Book 9, His Fame Shakes the World – Chapter 40, The Secrets of the Yulan Continent
These words stunned Linley.
Get revenge? For what?
“Wait a second!” Linley immediately understood. Fourth Bro had indeed died an unjust death.
Linley grabbed Yale by the arms. “Boss Yale, calm down. Come. Come to my place. Tell me everything you know in detail.” Yale nodded slightly.
They arrived in Linley’s courtyard.
“What were the circumstances around Fourth Bro’s death?” Linley’s face was extremely serious.
Yale said with solemnity, “Third Bro, that day, Fourth Bro had led his men in a scouting mission outside the city. Who would’ve thought that they would encounter the soldiers of the Rohault Empire? Fourth Bro was vastly outnumbered. Despite going all out, only himself and a few dozen of his men escaped. Fourth Bro and his dozens of men fled to Neil City, and at that time, only three hundred enemies were pursuing them.”
“Three hundred?” Linley simply couldn’t believe it.
“Right. But simply because the Rohault Empire’s soldiers fired an arrow at the wall near where Prince Julin was currently standing, Prince Julin was terrified. He immediately ordered that nobody was to be allowed to open the city gates. He ordered his men to only stand guard inside the city. This was done solely to protect himself. As for Fourth Bro and his men, they kept on screaming angrily, ‘Open the gates!’, but nobody dared to do so...and just like that, Fourth Bro and his men were all slaughtered.”
Linley’s heart was beginning to blaze with fury.
He could see the scene as if he himself was there. His Fourth Bro had miserably screamed for them to ‘Open the gates!’, but Prince Julin had forcibly ordered people not to open the gates. Nobody dared to go rescue them either.
And so, Fourth Bro had died.
His death was an unjust one, a pointless one. He didn’t have to die!
“Where is Fourth Bro’s body?” Linley immediately asked.
Yale said in agony, “According to our Conglomerate’s intelligence network, Fourth Bro was hit by an arrow on the shoulder, and then the enemy used a warblade to slash open his chest. Fourth Bro collapsed at the corner of the walls. And then, the leader of the enemy soldiers took Fourth Bro’s corpse away as a spoil of war.”
“What?!” Linley couldn’t believe it. “Three hundred people before the gates of Neil City. Not only did the guarding forces not attack, they even allowed the enemies to take away Fourth Bro’s corpse?”
This was an absolute joke.
“Precisely speaking, the large majority of those three hundred soldiers stayed outside of bow range. The real attackers only numbered ten or so. Those ten experts didn’t care about arrows at all.” Yale’s heart was filled with bitter pain. “Those ten or so experts killed Fourth Bro, then took his corpse away...but given Prince Julin’s orders, none of the guard soldiers dared to venture out to do battle.”
The soldiers of the O’Brien Empire were extremely disciplined and would follow orders.
But such laughable orders, in all honesty, were extremely hard to accept for them.
“Fourth Bro...” In Linley’s mind, he could see the scene of how his Fourth Bro had angrily, desperately, screamed ‘Open the gates!’ outside the walls of Neil City, but the soldiers atop the walls had coldly refused to do so.
Such an unjust death filled Linley’s heart with endless rage.
Fourth Bro shouldn’t have died at all!
“Johann and the Dunstan clan both dared to deceive me.” Linley, knowing the truth, immediately understood that most likely, the Dunstan clan had done so due to their fear of offending Prince Julin and Emperor Johann.
“So it turns out that this was all due to that Prince Julin!” Linley’s rage was building.
He had heard of Prince Julin long ago. Emperor Johann was famous for his bias and partiality, and had made his incompetent younger brother the administrator of an Administrative Province. From this alone, one could tell how much Emperor Johann doted on his younger brother.
“Third Bro, only you are capable of avenging Fourth Bro.” Yale said with pained fury.
Yale’s heart was filled with self-reproach. He, too, wanted to avenge his Fourth Bro, but he personally was simply too weak, and the Dawson Conglomerate didn’t belong to him.
Linley nodded, a cold light shining forth from his eyes. “Since that Prince Julin caused Fourth Bro’s death, then he definitely must die.” Linley turned to stare at Yale. “Yale, take a rest. I need to make a trip.”
