This Young Master is not Cannon Fodder
Chapter 583: Fake Nine Heavens Sovereign

Inside the core of the fortress, Tianyi opened his eyes. Ever since the hunt started, he had set his conduit into standby mode. He placed most of his attention on the conduit in the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System and increasing his mastery over spacetime while dabbling in other worldly laws.

“I wonder what happened,” Tianyi said aloud. Unless something breached the fortress city’s defenses appeared, his conduit would stay in standby mode unless awakened by him. He did not choose to awaken. Someone had contacted him. Which meant that something out of the norm had occurred.

He walked out of the hall and toward the war room, where Minister Vastlight and Minister Huang awaited him. Along the way, he was met with some strange looks, making Tianyi touch his face, wondering if there was something on it. Logically, it shouldn’t be possible with his current form, but why else would he get strange looks for?

“Nine Heavens Grand Elder,” Minister Vastlight, as the senior cultivator, greeted first. He was followed by Minister Huang and the other immortals present, all at least in the Seamless Immortal Realm.

Tianyi naturally greeted them back. Unconsciously, he straightened his back from the grim tone filling the war room. “What’s wrong?”

“Grand Elder, someone may be impersonating you.”

“Impersonating me? Do you know who?” Tianyi asked. He held his chin. Thinking back, this was the first someone tried to impersonate him. Well, he had been mistaken as an imposter before, but that was more because of the shared characteristics of Dragon Emperor clones.

“No one knows,” Minister Vastlight said. “We only got this information because a monarch escaped by luck.”

Minister Huang stepped forward to continue. “We had already noticed a trend of rising casualties. A few monarchs died in the beginning, but later, only true immortals perished. Still, it was worrying because all of them died without a chance to report anything back.”

Immortals fighting in a foreign system like the Nahui Ollin System couldn’t display as much power as they usually did in their origin system. For example, spells became much weaker and cost much more qi to cast. Not to mention this system lacked qi. Although there was still energy, it took much more time to filter and convert into immortal qi.

Their immortal sense was also restricted, and could no longer span a wide area. Meaning that they could only use Xiyi Talisman as communication devices over long distances. This greatly increased the difficulty of sending information to the other immortals.

All this was due to the absence of laws. No, that wasn’t quite right. It was because of the absence of worldly laws that immortals could master. Divine-level laws still existed in the Nahui Ollin System. They were easier to comprehend than in the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System because of the encroachment from the devils, but it was still far from something that many immortal sovereigns could grasp. They couldn’t even comprehend it, much less invoke its power to increase their spells.

This had the side effect of all immortals focusing on their material attacks. In such a world, martial cultivation became popular once more.

“Do you think I did it?” Tianyi asked, pointing at himself.

Minister Vastlight and Minister Huang both shook their head.

“You are a suspect based on the information the surviving monarch brought back. The perpetrator possessed a terrifying physical body, the ability to teleport, and attacks similar to your Plantery Purgatory and Stellar Silence. Not only that, but you possess the ability to clone yourself, so it’s logical for you to be able to appear at multiple places at once,” Minister Huang analyzed.

Just as Tianyi opened his mouth to defend his innocence, Minister Vastlight picked up where Minister Huang had left off. “But you are last on the list of suspects. Although everything points to you, and you are capable of such acts if you betrayed the Immortal Court, we don’t think you would make such a low-level mistake such as letting a prey escape alive.”

‘Thank you?’ Tianyi thought.

“There’s no need for you to kill your former compatriots, either. If you had joined any of the pantheons, the best choice would be for you to continue lurking with us. The only reason why you would target your fellow immortals would be if you fell into the devilish way, which is even more unlikely,” Minister Vastlight finished.

“Rather than a scheme, it seems more like a bait,” Minister Vastlight said.

“Why don’t you or Minister Huang investigate then?” Tianyi asked. Minister Vastlight was already an immortal emperor twenty thousand years ago, and Minister Huang had also reached the same level thousands of years ago.

