Rulers

*Buzz! Buzz!* The trembling of the Gate of Karma was faint. So faint, in fact, that it was practically negligible. Even the sliver of karmic power that leaked out was utterly minuscule. Yet how keen were the perceptions of the Immortal Kings present on the battlefield? They were sharp enough that not the slightest rustle of grass or shift of wind could escape their notice. Consequently, the very instant the Gate of Karma was shaken, every single Immortal King sensed it. At that moment, whether they belonged to the Ancient Immortal Alliance or were the surviving Immortal Kings of the seven conglomerates, everyone froze in place. Immediately after, their gazes turned in sheer horror toward the heavens, fixing upon the Gate of Karma that had hung suspended there for over three million years without the slightest change, their eyes filled with utter disbelief. "The Gate of Karma... was shaken?!" Only after a long while did Immortal King Taiyi mutter to himself. "The rumors were actually true. Ordinary Grand Daos cannot shake the Gate of Karma or the Gate of Fate, for both are Supreme Grand Daos. Even a single Supreme Grand Dao alone is incapable of rattling either portal. Yet once two Supreme Grand Daos are cultivated to an exceptionally profound realm, they can disrupt the equilibrium of the Gate of Karma. Once that perfect balance is broken, it will no longer be intact, and at that point, the total destruction of the Gate of Karma will only be a matter of time!" "This was never a rumor; it was a deduction calculated by the Lord of Yuanxi using immense computational power! What we see right now is merely the confirmation of that conclusion!" "If the Gate of Karma can be shaken, it can inevitably be shattered! It's just like a monster finally exposing its health bar—with our side holding an absolute advantage, we can grind it down to dust even through sheer attrition! Once the Gate of Karma falls, the Gate of Fate will be left standing alone; how much longer could it possibly hold out? And once the final two Supreme Grand Daos are broken... our Hunyuan Realm will welcome ultimate victory in this war between two worlds!" At this moment, all the Immortal Kings of the Nine Great Conglomerates' faction fell into an uncontrollable state of ecstatic frenzy. Hope! They saw genuine, tangible hope for the Hunyuan Realm to achieve total victory. It would no longer be like these past few centuries, where winning never counted as a true victory, where the Nine Great Conglomerates even descended into infighting, and the entire war dragged on into meaningless garbage time. Things were different now... The hope of victory was practically right before their eyes. "Yuxiao! Stop!" Immortal King Taiyi roared thunderously, "The Gate of Karma has been shaken! The hope of breaching this portal is right before us! Once the Gate of Karma falls, the Gate of Fate will be unable to hold out alone, and the destruction of the Ancient Immortal Realm will only be a matter of time! You are the single most pivotal figure who will decide the outcome of this inter-realm war! Whatever you want, we can satisfy your demands! As long as—" "Get lost!" With a flick of his hand, Yaoguang hurled a Great Void Art straight at Immortal King Taiyi. "You couldn't even hold off the four conglomerates and ended up leaving me to clean up your mess. And now, you actually want to steal a share of my credit?" Amid divine sense ripples dripping with contempt, even though Immortal King Taiyi did everything in his power to block, he still could not escape the fate of being blasted away by the strike. Immediately after, Yaoguang turned around and clenched his hand forcefully toward the void where Immortal King Yuantu stood. Empowered by the Great Time Art, the Great Void Art rolled forth with crushing momentum. The ceaseless, collapsing spatial force instantly obliterated all the protective immortal arts and life-saving immortal artifacts manifested by this Immortal King. "No! Stop! Yaoguang, everything you have right now is built upon the premise of having inherited the legacies of the Time Dao Ancestor and the Void Dao Ancestor! Once the Ancient Immortal Realm is destroyed, everything you possess will be stripped away... You naturally belong on the side of our Ancient Immortal Realm! If you stand with us, you will be one of the three Supreme Dao Ancestors, on par with the Karma Dao Ancestor and the Fate Dao Ancestor! If you defect to