“What are you going to do? Are you going to act against him now?”
“No.”
Linley slowly, calmly shook his head. “If I were to directly kill Prince Julin, most likely that Emperor Johann would revenge himself upon the Dunstan clan...Fourth Bro is already dead. I don’t wish for his clan to collapse as well.”
.....
War God Mountain.
Linley stood in front of the tunnel which led to the War God’s training area, quietly waiting. Right at this moment, someone flew towards him at high speed. It was Castro.
“Linley, what are you doing here?” Castro questioned.
“I wish to see the War God.” Linley replied.
Castro nodded. “If that’s the case, then let me report your arrival.” But right at this moment, a voice rang out next to Castro and Linley’s ears at the same time. “Linley. Come in.”
Linley had already prepared the Windshadow spell, and so he flew into the tunnel. Those familiar, winding pathways led him deeper into the tunnels until he arrived at the pit. He dropped down several thousand meters, arriving at the bottom.
A few moments later, Linley arrived at that pitch-black stone door.
“Rumble.” That terrifying heat was still there, turning the stone walls scarlet red.
Linley said respectfully, “Lord War God, I imagine that you already know about my duel with Haydson. I imagine that I should now be qualified to learn of the secrets you previously spoke about.”
“Enter, then.” The War God’s calm voice rang out.
“Rumble...” The pitch-black stone door swung open on its own, revealing a tunnel within. A terrifying blast of heat blasted out from within.
Linley formed his Dragonblood battle-qi into his Pulseguard Defense.
“What a hot place.” Staring deep into the tunnel, Linley was astonished. On the far end of the tunnel, Linley saw an enormous magma pool that was at least a hundred meters wide. The lava boiled and hissed and swirled about, but this wasn’t the astonishing part.
The astonishing part was...in the air directly above the magma pool, there was a ball of fire at least three meters long.
This ball of fire was pure, scarlet red. It was constantly emanating waves of terrifying heat from mid-air. For Linley to be forced to use the Pulseguard Defense to protect himself, one could imagine how terrifyingly hot this ball of fire was.
The temperature of ordinary lava wouldn’t be able to hurt Linley, even if he went near it.
Even if he were to walk on top of lava, all he had to do was to control his battle-qi to protect himself. There was no need to use the Pulseguard Defense. Linley suddenly realized something...
“Where is Lord War God?” Linley looked suspiciously in every direction.
In the blink of an eye, he could make out the surrounding area. Aside from the central pool of lava, everything could be seen clearly in this area. But there wasn’t a human figure in sight.
“Linley!” The War God’s calm voice suddenly drifted down from within the ball of fire.
Linley stared in astonishment at that hovering ball of fire.
Could it be that the War God was that ball of fire?
A blurry human figure slowly drifted out from within that ball of fire. In the blink of an eye, that blurry human figure appeared next to the pool of magma.
This man was indeed the War God.
Linley carefully inspected this War God, whose legend was known throughout the Yulan continent. The War God wasn’t an extremely tall man, only around 1.8 meters tall or so. He had the appearance of a man in his thirties. He had thick eyebrows and scarlet red hair which had grown to his waist. Due to his careful observations, Linley suddenly realized that atop the War God’s scarlet red hair were multiple blazing flames.
The War God’s face was as hard and cold as granite, and his eyes were extremely sharp.
With every single action, he radiated absolute certainty. In particular, he possessed a terrifying presence which caused Linley’s heart to quiver.
Such power!
“Respectful greetings to you, War God.” Linley said courteously.
The War God carefully looked at Linley, a hint of a smile appearing at the corners of his lips. He nodded calmly. “Not bad. I watched your duel with Haydson. Your attack technique is quite interesting.”
A hint of a smile appeared on Linley’s face as well.
“Lord War God, I should now be qualified to learn about the secrets of the Yulan continent, right?” Linley had already decided long ago that before heading out to the Anarchic Lands, he would come visit the War God once.
And now, he had to seek vengeance for his Fourth Bro as well.
Linley had already made careful calculations. After avenging his Fourth Bro, he would immediately head out for the Anarchic Lands. In addition, this meeting with the War God wasn’t solely for the sake of learning the secrets. It was also to use the War God’s influence to suppress Johann.
