Chapter 804: Gathering at the Ruins
When Suxue processed what had just happened, her face turned red. She looked at Long Chen with embarrassment and changed the topic. “Uh, that cat is a Dream Demon, right? I’ve seen it before, when you were fighting Situ Yu. That demon is indeed scary. Anyone below the Sixth Earthly Martial Stage will find it difficult to resist its magic. That one is still a juvenile, so it will be even more powerful in the future.”
Long Chen pursed his lips and said, “I don’t have high hopes for this perverted cat.”
“Hehe. But normal Heaven-tier beasts can’t speak human language. I wonder if that Dream Demon can become a King-tier beast one day. When it takes a human form, it’ll surely be very cute.”
Then she suddenly recalled something and said, “Long Chen, I heard that when you first came to the Ancient Graveyard, you had a demonic wolf, which Wu Guangyu snatched from you. Now that wolf seems to have reached the Category Nine King-tier. Is it all true?”
After Long Chen became famous, people slowly learned about past events. Many people also knew about him swearing that he would kill Wu Guangyu.
“That is indeed true. That demonic wolf cannot be considered my pet. He’s my brother,” said Long Chen with his head hung. His gaze was dark.
“If it’s staying by Wu Guangyu’s side so obediently, I assume it’s been tamed already. You’ve lost a brother … I’m sorry for bringing this up,” Suxue said hurriedly when she saw Long Chen’s grimace.
Long Chen smiled, but it was a cold smile, and he said, “No worries. Wu Guangyu will regret it in a few days.”
Suxue panicked a bit when she saw the killing intent hidden in his smile.
She did not understand his confidence at all.“You must be careful. But I believe in you!” she said determinedly with light in her eyes. “But the most important thing is still to survive,” she added.
They were almost at their destination. Long Chen looked ahead and spotted the ruins. Torn walls were everywhere and collapsed buildings were scattered across the land. The city was likely gigantic at one point, at least double the size of Heavenly Wood City. At least Heavenly Wood City had been preserved well. Everything here was rotten and corroded, and covered in rust spots.
Giant Metal City, Heavenly Wood City, Tianyi Water City, and the others were all related to the elements of the respective districts. However, this city was just a normal city.
An ancient, rotten aura came from far, far ahead.
The group quickened their pace and soon arrived. After circling around the city, they saw another patch of flatlands and sensed two powerful auras. There were two groups of people standing there.
They were the Divine Wind Faction and the Five Elements Alliance.
The Nine Clan Martial Youth Competition was a grand event for the nine clans, and it had always been held in the Ten Thousand Nations Territory. This time, because the Ancient Graveyard had been opened and they had some influence from a neutral master, the Long-Bearded Guest, they had chosen to hold it in the Ancient Graveyard.
In the past, at least a hundred thousand people would gather to watch the competition, as it was the largest event of the Ten Thousand Nations Territory. Many people would even be proud to personally attend and watch, much less personally participate in it. There were billions of people in the Ten Thousand Nations Territory, and only eighteen could participate. Each of them was the best of the best!
The true prodigies of the Ten Thousand Nations Territory could not be compared to the previous Long Chen, who was an ant.
However, this time, the competition was related to a secret treasure, the Yellow Emperor Key. That was why the nine clans not only kept the competition a secret, they also forbade outsiders from entering the Eternal Battlefield. By now, only the relevant people were present.
There were ten people from the Thunder Demon Faction and even people from the Divine Wind Faction. Since the Five Elements Alliance consisted of five major clans, they had more than thirty attendees.
The Demon and Divine clans were the most powerful of the nine clans. Each clan that made up the Five Elements Alliance was around as strong as the Wind and Thunder clans. Combined together, they were slightly stronger than the Divine Wind and Thunder Demon Factions.
Many enemies were reunited again, and the tension in the air was thick.
Long Chen was calm. He stared ahead and followed Bai Lan and the others toward his assigned position. Many people were already looking at him curiously.
The Divine Wind Faction, including Wu Guangyu and Feng Zhilin, were present too. Their hatred for Long Chen was deep, and they were the only ones who were particularly hostile. On the other hand, the Five Elements Alliance was curious about the youth who had defeated Feng Zhilin and taken the Seven Star Lord’s inheritance.
Formally speaking, Long Chen was not considered part of the nine clans yet.
