Chapter 694: This Sovereign May Now Die

Inside the spacious and gloomy Eternal Hall, it was exceptionally quiet.

Facing the question from this king of the old era, Zhou Huai fell silent.

A lackey of the Heavenly Dao?

In the eyes of these Ancient Remnant Clan members who once dominated the world and attempted to break the world's shackles, he, who complied with System missions and maintained the rules of the world, was merely a vicious dog driven by the Heavenly Dao.

But so what?

This was fundamentally a matter of stance; in a cruel world, there was never a clear distinction between right and wrong.

If anyone was to be blamed, it could only be blamed on Zhou Huai living in this precarious and chaotic era!

He possessed a God-level Clone System that could be called Heaven-Defying, but the development time left for him was simply too little! Too—

From his Transmigration until now, how long had it actually been? He was originally just a disabled good-for-nothing abandoned by his Family.

Yet the enemies he had to face were those high-dimensional monsters who routinely lived for thousands of years and could shatter space with a flick of their fingers!

There were ferocious beasts eyeing him hungrily in front, the unfathomable Dawnbreaker Guild behind, and now these remnants of the old era trying to subvert the present world popping up.

To put it bluntly, Zhou Huai reaching this step today was entirely pushed to the edge of the cliff by this rolling torrent of the era.

If he did not act in accordance with the Heavens, if he did not borrow this ethereal power to crazily plunder resources and rapidly enhance his strength…

He would have died long ago!

Long ago, together with the people he cared about by his side, he would have been ground into flying ash all over the ground by a Transcendent like Mr. Duan!

Right now, Zhou Huai only had one clear goal in his mind—that was to make himself strong at all costs, strong enough that no person or rule could threaten him!

Then go protect Uncle Fu, protect Ye Xi, protect the brothers of the Eternal Night Guild who entrusted their lives to him, and go find his mother, who harbored a heaven-shaking secret.

As for whether he truly was a lackey of the Heavenly Dao? He didn't care at all!

Or rather, right now, he didn't even have the qualification to care about this title!

Controlling Li Er, Zhou Huai raised his head and stared straight at the tattered dark golden skeleton upon the throne.

He asked the opponent in return, his voice echoing in the spacious hall:

"What about you?"

"You keep calling me a lackey of the Heavenly Dao, so why must you, this former Human Emperor, go against the heavens at a time like this?"

Hearing this retorting question, the Skeleton King on the throne was slightly startled at first, and then his jawbone violently opened and closed, emitting a hair-raising sneer.

"Hehe… Hahaha!"

The laughter went from low to arrogant, shaking the dome of this underground imperial palace.

"Why should this sovereign go against the heavens?"

The Human Emperor leaned forward. Within his hollow eye sockets, those two originally faint purple Soul flames unexpectedly burned violently, exuding an arrogance that looked down upon the ages.

"Because this sovereign… is the Human Emperor!"

"In the era where this sovereign resided, this sovereign was the strongest existence of the Human Race across the heavens and earth, throughout the universe!"

"Back then, this sovereign cleaved the Chaos with a single sword and pacified the four seas and eight desolate realms! Hundreds of millions of the Human Race honored this sovereign as their master, and ten thousand races trembled and prostrated beneath this sovereign's feet! A single word from this sovereign was the Law of heaven and earth! The era where this sovereign resided was the most glorious era of the Human Race!"

"As vast as the world is, could there be any land that is not the king's? To the very edges of the earth, could there be any subject who is not the king's?"

"This sovereign once thought that in this world, there were no mountains this sovereign could not conquer, and no vast seas this sovereign could not tread flat!"

The Human Emperor's voice was trembling, carrying an ultimate pride originating from the depths of his Soul.

However, just as his Aura climbed to its peak, his voice abruptly stopped.

That skeletal hand, which had been weakly clenched in mid-air, dropped powerlessly onto the armrest of the throne.

A long sigh of endless sorrow and unwillingness was emitted from that withered skeleton.

"But… so what?"

The Human Emperor leaned against the back of the chair, the Death Qi around his body churning violently.

"Even if this sovereign's achievements were peerless back then, even if this sovereign's cultivation reached the heavens and earth back then, and even if half a foot had already stepped out of that legendary threshold…"

"Ultimately, this sovereign still couldn't escape those two words: natural death!"