Who did Johann fear the most? Without question, it was the War God!
“Linley, the attack you have developed is quite unique indeed. Your current level of power is indeed on par with Haydson, and is enough to qualify you to be made aware of the secrets of the Yulan continent.” The War God said calmly.
Linley listened carefully.
“Linley, do you know how I became a Deity?” The War God suddenly looked at Linley.
“Wasn’t it through gaining sufficient insight which allowed you to break through the limits of the Saint-level and reach the Deity-level?” Linley looked at the War God, puzzled.
The War God shook his head slightly. “It isn’t so easy to break through to the Deity-level. Even Cesar, with his extraordinary talent, spent five thousand years before reaching the Deity-level. As for me...although in the past, I had indeed reached the limits of the Saint-level, it was very hard to take that last step and break through. Five thousand years ago, during a battle, I was fortunate enough to acquire the divine spark of a Demigod. I absorbed and fused that divine spark...and thus, I became a Deity.”
Linley was stunned.
So the almighty War God whom everyone praised to the high heavens had actually broken through because he had acquired the divine spark of a Demigod.
“What, are you very disappointed?” The War God laughed calmly.
Linley shook his head. “No. It is very incredible that in the past, you were able to reach the limits of the Saint-level after only a few hundred years. Your eldest disciple, Fain, has spent thousands of years training. By now, he should be at the limits of the Saint-level as well.”
The War God laughed.
He was very satisfied with Linley’s response. Indeed, reaching the limits of the Saint-level in a few centuries was extremely difficult.
“It is hard to reach the limits of the Saint-level. For someone to reach the limits of the Saint-level definitely means that they have already arrived at the very end of the path of the Elemental Laws they have chosen. To break past that barrier, what they need is a sudden insight! In an instant, they must fuse together and combine every part of the aspect of Elemental Law they are training in. Only then will they succeed in breaking through.”
The War God sighed, “In the entire Yulan continent, up until a few decades ago, there had been six Prime Saints who had reached the limits of the Saint-level and only needed to take one more step before breaking through to the Deity-level. Now that Cesar has broken through, there are five Prime Saints remaining who are at the limits. One of them is Fain.”
“Currently, in the Yulan continent, aside from those five Deities, the most powerful people are Fain and the other four. You should already know by now how powerful Fain is.”
Linley nodded slightly.
Linley was now beginning to truly interact with the hidden aspects of the Yulan continent.
“Lord War God, what level of power does the Holy Emperor have, in comparison with those hidden experts?” In the future, Linley would definitely have to deal with the Holy Emperor. Naturally, he needed to ask this question.
“The Holy Emperor?”
The War God paused for a moment, then said, “Amongst the hidden experts of the continent, aside from the Deities, Fain and the other four Prime Saints are the most powerful. They need only a single step to reach the Deity-level. Beneath them are the likes of the Holy Emperor. There are roughly ten or so people on this level. Below them are those people on Haydson’s level. Most of the experts who lie hidden here in the continent are on Haydson’s level.
“The Holy Emperor is more powerful than Haydson?” Linley memorized this little fact.
The War God cast a warning glance at Linley. “The Holy Emperor trains in Oracular Magic. Oracular Magic is extremely powerful. It is normal for him to be on a higher level than Haydson.”
Linley looked at the War God, then asked, “Lord War God, then what are the secrets of the Yulan continent? What are they?” Linley had been curious this entire time.
For what reason had the Yulan continent attracted so many experts to remain here on this plane?
“In the Four Higher Planes, there is another name for the plane of the Yulan continent.” A hint of delight was in the War God’s face.
“What name?” Linley’s eyes lit up.
“The Necropolis of the Gods!” The War God said softly.
“The Necropolis of the Gods?” Linley’s heart thumped. “Lord War God, even if Deities were to die, there’s no reason they would have to come to our Yulan continent to be buried, is there?”
“Of course not.” The War God laughed calmly. “Five thousand years ago, many of the experts who descended from other planes were Deities. There were even Gods and Highgods. They engaged in warfare and slaughter here in the Yulan continent. In the end, aside from a few who left, virtually all of those experts died here.”