Chapter Ninety-One: The Myriad Demons Alliance, Great King Sun (Second Update)

For iron smelting, Lozu took the work into his own hands, and the efficiency went without saying: astonishingly high.

But since he did everything personally, the cave-dwelling folk lost many chances to temper themselves. So he merely directed from the side, first having the hunting team choose a suitable site, then raising a palisade. Within that enclosure they cleared away the grass and trees, selected good timber, and began building several temporary wooden huts on the spot. Only then did they start laying out the design of the new village.

The plan itself was simple. After a few people discussed it, the arrangement was settled. After all, this was already familiar business. Only this time the village would be built around iron smelting, so most of the structures were planned with that in mind.

They had stamina enough, and focus enough. Working in relentless rotation, they did not even need modern machines. Before long they were digging and hauling earth, handcrafting a brick-kiln furnace, and in the heat of the effort a brick house was the first to rise.

Then night fell.

Once darkness came, no one could return to Luo Village, so they pitched camp on the spot. Some people even found time amid the rush to take care of their most private needs.

After all, there were men and women here alike. They had thrown themselves into the labor by day, exchanged meaningful glances afterward, and then after supper at night, well-fed and warm, they naturally threw themselves into it again.

Moans rose one after another. Lozu did not stop them. He had long since gone numb to such things, and simply shut away his mind, pretending he neither heard nor saw.

There was still a great matter unfinished within his world in the gourd.

The orphan had gone on a rampage through the martial world, while Yang swept across the savage wastes, leaving the human realm in complete turmoil.

That hammer of his burst brains like exploding pulp, that sword qi flew everywhere and severed limbs and arms. Lozu watched it all with dazzled eyes, laid out fruit and pastries before himself, and enjoyed the spectacle to his heart's content.

For some reason, Qing seemed cursed by a baleful star. In his third reincarnation, before he had even left the womb, Yang killed his mother with a single sword strike.

Yet he was not destined to die there. Though his mother's vitality was extinguished, nourishment still remained within her body, and that was enough to sustain him until birth.

Of course, it was also thanks to the small cheat Lozu gave him, helping him continue his life and supplying enough spiritual energy; otherwise he would have perished again right there.

Meanwhile, Yang slaughtered his way through the savage wastes for three months, throwing the demons and monsters there into utter unrest, and in doing so gave the primitive human race a chance.

They meant to unite all the demons and monsters, establish a so-called Ten Thousand Monsters Alliance, and fight Yang to the death.

The chief of the primitive human race was named Sun Aotian, a name he chose himself in order to press down on the heavenly clans by a head.

After founding the Ten Thousand Monsters Alliance, Sun Aotian even called himself the Great King, seeking to become the sovereign of all heroes.

At that time the alliance had sixty-eight great fiends, and none of them accepted Sun Aotian. Naturally, a battle followed.

Sun Aotian forged a crimson iron spear. It bore smithing methods stolen from the human race, and once he swung it, its power was astonishing. The sixty-eight great fiends took turns attacking, and in the end thirty-six were speared down by Sun Aotian. The rest all submitted.

Thus began the great contest between King Sun and Ghost Immortal Yang, with sixty-eight monsters and demons holding the line.

The battle unfolded in the Little Joy Plains of the western savage wastes. King Sun wielded his crimson iron spear to split the earth, while Ghost Immortal Yang drove his sword across the void, sweeping away tribulation itself. One sword and one spear both blazed with might, so much so that even the sixty-eight great fiends could not find a place to intervene.

The demons and monsters also understood the gap between themselves and those top-tier masters, so they truly did only hold the line from the flanks, casting spells now and then to ambush Ghost Immortal Yang.

Yang paid them no mind. His Pure Yang ghost-immortal body was ever-changing, shifting between reality and illusion, and thus all their ambushes came to nothing.

Instead, King Sun was repeatedly struck, his body cleaved again and again by Ghost Immortal Yang's sword.

Fortunately, his body had been tempered through a hundred refinements, harder than fine gold and steel. On top of that, he had cultivated a boundless demonic aura, which shielded him against countless assaults and allowed him to withstand Yang's ferocious sword qi.

Yet Sun Aotian's crimson iron spear could never strike him, nor pierce him. Blurry spear-shadows filled the heavens, sparks burst from the spearhead, but they still could not harm Yang by even a single hair.

In such a situation, an ordinary person would already have been discouraged. Discouragement would lead to slackness, slackness to opening, and that would mean death.

But Sun Aotian was no ordinary man. He gathered his demonic aura and once again unleashed layers upon layers of spear shadows, conjuring countless spearpoints in the sky, the fire thicker and the killing intent fiercer.

Yet Yang calmly parted the oncoming force with his long sword. Sword qi swept across the entire field, shattering spear shadows, flicking aside spearpoints, and then eighteen more sword strikes fell in succession upon Sun Aotian's head and neck.