The youths of the nine clans knew their peers well, and Long Chen’s appearance here was considered an unexpected phenomenon.
The youths present were the future leaders of the Ten Thousand Nations Territory, so every single one of them was considered extraordinarily powerful. Out of these eighteen, only one or two had not reached the Ninth Earthly Martial Stage, though those people had other powerful techniques. For example, Feng Zhilin. When she combined her Shapeless Whip and the Thousand Seals, she was very powerful. ᚱAℕ𝐨BЕṨ
Furthermore, who could guarantee that Feng Zhilin had not achieved a breakthrough since her last public appearance?
Long Chen was not the only one in the world who was improving.
His attention was only on Xiaolang, and they were communicating in the language of beasts.
“Big Brother …”
“You must be losing your patience already. The time is near. Stay there for the moment. After I clear the obstacles, we will travel the world together once more.”
Xiaolang, feeling overjoyed, said, “Alright! I’ll wait for you!”
Long Chen was still walking, and no one knew that he and Xiaolang were communicating.
The three factions each went to their assigned locations and waited. The atmosphere was tense. This was all flat land and there were no seats, so everyone stood.
After the Thunder Demon Faction arrived, there was only one person missing. He was the witness to the competition, and also the sponsor of the winner’s reward. The Long-Bearded Guest.
If his name was anything to go by, his beard was sure to be very long.
Most importantly, he was at the Second Heavenly Martial Stage.
Long Chen counted over ten Heavenly Martial Realm cultivators in the whole Ancient Graveyard. Two from the Thunder Demon Faction, two from the Divine Wind Faction, a shocking six from the Five Elements Alliance, and the Long-Bearded Guest.
Only four of them were at the Second Heavenly Martial Stage. There was Wu Lian, Bai Lan, the Long-Bearded Guest, and the old guy from the Five Elements Alliance.
Long Chen searched with his eyes through the Five Elements Alliance and quickly spotted the old man standing in the middle of the group. He had not seen the old man or the Long-Bearded Guest on the star plate when they arrived. Long Chen had heard about the old man, that he was a Heavenly Martial Master and could live a very long time. The old man looked sprightly, but he was actually seven or eight hundred years old. He was an old monster who had lived a very long life, famous among outsiders, and ranked very highly. He was the great-grandfather of the Gold clan’s patriarch.
As for the generations in between them, due to lacking talent, they had died at around five hundred years of age.
This old man originally had long, golden hair, but it had long turned white. Even his golden eyes had lost their light and were very cloudy. However, it would be wrong to underestimate him because of this. If the old man could live for such a long time, he must have had many tricks up his sleeve.
He also surely had a shocking amount of battle experience.
In theory, Bai Lan and Wu Lian each possessed one of the Seven Lords’ inheritance, making them stronger than other cultivators at the Second Heavenly Martial Stage.
Of course, that was the theory. Long Chen did not know what would happen if they fought.
The Divine Wind Faction and the Five Elements Alliance also had their own fair share of conflicts. Since none of the factions was willing to give up their power, it had led to the current three-faction situation in the Ten Thousand Nations Territory.
Long Chen already had a rough understanding of the Divine Wind Faction. He studied the Five Elements Alliance out of his peripheral vision, and although there were many members, they lacked outstanding figures like Bai Lan and Wu Lian. The five clan leaders were no longer young and were even starting to show their age. This meant that they had long spent all their potential, unlike Bai Lan, who looked like he still had room to grow.
Long Chen had seen the five clan leaders before. His gaze swept across all the youths. There were two decently strong disciples behind every clan leader, and they were under forty years of age. They were mostly at least at the Ninth Earthly Martial Stage, which meant that Long Chen had the lowest cultivation level of all.
None of the Nine Great Clans were weak. Although the Divine Martial Empire was considered one of the Ten Great Empires, it was nowhere near the level of these nine superpowers.
The strongest of those ten cultivators are even stronger than Suxue. The weakest is probably just slightly weaker than the Lei brothers. None of them are easy to beat.
Long Chen quietly mulled over them.
Many people from the other two factions were looking at him.
He had recently become famous after all.
“That’s Long Chen? Based on his aura, he’s weaker than the other participants. Are you sure that he’s the young man who snatched the Seven Star Lord’s inheritance and even killed two Ninth Earthly Martial Stage masters?”