the Hunyuan Realm, at best you will only become their tenth Ruler..." Immortal King Yuantu's divine sense erupted with full force. Yet it could not impede the Great Void Art crushing down upon him in the slightest. Under his bewildered and unwilling gaze, his immortal body and soul were completely pulverized by the Great Void Art. Only the Wheel of Karma remained, falling into Yaoguang's hand. Yaoguang was already just a step away from grasping the Grand Dao of Karma himself, so the power he could unleash while wielding the supreme treasure known as the Wheel of Karma far surpassed what Immortal King Yuantu had been capable of. With a slight strum of his fingers, the tremor coursing through the Gate of Karma intensified. Forget the many Immortal Kings present on the battlefield—it seemed as though every living being across the entire Immortal Realm could perceive the tremors of the Gate of Karma, which hung in the sky like a blazing, full moon. *The Gate of Karma truly was treated as a sacrificial pawn; they even delivered the key right into my hands.* Feeling that, by holding the Wheel of Karma, he could shake and even shatter the Gate of Karma with just a little external force, Yaoguang could not help but sigh inwardly. To the Lord of Yuanxi and the Nine Rulers, the Immortal Kings of the Nine Great Conglomerates were merely chess pieces. Yet to the Fate Dao Ancestor, were the dozen-plus Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal Alliance—including Deputy Leader Immortal King Yuantu—any different from chess pieces? However, he could not understand: if the Gate of Karma was broken, where would the Karma Dao Ancestor stand? And as for the Time Dao Ancestor and the Void Dao Ancestor, they had clearly fallen, and their Dao Ancestor authorities had scattered into the hands of various Immortal Kings... Of course, Yaoguang had reclaimed them now. Yet it remained a fact that they had lost their Dao Ancestor authority. In that case, what method did they intend to use to turn the tables? Or could it be... *Without other Dao Ancestors standing in the way, is the Fate Dao Ancestor truly the most powerful head of the Three Thousand Grand Daos? After all, the very essence of the Grand Dao of Fate is to coordinate and orchestrate the operation of the other two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine Grand Daos. Without any other Dao Ancestors, he would be the true sovereign and ruler of the Three Thousand Grand Daos, possessing the ability to mobilize all the power of the Ancient Immortal Realm just like a world will or cosmic consciousness?* Yaoguang grew thoughtful. Yet even as he pondered, the movements of his hands did not slow in the slightest as he continued to unleash the Great Void Art, systematically wiping out one Immortal King after another. Such ruthless slaughter infuriated Immortal King Taiyi while sending an intense chill down his spine. "Why?! Why is he doing this?!" His heart was filled with utter incomprehension. "I think I've figured out a possibility," Immortal King Nizhuan surmised with a grim, chilling expression. "Right now, Yuxiao has demonstrated the ability to shake the Gate of Karma. Once the Lord of Yuanxi and the Nine Rulers react, they will inevitably issue orders—or even descend in person—to protect Yaoguang as he uses Dao resonance to shake the Gate of Karma until it is breached. During this process, every Immortal King who protects him would surely be credited with a portion of the contribution. And theoretically, all of that contribution should belong to him alone." Resentment burned deep within this Immortal King's eyes. "That's why he's trying his absolute hardest to eliminate every Immortal King here—he's afraid others will dilute his contribution! For every Immortal King dead, the price he needs to pay is reduced. If all goes smoothly, not only will he become the tenth Ruler in one fell swoop, but he might even rank among the very top of the Ten Rulers!" "This..." Immortal King Taiyi was struck dumb with astonishment. Even though Immortal King Nizhuan's deduction seemed a bit far-fetched, they genuinely could not fathom why else Yuxiao would insist on completely offending both their side and the Ancient Immortal Alliance. Without self-interest, his actions made no sense whatsoever. And the only conflict of interest between them and Yaoguang lay in the elevation of authority after breaching the Gate of Karma and even the Gate of