As the stair to the world of celestials, the Builder Tree had been playing host to countless yin spirits crawling up it to flood into the land above. With its destruction, all of them were pulverized as well.

……

As the five emperors had just come into their strength, they weren't a match for the realm monster and it would be an easy feat for the enemy to kill them.

However, it lost its sanity when Lu Yun destroyed the tree and swept the emperors away, turning to charge at the youth instead. The biting wind howling through the air roiled into wintry currents that ran rampant over the sea, freezing the air solid.

After he chopped down the Builder Tree, Lu Yun remained standing in the air with Worldcarver in hand, coolly staring down the crazy realm monster. It’d swallowed Goumang’s body completely and was an orb that glinted piercingly, surrounded by dense glacial mist.

Such was the realm monster’s true form, formless and intangible apart from the orb.

Of course, this was also a very weak member of its race since the truly powerful realm monsters could take other form—the future Xuanyuan Xiaoyue, for example, was a premier realm monster.

He jerked his hand upward when the enemy drew close and smashed Worldcarver down on the agitating orb.

Boom!

It felt like the obliteration of a world had been set into motion as terrifying energy reverberated throughout the land. This was Lu Yun’s first time witnessing the death of a realm monster. Seawater that had frozen solid into icebergs burst open as furious tidal waves, roaring with incoherent rage across the water’s surface.

He also keenly perceived that a strand of unusually profound strength had melded into the local dao when the realm monster died, upon which the great dao grew a little bit stronger.

“Realm monsters are transmuted from dead worlds, so their core essence is that of the world’s essence. Therefore, their strength will be absorbed by the heavenly dao upon their destruction. Ah… I see how they go extinct in the future.”

Since the core essence of realm demons could be absorbed by the heavenly dao, humans only needed to completely demolish the creatures to ensure that they would never be reborn.

……

Striking out together, the five emperors ruthlessly destroyed the remains of the Builder Tree, felled the realm demon, and retook Mu nation.

When the dust settled, Lu Yun built a great formation over the Mu nation and injected life back into the desolate kingdom. Ling Weiyang relocated his new nation back to home ground, not minding that the Builder Tree was gone.

It’d long become just a symbolic totem to the people, and was in fact a magnet for danger since enemies would constantly target it. With its death, realm monsters would only be able to access the world of celestials through Mount Buzhou and redirect their attentions there. All that mattered was that the Mu nation was now legitimate in name and substance in the eyes of the world.

The five emperors also made use of this opportunity to enter an official alliance and establish the five great nations as the five titans of the great wilderness.

Sudden inspiration struck Lu Yun in the heroic atmosphere and he retrieved the six altars from Pangu’s tomb beneath Mount Buzhou. The six could communicate with the five elemental directions; the five nations would soar to greater heights if they used these altars to worship heaven.

However, the Yellow Emperor regifted four of them to the other four nations after he received them. It would seem that events of the present differed from the history that Lu Yun knew, one in which the Yellow Emperor appointed five priests and oversaw the rites of the five altars.

History followed its own progression; Lu Yun was just a catalyst for one of its beginnings. Many things would happen in the future that would change everything he saw now.

Of course, he would have no say in any of that.

And then, he stunned the great masters of the world by bequeathing Worldcarver to the Yellow Emperor.

Worldcarver was recognized by all connate demon gods as the foremost treasure of the great wilderness. It was the divine weapon of the great god Pangu, but the Flame Emperor of the human race was giving it up without a second thought!

The Yellow Emperor shuddered like a leaf, unable to scrounge up sufficient courage to accept the divine weapon.

“I'm going to leave the great wilderness sooner or later, I shouldn't be Worldcarver’s bearer.” Lu Yun shoved the axe into Xuanyuan’s hands.

Humm.

A ball of yellowish-brown power exploded from his body when Xuanyuan accepted Worldcarver. All of the great wilderness and the realm itself formed a marvelous connection with the Yellow Emperor.

The Yellow Emperor was the true protagonist of this era.

Though his strength didn’t change noticeably after receiving the divine axe, a shocking potential flared to life within him—the potential to become master of the realm.

……

“Worldcarver isn’t much of a threat when it’s in the Flame Emperor’s hands, but it becomes a true danger when the Yellow Emperor wields it!” Haotian narrowed his eyes dangerously as he looked down over the great wilderness from the world of celestials.

When he’d been injured by the axe, he’d still seen the possibility of seizing Worldcarver for himself. But after it passed into the Yellow Emperor’s hands, that possibility had faded away. No one else could think of claiming Worldcarver as long as the Yellow Emperor lived!

Unfortunately, the path down to the lower world through the Mu nation no longer existed—destroyed by the Flame Emperor himself—leaving only Mount Buzhou if one wanted to visit the great wilderness through the world of celestials.

However, Fuxi, Wahuang, and the even more frightening demon god Ah Zhi held down the fort at the mountain. It was easy to defend and difficult to attack; even Haotian didn’t think lightly of marching on Mount Buzhou.

Great masters of combat arts could still break through the walls around the great wilderness and descend from the world of celestials, but no one below their cultivation level could do the same. Hence, Haotian called upon the true strength of his celestial court.

Its assembly of connate demon gods wasn’t the strongest aspect of the celestial court, that honor laid with its extensive army and formations. The formations that the celestial army assembled into could suppress any demon god, or even an entire crowd of them!

Formations were yet to be popularized in this era, so that the celestial court could borrow the power of the land through formations put it at the leading edge of the times. However, Haotian was currently deploying that ability in the form of a threatening formation that besieged Mount Buzhou. Passively suffering beatings had never been his style.

On the other hand, the human race couldn’t be bothered with the celestial court at the moment. With the Xiong Nation as their leader, the five newly allied nations declared large-scale war in the great wilderness. All of the powerful connate races were dragged into the conflict, as well as the monster spirits, demons, dragons, phoenixes, and qilins.

It was a war for unification of the great wilderness and the ratification of humanity as rulers of the world. Whether or not they would be the master of all races would be decided by this campaign.

In battles, the Yellow Emperor of the human race wielded Worldcarver with one hand and the Xuanyuan Sword with the other, shocking the world by killing thirty-six connate demon gods in a row!

Those demon gods had all been existences strong enough to rip apart the walls between worlds! In their eyes, the current Yellow Emperor had become even more horrifying than the old Flame Emperor!

The Flame Emperor had defeated his opponents in single combat or one versus two, but the Yellow Emperor had executed his enemies when they attacked him all together!

Since the thirty-six connate demon gods had come from the celestial court, there were naturally many existences on par with Nuanzi among their ranks. This battle dimmed the sun and moon, casted a shadow over mountain and river, and completely stupefied the great wilderness.

Fuxi finally recognized humanity’s strength in the aftermath of that particular battle and began passing on his formations to the human race. Hongjun’s three disciples walked the land as well, establishing sects and teaching the supplemental paths of pill, equipment, and talisman dao.

Supremacy of the human race took a tremendous leap forward in this war that lasted ten years, and at the end of it, humans had conquered all of the other races and become the only master of the great wilderness.

Only the four great nations held the same status as the human race, but the great dao was now human dao, so the emperors of the four nations demoted themselves to become humanity’s protectors. Even so, the Yellow Emperor didn’t discard their titles and still showed them respect as befitting an emperor.