Chapter One Hundred and Twelve: The Human Emperor

Because the Treasure Hall was relatively close to the Spirit Medicine Hall, after leaving the latter, Chu Feng rode straight toward the Treasure Hall. He wanted to see whether it held any information about the Heavenly Lord.

Along the way, Chu Feng remained somewhat heavyhearted. After all, in another half month he would have to face another life-or-death struggle, and by the look of it, this one would be even harder to endure.

Thinking that he had once again reached a new extreme realm, Chu Feng could not help recalling what Yu Yang had said in that dream.

He studied the small sword in his hand, but it gave no response. He murmured, “Senior Yu Yang’s spiritual will has not awakened. So this is not that extreme realm.”

Chu Feng longed for Yu Yang’s spiritual will to awaken. He very much wanted to ask where Yu Yang had gone.

Lost in thought, Chu Feng soon arrived at the Treasure Hall.

Last time he had come, he had never truly entered the hall, and now that he had arrived, the Grand Elder was not here either.

The courtyard remained simple and empty, without a soul in sight. Chu Feng crossed it and quickly used the Holy Battle Token to open the Treasure Hall’s doors.

The moment Chu Feng stepped inside, the rich spiritual energy in the hall suddenly churned, condensing into a human form.

It was an old man in gray robes, full of vitality, who looked at Chu Feng with a faint, kindly smile.

Chu Feng was startled. Had it not been said that no one guarded the Treasure Hall? How had such a person suddenly appeared?

Seeing the doubt on Chu Feng’s face, the gray-robed elder said, “I am the core of all the barriers within the Treasure Hall, that is, the spirit of the barriers. I do not truly count as a person. But everything in this hall is under my control.”

Chu Feng was secretly awed. To give rise to a barrier spirit, one’s mastery of barriers had to have reached an extraordinarily high level.

A barrier spirit could completely command every barrier in this place, with astonishing offensive and defensive power. Indeed, this was far more effective than stationing a powerful expert here in person.

At that moment, the gray-robed elder glanced at the Holy Battle Token in Chu Feng’s hand and said, “You still have three chances with your Holy Battle Token to choose treasures in the Battle Pavilion, and that includes all the treasures of the Treasure Hall. Have you come to select a treasure?”

Chu Feng shook his head and said, “Senior, I only wish to look up some ancient texts.”

“So that is it.” The gray-robed elder nodded, then said, “There is something I should explain to you: if it is a secret art, then one secret art counts as one opportunity to exchange for a treasure. As for other books and records, there are no such restrictions.”

“Thank you for telling me, Senior.” Chu Feng cupped his fists.

“Come with me,” the gray-robed elder said.

Chu Feng swept a glance around. There were several rooms surrounding the main hall, all with closed doors, each marked clearly; the items stored inside were all spirit weapons.

Chu Feng followed the gray-robed elder to the second level of the Treasure Hall. There were fewer rooms on this floor, and according to the labels, they contained all manner of rare and precious treasures.

The Treasure Hall had three levels in total. Chu Feng followed the gray-robed elder to the third level, where there were even fewer rooms, only four in all. One held the finest secret arts of the human race, while the other three stored various books and records.

“There are many texts here, tens of thousands of volumes in all, more than enough for you to search through. Still, after so many years, I have come to know these records quite well. If you tell me what sort of information you are looking for, I can guide you,” the gray-robed elder said.

“I want to find information about the Heavenly Lord,” Chu Feng replied.

“The Heavenly Lord? Ah, I remember now. It seems there was indeed an ancient text that mentioned him,” the gray-robed elder said.

“An ancient text?” Chu Feng was startled. “Could that half plaque be something handed down from antiquity?”

With that question in mind, Chu Feng followed the gray-robed elder into one of the rooms.

Inside were row upon row of bookshelves, packed with texts in astonishing abundance.

The gray-robed elder studied the shelves as he walked, pondering for a while. Suddenly, his eyes lit up. “This is the one.”

Then he reached out and took a book down from the shelf.

Chu Feng had never seen such a tattered book. It was not merely that the paper had yellowed; it looked so decayed that it seemed ready to crumble at any moment.

The gray-robed elder handed it to Chu Feng. Chu Feng hesitated slightly and asked, “Can this book even withstand being opened?”

The elder smiled. “It was already like this when it was first discovered. Though it cannot be restored, it has been reinforced by the barriers, so it will not decay any further. You may read it freely.”

Only then did Chu Feng accept the ancient book with relief. At once, his eyes were drawn to the four characters on the cover.

Since the book came from antiquity, the script had not changed much. On the already damaged cover were written the words: Biography of the Human Emperor.

Human Emperor? Emperor of the human race? Did the human race also once have an emperor?

Chu Feng was shaken with uncertainty. He knew that the demon race had always had a Demon Emperor, but he had never heard of a Human Emperor before.

At the very least, in later ages there was no such title among humanity. The highest authority of the human race was the Five Elders, and it had always been so.

“There must also have been a Demon Emperor in antiquity. Could it be that the Human Emperor existed only in ancient times? But why did it never pass down to later generations?” Chu Feng’s mind was filled with doubt.

He asked the gray-robed elder about it, but the elder, after all, was only a barrier spirit. Though his intelligence was no different from a human’s, he could not possibly know the affairs of antiquity.

