Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-682

When the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor was slain, Yiyi's battle with the three—no, two now—fiend kings was also reaching its end.

After that heavily injured fiend king had been slain, the combat puppet and bean soldiers were more than enough to deal with the remaining two. But in order to reduce losses, Yiyi had the bean soldiers on rotation, grinding away at the fiend kings.

The two fiend kings should have been able to last a while, but the death of the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor had obliterated their confidence.

As Tang Jie imperiously strode toward them, the two fiend kings looked at each other, both wanting to flee.

But the Imprisoning Dragon Formation had "Imprisoning" in its name for a reason, and it wasn't something they could escape that easily. In the end, Tang Jie slew them both.

Having killed what needed to be killed, Tang Jie took the possessions of the fiends and tossed their bodies into the diagram. As always, he took everything that had value.

The most valuable was the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor himself, of course. His fiend pellet was the size of a goose egg, a translucent crystal brimming with lightning energy. As for the Heaven Thunder Saber, it had been transformed from the Thunder Serpent's horn, and it had now returned to its original form. Besides that, the flesh and bones of the Thunder Serpent were also very valuable. Even though they had been blasted to bits, Tang Jie still gathered them all up and put them together, leaving them next to the remaining half of the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor's centipede body.

These were top-class materials, and Tang Jie currently didn't have the ability to fully exploit them, so he had decided to store them away for now.

Besides that, Thunder Blade had also left behind his warship.

Thunder Blade's strongest divine treasure had been ruined from the inside out because of Tang Jie, but because Tang Jie had planned to take it from the beginning, he naturally hadn't damaged it to an irreparable state.

One could say that Tang Jie had calculated every step of his plan, from pretending to be the Little Thunder Emperor, to throwing out the head, to waiting for the Heaven-Devouring Lightning Punishment, predicting all possibilities and preparing the appropriate response. What Tang Jie had used had only been a part of what he had prepared, and so even if the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor had been hiding some other secret, Tang Jie would have been able to react to it. In this situation, it would have actually been an injustice if he hadn't died.

And the Fiend Emperor really had been done in by his own son. The Little Thunder Emperor had both revealed the flaw of the Heaven-Devouring Lightning Punishment, and also coughed up the properties of the warship.

He had said even more, so much that Tang Jie had developed an even grander idea—he might as well disguise himself as the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor.

"Anyway, I have the Thousand Faces, so I can become anything. I've already pretended to be one, so why not two? Moreover, I heard something from the Little Thunder Emperor that I need to verify." Tang Jie said this to Yiyi once he had decided on his plan. In the end, he summarized:

"Regardless, plundering two countries is better than plundering one."

Yiyi was dumbfounded by Tang Jie's idea.

But in the end, she agreed to it.

It was true. Plundering two countries was better than plundering one.

Of course, there was a flaw to this. The more he pretended to be others, the more he risked exposure. And so long as one Fiend Emperor was revealed to be a fake, the other would inevitably be exposed not long afterward.

But Tang Jie didn't care. He had already prepared for this.

After putting everything away, Tang Jie split himself up again. The original body maintained the appearance of the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor while the avatar turned into the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor, taking the Profound Heavy Water, Holy Nullight Armor, and the warship back to the Thunder Blade Empire.

The city in which the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor resided was called Thunderopolis, and his palace was the Thunder Palace.

After several days of flight, Tang Jie arrived at Thunderopolis and immediately descended toward the Thunder Palace.

The fiends guarding the Thunder Palace saw this and immediately kneeled. "Your Majesty the Thunder Emperor!"

Tang Jie ignored them and flew straight into the palace, but he didn't make it far before throwing up blood.

The fiends were all aghast, shouting, "Your Majesty!"

Tang Jie waved his hand. "There's no need to panic. I had a fight with Silver Eyes. The four fiend kings all died, and I was heavily injured. But he didn't fare much better, losing one of his lives. If it wasn't for that Deathless Heaven Pearl of his, there would already be no Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor in this world. But after losing this life, he has no more trump cards and will forever be the weakest of the five emperors! He won't be able to act so cocky anymore, hahahaha!"

The fiends were stunned. None of them had expected the battle to be this bitter.

Four fiend kings had been slain, Silver Eyes had lost a life, and Thunder Blade had been heavily injured.

A fiend general stammered out, "Then is the Little Thunder Emperor…"

Tang Jie's face darkened. "Dead. I'll avenge my son someday!"

He walked into the palace while shouting, "I've been badly injured and need to immediately see to my wounds. Send words that I am in seclusion starting from today and won't be seeing any guests!"

"Yes!" the fiends called out.

This was the method Tang Jie had thought of to resolve his problems.

The avatar's Heart Demon strength meant it would have a tougher time pretending to be a Divine Division fiend than the merged self, as the gap in strength was just too great. Tang Jie had originally planned to use his merged form, who would have an impressive enough aura that even a fiend king wouldn't notice anything strange.

His avatar would have a hard time maintaining such an aura.

Thus, the best solution was to fake heavy injuries and use seclusion to avoid seeing anyone.