“Precaution. Although it may be an imposter bearing your face, we have misgivings about facing them,” Minister Huang said. In other words, the imposter gave them a lot of pressure just because he dared to impersonate Tianyi.

“According to our hypothesis, you’re the imposter’s target, so you should be the most suitable one to confront him,” Minister Huang finished.

Tianyi pointed at himself. “Since he’s targeting me, won’t you think I’m in danger if I confront him alone?”

“That’s because we know you, but even if we have been informed, we feel that it’s only the tip of the iceberg,” Minister Vastlight said. “Even if you can’t defeat them, Nine Heavens Grand Elder won’t die. We even feel that you are more difficult to kill than a divinity.”

Tianyi’s lips twitch. Is that why they were so unscrupulous about letting him take the bait? Well, not just the two immortal ministers, but Tianyi himself felt that it was more difficult to kill him than a divinity. True, his conduits may fall more easily, but he wouldn’t truly die.

But that was no reason for him to walk into an open trap!

He sighed. “Where was the last known location of the imposter?”

When Tianyi left the fortress city, he was accompanied by an immortal emperor in black. Although the two ministers said to let Tianyi test the imposter alone, it was impossible for them to let Tianyi face all this in reality. Even if they had complete confidence, they did not want to chill Tianyi’s heart.

The black-robed emperor had identical features to Minister Vastlight, but his aura was the complete opposite. If Minister Vastlight gave off a solemn and just aura, then the black-robed version gave off an eerie and evil feeling. The black-robed emperor was Minister Vastlight’s special incarnation that could display nearly the same independence as a clone. His name was Shadowlight.

Upon reaching the last known location of his imposter, Tianyi held out his hand. As if someone pressed rewind on the remote control, time flowed backward. He could use time reversal in the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System thanks to the Law of Spacetime, but here, he had to rely more on himself. If he did not control the Nine Heavens Universe, the consumption alone would have drained an average immortal sovereign. During this process, Tianyi’s eyes shone, as if he had found a way to progress once more.

In a way, his manipulation of spacetime could be said to be greater in the Nahui Ollin System than in the Three Thousand Immortal Realms System. The sole price was the heavy consumption, which wasn’t a price for Tianyi.

It was solely because of the lack of a Heavenly Dao in the Nahui Ollin System. If Tianyi repeated the act in any other pantheon’s system, he would encounter greater resistance because each system would reject a third party interfering with reality, like how a body rejects viruses in the body. If the land wasn’t filled with devilish intent, it would have also resisted Tianyi’s manipulation of spacetime.

“Stop!”

The scene before Tianyi and Emperor Shadowlight halted. In front of the two of them, the imposter Tianyi was standing high in the sky with his hand on his back, looking down with contempt. A monarch clutched his injuries and stared at the imposter in fear.

‘Damn, why didn’t I know I looked so arrogant?’ Tianyi thought. ‘Speaking of which, I hadn’t used that pose in a while, but I don’t think I ever used such an expression.’

Tianyi continued to reverse the time. The immortal monarch’s injuries disappeared, and he returned to the position he was in before being attacked. The imposter’s attack returned into his hands and disappeared. Then, he disappeared.

“Huh?” Tianyi frowned and focused on the last spot the imposter was. He accelerated spacetime, and the imposter popped into existence. When he reversed it again, the imposter disappeared without a trace. “Troublesome.”

“Can’t you trace him?” Emperor Shadowlight asked.

Tianyi shook his head. “I can’t sense his existence at all outside of my five senses. It’s like… me…”

His lips twitched.

“His concealment method is greater than mine. Even when I hide myself or teleport, there would be spacetime fluctuations. Only those with comparable or greater attainments than me can sense them. In other words, this imposter’s attainment in spacetime is greater than mine, or he used an equally undetectable method.” Tianyi shook his head. “It looks like this method won’t work. We can only try our luck.”

Emperor Shadowlight said nothing. He followed behind Tianyi and the folds of spacetime enveloped them, concealing them.

