Death Of Sam

For as long as anyone can remember, a True Immortal represented the greatest accomplishment of any one cultivator. It represented the goal an aspirations of all cultivators. A True Immortals are no longer bound by the Heavenly Tao, fate no longer has a grip on them. A True Immortal can freely descend into any world without repercussions.

The Thousand Flames upper realm had been around for eons. It has seen the rise of many True Immortals before. However ever since the more recent Desolate Era, no True Immortals have been creates. For over 100,000 years there had been no True Immortal from this upper realm.

For that same amount of time, the major powers had been at a stalemate. Each wanted to become the realm king and control the world but simply did not posses the power. The past 1000 years saw the rise of many new Human Immortals from all factions. They were all included in the monstrous generation.

However non of these individuals ever made it to the True Immortal realm. Qiang Mei Hua the most accomplished member of them all was only at the initial stages of Human Immortal, most of them either perished during the unification war or are subordinate Martial Saints.

The appearance of Hu Wenxi changed everything. Despite also possessing a Human Immortal cultivation base, he rocked the foundation of the upper realm. He was a master of spells, formations, and allied himself with powerful individuals. This allowed him to quickly conquer the world itself. His most impressive display in the past was the act of repelling a foreign True Immortal as a mere Human Immortal.

Now on this day, that magnificent figure had also gained the status of True Immortal. Just standing within 1000km of the emperor gave every expert a sense of reverence. Mystical tao runes circulated the emperor and the sound of crashing waves were heard. Mystical images of 12 divine beasts were visible dancing in the air, celebrating their master.

The emperor had truely left them all behind. At the age of 502, he had achieved the power of True Immortal. A true genius of geniuses.

Surrounding them floated billions of fiends, all frozen in the air. They could not even react to Hu Wenxi anymore. Before this they were relatively equal, however now the power discrepancy was too massive. Hu Wenxi had only snapped his finger but that one act alone commanded time itself. Every fiend and devil were unable to move, they were completely helpless.

"You should've escaped when you had the chance" Hu Wenxi spoke with contempt and waved his hand in a wide arc. As he did so, billions of fiends disintegrated. All the devils had black smoke driven out of them returning to their normal human appearance. After all, how can a mere Karmic Lord fiend compare to a True Immortal.

Although Sam's full power rivalled that of weak True Immortals in terms of fire power, there was a fundamental difference between their existence. A True Immortal can command heavenly mysteries but a Human Immortal or Karmic Lord were restricted by the Heavenly Tao. True Immortals can travel between universes, dimensions, resurrect the dead, create worlds. It's no joke to call them living celestial bodies.

Sam's fiend and the previous emperor were both considered on par with lesser True Immortals, they could beat a weak one in combat. However despite being newly ascended Hu Wenxi was far from weak. In fact Hu Wenxi didn't just become a True Immortal, he had already partially fused a second Heavenly Qi reaching what is known as the pinnacle of True Immortals.

Hu Wenxi used water to reach True Immortal status, however he was also experienced in Earth Heavenly Qi. Most people would only focus on one but because Hu Wenxi had essentially mastered water centuries ago, he had already began the process of comprehending other Heavily Qis. In order to not accidentally call the Heavenly tribulation nor destroy himself through deviation, the emperor cultivated very carefully by using Tao severing techniques to seal his water Qi. This allowed him to be undisturbed by Water Heavenly Qi.

The current power of Hu Wenxi was top tier even amongst True Immortals. Sam's fiend didn't stand a ghost of a chance. To the emperor, Sam's matter was trivial at best.

Hu Wenxi eliminated every single fiend and devil on the face of the earth, oceans, skies, and mountains. Every nook and cranny of the world was scanned and driven of any fiendish influence. Sam's fiend was completely destroyed.

Hu Wenxi didn't stop there, he reached out with his right hand and grabbed onto a weak black light. This was Sam's soul, its current black appearance was due to his corruption. Hu Wenxi could literally see the negative emotions oozing off of him.

Hu Wenxi closed his fist squishing his soul before deciding to store it away. He turned to everyone else watching him and gave them a salute. "Thank you for aiding me in this endeavour. Please stay for a while and recuperate. He channeled heavenly energies and healed all the Human Immortal and Martial Saints in the area.

He looked regretfully at the corpses of the deceased individuals. He could resurrect the dead if the individual had died recently. This would require him to catch their souls before they left for the netherworld. However doing so this way will result in a backlash for him. He was unrestricted by the Heavenly Tao but that did not mean he wasn't its equal. He had merely passed its test.

Of the Heavenly Tao wanted to, it can easily kill him. The stronger the person Hu Wenxi wanted to resurrect, the bigger the backlash. As such he let them go off to enter the cycle of reincarnation. Of course he could travel to the netherworld to bargain for their reincarnation. But one must understand that the netherworld wasn't just another upper realm.

