Published at 7th of May 2026 5:53 am

Chapter 2005: Opportunity (1)

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Su Yu did not feel like he had done anything wrong. He only felt regret. He knew he couldnt kill a Venerable through such a trap, but he had been hopeful that it could kill at least a heavenly king. Unfortunately, a fake dao cultivator was too useless to even do that. As a heavenly king, he had only killed two Daofuses through self-detonation.

Far away.

While Venerable Scrape was seething in fury, Venerable Desolate warned while searching the ground with his stomps, "Venerable Scrape, be careful. The Daofuses of other races aren't enemies. Don't push them too hard."

For them, any race apart from humanity could be recruited. In his opinion, that bird had only self-detonated because Venerable Scrape was being too much of a bully. Venerable Scrape didn't even know how to explain himself. Had he pushed that guy?

Bullshit!

He hadn't even done anything before Bonewing Marquis decided to self-detonate. He had held back even when he was suppressing the mad Bonewing Marquis.

Damn it!

The furious Venerable Scrape scanned his surroundings with frosty eyes, but he noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

He muttered to himself, "Why did he self-detonate out of nowhere? Even someone suffering from cultivation deviation knows to treasure their life. Even a madman will prioritize survival. Self-detonation doesn't make sense."

An expert who had been in deep slumber for many years had self-detonated right after awakening. That made no sense. He glanced at the nearby March.

Facing his gaze, March shrugged and said, "Don't look at me like that. I didn't even dare to approach you since I was scared that you guys would misunderstand my intention again."

Why was this guy looking at him?

Inwardly, he was feeling very doubtful as well. Self-detonation?

How odd.

Was this...Su Yu?

That was the only guess he could make.

But he had no proof. Nobody had proof. Furthermore, they were supposed to be the first ones to discover Bonewing Marquis. Or could it be that Su Yu had discovered Bonewing Marquis before them?

But that didn't explain anything. Even if Su Yu had discovered the marquis in advance, how did he make the marquis self-detonate upon awakening? Suddenly, March recalled what Su Yu said about the fake dao cultivators previously. Perhaps...it was really that guy. Sure enough, that was someone with countless surprises.

Nobody would expect that.

He had to admit that Su Yu was quite a ruthless one. A super expert at the level of a heavenly king had been forced to self-detonate right after awakening. The heavenly king didn't even have the chance to do anything else.

***

At the same time.

The skeletal figure looked at Su Yu and asked, "Was that you?"

Since Su Yu could force him out of his place of cultivation, this signified that Su Yu had the ability to do something about these slumbering experts. It was very likely that the explosion was actually caused by Su Yu. Furthermore, it was clear that Su Yu had seen the explosion coming before it happened.

Su Yu answered with a smile, "Yes."

After a short hesitation, the skeletal figure said, "But you don't know Bonewing Marquis well. You don't even know his status. Why did you make him self-detonate just like that? What if that was an ally of humanity?"

Su Yu said, "Nope. I know all our allies. Those who aren't allied to me aren't allies."

Su Yu looked at the skeletal figure and grinned, "Do you disagree?"

"Somewhat."

The skeletal figure was honest. "I believe we should at least give them the chance to make their stance clear..."

Su Yu asked, "But how are we supposed to keep it a surprise if we allow them to introduce themselves?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying..."

"I don't care what you're saying." Su Yu said, "You only need to know that you owe me your life. That is all. If you're capable of gratitude, work for me. If not, well, you can't do much to me anyway."

"You're very overbearing." At this point, the skeletal figure's eyes had grown clearer than before. He said, "Have you never considered that I might not be willing to serve you?"

Su Yu nodded, "You're right. That is not something to be considered. The ones who are disobedient are all dead."

Su Yu looked at the skeletal figure again and said, "The ancient past is over. The accumulation from the ancient past has been fully emptied by Hundred Battle. The current humanity is essentially a new humanity starting over from scratch.

"We are disconnected from the ancient past. We do not owe the ancient past anything. You are free to become a new human, one that is unrelated to the ancient humans. You might feel better after you learn to accept this."

The skeletal figure sank into silence.

Su Yu continued watching. He was waiting for his second bomb to be set off. Venerable Moon's group was slowly approaching the second slumbering heavenly king. After looking around, Su Yu frowned. Venerable Moon's people were scattered further away from him. Even a self-detonation wouldn't be enough to do too much damage to them.

"A pity. A self-detonation at his full strength would be enough to kill or heavily injure even a Venerable."

Su Yu sighed with regret. His bomb was a greatly weakened heavenly king, not a heavenly king at full strength. The heavenly king in question had simply been in slumber for too long.

After being cut off from his dao for so long, he was only slightly stronger than the skeletal figure. Someone like that would probably have a hard time killing even a heavenly king from a self-detonation.

Suddenly, the skeletal figure exclaimed in alarm, "Are you here just to blast them to death?"

"No, I'm here to weaken them." Su Yu said, "Anyone I kill here will serve as a bonus. You don't understand. The moment the myriad races come together, their strength will swell significantly, making them much harder to deal with."