According to him, among all the texts in the Treasure Hall, only this ancient volume spoke of the Human Emperor.

“Could that half plaque be connected to the Human Emperor?” Chu Feng could not spare time to dwell on his doubts and immediately opened the book to read.

The Human Emperor, Mu Tianren, was a prodigy of the human race, endowed with heaven-defying talent. Rising from obscurity, he achieved peerless greatness, unified the human race, and became the first emperor of mankind.

“So he was the first emperor of my human race!” Chu Feng thought with emotion.

This book was truly too ruined. Its pages were riddled with worm-eaten holes, and as Chu Feng read on, he found that the text had become difficult to follow, with very few fully intact sentences left.

Still, Chu Feng could roughly tell that the book was recording major events in the Human Emperor’s life.

He continued to read slowly, unwilling to miss any important detail.

Soon, he came upon some crucial information: at the age of twenty, the Human Emperor unified the human race and became emperor.

At twenty-one, he was already able to contend with the Demon Emperor. The Demon Emperor Feng Yao of that era turned out to be the only phoenix ever to appear in heaven and earth, and she had already stood at the pinnacle of cultivation for hundreds of years.

Feng Yao was born of heaven and earth, powerful beyond measure. It had to be said that the Human Emperor was far too heaven-defying to be able to reach such a level.

Even more shocking was that by the age of twenty-five, Mu Tianren, the Human Emperor, was already unrivaled beneath the heavens. Whether human or demon, there were few left who could stand against him.

With his emotions stirred, Chu Feng kept turning the pages. The more he read, however, the more his heart trembled.

The Human Emperor truly possessed talents that could move heaven and earth. After the age of thirty, no one knew how formidable he had become.

No one could say exactly what level of cultivation he had reached. The Human Emperor cultivated three paths at once. Chu Feng could already see what achievements he had attained in the Heavenly Way and the Human Way, but on the Martial Way, the Human Emperor had created the strongest body-tempering manual, and the Martial Way’s strongest secret art, Heaven-Stepping Steps, was also his creation.

Chu Feng immediately thought of the nameless body-tempering manual. On that day, the Grand Elder had said that it was created by the strongest person in heaven and earth.

“So the nameless manual was created by the Human Emperor!” Chu Feng murmured.

Recalling what had happened that day, it seemed the Grand Elder had not wished to speak of the Human Emperor, and thus had used a rather veiled way of putting it.

Chu Feng’s mind surged with agitation; he could not calm himself. He kept reading, but because of the severe damage, much of the information had already been completely lost.

Later, Chu Feng uncovered more information that left him greatly astonished. The Human Emperor was revered by all the myriad races and honored by the whole world. Under him stood eight Heavenly Kings, and the first among them was the Demon Emperor Feng Yao.

At that point, Chu Feng felt a chill run through him.

For the Human Emperor to command the reverence of all races—just how powerful would such a figure have to be? Could he have been a deity?

Reading further, he found that the second Heavenly King was actually a human expert named Qi Tianjun.

“So the Heavenly Lord really was a person’s name, and he was the second Heavenly King under the Human Emperor!” Chu Feng could not help but exclaim.

From this, it seemed highly likely that the half plaque engraved with the words of the Heavenly Lord was connected to this human senior.

This time, Chu Feng had roughly traced the origin of that plaque. As for what hidden secret the broken half plaque might still contain, he could not fathom it. After all, it was no longer whole.

The book revealed about this much. The later portions were even harder to read, and as Chu Feng skimmed them, it seemed to mention something called the Eight Gates Escapement. As for what it actually described, Chu Feng could no longer tell.

He closed the book and sighed with emotion, unable to calm his heart. He had never imagined that antiquity contained such hidden truths.

Yet if the Human Emperor had been so powerful, revered by all races, how had the human race fallen to its later state? In later ages, the demon race and the human race were practically at one another’s throats.

Judging from this Biography of the Human Emperor, the Human Emperor had been the pride of the human race. And yet in later generations there was no longer any Human Emperor at all; not even the title was mentioned.

Chu Feng felt that the Human Emperor had been abandoned by the world itself. Even the Grand Elder’s attitude last time seemed to carry a reluctance to speak of him.

At that moment, a chill rose in Chu Feng’s heart as he thought of that blank stretch of history. Looking at it now, something terrifying must once have happened.

After a long while, Chu Feng finally drew a deep breath and slowly let it out.

His heart remained heavy. These hidden matters were too obscure, and Chu Feng felt that they had already surpassed the limits of what he could reach.

He shook his head forcefully and put such thoughts aside, then returned the ancient book to the gray-robed elder.

There were still many ancient texts here, but Chu Feng had no mind to read them anymore. He understood that even if he did, it would be futile; in the end, he would still struggle to uncover any clue, and that blank span of history had already been buried by time.

“I wonder whether the Five Elders know about this?” Chu Feng muttered to himself, then bade farewell to the gray-robed elder and left the Treasure Hall.

That night, Chu Feng lay quietly on his bed. Over the past two or three months, in order to reach the second extreme realm, he had not slept at all. Though it made little difference whether he slept or not, it was still a habit he had kept for many years.

Chu Feng relaxed his mind and gradually drifted into sleep. At that moment, the small sword at his chest trembled faintly, and Yu Yang suddenly appeared in Chu Feng’s dream.