Chapter 1444: Shaking the Ancient History of the Mortal World The Ultimate Showdown

The Martial Emperor emerges!

After years in seclusion, he had never revealed his true form. Even his battle with Number Nine that day was merely a manifestation of a weapon's illusory body, as he had been in isolated cultivation, comprehending supreme laws.

Now, with Li's reappearance and return, the Martial Emperor could no longer hold back.

In their most powerful confrontation of the past, he had suffered a disadvantage. Though his disciples always claimed Li had resorted to underhanded tactics, the Martial Emperor himself never offered any defense.

He wouldn't elaborate, acknowledging that after such a protracted battle, he had indeed been slightly outmatched.

Now, had Li returned from the Great Netherworld?

The Martial Emperor's vital energy surged, shocking the world. The entire cosmos resonated as a vast expanse of blood-red light engulfed the northern lands—a truly rare, world-shaking phenomenon in all of history.

It was utterly terrifying, shaking the Yang Realm. Even the most ancient beings, those who had walked since prehistoric mythical times, were alarmed and filled with dread.

At this moment, the Martial Emperor was shaking heaven and earth, utterly peerless!

The massive hand reaching out severed time itself, disrupting the stability of all realms. Everything began to collapse: order shattered, rules eroded, and even the Grand Dao was on the verge of breaking apart!

Legends became reality: the ancient portal to the Great Netherworld appeared, Li returned to his place, and the Martial Emperor attacked. This rapid succession of events plunged the Yang Realm into chaos!

Boom!

A massive, sinister, and horrifying hand covered the sky. Heaven and earth roared, the Grand Dao surged, and myriad rules and orders rearranged themselves, as if welcoming a king, summoning a Dao Ancestor, and inviting the Martial Emperor's descent!

It shattered space-time, a single hand overshadowing the sky!

The Martial Emperor's massive hand arrived. Despite traversing hundreds of millions of miles and crossing countless great prefectures, the hand pierced through the void, appearing directly above Yin Prefecture.

This was an invincible display, nurtured by an overwhelming momentum. Who in the world could possibly contend with it!?

The Martial Emperor's emergence, directly targeting Yin Prefecture, foreshadowed a major event.

Was this not only an attack on Li, but also an assault on the portal to the Great Netherworld?

With a cold snort, the figure leaning on the great banner moved. He suddenly looked up at the high heavens, his arm trembling slightly. In that instant, stars shifted, time flowed, and heaven and earth collapsed.

Everyone was petrified, their souls frozen. What did they see?

The galaxy hung upside down, the sun rotated backward, reversing its trajectory. Time instantly flowed in reverse as the cosmic river surged down, overwhelming everything, with endless order interwoven, spanning ancient and modern times!

The great banner in his hand fluttered, and as its surface unfurled, it seemed capable of rewriting history and re-establishing the present age; everything appeared poised for a complete re-shaping.

The whole world fell silent. Everyone stood rooted to their spots, like clay figures or wooden statues, their pupils wide as they stared at this scene.

This was a peak confrontation, a grand showdown between two ultimate beings who had long dominated the ancient history of the Yang Realm!

Boom!

Immortal light shot into the sky, and Dao Ancestor matter boiled, as if tearing through the Yang Realm and piercing through the thirty-three heavens!

In a trance, people saw the Underworld Reincarnation Road truly appear, projected by the energy of that peak confrontation. Beings of all races could faintly observe the ancient path.

At the same time, the Heavens also seemed to be faintly outlined!

It was too terrifying; this world-shaking strike left many prodigies of various races in despair. They felt they could never hope to reach the end of this level of combat in their lifetime, the gap was simply too immense.

This was not a gap that time could bridge. Even if they cultivated for eons, never aging, and maintained peak vital energy to continuously evolve, they still wouldn't be able to advance even a hundred miles into this realm.

This was a cross-era grand confrontation, a brilliant display that left people bewildered and frustrated. It made the elites of various races and many gifted beings lose their pride and erode their once strong beliefs.

It was truly a magnificent battle, both awe-inspiring and despair-inducing—brief yet eternal.

Order disintegrated, rules burned, and ten thousand daos roared. Everything from ancient times to the present seemed to be melted down, and the entire world was vast and indistinct, as if becoming part of a great furnace.

Until all light faded and gradually subsided.

Heaven and earth fell silent; many powerful beings remained dumbfounded, as if they had lost their souls.

It was astonishing and unspeakable: even after such an invincible collision, Yin Prefecture and the lands of the Yang Realm remained undamaged. Not a single blade of grass withered, nor a single yellow leaf fell.

That kind of attacking power, that unparalleled might, could easily swallow mountains and rivers or evaporate vast oceans; it would be no problem at all. Yet, now the land remained undisturbed, with nothing damaged.

This was truly astonishing, almost unbelievable.

People were increasingly shocked; this was a manifestation of ultimate energy control. The precise mastery had reached its peak, a subtlety beyond description—'perfect' was not enough.

Not a single trace of excess energy leaked out to harm the mountains, rivers, all things, or the cultivators in the world. This made it... even more terrifying.

Chu Feng felt a cold shiver run down his spine, goosebumps appearing on his skin. He secretly wiped away cold sweat, fortunate that he hadn't run to the northern part of the Yang Realm, nor danced around the Martial Lunatic's doorstep. He was also thankful to have the stone jar, which could conceal heavenly secrets, otherwise he likely wouldn't have had a good ending.

Such beings were truly terrifying beyond measure, shaking ancient times and deterring the present. They truly should not have appeared in the world!