The netherworld was its own faction in and of itself. It was established millions of years ago by goddess Houtu and blood ancestor MingHe. After immemorial times, king Yama had ruled as the supreme emperor of the nether world. There were many netherworld kingdoms ruled by lesser kings who governed reincarnation for each individual universe. King Yama oversaw them all and directly looked after reincarnation of the Heavenly realm.

Hu Wenxi was a True Immortal but he did not have the authority to interfere with the netherworld. He could ask and be given face but they were unlikely to listen. After all, even a lesser king of hell had at minimum a cultivation of Netherworld Supreme, comparable to taoism's Primordial Immortals.

Hu Wenxi waved his hand and restored his imperial city to its former grandiose look. He also restored the mountains and rivers and forests that were destroyed. He arranged for all his guests to receive a feast and rewards for helping him. After that he returned to the palace to stabilise his cultivation.

Breaking through to a new realm required sometime to fully stabilise the body. Hu Wenxi was no exception, he returned the throne to the throne room and sat on it. He began cultivating silently.

Everywhere else was more lively. Various experts praised the emperor and talked to sending him congratulatory gifts. Despite their injuries, everyone was in a good mood as the imminent threat was destroyed and they had gained a True Immortal.

Hu Wenxi's position as realm king was always shaky due to his Human Immortal cultivation. Now that he was head and shoulders above his contemporaries, he did not need to worry anymore. Literally no one could challenged his rule anymore.

Qiang Mei Hua handed her duties to Hu Wei was was in much better condition and returned to her own chambers in the imperial palace. There she could cultivate in peace. This whole incident had shaken her deeply. This past few weeks had saw two times where she nearly died. She was furious at her own powerlessness and swore to cultivate seriously again. She had been complacent in her cultivation ever since the conquest was done. There was no real danger anymore as she reigned supreme. Now her drive had slowly returned, she wanted to achieve further heights then what she currently held.

Doctor Nan held Chu's body and placed him in a cauldron filled with different spiritual herbs. For a ghost, doctor Chu will recover on his own as long as he was surrounded by herbs rich in spiritual energy. In the imperial palace, the ghost was in safe hands.

After the battle, many of the Demon Ascendents chose to drink and laugh. Although the battle was hard and severely injured many of them, they did were in a joyful mood. Demons were born to battle and many of them enjoyed the frenzy of combat. Even the dignified Long Chi Bai celebrated. The fiend notwithstanding, the demons had fun in the big battle.

Later in the day Long Chi Bai payed respects to the emperor before leaving back to his home. The old dragon wanted to return to rest and Hu Wenxi let him. The situation had calmed down a lot and there was no imminent danger. There was just an award ceremony for Yun Xiao Che later in the month and everything will be good.

Sitting on his own later that night Hu Wenxi observed the spirit in front of him. He had halted Sam's descent into the netherworld previously and collected his soul. Sam's soul was weak after being attacked by Hu Wenxi. The emperor had deliberately shaved off pieces of his soul and made him a helpless vegetable.

There were mysteries of Sam that Hu Wenxi wanted to solve. He decided that since Sam's soul was in his grasp he might as well do it now. Hu Wenxi used his own Heavenly energy to scan the soul. He was wary of any traps so he first scanned it before attempting any mind reading.

He found a certain seals on Sam's soul, almost as if someone had tampered with it. Hu Wenxi observed the seals, some were placed for Sam to obey a certain command, others seemed to imbue him with power. However they looked rushed, like someone made them but didn't have enough time to do a good job.

But to Hu Wenxi, such shoddily made seals powered up the ghost to such a height where it could challenge him. It was a scary though just thinking how strong that person would'e been. Hu Wenxi could identify from this that someone resurrected Sam as a ghost, then Sam's rage had perverted the process and became a fiend. Seeing the lack of any real offensive defences, Hu Wenxi began reading the soul's memories.

…

Deep in outer space a shoddily dressed figure with messy hair and stubs on his chin appeared. There was blood on his left side and a wound on his torso. "Oh man, did they really have to chase me so far?" This was the same 'god' Sam had met.

This man wiped his blood away and began to seal his wounds. His power was very high, far surpassing Hu Wenxi by millions of times. Whilst he was doing this he felt something off in his mind. He looked around at the direction of Thousand Flames upper world and frowned.

"He failed? I wasn't paying too much attention but to think he failed?" He rubbed his chin and began examining his connection to Sam. His eyes suddenly opened wide,"What the, oh no he actually became a fiend?" The middle aged man began panicking before calming down.

"Shit, the war is too complex as is, and now my own personal experiments could get me in even more trouble". The man looked on in several more directions before sighing in relief. Non of the other subjects had been corrupted. The man had selected his test subjects based on what he new of that planet's culture and who will be most eager to put the abilities to the test.

"Thankfully they've lost me, I have to be more careful next time" the man nodded to himself and looked once more in the direction of Thousand Flames upper realm. He faded into white light and flew in the direction of the upper realm in unbelievable FTL speeds.