Fate. Thus, setting aside all other speculations, the remaining impossibility was the only correct answer. "He is already laying the groundwork for his ascension as a Ruler," Immortal King Nizhuan said, his expression exceedingly ugly. "Therefore, what we must do now is find a way to hold out as long as possible until the Lord of Yuanxi and the Nine Rulers arrive! Once they are here, no matter how deranged Immortal King Yuxiao is, he will not dare incur universal outrage by continuing to attack us!" Upon hearing this, Immortal King Taiyi no longer cared whether the theory was true or false. In any case, their only option was to defend with everything they had and preserve their lives first. Immediately, the Immortal Kings from the Creation Group, Xiyu Group, and Dusk Group gathered together, forming a battle array to hold their ground to the death. "Yuxiao has already shaken the Gate of Karma. The importance of this disturbance far exceeds the great Lord of Yuanxi descending to the lower realm. Very soon, the Lord of Yuanxi's power will truly arrive..." Immortal King Taiyi even channeled the strength of all the Immortal Kings into the Dao of Wuji, preparing to endure until the moment the Lord of Yuanxi's power arrived. In truth, the Lord of Yuanxi's reaction did not defy anyone's expectations. Less than a breath after Yaoguang wielded the Wheel of Karma to effortlessly shake the Gate of Karma, the Lord of Yuanxi's power beamed down like sunlight piercing through an overcast sky. High above in the firmament, the process of clouds parting and mist dispersing seemed compressed into an impossibly brief instant, occurring in a flash. Immediately following that, the Lord of Yuanxi's power rolled forth, blotting out the sky and covering the earth as it engulfed the entire void surrounding the Gate of Karma. Under the intimidating pressure of this power, even Yaoguang chose not to continue wiping out the Immortal Kings of the four conglomerates, turning instead to hunt down the remaining Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal Alliance. And it was at the exact moment the Lord of Yuanxi's power projected down that all the Immortal Kings felt the overwhelming relief of surviving a catastrophe. "We survived! We survived!" "The Lord of Yuanxi... the Lord of Yuanxi's power has finally arrived..." "I can feel the empowerment of the Lord of Yuanxi's might! This is my true, ultimate form!" As Immortal Kings of the Nine Great Conglomerates, they had always harbored a deep loathing for the Lord of Yuanxi's constant surveillance in normal times. It was precisely because of the Lord of Yuanxi's presence that on many occasions, when some immortal spirit far weaker than them arrived just moments earlier and seized a share of a Grand Dao right under their noses, they could only watch helplessly, unable to slaughter those immortal spirits and take the shares for themselves. Some low-tier immortal spirits even had the gall to brazenly criticize and lecture them, high-tier immortal spirits, on their conduct. Yet, intimidated by the Lord of Yuanxi's so-called fairness and justice, they had to endure it, swallow their pride, and sometimes even obediently apologize. Because of that, when the Lord of Yuanxi had extended his power into the lower realm's starry sky and lowered his surveillance over the Immortal Realm, the ones who had truly intended to settle old scores and exact vengeance were almost entirely the True Immortals, Immortal Venerables, and Immortal Kings of the Nine Great Conglomerates. Meanwhile, the Dao Lords, True Immortals, and Immortal Venerables from smaller factions had all sought every possible means to hide, living in constant terror. Yet now... As the Lord of Yuanxi's power beamed down, there had never been a moment when they felt so expectant and overjoyed to witness this sight. The intense ecstasy even caused them to momentarily lose control of their emotions. And almost the instant the Lord of Yuanxi's power projected downward, a succession of formidable wills followed closely behind, surging forth in a tempestuous tide. As these wills descended alongside the power of the Lord of Yuanxi, the Three Thousand Grand Daos of the Ancient Immortal Realm seemed to yield the way for them. The power of the Grand Daos receded into the distance, replaced by an entirely different system of power. A system of power... Constructed entirely out of "spirituality"! The Nine Rulers had descended!