95: Chapter 95 The Chosen One! The Savior of Mortals!

The fourth year of Yongning, Summer.

Three months after Xue Du fled Great Li.

The concentration of Devilish Qi throughout Great Li fell below a historical critical point.

The surviving low-level demons either fled the country or were beaten to death on the roadside by Mortals with hoes and firewood choppers after the Devilish Qi depleted.

The spiritual rain fell intermittently for a full month, and the Spiritual Vein of Great Li began to slowly recover.

The withered yellow grass turned emerald green, the turbid stream water became clear, and the chilly, rotting stench that had permeated the air for tens of thousands of years diminished.

Great Li was restored.

But Great Li after its restoration was even more chaotic than during the rule of the demons.

Because the ruling System of Great Li had completely collapsed.

Emperor Zhao Heng died a martyr during the Winter Solstice Grand Sacrifice.

As for the Zhao imperial family behind Zhao Heng, they had long ceased to exist after that.

On the night of the Winter Solstice Grand Sacrifice, the first thing Xue Du did, driven by a mixture of fury and fear, was not to hunt down Mortals, but to annihilate the entire Zhao family.

Zhao Heng's betrayal made Xue Du feel as though a loyal dog it had raised for three years had viciously bitten it.

It needed to vent its anger.

It needed to make an example of someone to terrify others.

Thus, with a single decree passed down, the Zhenfu Division ransacked all the residences of the Zhao imperial family inside and outside the national capital overnight.

Zhao Heng's concubines, Zhao Heng's siblings, Zhao Heng's infant nephew still in swaddling clothes, and the elderly and children of the Zhao collateral branches.

Not a single one was left behind!

Of course, the Zhao imperial family were inherently the dogs of the demons.

For generations, the Zhao family managed Mortals for the demons, collected Blood Tribute for the demons, and maintained the order of this human purgatory for the demons.

Zhao Heng's father was a good-for-nothing who lived his entire life on this dog chain.

As for Zhao Heng's birth mother, unable to endure this kind of life, she died early.

Zhao Heng saw through all of this from a young age.

Therefore, the moment he chose to meet his death, Zhao Heng had already made his choice.

He had long anticipated the end of the Zhao family, and he no longer cared.

A bunch of demons' dogs, dying was just dying.

The ones who truly deserved to live were the people beneath the blue sky.

The emperor died, the imperial family was annihilated, the imperial court scattered, and the Zhenfu Division disintegrated.

The Twelve Prefectures of Great Li were in an almost anarchic state.

Tens of millions of people died in the detonation, and although the remaining over a billion Mortals were alive, they had lived under the rule of demons since birth and had no idea how a world without demons should operate.

Various places fell into varying degrees of chaos.

In some places, the backbone of the Resistance Army stood up to maintain basic order.

But in more places, after the collapse of the old order, a situation of power-grabbing, rampant bandits, and spreading famine emerged.

Mortals were not Saints.

After the common enemy vanished, the complex things in human nature began to surface.

Great Li needed order.

It needed a leader whom everyone could trust and respect.

It needed an emperor.

And throughout the entire Great Li, there was one and only one person qualified to sit in that position.

The fourth year of Yongning, Autumn.

The ruins of the national capital, the central square.

The place where tens of millions of Mortals collectively detonated half a year ago was now overgrown with green grass.

Among the green grass, unknown white wild flowers bloomed sparsely, like stars.

A temporarily constructed high platform stood in the center of the square.

There was no resplendent dragon chair, no carved beams and painted pillars of a grand hall.

It was simply a stage put together with a few pieces of wood, covered with a piece of red cloth.

However, beneath the stage, a dense crowd packed the area.

Hundreds of thousands of people rushed from the national capital and surrounding areas, filling the square and every surrounding street and alley.

Farther away, the news channels across the Twelve Prefectures of Great Li were also simultaneously spreading what was about to happen today.

Standing on the high platform were Adjutant Li Xiaotian and the core backbone members of the Resistance Army.

And at the very front of the high platform.

A thirteen-year-old boy, dressed in a dark narrow-sleeved long robe hastily crafted overnight by the Resistance Army, with a white jade belt around his waist and black-bottomed cloud-patterned boots on his feet, stood upon the red cloth.