Every one of those strikes was torment, every one a move meant to claim his life.

Yet Sun Aotian still thrust himself forward and took them head-on.

It could only be said that Sun Aotian was truly formidable. Yang had to admire him inwardly. If he had not obtained this Purple Cloud Sword, he feared he might not have been able to contend with this monster at all. Had Sun Aotian marched east with the Savage Lord back then, the initial human kingdom would truly have been in grave danger.

But admiration was admiration; Yang would never develop any sense of mutual appreciation. This demon had to die. He must die!

Leaving him alive would be a calamity. Killing him would only make the Purple Cloud Sword stronger.

Yet a trace of weariness rose in Yang's heart. If King Sun already possessed such a terrifying body and such strength, then what of the lord of all demons and monsters? What sort of power would he wield?

No matter what, he had to kill him!

For the continuation of the human race, for the sake of keeping the great calamity from descending, he had no choice but to follow his own path to the end and kill the lord of the demons and monsters before all could be concluded.

The instant Yang's killing intent surged, his sword momentum rose three more degrees.

"You bastard!"

Sun Aotian suddenly sensed something was wrong and tried to evade the sword that was slashing toward his neck.

But the sword strike came down all the same, cutting straight through his boundless demonic aura and severing his neck.

His head flew away, blood sprayed, and the crimson iron spear crashed to the ground. The gathered demons and monsters fell silent.

"All of you, attack together! Kill this man and avenge King Sun!"

The demons and monsters roared in fury and rushed to surround the immortal.

They also believed that after fighting Sun Aotian for so long, the immortal must surely be exhausted by now, with his true qi nearly spent. In any case, they were not human beings, so they cared nothing for martial honor. They moved in shoulder to shoulder, intent on encircling and killing the immortal here and now.

This made things even more perilous than the duel with King Sun alone.

But Yang remained calm and collected, showing no fear in the least. Sword qi crossed the sky in all directions, and with each sweep and decisive strike, three great fiends fell dead.

Then the formation came again. All manner of sorcery advanced in ranks to kill him. The field was a blaze of crimson fire, stones rolling beneath the earth, wind and sand endless, the whole place turned into a killing ground. The Pure Yang ghost-immortal body of Yang was driven to the brink of collapse, and the struggle ran red as the setting sun, a blood-colored sky stretching on and on.

After three days and three nights of fierce combat, Ghost Immortal Yang finally achieved a narrow victory over the sixty-eight great fiends.

Those fiends died, were wounded, or fled.

Ghost Immortal Yang, too, slipped away into the uninhabited stretches of the savage wastes, unable to continue slaughtering as he pleased.

Indeed, he had already fought Sun Aotian to the point of utter exhaustion. Otherwise, no matter how many demons and monsters had gathered, they would not have been able to do anything to him. This was no longer the age of the Savage Lord, no longer that earlier era. Top-tier masters naturally had to learn how to respond when surrounded.

Even those who were not top-tier masters still had to be wary of enemy encirclement. Otherwise, if they fell into the same fate as the Savage Lord, they would have no choice but to self-detonate and perish together with their foes.

Lozu, however, was overjoyed to see Yang brought to such a pass.

Only battles of this kind were truly splendid, truly the finest material for study.

He directly saved this entire sequence into the mind of his Sun and Moon Dharma Form, then watched it again and again from multiple angles, examining it closely. From the circulation of true qi, the use of various methods, the borrowing of every kind of terrain, the changes in the heavens, the shifts in climate, and even the alterations in spirit and thought, he gathered it all, observed it carefully, and drew out a thorough conclusion.

In future duels, this would all be useful. Such experience was far too rare. Back when the Savage Lord battled the many human experts, Lozu had already stored those memories away and often brought them out for study, then used the Dharma Form mind to derive and envision their possibilities.

In the end, he would place himself into that situation and consider what means of response he might have.

Of course, what one gains from books is always shallow at last; to know the matter fully, one must practice it oneself. Only actual combat produces true understanding.

Though he had talent, and after cultivating the Dharma Form mind he was counted as a prodigy among the tiny shrimp of the primordial wilderness, matters of combat still depended on the opponent.

Just look at Yang: with a great horde of demons and monsters swarming him, he was not the least afraid. He simply hacked left and right, chasing his enemies down and cutting them apart in one relentless frenzy.

That spirit of advancing without fear was well worth learning from.

Though Lozu preferred to do things in a steady and dependable manner, and even when fighting would arrange matters carefully.

Like Qing and Ding, for instance. Those two monsters had been taken down by Lozu in a dazed haze, given no chance at all to strike back.

But sometimes there would be sudden, urgent battles, when the enemy came straight at his face. At such times, one needed a proper method of response.

Yang's skill in combat was indeed worth learning from.

Yet just as Lozu was studying these fighting methods, his so-called immortal realm suddenly became restless.