And at this moment, as Hu Ma looked at the Netherworld Palace, the smile on his face was not feigned; only beneath that smile there faintly lurked a chilling ruthlessness that made one’s hair stand on end: "Since this heaven and earth have people like them, naturally there are also people like me."

"So long as I remain here, you will never return to the human world!"

"..."

Before the words had even fallen, his expression suddenly turned cold. He sharply formed a Magic Seal, and his body’s projection overshadowed the heavens and earth within the Netherworld Palace. All around came indistinct sounds of collapse and thunderous rumbling; even the ever-heavier knocking at the gates outside was, in that instant, pressed down and smothered.

It was as if some boundary of yin and yang had, all of a sudden, taken him as its center and been split into two.

All the civil and military officials, including Little Hongtang beside him, could no longer stand firm and fell hard on their backsides. The rest raised their heads in a daze, no longer knowing what on earth had just happened.

Amid loud laughter, he suddenly clenched his jaw.

On Da’ai Mountain, on the ground surrounding his body, the surging Purple Qi that had been ceaselessly billowing up had made that vast mountain seem like an immortal realm wreathed in rolling violet mist.

Yet in this very instant, it suddenly fell into broken fits and starts; the Purple Qi lost its source and, like a waterfall in reverse, soared up into the sky.

Hu Ma, as a whole person, now seemed to have lost all breath and sound; only the Purple Qi of the Eight Palace at his side was vast and mighty, taking him as its center and pouring down toward that human world which, due to this calamity of destruction-then-rebirth, had been shattered into pieces.

"You..."

The Emperor Ghost of the Second Hall, and even all the civil and military officials, suddenly froze, their steps faltering, expressions grim and cold: "You’ve severed the bridge to the human world?"

Hu Ma only looked at him and smiled: "The bridge is me. If I can open it, naturally I can break it as well."

"After all, if we’re speaking of the weight of fate, my fate is very heavy too—heavier even than that false bloodline in the human world. Especially as our Hu Family Ancestral Hall now stands in Shangjing; counted carefully, I’m an Emperor as well..."

He burst out laughing: "If we’re weighing whose fate is more precious, I’m the living man in this world with the heaviest fate. So long as I stand between heaven and earth, all Magic must first fall upon me. So long as I stand before the Netherworld Palace, if the other side wishes to knock upon its gate, they’ll have to ask me first..."

"But you’re still here!"

The face of that Emperor Ghost of the Second Hall was already twisted, his eyes fixed on Hu Ma: "You’ve entered the Netherworld Palace in the body of a living man. So long as we take you down, even if you don’t consent, by borrowing your Hu Family’s bloodline in the human world, we can still cast image from shadow."

"What if I also sever my existence in the human world?"

Hu Ma smiled as he looked at him and said, "What if, in this human world, our Hu Family already has no bloodline left at all?"

"What?"

The Emperor Ghost of the Ninth Hall clearly had not considered this, and his face suddenly grew hideously contorted. A shocked and furious expression, for the first time, surfaced on his face.

"Good thing I’ve been too busy to ever marry a wife."

Hu Ma smiled as he looked toward them and said, "And as for my Zhen Sui Hu Family, aside from me, this lone bare pole, there’s no one else left."

"We’ve all been spent."

"So I’m the best candidate to block your front gate."

"With you blocked, the slaughter in the human world is sure to be fulfilled, the Luotian Festival is sure to be fulfilled, Tai Sui will in the end be driven out, the common folk will in the end survive. Once these things are done, I have no other wish. Why must I still be in the human world?"

"Ha ha, stay behind and keep me company!"

"..."

As they listened to his words, the Netherworld Palace was instantly filled with horror.

The Emperor Ghosts of the Netherworld Palace were born arrogant. No matter how great the abilities Hu Ma displayed, how mad his words, how presumptuous his act of slaying Emperor Ghosts, they had only ever regarded Hu Ma as a descendant of a mere Seal Keeper, speaking to him from on high.

Only now did they truly, genuinely feel a terror beyond words.