Su Yu.

No Mortal knew this name.

They knew Zhao Heng, the emperor who stripped off his dragon robe to die a martyr.

They knew Leader Li Zizai, the Resistance Army leader who used his last breath within the Nine Nether Demon Fire to spread the incantation throughout the world.

They knew the names of countless ordinary people who sat down and closed their eyes before the Black Iron Spire.

But they did not know Su Yu.

Because Su Yu had never stepped to the forefront.

He created the Mortal Self-Severing Method.

He wove the resistance network spread across Great Li.

He spent three years turning Zhao Heng from a despairing crown prince into a spark willing to meet his death.

He ignited the entirety of Great Li.

But no one knew his name.

Until today.

Adjutant Li Xiaotian stood on the high platform, took a deep breath, and shouted with all his might.

"Fathers and fellow villagers of Great Li!"

"You all know the Mortal Self-Severing Method!"

"You all know that Emperor Zhao Heng was the first to detonate the national capital!"

"You all know that Leader Li Zizai spread the incantation across the world within the Nine Nether Demon Fire!"

"But have you ever thought about who created the incantation for the Mortal Self-Severing Method?"

The hundreds of thousands of people in the square fell silent.

"Eight years ago, on a corner bunk in the underground karst cave camp of the Resistance Army."

"With Heaven-Defying Comprehension Ability, he deduced a Cultivation Technique sufficient to overturn this world."

"With the strength of a single person, he created the Mortal Self-Severing Method."

"With the strength of a single person, he wove the resistance network spread across the Twelve Prefectures of Great Li."

"He persuaded Emperor Zhao Heng to die a martyr, he guided Leader Li Zizai in passing down the Cultivation Technique, and he planned the detonation of tens of millions of people during the Winter Solstice Grand Sacrifice."

"He is the only Cultivator in this world for tens of thousands of years, and the last beam of light sent down by the Heavenly Dao in a desperate situation!"

"It was he who, when everyone thought Mortals could only kneel and wait for death, carved out a path to stand and meet death!"

"It was he who made the demons know what fear was for the very first time!"

"It was he who allowed us to raise our heads for the first time and see the blue sky!"

Adjutant Li Xiaotian's voice was already trembling, but he didn't care and continued to roar at the top of his lungs.

"His name is Su Yu!"

"He is the Chosen One! He is our Mortal savior! He is also the most remarkable person since the eternity of this world!"

Adjutant Li Xiaotian turned around and heavily knelt toward the boy behind him, his forehead striking the high platform with a dull thud.

"He is thirteen years old this year!"

The square fell into dead silence.

Hundreds of thousands of pairs of eyes looked at the small, thin boy on the high platform, not knowing how to react for a moment.

Thirteen years old?

The person who changed the entire world was thirteen years old this year?

Su Yu stood on the high platform, facing the gaze of hundreds of thousands of people with a calm expression.

Silence lasted for a very, very long time.

Then.

It was unknown who knelt down first.

With a thud, like a pebble thrown into the surface of a lake.

Immediately following, a second person knelt.

"Thud, thud, thud—"

Like falling dominoes, hundreds of thousands of people prostrated themselves on the ground in unison.

No one demanded that they kneel.

But at this moment, these Mortals knelt from the bottom of their hearts.

They were not kneeling to a wielder of power, nor were they kneeling to a conqueror.

Instead, they were kneeling to someone who gave them a glimmer of survival in the darkest era.

"Su Yu!"

"Su Yu!"

"Su Yu!!!"

The name rang out from the crowd.

At first, it was just a few scattered sounds, but it rapidly converged into an ocean.

Hundreds of thousands of people shouted the same name in unison, the wave of sound surging toward the sky like a tangible substance.

Su Yu stood on the high platform, listening to the sound wave, waiting for it to gradually subside.

Then he spoke.

His voice was not loud, but under the coercion of his cultivation, it clearly transmitted into everyone's ears.

"Zhao Heng used his life to give you the blue sky, Leader Li Zizai used his life to give you the incantation, and tens of millions of compatriots exchanged their lives for today's Great Li."

"But now that we have the blue sky, life still has to go on."

