Chapter 2597

Space twisted. After that, Long Chen found himself within a strange place where multicolored sunlight flowed all around him.

Before he even got a look at his surroundings, he heard a voice from behind him.

“Black robes? A back turned to all life? How surprising.”

Long Chen turned around to see a middle-aged man in pure white robes. Just standing there, he seemed to have transcended the mortal world of dust. Everything within the universe seemed to be in his gaze.

There was no aura coming from him, but he gave off an unspeakable nobility. At this moment, a questioning look could be seen in his eyes as if Long Chen was a surprise to him.

Long Chen had encountered Sovereign Yun Shang, Sovereign Qing Xu, and Sovereign Mo Li. From experience, he could feel that this person possessed the same noble air. Just his gaze alone was enough to make a person follow him into death.

This was the air of a Sovereign. Only a Sovereign was able to win over all races and lead them to win an unwinnable battle. This was the indescribable charisma of a Sovereign that was impossible to resist.

“Junior Long Chen greets the Sovereign.” Long Chen hastily bowed. However, before his waist could bend, he was lifted by the man.

“I cannot accept a bow from the gamebreaker. If someone has to bow, it should be me to you.” The man smiled slightly.

“Senior must be joking. This little one could not accept a bow from a Sovereign,” said Long Chen. This was not his humility but his own feelings of reverence for the Sovereigns.

He really admired the selflessness of the Sovereigns. They had used their lives to protect the Martial Heaven Continent. Even though they had died, they had used their own blood to create the Sovereign seals and protect this world.

Moreover, the Sovereigns had never demanded anything from the Martial Heaven Continent, nor had they laid any restrictions on the lives living on the continent. Every time a crisis came, they would rise and stave off complete annihilation.

When Long Chen asked himself if he could do the same, his answer was that he couldn’t. Protecting the people he liked was fine. But to make him risk his life to protect those he hated or those he didn’t care about? That was a joke.

Although it did feel a bit like the Sovereigns wanted to get along with everyone, it was their selflessness that truly won over Long Chen.

“You’re too humble. The gamebreaker can accept a bow from everyone in the world. A Sovereign is no exception. A so-called Sovereign is nothing more than a kind of realm. It’s not worth anything. On the other hand, you are an existence born within calamity. Whether the Martial Heaven Continent lives or dies is in your hands. Your burden is far heavier than ours.”

“Senior… ah… I still haven’t heard your name…” said Long Chen awkwardly. There were five Sovereigns that had appeared in the Martial Heaven Continent’s history.

Long Chen knew of four names, Yun Shang, Qing Xu, Mo Li, and Zi Yang. But there was a fifth Sovereign that he hadn’t heard of. He knew that this person had to be the unknown Sovereign or Sovereign Zi Yang, but it would be rude to randomly guess.

“My apologies. I am Zi Yang. You can call me big brother Zi Yang. Being called Sovereign sounds so distant.”

As expected, this man was Sovereign Zi Yang, the fifth generation Sovereign of the Martial Heaven Continent.

“To be able to pay my respects to big brother Zi Yang is this junior brother’s honor,” said Long Chen. Inside, he thought to himself that being able to meet four of the five Sovereigns and even call himself brother to three was enough to brag for a lifetime.

“Come, let’s sit and talk.”

The two of them sat cross-legged, and Sovereign Zi Yang started off by saying, “Do you have any questions? Go ahead and ask. With the descent of the dark era, there are fewer things that are taboo to discuss. There’s no harm in saying what you think.”

Long Chen nodded. “Then I won’t stand on courtesy. I don’t understand what kind of existence Resentful Death City is. Why have you and the seniors from that last great battle appeared here?”

No one on the Martial Heaven Continent understood this. Well, at least, the old man and Qu Jianying were both unable to figure it out. If the old man didn’t know, then fine, but Qu Jianying was the alliance head of the Martial Heaven Continent and had access to all kinds of unspeakable secrets of the continent. If she didn’t have at least a certain amount of knowledge, there was no way she could be in her position.

“Resentful Death City was the first city that fell in the war of gods and devils. It was the most flourishing city on the Martial Heaven Continent during the most glorious time of the continent. There were countless experts, and the path to immortality had yet to be severed. Every year, large numbers of experts would ascend to the immortal world. The Martial Heaven Continent of that time was unimaginably large. The current continent has shrunk to not even one ten-thousandth of its original size.” Zi Yang looked at the void, seemingly lost in his memories.

Long Chen almost jumped. The current continent was only one ten-thousandth of its original size? That was truly unimaginable. The larger the world, the stronger its laws, and the more abundant its spiritual qi. No wonder everyone said that the current Martial Heaven Continent had declined.

