Chapter Ninety-One: Crimson Summoning

The open flat ground outside the palace on the summit of the immortal mountain was left in ruins. Leading the remaining five or six hundred people, Wang Song felt secretly anxious. They had all watched Chen Hongxu recklessly step onto the suddenly materialized stairs, yet none of them dared to follow. After all, those were things composed of countless golden-threaded runes. In everyone's cognition, golden-threaded runes were synonymous with terror—not merely because of their formidable might, but largely due to people's profound ignorance of such entities.

What worried Wang Song and the others even more was that the agreed-upon time with the Heaven-Reaching Immortal had long since passed, yet the Heaven-Reaching Immortal still had not arrived. Normally, such a major event could not possibly be delayed, nor could anyone have made him late. Could it be...? The terrifying thought that the young man might possess an even more terrifying companion was suppressed deep in their hearts.

"Boom! Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang..."

As Chen Hongxu ascended the stairs step by step, the surrounding space trembled in response. Seeing that the blood-colored mist in the air was about to be shaken into dispersal, Wang Song hurriedly instructed the survivors to increase their vital blood essence, terrified that everything would vanish into thin air and leave him unable to give a proper account when the Heaven-Reaching Immortal finally arrived.

Stepping onto the stairs composed of golden-threaded runes, Chen Hongxu felt the world undergo a sudden transformation. This sensation was entirely different from his previous two ascents. Closing his eyes to sense it, he discovered that the stairs acted like a wall, blocking any possibility of attack and interference from the youth surnamed Kong and the others, while simultaneously protecting them.

Relieved, Chen Hongxu continued forward. This time, the sensation of stepping upon the stairs seemed somewhat more solid than before. Why such a change occurred was something Chen Hongxu did not understand.

Upon reaching the thirtieth step, Chen Hongxu suddenly noticed two blurred figures engaging in fierce combat amidst the clouds and mist obscuring the upper steps. Without a second thought, he quickened his pace and rushed upward. Even though these stairs were essentially an extension of his own will, the presence of someone else upon them was something that had never happened since Chen Hongxu mastered this ability.

As the figures drew closer, Chen Hongxu's pupils constricted, and without a word, he plunged straight into the battle.

To his surprise, the ones fighting on the stairs were none other than Jiajia and an old man. Even without using his brains, Chen Hongxu could easily guess the old man's identity: he had to be the Heaven-Reaching Immortal, a figure of tremendous renown across both the immortal mountain and the fourth-tier world.

The Heaven-Reaching Immortal currently looked somewhat disheveled, the golden armor on his body shattered in several places. Naturally, Chen Hongxu harbored no notions of fair, one-on-one combat; right now was the prime opportunity to beat a drowning dog.

"Damnable thing! Why is this place like a sticky quagmire? Not only are my movements restricted, but my strength has even been forcibly suppressed by a notch!" Raising his arm, the Heaven-Reaching Immortal managed to forcefully block Chen Hongxu's sneak attack, using the impact to retreat three steps down the stairs.

Seeing that the sneak attack had failed, Chen Hongxu felt no disappointment. After all, no matter how battered the Heaven-Reaching Immortal was at the moment, he was still a genuine Death Realm expert, and a bizarre, longevity-blessed being who had lived for tens of thousands of years to boot.

"Not bad at all. You actually beat this old bastard into such a state?" Chen Hongxu stood beside Jiajia and praised approvingly.

Jiajia, however, did not dare to claim credit. "Not a chance," he replied. "His injuries have nothing to do with me whatsoever; he brought them all upon himself. After all, I am a realm lower than him, and my specialty is defense, not offense. Trying to injure him is quite difficult."

"Then?"

"This thing is rather interesting. The old man fought me a couple of times and wanted to fly away, but the moment my mind stirred, he got smacked right down." Jiajia smacked his lips, looking somewhat embarrassed.

"Huh? Is that the reason?" This reminded Chen Hongxu of the time when he and his group climbed the Heavenly Ladder in Africa. One had to know that this thing possessed a domain of flight suppression. Back then, his strength was low and his experience limited, so he didn't understand what a domain meant. But now, Chen Hongxu's mind was crystal clear: domains seemed to be the exclusive domain of Emperor-rank powerhouses, and for anyone else to even peek into them was exceptionally difficult.

The Heaven-Reaching Immortal's expression turned somewhat gloomy. His brief clash with Chen Hongxu just now made him realize that completely devouring the opponent this time around would be rather difficult. He knew very well that the most important thing right now was not fighting to the death with these people, but escaping this bizarre place.

"It is quite devoid of reason for a friend to barge onto my immortal mountain and cause a ruckus without asking questions first, isn't it?" Yet, asking him to turn around and retreat, leaving his back exposed to Chen Hongxu, was equally out of the question.