"Great Li needs an emperor, an emperor who can let you eat your fill, live in proper houses, and live your lives in peace and stability."

"I shall be this emperor."

Su Yu's tone had no ups and downs, but that unquestionable certainty carried more weight than any grandiose words.

"Starting from today, the era name of Great Li is changed to 'Hanyuan'."

"Rejuvenate and recuperate, rebuild our homeland—this is Zhen's promise to all the common people of Great Li."

"But Zhen also tells you that Great Li is only a beginning."

"In this world, countless Mortals still live beneath the feet of demons, and they are also waiting for a blue sky."

"After Great Li stabilizes, Zhen will let this blue sky blanket the entire world."

As his voice fell.

"Long live!"

"Long live!"

"Long live—!!!"

The wave of sound shattered the sky of Great Li.

On this day, the first year of Hanyuan, Autumn.

A thirteen-year-old boy ascended the throne and declared himself emperor upon the ruins of the national capital.

This was the first emperor in the tens of thousands of years of Great Li who was not a dog of the demons.

The moment he ascended the throne.

Su Yu felt an unprecedented thing.

That was not Spiritual Qi, nor Devilish Qi, nor any kind of power he had come into contact with during his cultivation in his previous three lives.

Instead, it was an aura that was grander, more profound, and completely beyond the scope of his cognitive category.

It rose from the bodies of the hundreds of thousands of people beneath the stage, like strands of invisible threads converging toward Su Yu's direction.

Then it poured into his body.

Su Yu's Divine Soul trembled violently.

That aura was extremely gentle, but the amount of information it contained was suffocation-inducingly large.

It was not the emotion of any single person.

But the beliefs, hopes, gratitude, awe, and entrustments of hundreds of thousands of people...

These things, too complex to describe in words, all condensed together and transformed into a tangible power.

Human Dao Luck.

In some ancient texts he had studied in his third life, Su Yu had vaguely seen this term.

Those texts said that in ancient times, when the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi was abundant.

Emperors and generals among Mortals could borrow the faith and Luck of the masses to Cultivate.

This method of cultivation did not follow the traditional path of Spiritual Root inhalation and exhalation.

Instead, it used human hearts as firewood, public expectations as a furnace, and the beliefs of all living beings in the world as the Foundation of cultivation.

Human Dao cultivation.

In the cultivation worlds experienced by Su Yu in his previous three lives, this concept had long been lost for tens of thousands of years.

Because the Mortals in those cultivation worlds had no faith, no cohesion, and certainly would not entrust their beliefs to any single person.

But this world was different.

The Mortals of this world had just experienced tens of thousands of years of the darkest era, and had just personally liberated themselves from that era.

Their beliefs were extremely pure.

Their gratitude was extremely sincere.

Their entrustment to Su Yu was not obedience to a wielder of power, but faith in a savior.

This Power Of Faith, pure to the extreme, condensed together and transformed into human Dao Luck.

Su Yu closed his eyes, perceiving the essence of this Luck.

Three breaths later, his pupils slightly constricted.

Because he felt something even deeper.

Heavenly Dao.

The Heavenly Dao of this world was recovering.

Extremely weak, extremely slow, like a dying person who had just recovered a trace of a faint heartbeat.

But it was indeed recovering.

For tens of thousands of years, the demons polluted Spiritual Qi into Devilish Qi, twisted the Laws of heaven and earth into the Evil Path, and turned the entire world into a giant pasture.

During this process, the Heavenly Dao of this world, the bottom-most Law maintaining the operation of the world, was damaged to the verge of collapse.

It could be said that the Heavenly Dao was almost dead.

But it was not completely dead.

It still retained its final wisp of will.

Su Yu suddenly recalled the line of golden remarks on the panel during his fourth Reincarnation.

[Note: Due to unknown reasons, the Reincarnation body of this life possesses a special Comprehension Ability Physique. If all points are added to Comprehension Ability, it will gain a ten-fold multiplied effect.]

Due to unknown reasons.

He did not delve deeply into it at the time, considering it just a random gift from the System.

But at this moment, when he personally touched the residual Heavenly Dao will of this world, everything suddenly became clear.