The skeletal figure said, "You shouldn't have done this to the fake dao cultivators. With them around, they would keep growing Human Emperor's dao. This isn't worth it."

He hesitated slightly, but he pushed on, "You seem...to know a lot about the daos here. You also know things that are supposed to be secret. Are you one of the new leaders of humanity?"

"Perhaps." Su Yu smiled, "What advice do you have for me?"

"This is not how these fake daos are meant to be used..."

He said, "These fake daos can actually be stripped from their current cultivators. After stripping them, you can grant them to others to instantly create what you call heavenly kings. Back then, there were many fake daos here. However, most of them were flawed. When the myriad race experts cultivate these daos, they are essentially perfecting these daos for us. When the fake daos grow to a sufficient level, you can actually strip them and fuse them with the real daos of the Lower Realm.

"Thus, even fake dao cultivators can also transform into real dao cultivators. For example, you cultivate the fire dao, but progess is hard. You can choose to cultivate a fake fire dao. Upon reaching a certain level in your cultivation, you can go to the Lower Realm and fuse the fake dao with the real dao. This is feasible since the two daos share the same essence."

Su Yu blanked out slightly before asking, "Are you saying that the daos here are basically the simplified version of the real daos in the Lower Realm? We can first cultivate the simplified version before fusing with the real version?"

"Yes." The skeletal figure said, "That is why these fake dao cultivators are quite valuable. They are essentially free farms growing the fake daos on our behalf. Killing them is too big of a waste. This was also why I opted to cultivate a fake dao back then. Of course, I also hoped that through cultivating the fake dao, I could help with Human Emperor's return."

Su Yu had a thoughtful look. The fake daos could be fused into the real daos. The daos here were the fake daos of Human Emperor. As for the daos in his Mark of Civilization, those were his fake daos.

He had a lot of fake daos. Naturally, they were all quite weak. Since he could steal from the real daos through his fake daos, the same could naturally be done through Human Emperor's daos as well.

Suddenly, Su Yu focused on the skeletal figure and narrowed his eyes. "Are you very proficient in this?"

"Im decent at this." The skeletal figure said, "I spent some time studying these daos. But halfway through my cultivation, I encountered a problem and nearly died. Thus, I was forced to enter a deep slumber and recover. Unfortunately, my recovery hasn't been going too well."

Su Yu rubbed his chin and asked, "What's your name?"

"Qi Rong."

Su Yu laughed, "Why do you have a woman's name?"

After a short pause, the skeletal figure said, "I'm a woman."

"..."

An awkward silence descended as Su Yu stared at the bald skeletal figure before him. After a long while, he said, "Why do I feel like even death spirits look better?"

A woman?

Su Yu didn't know what to say about this. How did she turn into something like this? How pitiful. He was being honest when he said that even death spirits looked better than her. At the very least, he could determine the genders of the death spirits. Meanwhile, the gender of this fellow was completely inscrutable.

Even Xing Yue looked better than her! Su Yu had to admit that comparison was the killer of joy. Qi Rong?

That was probably her real name instead of a title. Most ancient experts preferred referring to themselves with their titles instead of their given names. Thus, Su Yu felt quite doubtful. Who would know her if she only bothered to mention her real name? Take Marquis Lanshan as an example. Nobody knew what her real name was.

Su Yu did not bother to ask more. He said, "You seem to know a lot about the myriad daos. You even know that the river here is actually Human Emperor's dao. Were you a researcher before?"

"Not really."

"Not really?"

What?

After a short silence, Qi Rong explained, "I only have one task since the ancient past collapsed, but I have yet to succeed. There is no need for you to ask me. Just take me to your highest-ranked leader. I will negotiate with him and try to gain your support."

Su Yu raised his brow. Highest-ranked leader? That was basically him.

"Is this task of yours related to the myriad daos?"

"Yes."

After a short thought, Su Yu smiled, "Sure. I'll take you to the leader later."

He added, "Why don't you take a rest in my weapon for now? The show is over anyway."

Qi Rong said, "I still hope that you can avoid killing too many of these fake dao cultivators. They are useful to us. Back then, I had even tricked some myriad race experts into cultivating these fake daos. I suppose some of them are gone by now..."

Su Yu blanked out.

Qi Rong nodded and said, "That's right. Some of these fake dao experts were created by me back then. Of course, they were completely unaware of this. Apart from me, Yue Gang was the only person aware of this plan. Unfortunately, he died before he could tell anyone about this. That's why the rest of you remain unaware of this matter."

With a regretful tone, Qi Rong added, "I hope to see your leader as soon as possible. You won't gain much from killing some fake dao cultivators."

Su Yu asked, "Considering your importance, why did you bury yourself underground for so many years like you're dead?"

This was perplexing. For example, people like Wan Tiansheng and Lan Tian were very important to him. When they entered deep seclusion, Su Yu would pay attention to their places of cultivation. Meanwhile, Qi Rong had been completely forgotten by humanity.

"I suspect Yue Gang's death was too sudden. He knew the location of my seclusion."

Qi Rong sighed and said, "That was why I assumed you were sent by Yue Gang initially, but I was wrong..."

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