Published at 9th of May 2026 6:30 am

Chapter 2010: Isn't Cooperation Better? (3)

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Su Yu's voice was laced with pity as he said, "You know too little. You are too ignorant. You don't know about us. You don't know about the chaos race. You don't know that the Dao Origin Land is a contingency of Human Emperor. All fake daos are under our control. You allowed your people to cultivate the fake daos without knowing anything. Do you know why no humans have ever bothered cultivating those fake daos? Because they will be warned by the Torchbearers to not do so each generation."

Su Yu laughed and said, "You know nothing. You are as ignorant as a child. You don't even know that the chaos race is still capable of producing Masters of Laws. You don't know that there are actually more than two Masters of Laws who are still around. In fact, there are plenty of them in the Lower Realm."

The pupils of the two Venerables shrank. Venerable Moon denied coldly, "Nonsense!"

Su Yu laughed again. "Truly foolish. Do you think you can win? How ridiculous. My pitiful bugs, Martial Emperor is still down there. Do you even know who Martial Emperor is? He is currently suppressed somewhere down there. And he is aligned to the chaos race, in a way.

"Yet you are completely unaware of this. There are also multiple Masters of Laws suppressed in the Death Realm. Are you clueless about this as well? This is ultimately an internal conflict between fellow humans. The myriad races...are merely chess pieces."

The two Venerables couldn't accept that.

Venerable Scrape roared with fury, "Chess pieces? This is your one-sided story. Who are you to control the myriad races? Who do you think you are?"

He couldn't accept that this was the truth.

It was unacceptable.

His powerful aura surged, pushing even Su Yu back. But Su Yu remained smiling as he said, "Why are you losing control over your emotions like this? As a Venerable, are you incapable of controlling even your emotions?

"It's not like chess pieces can never turn things around. At present, all of us are chess pieces. We are all the chess pieces of Human Emperor, Control King, Immortal Pseudo Emperor, and the others. I'm talking about the ancient emperors and kings. Do you really think that they're dead? If you really believe so...I will need to start doubting your intelligence."

Venerable Moon frowned. "Are they not dead?"

Su Yu sneered, "Wait, do you really think that they're dead?"

With a look of resignation, he said, "Good heavens. So the myriad races actually believe that they're dead? Of course they're not dead! How can they be dead? They are deep inside the River of Time. Even now, they are still fighting. Very few Masters of Laws have died."

The two Venerables were greatly shocked by the series of information they were receiving. Was this mysterious Torchbearer speaking the truth?

Human Emperors and the others weren't dead.

Multiple Masters of Laws remained in the Myriad Realms.

The daos of the Dao Origin Land were under the control of Human Emperor's lineage.

They felt as though several bombs had been set off in their minds. If this masked human was telling the truth, what had they been fighting for all these years? They were merely puppets, dancing on the strings of others.

Seemingly having guessed what they were thinking, Su Yu smiled and said, "Your fight is not without meaning. The experts of both sides...or should I say all three sides are all active now. Humanity, myriad races, and Control King. You can also view Control King as the representative of the ancient beasts.

"Control King betrayed humanity, yet he was unwilling to align his side with the myriad races. Instead, he formed his own race, aligned himself with the ancient beasts in the Chaos Mountain, opened the Hell Gate, and entrapped Culture King and the others.

"Control King is our common enemy. Naturally, there is no love between the myriad races and humanity. At most, we will only be making use of each other. I am only here today to remind you that the chaos race is far more powerful than you can imagine. Even if you can defeat them, they are backed by the ancient beasts. And there are also Masters of Laws among these ancient beasts.

"To survive, we need to join hands. Otherwise, we will all die."

Venerable Moon took a bit to digest all the information he was receiving. After forcing himself to calm down, he asked, "Join hands? We have been fighting each other for so many years. How can we even begin to join hands? How can we even trust each other?"

Su Yu said, "I'm not saying that we should come together. We will continue acting independently, but we can set the chaos race as our common target and avoid conflicts between our two sides. We can even work together on specific tasks when necessary. I'll be honest. I did not enjoy killing nine of your pseudo kings previously. The chaos race must have been pleased to see that."

The moment he said that, the auras of the two Venerables surged murderously.

Venerable Scrape coldly said, "Don't think that we won't dare to kill you."

"Sure. Go ahead. Kill me."

The countless Su Yus around them laughed and spoke together, "Come on. Kill me. Kill me and our cooperation ends here. We are still hidden in the dark. You will be the first target of the chaos race, not us. Why do I care?" "If you're confident you can stop the chaos race alone, you're free to give it a try. It doesn't matter if you're not interested in a cooperation for now. You will naturally come looking for us\ after some suffering in the hands of the chaos race.