What unknown reasons were there? That was the Heavenly Dao of this world!

A Heavenly Dao that had been ravaged by demons for tens of thousands of years and was on the verge of death poured its final strength into this child the instant it sensed the birth of a wisp of otherworldly Spiritual Root.

999 points of innate Comprehension Ability, ten-fold amplification Physique.

That was not the System's bestowal.

That was a dying world gambling on a sliver of hope with its final breath.

And now.

After the Devilish Qi of Great Li was cleared, the almost severed pulse of the Heavenly Dao finally beat slightly.

Su Yu could perceive that trace of a heartbeat.

But he could also perceive how weak that trace of a heartbeat was.

Great Li was restored, but Great Li was only a corner of this world.

The Devilish Qi of the entire world still shrouded all the remaining continents and realms.

The wounds of the Heavenly Dao were far from healed.

Merely relying on the purification of Great Li alone, the Heavenly Dao could not even awaken, let alone recover.

To truly revive the Heavenly Dao, one must purify the Devilish Qi of the entire world.

And to achieve this, Su Yu needed stronger cultivation.

He needed Foundation Establishment, he needed Golden Core, and he even needed higher realms.

With his currently upgraded fourth-grade Spiritual Root Aptitude and 9,999 points of Comprehension Ability, Foundation Establishment and Golden Core were definitely within reach.

Even for the Nascent Soul, Su Yu did not feel he would fail.

But that required time, a massive amount of time.

And the Mortals of this world could not afford to wait.

Unless...

He could find a faster path.

Su Yu opened his eyes, looking at the hundreds of thousands of faith-filled faces beneath the stage.

Human Dao Luck.

It was not Spiritual Qi, so it was not restricted by the grade of Spiritual Roots.

It was not Devilish Qi, so it would not impose a burden on the Cultivator's body.

It was a brand-new power.

Coming from human hearts, coming from belief, coming from the entrustment of the masses to him as the emperor.

Su Yu stood on the high platform of his enthronement, feeling that continuous force of Luck pouring into his body.

His brain began to think and operate at high speed.

The fragments of the Laws of this world rapidly disassembled and reorganized in his mind.

The essence of human Dao Luck, the Power Of Faith, the hearts of the masses...

Condensing... transforming... utilizing...

A flash of inspiration exploded in Su Yu's mind.

He saw a path, a path unprecedented in history.

Transforming human Dao Luck into cultivation provisions.

Using the position of emperor as the Cauldron, the faith of the masses as firewood, and the hope of all living beings in the world as the Foundation of the Dao.

As long as he governed Great Li well and allowed the common people to live and work in peace and contentment, the people's faith in him would become stronger.

The stronger the faith, the more flourishing the Luck.

The more flourishing the Luck, the faster his cultivation would improve.

This was a path that perfectly integrated cultivation and state governance.

Being a good emperor was the best cultivation.

Conversely, the higher his cultivation, the more capable he would be of protecting the world.

The broader the protection, the deeper the faith.

It was yet another positive cycle.

Su Yu gave this path a name in his heart.

Emperor Faith Method.

It did not need Spiritual Roots to determine the upper limit.

It did not need Spirit Stones to provide provisions.

Its upper limit depended on how many people's faith an emperor could bear.

The faith of the people of a single city was sufficient for Foundation Establishment.

The faith of the people of an entire country was sufficient for Golden Core.

Then what about the faith of the entire world?

Su Yu did not continue thinking about it.

Because he, at present, was merely a young emperor who had just ascended the throne, and the common people under his rule were only the over one billion Mortals of Great Li.

The path had to be walked step by step.

First govern Great Li well, allowing the common people to eat their fill, live in proper houses, and live stable lives.

Then think about more distant matters.

Su Yu pulled back his state of mind and walked down the high platform.

His first decree was not to reward meritorious officials, nor was it a general amnesty for the world.

But rather...

"Audit the granaries across the entire territory, and statistics for the cultivated land area and population quantity of each prefecture and county."

"Before winter sets in, I want every commoner of Great Li to be able to eat a mouthful of hot food."

Adjutant Li Xiaotian was stunned for a moment, then grinned.

The common people of Great Li finally had some blessings!