Of course, he really didn’t just wander around and test his luck. Instead, Tianyi summoned several conduits and shadowed any immortal monarchs he came across before searching for the next one. He didn’t do the same for the true immortals because there were simply too many of them, and even he would have a headache focusing on all of them at the same time.

He didn’t have to wait long. He noticed someone with the same face as him appear in the sky, looking arrogantly down at an immortal monarch, as if he was looking at an insect. The imposter raised his hand, and a miniature sun appeared in his palm. The only difference was that the sun was pitch black.

The imposter aimed the miniature sun and released it.

“!?” Tianyi blinked when he saw the black sun coming at him. ‘I was noticed?’

He couldn’t remember the last time someone saw through his concealment. Although he was discovered, the conduit didn’t take any defensive actions. The black sun tore through the folds of spacetime and struck him in the abdomen before exploding. In terms of profundity, it had already exceeded Tianyi’s Stellar Silence. At least his Stellar Silence could not tear through spacetime so easily.

The immortal monarch looked up and noticed the commotion. When he saw the imposter, his face paled, and he ran away at the fastest speed. He had already gotten information about the imposter, so he ran away at the first sight. Even if it was the real Tianyi, he would do the same. Until the warning message from the Xiyi Talisman disappeared, he would follow this golden rule.

The imposter ignored the fleeing monarch and stared at the dwindling explosion. Outwardly, it resembled a black stellar silence, but Tianyi could feel the dense, devilish energy impacting him from all sides. Rather than call it a black Stellar Silence, it was closer to a devilish Stellar Silence.

The conduit’s figure continued to deform under the continuous blows. When the energy used in the copycat attack disappeared, all that remained was a black dot. The black trembled for a second and disappeared in a blink.

“You’re finally here. I would be disappointed if that fake attack killed you,” the imposter said, turning around to see Tianyi and Emperor Shadowlight behind him.

“Who are you?” Tianyi asked, glaring at his foe. Anyone under his glare would feel a tremendous pressure. It was not just their mentality, but a subtle soul attack he devised.

However, the imposter simply chuckled. “Since you want to know so much, I’ll tell you!”

The imposter’s skin melted. It wasn’t just his skin, his hair, clothes, and everything melted like some sort of sludge. When the last bit slid off, it revealed a black figure covered in masks of all types. To finish it off, a jester-like cloak covered him.

“I am Duke Dantalion, one of the original seventy-two devils of Solomon!”

Tianyi stared, while Emperor Shadowlight faded away into nothingness.

“What’s wrong? Shocked?” Dantalion taunted.

“Yes,” Tianyi admitted. “I didn’t expect you to actually answer. Shouldn’t you refuse and only reveal your true identity after I defeat you?”

“Defeat me?” Dantalion chucked, which transformed into a full-blown laughter. “Boy, I admit you are interesting, but I am a devil that has lived far longer than you can ever conceive! Since I revealed my identity, you only had one fate! Death!”

A tremendous pressure erupted from Dantalion’s body, so much so that it darkened the sky.

Tianyi readied himself. Although he was confident in himself, he knew that it was difficult to defeat one of the seventy-two devils of Solomon, much less kill the latter. So, he focused all his attention on Duke Dantalion.

It was at this time that he felt something poke his neck. Although it appeared that skin covered his body,  his skin, along with the surface of his clothes, were actually formed out of the dimensional boundary of the Nine Heavens Universe. So, even an immortal emperor would find it difficult to penetrate his skin, and that’s if Tianyi just stood there, doing nothing.

A voice, soft and delicate, whispered into his ears. “Die, Xi Tianyi.”

Yet, Tianyi only felt his skin resist for less than a second before the unknown object penetrated his skin. As it slid deeper to the hilt, he could sense that it was a dagger. The dagger was pitch black, as if it absorbed all light. When the dagger was inserted to the hilt, the blade rumbled and released a torrent of danger spanning kilometers long.

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