Chapter Sixty: The Master Does Not Care

Bang!

“Baiyang City has fallen?! The barbarians have invaded?!”

In the Grand Marshal’s residence, Rong, once the General of the Northern Pacification Army and now the Grand Marshal, slammed the letter onto his desk.

Three steps before the desk, the scribe stood respectfully and replied, “Reporting to the Grand Marshal, Baiyang City fell seven days ago. By now, the barbarians have likely breached the central provinces.”

Bam! Bam! Bam!

“Jie Mo is truly useless!” Rong slammed the desk repeatedly, his anger boiling over as he stood.

“Grand Marshal, shall I report this matter to the two other generals?” the scribe inquired.

“Tell them to finish sweeping the south quickly, then join forces at the western frontier to repel the barbarians,” the Grand Marshal replied after a moment’s thought, eyes closed.

The scribe nodded. “Yes, sir.”

But as he turned to leave, Rong stopped him. “Any news of Jie Mo? He can’t have just died at the hands of the barbarians, surely.”

He had once fought Jie Mo in his youth and knew the man possessed powerful sorcery and wielded an ancient divine weapon—he would not fall so easily.

“I will have someone track his whereabouts immediately,” the scribe replied.

With that, he withdrew from the office, leaving Rong to pace the room alone before finally sitting back down.

He tried to write but faltered, the brush hovering in hesitation.

“The barbarians’ invasion this time is surely well-prepared. The rebellions of previous years may be connected, and their leader now calls himself the Barbarian Sovereign—a clever mind, no longer to be treated as a mere beast. The barbarians have allied with demons and monsters, their threat greater than ever. We must not underestimate them. I urge all parties to unite and defend our homeland together…”

At last, the Grand Marshal finished his eloquent missive and exhaled in relief.

“Xue,” he called.

“I am here.”

A shadow appeared abruptly within the room.

“Copy this letter twice and send it to the Lord of the Five Viscera and the High Priest of the True God’s Sect,” the Grand Marshal instructed.

“At once.”

A flicker of darkness swept across the desk, and the letter vanished without a trace.

Only when the shadow was gone did a faint smile appear on Rong’s face.

“Why resort to such base means in a time of crisis?” a sudden voice rang out.

The Grand Marshal’s gaze turned sharp as lightning, and in that instant, the gloom of the office was slashed as if by a bolt from the heavens. A phantasmal figure emerged, and Rong immediately unleashed a swirl of dusky energy toward it.

But the apparition vanished, evading his grasp. The energy crashed against the wall in a cloud of dust, and Rong felt a chilling sensation—the grip of unseen, powerful hands constricting his muscles and limbs.

Fury surged within him. His vital yang energy erupted, shattering the roof and letting in a stream of moonlight. The sense of confinement vanished as well.

“Who dares assassinate me?!” Rong’s thunderous roar echoed across the capital.

In response, shadows darted in from all directions, landing throughout the residence, scouring every corner.

“Rong, this barbarian invasion is no simple matter. For the sake of our people, do not underestimate them.”

Clink—clink.

As the words faded, two crisp metallic sounds rang out, as if keys had fallen to the floor.

Rong looked to the source. Before him lay two broken blades.

He reached out, lifting them for close inspection. His pupils narrowed, and a hint of rare astonishment passed over his face.

“This is…

“The Blade of Slaughter!

“Broken?”

No answer came.

The ancient divine weapons had endured through the ages, never before shattered or destroyed—yet now one lay broken. Was the Barbarian Sovereign truly so formidable?

Rong was left uncertain, and all present were equally stunned, unsure how to respond.

A gentle night wind drifted through the streets and over the hills. From the void, a figure gradually materialized.

He was none other than the former Sun Lord, now the Ghost Immortal Yang—a name of his own choosing. Legend had it the first ghost was called Yang, though his own investigation found no evidence of such a figure. Nevertheless, he claimed the name.

Blessed with extraordinary talent, Yang had studied the Ghost Immortal arts left by the ancient sage Luo Zu, forging his own path. Now, he was but a step from manifesting the true body of a Ghost Immortal.

Once he achieved this, he would be able to shift between form and formlessness, drawing in spiritual energy from nature itself, storing true qi within and thus attaining a body of pure yin.

Sensing the aura of calamity in the world—and the unrest among the people—he had come forth before his cultivation was complete.

Fortunately, the Ghost Immortal method was newly born, and he alone had mastered it. The world knew nothing of Ghost Immortals, which granted him freedom to deceive the Barbarian Sovereign, reclaim fragments of the Blade of Slaughter, and secretly enter the Grand Marshal’s residence to report the matter.

Yet he was surprised to find that the Grand Marshal sought to use this crisis to unify the Chu Kingdom—sending letters of alliance with one hand, while urging his subordinates to hasten their attacks on the two great southern factions with the other.

Yang understood this was because Rong simply did not take the barbarians seriously.

But such contempt would only bring disaster upon humanity.

He had witnessed the Barbarian Sovereign’s might—already, that one was unrivaled in the age. Only if Yang could regain his former peak strength might he prevail.

Thus, even should Rong grow cautious and ally with other masters of the highest cultivation, they might still be no match for the Barbarian Sovereign.

That being’s dharma body had already surpassed this era.

Moreover, with command of giant beasts and alliances with monsters and demons, the Barbarian Sovereign’s power was already overwhelming.

“Martial God, is this why you granted me enlightenment once more? If so, I fear I will fail in what you entrusted to me.”

One thing Yang could not comprehend: in ages past, the Martial God had descended, personally slaying both Demon and Cang. Yet now, as the barbarians invaded, the Martial God did not descend to aid mankind.

High above, overlooking the mortal realm, Luo Zu—the “Martial God”—heard Yang’s prayer.

He would have answered: The Lord does not care!

Let them fight and kill as they will; Luo Zu truly did not care. The Barbarian Sovereign was a promising child, offering imaginative ideas. Luo Zu had watched humanity for years and would not show favoritism toward the “more competent” Barbarian Sovereign. The contest would be left to strength alone.

All in all, the Barbarian Sovereign was a creative youth whom Luo Zu greatly admired.

With a gentle exhale, Luo Zu set about a new work of creation.

This time, his creative power was not for the birth of new life, but to analyze a certain object with the divine art of fate manipulation.

This object was a relic left from the fierce battle between the sorcerers and demons on the primeval earth the previous night.

It was the flesh of Qiu Zhi.

After the mighty fighters of the Wu tribe departed, Luo Zu had comforted his people, then sent his yang spirit forth to the battlefield. He remembered where pieces of Qiu Zhi’s monstrous body had fallen after being hacked apart, and so he scoured an entire mountain range. At last, he found a chunk of flesh the size of a palm.

Astonishingly, the flesh was still alive, crawling across the ground in search of small mountain creatures to devour.

Such a marvel could not be ignored, and Luo Zu promptly stored it within his gourd-world.