Ch. 1362 - Four Archons Against Undying Phoenix

“So, you came here to kill me?” Xu Zimo asked.

The Undying Sage Monarch’s words were not wrong.

The Demon Descent Era belonged to the primordial times, while the Sage Monarch had risen in the age that followed, the difference between the two was vast. Much had long since been buried under the dust of history.

The old man smiled and nodded.

He reached out his right hand and grabbed a handful of sand from the ground.

In this desert, everything was scarce, except sand.

The coarse grains flowed through his fingers until, at last, only a single grain remained in his palm.

“If this were that ancient era when the Ancient Demons descended, perhaps before you I would have been as insignificant as a grain of sand. But your age has long since passed. The world has forgotten you. And now, in my eyes, you are no more than this grain.”

“You’re wrong,” Xu Zimo replied evenly. “In the endless river of time, who can say what is certain?”

“You,” the old man said with a sigh, “why didn’t you just stay quietly in your Endless Sea of Nothingness and live out your remaining years? Why stir up this chaos again?”

“As the Burier of Bones, if I can bury the Infernal Lord of the past with my own hands, I will die with no regrets,” said the Undying Sage Monarch, shaking his head. “That is my only purpose here. Not for hatred, only for fulfillment.”

“Whether or not you’ll find peace, I can’t say,” Xu Zimo replied, clapping his hands, “but I can promise you this, you won’t leave here with your honor intact.”

As his words fell, the swirling sandstorm around them shifted, and several figures wreathed in infernal energy emerged from the haze.

Among them were Paimon, Seven-Face, Red-Blade Bull Demon, and Celestial Devourer.

“Let my unworthy Archons keep you company for a while,” Xu Zimo said.

“So the Holy Progenitor guessed correctly,” the Undying Sage Monarch said gravely. “No wonder you’ve survived so many of the Heavenly Court’s hunts, you’ve had guardians protecting your path.”

If it were a duel against one of these Infernal Archons, he would not have feared it.

But facing four at once was far worse than he had expected.

“There’s much your Holy Progenitor doesn’t know,” Xu Zimo said calmly. “He shouldn’t be so sure he holds the reins of heaven and earth. Who’s truly playing the game, and who’s just a piece on the board, that’s far from clear.”

The Holy Progenitor didn’t know that Xu Zimo had received the inheritance of the previous Infernal Lord in the Lost Lands.

If he did, he would never have dared to send the Undying Sage Monarch here.

Should Xu Zimo unleash that power, even this old man would be nothing before him, and even the Holy Progenitor himself might not prevail.

At his apex, the previous Infernal Lord had been an existence beyond compare, an invincible being who regarded even the Heavenly Court as nothing, one who could stand before the Great Dao itself and stand against High Heaven.

…

Paimon and the others studied the Undying Sage Monarch.

Paimon finally sighed and said, “Impressive. I didn’t expect you to have forged a new path.”

“What new path?” the Sage Monarch said with a faint, weary smile. “It’s just a dead end I was forced to take. My journey was too smooth,” he continued softly, “and that’s why it ended like this.”

He had risen during the High Ancient Era, a peerless genius among billions.

In a short span of time, he had ascended to the realm of Saint Sovereign, shocking the entire age.

Calling himself the Burier of Bones, he sought ever stronger opponents, hoping to perfect his Dao.

By the end of the ancient age, he had already become a Sage Monarch.

But his ambition didn’t stop there. He longed to break through to the Infinite Dao Realm, to open the eleventh meridian gate.

Thus, through the entire Middle Ages, he remained in seclusion.

Even after that age faded into history, he still had not emerged.

Yet the difficulty of opening that eleventh meridian was beyond words.

At last, he gave up.

He stopped chasing after the impossible and turned instead to refining his own Sage Monarch Dao.

And so, his strength grew greater and greater, eventually surpassing that of many Sage Monarchs.

He had blazed a new trail beyond the Sage Monarch realm.

But this path had limits, and now he had reached its very end.

It meant that, for the rest of his life, he would never reach the Infinite Dao Realm.

No matter how much he evolved or struggled, he could not grow any stronger.

Even a single step further was as hard as ascending to heaven itself.

That was the price he paid, the price of walking a dead-end path for the sake of power.

…

Yet Paimon and the others did not mock him.

Instead, they said with quiet respect, “The road to Infinite Dao is indeed perilous. We’ve endured countless eons, yet still linger before the gate of the Sage Monarch.”

“At least you’ve never abandoned your Dao Heart,” the Undying Sage Monarch said with a sigh. “I was the one who gave up first. Now then... enough talk,” he said finally. “I came today to bury bones, not reminisce.”

“Then today,” Paimon said calmly, “we shall fight in our lord’s stead.”

The infernal energy of the heavens poured forth.

In the lonely desert, perhaps for the first time in millions of years, such a cataclysmic battle was about to begin.

The Undying Sage Monarch lifted his head, his expression now solemn.

Behind him, tendrils of flame began to rise, coalescing into the form of a phoenix.

“You’re not human,” the Violet Mist Saint Sovereign said in surprise.

“One of the Lesser Eight Beast Races, the Undying Phoenix Race,” said Moonlight Fairy, frowning slightly.

They had all heard of the Sixteen Beast Races of the God Beast Race.

As the rulers of Azure Mystic Heaven, their numbers were few, and they rarely appeared in other realms.

So while the names of the sixteen races were known, few had actually seen one of their kind.

“I don’t dare claim kinship with the beast races,” the Undying Sage Monarch said, shaking his head. “I am the Undying Sage Monarch. That is all.”

At that, the Violet Mist Saint Sovereign let the matter drop.

The God Beast Races were powerful beyond question, the pinnacle of the Nine Heavens.

But Xu Zimo’s expression grew strange.

Since obtaining the Beast Compendium, he had paid special attention to the Sixteen Beast Races.

“So it’s an Undying Phoenix,” he said. “Then reincarnation and rebirth are your innate gifts. No wonder.”

Paimon and the others surrounded the Sage Monarch.

A torrent of infernal energy erupted, engulfing the sky itself until the heavens became a realm of pure darkness, a domain of Ancient Demons.

Seven-Face’s seven-petaled lotus bloomed, each petal emanating deathly miasma and killing intent.

The Undying Sage Monarch swung his right fist, flames of immortality burning upon it.

With a single punch, he shattered the seven-petaled lotus.

But the lotus’s miasma clung to his arm like a venom, its dark flames burning into his flesh.

Red-Blade Bull Demon reverted to his true form, a towering bull demon wielding a massive axe.

Each of his steps left deep craters in the desert floor.

With a roar, he brought his axe down in a devastating blow.

Behind the Undying Sage Monarch, the phoenix screamed, its shadow flickering as if about to vanish.

Paimon and Celestial Devourer attacked together, two surging torrents of infernal energy crashing toward the Sage Monarch like twin floods.

“Good!” the Undying Sage Monarch bellowed.

He rose into the sky, and behind him unfolded a pair of colossal wings, vast enough to blot out the heavens.

The crimson feathers burned, setting the entire sky ablaze.

The wings folded inward, encasing him completely.

Then he shone like a rising sun, a sphere of immortal flame, eternal and undying.

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