Chapter 2032 – Next Time

“Empyrean supreme!” Lu Yun gasped when he saw the muscular man. He knew that the enemy had him in their sights, but didn’t think they’d act so quickly. He’d just departed from Cardinal Sacred City, yet here they were—and an empyrean supreme!

Being a mere high supreme, Lu Yun’s show of extreme wealth had caught the covetous eyes of many at the auction house. Despite that, no empyrean supreme would normally debase themselves to rob a high supreme.

Unfortunately for him, he was encountering the man behind the scenes of Ark Auction House and his.. dao partner. The two had made their fortune through robbery, something they hadn’t fallen out of habit doing even after constructing the auction house.

Due to the suspected arrival of an outsider, Cardinal Sacred City permitted Su Muzhou and his dao partner to conduct their affairs as they saw fit. Thus, they’d been completely out of control lately.

Su Muzhou and his dao partner Suiyue Jinghao were both men. In the realm of Three Thousand, cultivators were straightforward about pursuing their dao. No one cared about their gender and how they’d become dao partners.

The only thing that people gossiped about was that dual cultivation was supposed to be the harmonization of yin and yang, yet these two fell on the side of yang. Well.. one supposed it was just another path at the end of the day.

Su Muzhou had built his fortune from scratch. Apart from a flinty attitude and ruthless style, it was also thanks to Suiyue Jinghao’s support that he was able to establish Ark Auction House. The Suiyues were a premier clan in the Three Thousand. Ranking below only the five sacred palaces, they were a foremost faction of the era.

Suiyue Jinghao was a preeminent genius and a core disciple of his clan. But when he went against the clan’s wishes and objections to become dao partners with Su Muzhou, he was exiled from the Suiyues.

Notwithstanding all of the obstacles in their way, both Su Muzhou and Suiyue Jinghao eventually became empyrean supremes and found their place at the top of the pyramid. Due to these accomplishments, relations had slightly thawed between the couple and the Suiyue Clan in recent years.

Empyrean supremes were the greatest powerhouses of this world—so long as there weren’t sacred supremes present. Although the Suiyues possessed a sacred supreme, they still couldn’t ignore two powerful empyrean supremes.

Thus, Ark Auction House steadily grew in scale until Su Muzhou and Suiyue Jinghao became important members of Cardinal Sacred City and wielded certain authority.

Of course, a tiger never changes its stripes. While the two were highly feted empyrean heavyweights, that didn’t change their habits of robbery and theft. Thus, Suiyue Jinghao immediately chased after the young man after he left the city.

His reason for doing so was very presumptuous—the demon who’d invaded from the outside world was a high supreme. That perfectly matched the high supreme in front of him, so he would capture the young man first and ask questions later.

....

Lu Yun raised his head to look at Suiyue Jinghao slowly descending from the sky. He grinned lopsidedly. “All of my dao crystals? I haven’t got any dao crystals, but I do have a major combat art. Do you want to take a look?”

“A major combat art? What combat art?” Suiyue Jinghao didn’t know what the young man had in his back pocket. He should be ashen faced and trembling with fear, so how was a mere high supreme still able to smile?

And smiling so strangely?

“This combat art!” Lu Yun threw his head back with loud laughter and exploded.

Kaboom!!

A mushroom cloud also rose from the nearby Cardinal Sacred City.

“Hahaha!!” Even more self-satisfied laughter rang out as an enormous figure appeared over the city’s airspace. The figure swatted the mushroom down with a casual backhand.

“Demon, did you think we would be unprepared even though we knew you’d come to our city? We’ve been monitoring every unfamiliar face that roams our streets! Although we don’t know what your goal is, it certainly won’t be accumulating goods and riches!”

It was Su Muzhou. Clad in long pink robes, he stood proudly over Cardinal Sacred City. His words informed the crowd that the outsider had come to Cardinal Sacred City to blow it up!

Thankfully, there were countless empyrean supremes in residence as well as the sacred supreme. What could a mere high supreme get up to in their vaunted city?

The mushroom cloud was smashed flat the second it rose in the air.

“Ah Hao and I were only guessing that you were the demon, but to think that it really is you! Ah Hao, take him!”

Although Lu Yun’s replica had self-detonated, there was no difference between a replica and primary body to an empyrean supreme. They would be able to track down the outsider’s primary body even though the replica was a pile of dust.

But at this moment, shocked screams rang out from Cardinal Sacred City.

“What’s going on?? What’s happening??”

“What’s happening to the city?!”

Fear and bafflement pierced through the air. Expressions shifting, Su Muzhou and Suiyue Jinghao frantically looked back at the city.

The grand city that snaked thousands of kilometers over the land was fracturing like a massive piece of porcelain. Minute cracks covered every inch of its walls and the buildings. They appeared inconsequential, but covered the entire city like a massive net.

With that, the city began breaking apart.

As Su Muzhou did a double take and looked at the city again, he found it was already a pile of rubble. Whether it was the city gates, walls, buildings, or the Ark Auction House that he and his dao partner had endeavored to build throughout their entire lives—all collapsed with loud rumbling.

Ethereal wisps of light flitted through the ruins and transported away everything possessing qi and the rhythm of order, yet lacking thought. The city had collapsed into debris that somehow perfectly formed a transportation formation!

It was a horrifying sight as no one among the Three Thousand understood such a formation, much less cultivators of this world. How did one first use a formation to destroy a city, then use the city’s collapsed remains to perfectly form a transportation formation??

Even the sacred supreme within the Cardinal Sacred Palace froze with incomprehension and disbelief.

Boom!

The transportation formation collapsed into a third formation. Lu Yun’s image formed in it, turning into a giant five thousand kilometers tall.

“This is my first and final warning,” his voice echoed through the land like waves. “I robbed and leveled Cardinal Sacred City this time, which means I can do the same to the Eastern or Western Sacred Cities any time. I can do this to any city in this world!

“I didn’t kill anyone today, but take a wild guess. Do you think I’ll turn the entire city into an altar next time and sacrifice everyone inside?” He smiled an exceedingly evil smile. “You know what, let’s do that next time. If those eyes of great dao keep searching for me, there will be such a next time.”