qi-refining Level 1.

Guan Bin suddenly realized something, then he screamed and turned to run!

His choice was incorrect, but it was too late.

“For the people, for the heavens and the earth!” Li Ye’s eyes were like electricity, and suddenly enlightened. The hand holding the sword suddenly tightened, as if he had grasped his destiny, and suddenly he sliced at Guan Bin!

The sword brought the wind.

Guan Bin turned back in horror, and his fear distorted his features.

He opened his mouth wide, but the sound of the sword had drowned him before his voice could be heard.

Bang!

The wind was scattered and he was destroyed.

Guan Bin, whose body was blasted to pieces, left only a blob of flesh on the ground.

Li Ye sheathed his sword and stood upright.

He looked energetic.

The first realm of the Way of Emperor: be fearless and indefatigable.

The second realm of the Way of Emperor: harbor the people and accept the world!