"The damned rules set by this thieving heavens forcibly stripped away this sovereign's vitality, allowing a peerless Prodigy like this sovereign to only watch helplessly as one's flesh and blood withered away, turning into a handful of foul-smelling loess while hiding in this dark underground to barely eke out a living!"

The Human Emperor slapped the armrest, the dark golden bones erupting with a harsh screeching friction sound as he roared:

"This sovereign is the Human Emperor! This sovereign is the Mandate of Heaven!"

"Why should this sovereign have to die just because the rules of the world demand it?!"

"Since the rules of the world are thus, this sovereign shall break these rules! Since the Heavenly Dao does not permit this sovereign to attain eternal life, this sovereign shall go against the heavens and trample this Heavenly Dao beneath this sovereign's feet!"

"That is all! And that is merely all!"

Facing the Human Emperor's deranged roar, Zhou Huai's expression did not change. On Li Er's aged face, there even appeared a trace of mockery.

"You speak with righteous confidence, and it sounds very tragic."

Zhou Huai controlled Li Er, his tone calm: "However, what use is that?"

"Do you truly believe that with your current neither-human-nor-ghost appearance, you can truly transcend the limitations of the world's rules?"

"If you truly could, back in your prime when you were still alive, you should have already taken that step to become a Transcendent!"

Zhou Huai pierced straight to the Human Emperor's sore spot: "Why wait tens of millions of years after death, running to the present world where Spiritual Qi has revived to pull the rug from under the feet and eke out a living through someone else's methods?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the temperature inside the hall dropped to freezing point.

The purple fire in the Human Emperor's eye sockets violently jumped once, but he didn't fly into a rage; instead, he calmed down. On his tattered skeleton cheeks, an incomparably eerie smile actually appeared.

"What do you understand?"

The Human Emperor sneered, his voice low: "You are still far from reaching the height this sovereign once attained; you simply don't understand just how flourishing and unshakable the past Heavenly Dao was!"

"In this sovereign's era, the Law of the Heavenly Dao was incomparably strict! Even if this sovereign wanted to forcefully break through during the prime period, this sovereign would be directly obliterated!"

"But nowadays… the era has changed."

"Today's Heavenly Dao is long past as flawless as it used to be. It is slumbering, it is weakening!"

"Especially today…" The Human Emperor grinned, his laughter carrying the gratification of a conspiracy succeeding, "This sovereign failed Undergoing Tribulation, but this sovereign forcibly triggered the world-destroying divine retribution, greatly consuming a portion of the Origin power of this tattered Heavenly Dao!"

Hearing this, Zhou Huai's brows furrowed together.

He captured the hidden amount of information within the Human Emperor's words.

Consuming the power of the Heavenly Dao?

"So to speak…" Zhou Huai narrowed his eyes, staring at the Human Emperor on the throne: "From the very beginning, you never expected yourself to truly break through and become a Transcendent today?"

"From the very beginning, you had already made plans to sacrifice yourself?!"

Zhou Huai's heart was exceptionally unsettled.

A dignified generation of the Human Emperor, a supreme overlord who once ruled the four seas, was actually willing to come out as a target after reviving? Willing to consume the thunder of the Heavenly Dao just like that, making wedding garments for someone else?!

Who on earth could have such great capability to make such a proud and haughty peerless overlord willingly march to their death?!

That name was on the verge of spilling out in Zhou Huai's mind—

Mr. Duan!

The leader of the Dawnbreaker Guild, that high-dimensional monster who had long since jumped outside the rules!

"Hahaha——!"

Seeing through the shock in Zhou Huai's heart, the Human Emperor looked up and let out an extremely satisfying burst of laughter.

"In this sovereign's life, this sovereign has never placed any living creature in this sovereign's eyes. But him alone, this sovereign is thoroughly convinced!"

The Human Emperor's laughter echoed within the Eternal Hall, displaying the heroic spirit of generously marching to death: "He has already proved the possibility of that path to this sovereign! Now, he has already let remnant Souls of the old era like us see true hope!"

"Even if this sovereign's body is smashed to pieces today, even if this sovereign cannot be the emperor of that new world…"

"As long as a crack can be opened in the shackles of the Heavenly Dao, as long as this cage will eventually be broken…"

The Human Emperor closed those hollow eye sockets, the Death Qi on his body beginning to wildly dissipate, and his voice became calm:

"This sovereign may now die."