With the shrinking of the continent, the density of spiritual qi was probably not even one-thousandth of its original density.

Sovereign Zi Yang continued, “The tribulation descended without warning. The first target was the continent’s strongest city. Its original name was Immortal Ascension City, indicating it was a step to the immortal realm. Immortal Ascension City was a sacred land in the cultivation world, and the strongest sects of the continent gathered there. When the attackers came, the Martial Heaven Continent’s experts fought back with full power. Those qualified to participate in that battle were at least at the early Heaven Merging realm.”

Long Chen sucked in a cold gasp of air. The early Heaven Merging realm was actually cannon fodder in that battle. Just how terrifying was it?

“The battle started suddenly, and the flames of war quickly spread throughout the continent, throwing the Martial Heaven Continent into unprecedented danger. In that situation, the five supreme divine items made an appearance, fighting off the immortal item of the other world, the Heaven Devastating Bracelet. In the end, the Heaven Devastating Bracelet fell beneath the earth, while the leader of the five divine items, the Eastern Wasteland Bell, broke apart. The other four divine items were also badly damaged.

“Although in that battle, the experts succeeded in killing the invaders, the Martial Heaven Continent was never able to rise back to its old height. The top experts of that generation were practically all killed in battle. Every sect was badly wounded, and some inheritances were lost. Even secret realms and minor worlds were destroyed. After that, the order of heaven and earth grew unstable, and the laws of the world began to change. Immortal Ascension City was then lost in a spacetime crack, becoming the channel linking the Martial Heaven Continent and the Death Spirit World.”

“The Death Spirit World? What is that?” Long Chen couldn’t help asking. This was his first time hearing of it.

“You’ve gone to the Netherworld, so you know that it is the place where reincarnation starts for the souls of those who die. But the laws of the continent are difficult to comprehend. There are some lifeforms that do not exist within the reincarnation cycle – the Undying race. As for the Death Spirit World, it belongs to a branch of the Undying race. Although they are called undying, all things in this world with form cannot exist in perpetuity. They simply have their own Dao of Reincarnation that is different from our laws of life and death. We also know that the lifeforms within the Death Spirit World possess their own strange power that is fundamentally different from our cultivation style.

“No one knows when it started, but then the Death Spirit World linked up to Immortal Ascension City, turning it into Resentful Death City. After that, all the corpses inside transformed into resentful spirits. When the fifth dark era came, the Martial Heaven Continent was full of holes. There were many battlegrounds that forced us to spread all over, and I don’t know how many enemies we killed. However, later on, I sensed something wrong. All that Death Qi was being absorbed. When I traced the source, I found Resentful Death City and the terrifying experts that lay within. We then fought against them for three days and nights, finally managing to kill them all at the cost of my followers’ lives. It can be said that I implicated them. Amongst all the Sovereigns, I was the most useless.” Sovereign Zi Yang sighed sadly.

“Big brother, you can’t say that. Without you, the Martial Heaven Continent would have been destroyed. No one would have been able to do better than you,” said Long Chen.

The Sovereigns were undefeatable existences. Just who had managed to fight against one for three days and nights?

Sovereign Zi Yang looked outside the space that they were in. His gaze seemed to pierce the barrier and see everything within Resentful Death City.

“The Martial Heaven Continent is in danger of destruction. Whether it was Sovereign Yun Shang, Sovereign Qing Xu, Sovereign Mo Li, Sovereign Han Wei, or myself, we were relays that passed the problem on to the next generation. In other words, we were only able to prevent the Martial Heaven Continent from being destroyed temporarily and win some time for it. Therefore, all the warriors who fought to the death in the dark eras and us were waiting for the gamebreaker. Only the gamebreaker can break this board of definite death, and that person is you,” said Sovereign Zi Yang profoundly.

“Me?” Long Chen’s heart pounded. “Impossible. Let alone winning over the various races, I’m surrounded by enemies. If you weren’t able to escape this predicament, how can I? Furthermore, I’m truly sorry big brother Zi Yang, but I cannot risk my life for those people I don’t care about.”

Sovereign Zi Yang seemed to be saying that Long Chen was supposed to be the sixth to pick up this burden, and Long Chen was sure that he could not accept such a thing.

“Whether or not you can do it is something you will learn when the time comes. This is a kind of responsibility in this world that cannot be shirked. Moreover, the burden has been placed in front of you, and you cannot avoid it. Whether people like you or not, whether they sing your praises or curse you for eternity, none of that is worth anything. All karma has gathered on you, and the fate of the Martial Heaven Continent changes because of you. You live, the continent lives. You die, the continent dies.”

Sovereign Zi Yang’s words were like hammers striking Long Chen’s heart. He felt dizzy because a heavy weight just fell upon him.