At this moment, many people across the Yang Realm also came back to their senses, feeling a chill from head to toe. Even some great figures were trembling with fear, their hearts shrouded in a shadow.

The Martial Emperor's massive hand receded, and Li's great banner also stilled.

However, the next moment brought an even greater commotion.

The Martial Emperor had fully emerged, no longer just extending a hand, but his true body walking out of the extreme northern lands.

In an instant, heaven and earth collapsed. The entire Yang Realm seemed unable to contain his true body. After eons, the Martial Emperor revealed his Dao body for the first time, emerging from his bitter, isolated cultivation.

A grand path extended from the extreme north of the Yang Realm, moving at an incredible speed, piercing towards Yin Prefecture.

The grand path was brilliant, illuminating ancient and modern times. If one looked closely, it was entirely paved with golden energy-lotus flowers, forming an indestructible path that stretched southward from the Martial Emperor's mountain gate!

Even if it was hundreds of millions of miles away, under the feet of such a being, it was nothing at all.

At this moment, the Martial Emperor's southward journey marked a temporary cessation of hostilities, and the whole world fell silent.

Everyone was waiting, knowing that a greater storm was coming. The Grand Dao itself was roaring and trembling, as an unimaginable battle was about to erupt, shaking ancient times and the present!

Before the full battle commenced, the figure of Li beneath the great banner in Yin Prefecture spoke.

His eyes were profound and deep at this moment, his words piercing, shaking heaven and earth.

“I just want to know who, back then, put a black dog-skin bag over my head and utterly disgraced me.”

As these words came out, silence fell across the Yang Realm.

People were dumbfounded, all speechless.

Just moments ago, people had felt sorrowful and bleak, but for some reason, the moment Li uttered those words, the atmosphere completely shifted.

At this moment, beyond the realm, across the vast sky, in an unknown fragmented space among the myriad heavens, a large black dog, which had been previously startled and was watching the Yang Realm, now also sported a stunned expression.

Beside it was a grand, broken bell, and a humanoid decaying corpse lay upon it, from which abnormal black imperial blood flowed!

The black dog was very old, unable to straighten its back. Its teeth were almost all gone, and its fur was dull and about to fall out completely. After its initial stunned expression, it gnashed its teeth, the few remaining crooked, rotting teeth grinding with a grating sound.

“Who the hell stole half of the bloody fur that this Emperor shed back then?!”

Its projection descended, and its words reverberated across the sky, clearly perceived by many. In an instant, the world fell silent, and people were dumbfounded.

Even on that brilliant grand path spanning north and south, the Martial Lunatic's footsteps paused. For an ordinary person, that would have been a great stumble, leading to an immediate fall.

Even he seemed stunned.

Li's words, coupled with the black giant beast's explanation, completely changed the somber and bleak atmosphere. The tragic past no longer felt so poignant.

Although the person beneath the three dragon battle flags still had a hunched body and a face full of the marks of time, it seemed people no longer felt much pity or sympathy for him.

However, after their initial daze, some old monsters felt waves of horror!

First, some were shocked by the appearance of the ancient black dog. Not everyone was unaware of its identity; some beings who had lived through long ages and cycles of kalpas understood its true nature and never found it amusing, but rather deeply shocking.

The hearts of some beings almost stopped because this black giant beast's origin was too immense; it had once followed true... supreme beings!

It had once followed more than one Heavenly Emperor!

Pondering further, were those supreme powerhouses of the past still alive, or had they truly perished? It filled people with doubt.

Had that era truly ended? It had once been fought until all realms were desolate and the path was completely severed!

In that era, the Soul River wailed, the Four Extreme Floating Earths flew about, and the true Underworld Reincarnation Road, which rarely appeared, was burned and collapsed in pieces.

However, the era belonging to those few individuals, the age of supreme emperors, had ultimately become the past. Those people had declined and passed on forever.

The fact that this dog was still alive was, in itself, the greatest miracle in the world!

“What is it saying? ‘Half of the bloody skin it shed’…”

After careful thought, some felt a chill down their spines. Even the old monsters eventually trembled. Did this black dog shed its skin? According to historical records, the answer was no.

It hated shedding fur!

Someone remembered that historical records indicated it had been severely injured and had its skin peeled off by someone.

Now it seemed, someone had peeled off its skin, and then hurled it at Li?!

What exactly happened? That era was too terrifying!

This was an unsolved mystery!

Even if Li's words were amusing, and the dog's gnashing of teeth didn't seem too grave, this was by no means a normal or lighthearted past event. The strangeness and horror within it became more chilling the more one thought about it, making people feel a cold dread and goosebumps.

In a magnificent landscape somewhere, an ancient prehistoric powerhouse couldn't control himself, and a large part of his own cave-dwelling collapsed.

He failed to control his powerful aura while in deep thought.

Mainly, what happened today was too terrifying; various disturbances followed one after another, and even some old monsters' minds were in disarray.

Crack!

At the same moment, something that made hearts tremble occurred: in Yin Prefecture, the ancient portal—that terrifying golden fissure connecting to the Great Netherworld—once again emitted a crisp sound. The portal seemed to be opening, shaking violently.

While everyone in the world was speechless and feeling a chill, another voice spoke.

“These young people nowadays truly have no manners! You keep shaking things, shaking the heavens, shaking the earth, shaking the Yang Realm, shaking the Yin Realm, shaking the modern era, shaking ancient times—it truly upsets time itself. Damn it, you always keep old folks from sleeping. It’s absolutely awful!”