The Human Emperor

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

Wang Chong said nothing, but his eyes shone with the same doubt.

Even without foresight of the future, an ordinary person wouldn’t have left some secret passage accessed through the underground river, and the Origin Immortal Lord was a powerful figure with knowledge of divination arts. Something like this was far too suspicious.

“Leave the next task to me!”

Wang Chong took out his Wootz Steel dagger and stabbed it into the ore vein.

Clang!

There was a flash of sparks, and Wang Chong clearly sensed a massive resistance meeting the tip of his dagger.

“What tough metal!”

Even though the Lone Silence Ancestor had already mentioned it, allowing Wang Chong to prepare himself, he was still stunned by its toughness.

Wootz Steel was sharp enough to cut through well-tempered refined steel, and Wang Chong had never before encountered a metal that was this hard to cut through.

The toughness of the metal before him far surpassed his expectations. Wang Chong finally understood why the Origin Immortal Lord had set up his palace here.

Fortunately, although this metal was tough, it was still no match for Wang Chong’s Wootz Steel dagger.

As Wang Chong energetically hacked away, large chunks of ore began to drop down.

Wang Chong’s progress was slow, but he advanced steadily and the ore vein itself was not very thick.

But mining through the metal ore was very damaging to the Wootz Steel dagger.

Every time he swung the dagger, there would be a shrill scraping sound. This tough and unknown metal left many scratches on the dagger as it was cut down.

The Wootz Steel dagger had been damaged earlier by the threads of the Darkshadow Spider, and there were already many tiny cracks on its edge.

Now that it was excavating through the ore, more and more cracks were appearing. It was truly an unbearable sight, and it was hard to say when the Wootz Steel dagger would completely shatter.

The Lone Silence Ancestor could only stand on the sidelines and worry, as there was nothing he could do.

Wang Chong’s dagger was the only tool they had for mining through the ore vein.

Time flew by, and the green leaves in their mouths were beginning to wear out.

Bang!

Wang Chong’s dagger seemed to encounter an extremely tough barrier, and as the Wootz Steel dagger was forced back, click! Yet another crack appeared on its blade.

Wang Chong and the Lone Silence Ancestor paled.

“How could it be like this!?”

Wang Chong’s brow deeply creased.

Logically speaking, since they had been able to dig into the metal ore initially, they shouldn’t have run into any other barrier.

“We might have run into an ore matrix!” the Lone Silence Ancestor suddenly said, his expression extremely grave.

“If an underground ore vein has been around for a long time—a thousand years, perhaps even longer—ore matrices might form within it. For example, an iron ore vein has a chance of forming an iron matrix while a copper ore vein has a chance of forming a copper matrix.

“It’s rare to encounter such a thing, but not impossible. If this is an ore matrix, then we probably won’t be able to dig through.”

The Lone Silence Ancestor felt his heart sink as he spoke.

He had believed that they had found a secret passage, but he hadn’t expected it to come with a hidden ore matrix.

“Let me try. There’s a chance that we might not have run into an ore matrix,” Wang Chong said after some thought.

He was unwilling to just give up after coming so far.

Clang!

Wang Chong drew Stellar Energy from his dantian and gathered it on the Wootz Steel dagger.

The Wootz Steel dagger was too cracked to take on too much Stellar Energy, which was why Wang Chong hadn’t done this from the start. But at this point, there was no time to worry about such things.

There was a sharp clang as the dagger once more clashed against the tough ore.

Wang Chong swung it a second and third time.

Bolstered by the immense Stellar Energy, the Wootz Steel dagger truly had gotten much more powerful, but the barrier before it remained unshaken.

As Wang Chong swung the dagger more and more, more and more cracks appeared on its surface. No one could say when the dagger might break.

It probably wouldn’t be long until it completely shattered.

Whoosh!

While Wang Chong was completely focused on the metal ore vein, there was a splash of water from the river down below.

The sound had come from some distance away, but it was quite loud in this dark and quiet world.

“Not good!”

As the Lone Silence Ancestor sent out his senses, he paled.

“Someone is coming!”

“Is it the men in black?”

Wang Chong suddenly stopped and turned his head.

Wang Chong had not expected these people to be so crafty. After clearly taking their leave, they had suddenly turned back.

“No! It’s even more troublesome… It’s one of the successors of the Origin Immortal Art.”

The Lone Silence Ancestor looked up at Wang Chong, and Wang Chong could clearly make out the nasty grimace on his face.

Wang Chong also grimaced at these words.

“How could this be?!”

The air was instantly fraught with tension.

“I don’t know what’s going on either. This should have never happened.”

The Lone Silence Ancestor had a similar look of shock in his eyes.

“But based on the direction he’s coming from, it seems he came down from the same passage we did. There’s an extremely high chance that the men in black accidentally drew that Origin Immortal Art successor into the underground river. And our excavating just now made too much noise, drawing him toward us.”

Wang Chong had not expected the sound of their mining to draw over the Origin Immortal Art successor.

The tunnel became so quiet that one could hear a pin drop. The pair sealed off all their pores and retracted all their energy as they became motionless statues.

The splashing got closer and closer. The Origin Immortal Art successor wasn’t swimming very quickly, but this only made the pair more nervous.

No one knew what he would do next. Had he only heard the sounds, or had he actually discovered the two?

Thumpthump!

Everything seemed to stop except for the beating of their hearts.

Even time itself seemed to slow.

It’s the fifth-generation successor!

As the Origin Immortal Art successor slowly made his way into the vicinity of the pair, Wang Chong’s heart chilled. The fifth-generation successor was much stronger than the sixth-generation.

And since Wang Chong had seen him before in the palace, he was extremely familiar with this aura.

And even worse…

“Oh no! It seems like he’s noticed us!”

The Lone Silence Ancestor’s voice rang out in Wang Chong’s mind. The fifth-generation successor had been swimming along the river, but had now stopped and was looking up in the direction of Wang Chong and the Lone Silence Ancestor.

The tension was so thick it could be cut with a knife.

Wang Chong’s face tightened, but at this moment, Wang Chong saw the Lone Silence Ancestor’s palm shake. Rumble! Far away, a fierce explosion occurred in the underground river.

The Gonggong Divine Art!

Wang Chong realized what had happened.

The Lone Silence Ancestor had a sublime control over the flow of water. Not even Wang Chong had been able to tell just how he had been able to control the water into exploding from such a distance. There had been no wave of Psychic Energy or tremor of Stellar Energy. The Lone Silence Ancestor had accomplished the deed without leaving a single trace.

Swoosh!

The fifth-generation successor in the river sensed the explosion and swiftly went to investigate.

“Young Master Wang, let’s go! My Water God Art can only delay him for a while, but not for long. We should use this chance to get out of here!” the Lone Silence Ancestor said in a solemn tone. He immediately headed back down.

“Wait! I still want to try one more time!”

The Lone Silence Ancestor had already gone a hundred-some feet when Wang Chong’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Young Master Wang, the fifth-generation successor might come back at any moment, and our leaves are almost used up. We can’t delay more than ten minutes here. Now is not the time to decide things based on emotion!” the Lone Silence Ancestor anxiously said.

“Let me try one more time!” Wang Chong sternly said, looking at the ore vein. “If it’s really no good, I’ll come with you!”

An eerie silence fell over the underground river. After a long while, the Lone Silence Ancestor sighed.

“Fine! I’ll delay him for five minutes at most, but when the time is up, whether you want to leave or not, I will be leaving!”