"Mark my words. You will definitely suffer losses in your upcoming attack against the Chaos Mountain. You won't understand just how unimaginably powerful they are before experiencing their strength yourselves."

Venerable Moon reached out and stopped the furious Venerable Scrape. "So your idea of cooperation is essentially a non-aggression pact?"

"No, not at all." Su Yu smiled and said, "For the first step of our cooperation, we can engage in a trade."

"Trade?"

Su Yu said, "Yes. Trade. Firstly, I can stay out of your way while you're sweeping through the Upper Realm. But you need to hand us all the human experts you find during the search. In return, I can promise to leave the fake dao cultivators alone."

"Is this a joke?" Venerable Moon found the proposal so ridiculous that he started laughing. "This must be a joke, right? We started the sweep to remove all hidden humans from the Upper Realm. And now, you're proposing that we hand all those humans to you? In return, you're going to leave our fake dao cultivators alone? That's all?"

Su Yu stopped smiling as he said indifferently, "What's so funny about this? It's not funny at all. You're not only doing this to kill some humans. You're also using this as an opportunity to unify the strength of the myriad races under the three major races. Yes, you love killing humans. But there aren't even that many humans left for you to kill anymore."

Venerable Scrape's eyes flickered as he conversed with Venerable Moon through voice transmission. After a while, Venerable Moon said, "You wish to take these humans with you. That is possible, but you need to hand over the method of controlling the fake dao cultivators. That is the only term we can agree to."

Su Yu chuckled and said, "That is not possible. I'm being honest here. Our control over the fake daos comes from the dao inheritance of Human Emperor. It's not a specific control method. Rather, it is the side-effect of the dao inheritance. I can only promise that we won't touch them before the chaos race is defeated. As for what will happen after the chaos race is gone, I guess we can compete fairly. Naturally, you can also start making your fake dao cultivators switch their daos during this time.

"At worst, you can treat these fake dao cultivators as single-use cannon fodder. Have them charge at the front in battles and exhaust the chaos race's strength. You won't worry that I'll stop these fake dao cultivators while they're fighting the chaos race, right?

"And if you're unwilling to even complete this trade with us, well, I can only apologize for what we're going to do next. These fake dao cultivators will forever remain an unstable element on your side. They can potentially turn on you at any moment."

The expressions of the two Venerables changed slightly. How were they supposed to know if this wasn't a lie? But they had witnessed the changes of Bonewing Marquis and Six-Winged with their own eyes.

They had seen the madness of the two and their willingness to self-detonate at the slightest provocation.

Venerable Moon had to try very hard to stop himself from killing Su Yu. It would be pointless to kill some clones. He could sense the aura of a pseudo king among all them, but which of them was the actual real body?

He had no way of knowing that.

He asked, "In short, in return for handing over the human experts we find, you can only promise that you won't touch the fake dao cultivators as long as the chaos race is still around."

Su Yu answered, "Yes. Furthermore, your people are not allowed to act against us or we won't hesitate to do what we need to protect ourselves."

Venerable Moon asked, "Apart from this, how do you propose we cooperate?"

Su Yu grinned, "This isn't something I can tell you. Well, I guess I can let you know something since we're going to be working together. We have some people among the chaos race. They can stab the chaos race in the back during a critical moment. We wouldn't have been able to capture someone like Zi Yan without these spies.

"That is all I have to say. If you're interested, let's work together. You can also wait for more news from me. Our lineage intends to make another move against them soon. If you're interested, we can even try joining hands once in this operation." "The myriad races have lost many pseudo kings recently. We have lost some as well. But the chaos race has lost nothing. Why don't we join hands and make them lose some as well?"

The two Venerables exchanged gazes. Venerable Scrape coldly said, "We can't decide on this. Furthermore, the immortals aren't here. We don't have enough people to represent the entire myriad races."

Su Yu said, "The immortals are smart. They will know the right thing to do. Anyway, if you agree, continue your sweep and hand some humans to me as proof of your willingness to cooperate. Otherwise, so be it."

"You're telling us to accept a mere promise for those hidden human experts?" Venerable Moon said, "This isn't a fair deal."

Su Yu said, "You're right, I guess. How about this? In return for the hidden human experts, you can also get some formations you can use to repel the ancient beasts when you're inside the Chaos Mountain." "Don't forget that the chaos beasts are very dangerous as well. Both the chaos race and our lineage are essentially immune to the disturbance of the ancient beasts. In this aspect, your side is greatly disadvantaged."

The eyes of the two Venerables lit up.

"Are you serious?"

Su Yu answered, "Yes. Only those from our two lineages know this formation. Isn't this obvious from the previous attacks? We know how to conceal our auras. They know how to conceal their auras. But you guys...don't know it. With this weakness, you won't be able to stay inside the Chaos Mountain for an extended period of time. Deep inside the mountain, the ancient beasts are as strong as Venerables or even Masters of Laws. This isn't a weakness you can afford to have."