Heavy injuries would mean his aura was weak, and seclusion reduced the number of people, so both greatly lowered his chances of being discovered.

And through this method, he could also refuse seeing the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor's concubines… Tang Jie hadn't forgotten the headache Silver Eyes' concubines had given him.

Upon entering the palace, Tang Jie headed straight to the secret chamber. He wasn't blind like he had been when pretending to be Silver Eyes. Thanks to the Little Thunder Emperor, he knew all about the palace, and he wound through the corridors and soon arrived at the imperial garden.

Tang Jie took a small hammer and knocked three times on a fake mountain, upon which the mountain split down the middle, revealing an entrance.

Tang Jie headed into the passage.

After he had walked a long time, the passage brightened.

In that large hall, as expected, an elder was standing guard. He was startled when he saw Tang Jie. "Your Majesty, you…"

"It's fine." Tang Jie waved his hand. "I had a fight with Silver Eyes…"

After giving his excuse, Tang Jie said, "Open up the demon cave. I want to take a look."

"Yes!" The elder went up to a wall and slapped it several times, upon which the wall opened up.

In front of Tang Jie was a cave from which a sinister wind blasted out, exerting an endless pressure.

If one looked closely, one would find that this cave was exactly the same as the cave under the statue in the back mountain of Silver Eyes' palace!

Tang Jie took in a deep breath.

So it really was like that?

When interrogating the Little Thunder Emperor, in order to get an understanding of the palace, Tang Jie had questioned him about every little detail, which caused him to find out that there was one place here that the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor considered extremely important and that exerted an endless pressure. His father had once sent many fiends to search it, but none of them had returned, not even fiend kings.

Tang Jie found this strange, so he had wanted to take a look.

It was also at that time he had made up his mind to kill the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor, take on his guise, and infiltrate this place.

After seeing the cave, Tang Jie simply said, "Alright, Elder Wind, close it back up."

The elder closed the stone wall, glanced at the “Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor”, and worriedly said, "Your Majesty's aura is extremely weak, not even reaching one tenth of your prime, falling all the way to middle-phase Transformation. If this gets out, some ambitious scoundrels might start getting rebellious thoughts."

"So I need to recover as quickly as possible and suppress those lowly beings," Tang Jie said. "I will be focusing entirely on recovery for now, so don't let them disturb me unless it's something important."

Elder Wind prostrated. "Your Majesty can be at ease and recuperate. This elder will handle the empire's affairs."

Tang Jie indifferently said, "The Seven Seas King and the others can handle the empire, so there's no need for you to worry about that. Your only duty is to provide the resources I need for my recovery."

Elder Wind cast aside all his doubts at these words, saying, "Yes! As Your Majesty commands!"

Tang Jie walked deeper in.

Just like Silver Eyes, Thunder Blade had a cultivation chamber, one that he had put together with the demon cave and his treasury. Perhaps this was because cultivation was so time-consuming that one could only rest easy if one's valuables were close at hand.

The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor's cultivation chamber was made of Thunder Crystal, and the meditation bed was made from Thousand Lake Bamboo. While this also had the function of gathering spiritual energy and calming the mind, it was far inferior to the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor's chamber. However, the Thunder Crystal had a higher concentration of lightning energy, which was favorable to the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor, who primarily cultivated lightning.

Tang Jie closed the door of the chamber and then walked forward seven steps. Standing on the seventh brick, he turned to face the wall. As expected, one of the Thunder Crystals making up the wall was a little dimmer than the others.

Tang Jie pressed that crystal, and there was a clack as the Thunder Crystal sank into the wall, and the wall of the chamber swung open to reveal a treasury.

After seeing Silver Eyes' treasury, Tang Jie was somewhat numbed to this one.

It was the same sort of thing, and it was unlikely that there would be anything particularly exciting in it.

But as the door swung open, something appeared before Tang Jie that made him freeze in shock.

It was a pair of shoes, decorated with dragon and phoenix patterns woven from 9438 kinds of Phoenix Silk by the Celestial Compass Elder, with soles made from the hide of the Kui Bull of the Nine Raze Mountains, and threads that were actually tempered lightning, causing the shoes to flash and twinkle.

Beneath the shoes was written, "Basic form, still lacking divinity."

Tang Jie understood that this was the fourth divine treasure that the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor had been working on. "Divinity" referred to a soul connection, which was the biggest difference between divine treasures and art relics. Once this step was completed, a divine treasure could link to the world and be capable of a Divine Connection.

This pair of shoes was still lacking this final step. Without it, it would always be an art relic, not a divine treasure.

But what Tang Jie truly cared about was the power rippling through these shoes.

The power of Space!

This was a Space-type divine treasure! Tang Jie had realized this the moment he set eyes on it.

There was no doubt that the Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor had wanted to imbue it with his own powerful Space abilities, but alas, he had been slain by Tang Jie before he could do this. If he had succeeded in forging this item, Tang Jie would have had to deal with another variable to kill him.

As for Tang Jie, these shoes were a pleasant surprise.

These shoes were so rich in Space energy that they could definitely give Little Three a big boost.

It wouldn't be long before it could freely travel through the Nether Domain.