Chapter 920: The Final Emperor's Shadow

Chen Ling was speechless.

He had considered that Xuan Yujun might be an enemy, that he might have offended him in the past, or that he might be an execution machine solely focused on killing all emperors. But he never imagined that Xuan Yujun, one of the esteemed Nine Monarchs, would actually be playing a prank on him. "You..." Chen Ling opened his mouth for a long time, unsure whether to curse or laugh.

"I should go, Director Chen." Xuan Yujun's smile gradually faded. By now, his appearance was indistinguishable, and his entire body began to subtly fade and disappear. "We'll meet again in the future... Oh, and by the way, say hello to Brother Lu for me." As his words fell, Xuan Yujun's figure vanished completely without a trace.

Chen Ling had been wondering why Xuan Yujun's body had become blurry, and in a blink of an eye, he had vanished from the world. It seemed that this Xuan Yujun was also an entity not belonging to this timeline. No wonder Xuan Yujun suddenly appeared out of nowhere and specifically came for the Ancient Imperial Treasury; it must have been an operation from the human realm. Chen Ling pondered briefly and understood the cause and effect, though Xuan Yujun's act of taking the time to "intimidate" him before leaving still left Chen Ling reeling. "Ji Xuan..." Chen Ling murmured to himself, "You just wait."

With the Ancient Imperial Treasury collapsing, Chen Ling didn't linger. Instead, he stepped on a cloud, descending towards the Gray Realm's ground. Boom—!! The Ancient Imperial Treasury, which had been suspended in the sky, fell like a collapsing iceberg. Massive fragments slowly plunged downwards, striking the Gray Realm's ground with thunderous roars.

At this moment, in the shattered "Active in the Abyss" layer, A Qian tightly clutched Li Fu's waist, while Li Fu gripped a beam lodged at the edge of a cliff. Below them was nothing but vast emptiness, and howling winds swept through the fragmented world, making their bodies sway precariously. "Brother Li... I'm so scared..." A Qian was terrified by the apocalyptic scene before her, her face deathly pale. If she accidentally let go now, she would surely fall to her death. "Don't look down! Just hold on a little longer!" Li Fu's eyes were bloodshot, and his slender body seemed to summon strength from nowhere, dragging both their weights. Inch by inch, he climbed the still-suspended palace ruins via the beam, then collapsed onto the ground, drenched in sweat. A Qian's limbs were also weak from fear. Before she could say anything, the fragment they were on seemed to malfunction and suddenly plunged downwards! Screams echoed in the sky. Fortunately, the ruins didn't fall directly but intermittently hovered in the air. Finally, with a strong sense of weightlessness, the two of them and the ruins crashed violently onto the Gray Realm's ground! Clouds of dust billowed up. Under the lead-gray sky, many more fragments of ruins continued to fall like a shower of dying stars.

"A Qian... A Qian, are you alright?" Li Fu felt intense pain in his back, as if his entire body was about to fall apart. Still, he immediately got up from the ground and stumbled through the ruins, searching. Fortunately, he soon found A Qian not far away. Thanks to the ruins hovering a few times in the air, A Qian was mostly unharmed, though she seemed to have fainted from the sensation of weightlessness. After confirming A Qian's safety, Li Fu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Next, Li Fu found other figures in the nearby ruins. These were young people who had also been caught in the Ancient Imperial Treasury. They had been struggling to ascend the path to enthronement, only for the path to shatter midway, followed by the collapse and destruction of the Ancient Imperial Treasury itself. Li Fu checked their breathing. Most of them had fallen from the path to enthronement and were no longer breathing, but a small number of lucky ones were still alive. "More than a hundred people entered the Treasury, and in the end, fewer than ten made it out alive... They always said the Gray Realm was dangerous, and it truly is," Li Fu said with a bitter shake of his head.

Just as Li Fu was about to pick up A Qian and leave, a series of sounds suddenly emanated from the ruins not far away! Li Fu turned his head and saw with shock that the shattered palace remnants and scattered stone fragments on the ground were being pulled forward as if by an invisible hand! Stone by stone, they returned to their original positions, and the shattered palace floor perfectly restored itself. Above the originally fragmented palace, a black palace materialized out of thin air, forming from nothing! "This is..." Li Fu felt a dreamlike unreality witnessing this scene. Within mere tens of seconds, a magnificent and mysterious hall stood atop the myriad palace ruins. Its heavy doors slowly opened towards Li Fu, and a faint imperial aura emanated from within. It seemed to be waiting for him to enter.

Li Fu instinctively took a step back. He had experienced too much in the Ancient Imperial Treasury and felt an instinctive fear of these imperial palaces. Approaching an emperor would not end well. Roars—Low roars came from other directions within the Gray Realm, as if some monsters were approaching. Li Fu, who was about to leave, suddenly stopped. He surveyed the gray world around him, hesitation appearing in his eyes. He had escaped from the Ancient Imperial Treasury, but what now? Outside the Ancient Imperial Treasury, the Gray Realm would only be more dangerous. Without the protection of the Sacred Skeleton, he and A Qian wouldn't be able to walk even a kilometer before being devoured by calamities. It seemed he had survived a desperate situation, but in reality, he had only stepped into a more brutal dead end. After a moment of frowning thought, Li Fu still turned around and looked again at the mysterious palace whose doors were open to him. Li Fu wondered if it was his imagination, but the palace seemed to have read his mind, standing silently with its doors open, confident that he would enter. After all, in this certain death situation, it was the only unknown possibility. "...Never mind," he muttered, "this life hasn't belonged to me for a long time anyway, so there's nothing to be afraid of." Li Fu gritted his teeth and stepped through the scattered ruins, entering the magnificent palace!

The moment he stepped into the palace, the heavy, open doors slammed shut with a roar, plunging the entire hall into darkness. Just as Li Fu's heart leaped to his throat, a deep voice slowly echoed from the darkness ahead: "To think that the last hope of the Imperial Path would be a young man who cannot bear the weight of destiny..." Clusters of flames suddenly ignited in the darkness, illuminating a long path of flickering candlelight within the hall. At the end of the path, before a towering imperial throne, a blurry imperial figure appeared faintly. The instant he saw that figure, Li Fu's heart trembled! It was important to know that all the emperor's remnants Li Fu had seen in the Ancient Imperial Treasury were incomplete, having even lost the ability to speak. But this one, not only was its form more solid than the others, but it could also speak and communicate! Who exactly was he?