Once again, their expressions changed.

Leaving the fake dao cultivators alone and a special concealment formation. These were what they would get in exchange for the human experts they found during the sweep. It was quite a straightforward deal.

Venerable Scrape asked, "What if we fail to find any humans during the sweep?"

Su Yu said, "There's no helping it if you can't find any. Of course, I'll know it if you try to kill any in secret. Do you really think that we don't have any people among you? In fact, there are people from the chaos race among you as well. Let's take the most obvious person as an example. March has always been friendly toward humanity. Thunderstorm is quite friendly as well. Don't you know that Hundred Battle is related to the primordial giants through marriage?

"You must know this, right? Heavenly Fate loves playing both sides, but he won't mind selling us some information either. As for the others...Well, I won't be mentioning their names here.

"Even the fake dao cultivators are excellent sources of information for us. It is simply too easy for us to spy on your operation. I won't propose something like this without any confidence that I can make it work.

"I suggest that you be very careful about who you share this information with. It won't be a bad idea to keep it among only the Venerables. Don't tell everyone about it. If even the Daofuses become aware of this, then the chaos race will probably learn of our cooperation as well."

What a terrible feeling.

This felt terrible.

Venerable Scrape and Venerable Moon felt as though they had always been dancing in the palm of others. An enemy was warning them to do better.

"How should we contact you?"

Su Yu laughed and said, "That's easy. I have countless clones. When you need to contact me, just go somewhere with a lot of people and shout something like 'you dare?' and my clone will see you."

What?

Their expressions turned even more unsightly than before. In short, they were constantly under the monitoring of these people? To contact him, they only needed to shout somewhere with a lot of people.

They didn't want to believe this. But what if...what if it was true?

Once again, Venerable Moon suppressed his fury and killing intent before asking, "Can you release Six-Winged?"

Su Yu said, "Of course. This is no big deal. Six-Winged might prove useful in our coming confrontation against the chaos race. How would I bear to let him die? But before that, I need to reinstate his clarity of mind lest he decides to self-detonate again."

Then, he pointed at the sky. His dao power rippled out before coming in contact with Six-Winged dao. Finally, he withdrew his influence from the dao. Shortly after, he tossed Six-Winged to Venerable Moon.

Instead of grabbing Six-Winged, Venerable Moon stepped back. Six-Winged was no longer losing his mind. He attempted to reconnect to his dao. In moments, his aura returned to the level of a heavenly king. Nevertheless, he did not look happy. Instead, he looked at Su Yu and gnashed his teeth. "Will I be under your influence forever?"

Su Yu said, "You are free to switch to a real dao. I'm not stopping you. But we're in need of more combat force right now, so think properly before doing so. Did we force you to cultivate this fake dao back then? Six-Winged, I'm not interested in your life. Your life is worth nothing to me. You are only good as an example to prove that we have the ability to control all fake dao cultivators."

Meanwhile, Venerable Moon's heart was pounding heavily yet again.

The masked individual had removed Six-Winged's madness easily. No matter what, Six-Winged was a powerful pseudo king. Yet he was completely helpless before this person.

Su Yu said, "If there's nothing else, I'll be taking my leave now. So? Are you killing me?"

Venerable Scrape and Venerable Moon were tempted, but they were really unsure if they should make a move. When they looked at the surrounding clones again, they frowned.

Suddenly, Su Yu snapped his fingers.

Next, someone appeared before him before transforming into a gate. Heavenbridge Marquis' voice rang out, "Where are you going, Deputy Head? Heavenbridge is at your service!"

"Anywhere."

"Understood!"

With a hum, Su Yu vanished.

The surrounding clones also vanished one after another.

Far away, the pseudo king clone of Lan Tian vanished as well.

After stopping Venerable Scrape from giving chase, Venerable Moon gnashed his teeth and said, "What's the point of giving chase? That's only a clone. And that gate...that was Heavenbridge Marquis! He's with them as well!"

After this encounter, the Torchbearers had transformed into an enigmatic and terrifyingly powerful group in his mind.

He asked, "Venerable Scrape, do you think he was telling us the truth?"

Venerable Scrape sank into silence. He was unsure as well. But they both knew that things were already out of control.

***

Far away, Su Yu emerged from thin air. At this point, his back was already drenched wet with sweat.

That was way too scary.

Fortunately, Lan Tian's clones had appeared in time to confuse the two Venerables.

But next, Su Yu grinned.

Was cooperation not nice?

He might be able to even gather some humans from these Venerables. Wouldn't that be interesting? Thanks to that little meeting, the Venerables would be forced to hand over any human they found, even when they were enemies.

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