"Heh, you're still talking nonsense at a time like this." Chen Hongxu let out a dry laugh. "If you were merely an ordinary guardian, there wouldn't be any problem at all. But will you let me pass through this world from the fourth tier to the third? Obviously impossible. Because I know you're nothing more than a guard dog sent down by the third tier. That's why many people from major clans, despite possessing the strength of Human Kings, cannot enter the third tier—because there is only one way in, and that is to kill you. And killing you will inevitably sour relations with the people of the third tier. They have all sorts of misgivings, but I do not. Therefore, anyone who blocks my path, I am bound to kill."

"Unbridled arrogance!" The Heaven-Reaching Immortal knew that what Chen Hongxu said was true, and refuting it now served no purpose. After all, the opponent was not some wet-behind-the-ears child who could be easily hoodwinked with a couple of words.

"Since you are courting death, I shall grant your wish." Hesitating for a moment, the Heaven-Reaching Immortal sneered, raised his hand, and bit down on his thumb. Using the blood drawn from his thumb, he traced a few random patterns in the void, and instantly, a massive gate materialized.

The flesh and blood of the Heaven-Reaching Immortal began to wither, but he did not stop. Instead, he pressed his endlessly bleeding thumb directly against the crimson gate, which looked as though it had just been freshly painted with lacquer.

"Boom..." The gate swung open with a peal of thunder.

A massive surge of crimson mist poured out from within the gate, accompanied by faint, muffled screams from the other side, yet the Heaven-Reaching Immortal turned a deaf ear to them all.

Moments later, the crimson mist spewing from the gate enveloped the Heaven-Reaching Immortal entirely. The last thing Chen Hongxu caught a glimpse of was a rather unfathomable look in the Heaven-Reaching Immortal's eyes.

Was that a flash of terror?

"Terrified of his own methods?" Chen Hongxu couldn't quite figure it out. Still, the Heaven-Reaching Immortal's technique of carving a blood gate to fracture space was extraordinary. Although he didn't know if the gate led anywhere, just the display alone was formidable indeed.

He made no move to stop the formation of the crimson mist, for Chen Hongxu had already integrated a sliver of the thread of slaughter into it right from the start. This was the precise moment to pry into the Heaven-Reaching Immortal's trump card, and Chen Hongxu would never let such a good opportunity slip by.

The crimson mist continued to pour out from the gate, while the mist enveloping the Heaven-Reaching Immortal writhed incessantly.

As Chen Hongxu was concentrating intently on his senses, a message suddenly came from the youth surnamed Kong. Although these stairs were Chen Hongxu's method, and through some unknown reason had merged with the stairs wielded by Jiajia, the core remained Chen Hongxu's. Since the youth surnamed Kong was Chen Hongxu's lotus slave, transmitting thoughts telepathically was quite easy.

"Those people still on the flat ground suddenly had their blood essence sucked away, leaving not even their skin behind. Right now, the entire flat ground is nothing but white bone shards," the youth surnamed Kong said somewhat excitedly, while his two concubines behind him retched violently.

As for Qi Hui, although her expression was extremely unsightly—presumably enduring the churning in her stomach—she still maintained an icy exterior.

Chen Hongxu had always been generous with his own people. Just like Jiajia, he had imparted the golden-threaded runes to the youth surnamed Kong—fully imparting them, in fact. It was just that the youth surnamed Kong's comprehension was truly difficult to praise; he couldn't even manage the rote memorization that Jiajia did, which was why he was currently blocked by the Heavenly Ladder outside the immortal mountain's steps.

"Be careful of yourselves," Chen Hongxu only had time to relay a single sentence back before the crimson mist before him shifted once more. First, the crimson gate burst apart with a loud "bang," and then the writhing mist grew still. Immediately afterward, the mist gradually formed a vortex, continuously dissipating itself as it was sucked inward.

When the crimson mist finally vanished entirely, a young man with red hair, red robes, and red eyes appeared before Chen Hongxu and the others.

The young man's previously vacant eyes gradually regained their luster. Instead of focusing on Chen Hongxu and Jiajia, he stared thoughtfully at the gigantic stone gate behind Chen Hongxu and muttered to himself, "I waited for tens of thousands of years, only to run into a scene like this right as I emerge."

Realizing that the red-haired youth was not putting on an act, Chen Hongxu asked in a deep voice, "Who are you?"

"Hahahahaha!" The red-haired youth snapped back to his senses, shifted his gaze to Chen Hongxu, and laughed until tears streamed from his eyes. Squatting down on the ground, he drifted off again and murmured, "Who am I? Having slumbered for too long, I suppose no one remembers anymore."