Ch 38: A Sage Emperor Sparks a Human-Demon Brawl

Zhao Chu scanned his surroundings. This was a grand hall similar to the Heroic Spirit Association, but infinitely larger. People milled about everywhere!

In the distance stood a massive stone tablet, over ten meters tall, with an entrance beneath it. Several characters were inscribed on the tablet in a vigorous, flowing script.

Shangnan Province. Initial Land.

Zhao Chu raised an eyebrow, glancing at the prompt below. “Shangnan Province, Initial Land. Do all Heroic Spirit Awakeners entering the Heroic Spirit World for the first time appear here? Can I truly enter the Heroic Spirit World through that entrance?”

“Hey, buddy, you just awakened your Heroic Spirit not too long ago too, huh? Getting ready to enter the Heroic Spirit World? Me too! What kind of Heroic Spirit did you awaken? I awakened an outstanding-level He—” A hearty voice suddenly sounded next to Zhao Chu’s ear.

But when Zhao Chu turned his head, he frowned slightly, feeling that this person looked somewhat familiar. He seemed to have seen him somewhere before?!

But the next moment, Zhao Chu saw the person freeze upon seeing him. Then, his body began to tremble violently, his face constantly changing, until finally, he instinctively thumped to one knee.

“This humble one, Wang Gui, Hall Leader of Fuji Village in Jiangning, greets the Sage Emperor!”

Zhao Chu was stunned for a moment, finally realizing that this seemed to be one of the first rural hall leaders he had cultivated back in Jiangning.

This group of hall leaders could be considered the backbone of Zhao Chu’s forces. During the later period of Zhao Chu’s rule, many of them became powerful officials in their own right, utterly loyal to Zhao Chu, with some even fanatically revering him as a deity.

Moreover, Zhao Chu belatedly realized something—

It seemed that when logging into the Heroic Spirit World, his face was Zhao Mo’s face! In other words…

At the same time.

The moment the words “Sage Emperor” were uttered, the originally bustling Initial Land fell into dead silence.

Countless gazes—some bewildered, some dumbfounded, some shocked, some fearful, some hostile—were cast over.

Not far away, a man with demonic braids turned his head in confusion. But the moment he saw Zhao Chu, he froze. Countless memories surged forth in his mind at that instant. Although they were fragmented, the emotions contained within were too intense, directly causing the man to lose his mind. His eyes instantly turned bloodshot.

“Demon slayer! Before I die, I will never allow you to harm my master!” The man roared, transforming into a motley giant tiger and pouncing towards Zhao Chu.

Zhao Chu: “???”

This person… looked a bit familiar. Wasn’t this Fu Kang’an? Because ten years had passed and he didn’t occupy much space in Zhao Chu’s mind, he had to think for a while before recalling the other party’s name…

Somewhat speechless, he raised his hand. But before Zhao Chu could actually make a move, one Heroic Spirit after another had their eyes turn crimson.

“Demon! You son of a bitch!”

“Outrageous! How dare you attack the Sage Emperor…”

“Insolent! Kill him!”

Amidst the furious shouts, at least a third of the hundreds of Heroic Spirits present charged out. Some, clearly from military backgrounds, even instinctively formed battle formations. Fists and feet rained down on Fu Kang’an’s body.

“You lowly commoners, how dare you hurt me!” Fu Kang’an roared, joining the fray in a furious brawl with the others who had charged forward. “Insolent! You all deserve to die!”

And these words further provoked even more people around them.

The scale of the battle continued to expand. Soon, a large number of demons and Awakeners were drawn in, almost directly evolving into a mass brawl.

Zhao Chu: “…”

Crap! These people had been memory-seized.

Memory seizure was actually a very rare phenomenon. It usually occurred in newly awakened Heroic Spirits! That was, too many memory fragments were awakened at once, and they were all trivial matters from their lives, so it would affect their cognition.

In this situation, the seized person would believe that they were actually the Heroic Spirit from history. Usually, their cognition would recover with time.

“But… aren’t there a few too many people being memory-seized?!” Zhao Chu was dumbfounded. Heaven and earth, the textbooks he had learned from said that memory seizure couldn’t be described as just rare.

After all, the prerequisite for seizure was that enough memory fragments had to be awakened. If memory fragments were so easy to awaken… historical research wouldn’t be so difficult!

Normally speaking, it would be difficult for even one memory seizure to occur among ten thousand Heroic Spirit Awakeners. Compared to memory seizure… the situation where memories influenced the emotions of Heroic Spirit Awakeners themselves was more common and was the focus of research.

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“Sage Emperor, the situation is critical. Please retreat quickly!” The Fuji Hall Leader who had first called out “Sage Emperor” now had a solemn expression, his attitude completely different from before, his body ramrod straight.

He instinctively gripped Zhao Chu’s arm, clearly indicating that the memory fragments he had awakened did not involve the part about Zhao Chu’s strength. So much so that he was only thinking about protecting the emperor now…

Zhao Chu paused, finally sighing and stepping past the hall leader. He rushed towards the distant stone tablet gate in a few strides. The situation was too chaotic, his scalp was tingling, and he felt it was best to get out of here first!

Although with his strength, he could forcibly quell the chaos on the scene, the problem was that the demons on the scene weren’t real demons. They were just being interfered with by demonic memories. In essence, they were humans, Heroic Spirit Awakeners, and they could still recover.

In this situation, there was no way for him to quickly resolve the situation.

Moreover, Zhao Chu felt that fighting in the Initial Land… seemed like a very stupid thing! There was probably a response measure in place!

If he didn’t run now, was he supposed to wait there and take the blame?!

Sure enough, almost the moment Zhao Chu entered the light gate, he saw the Initial Land behind him turn blood red, and an ear-piercing alarm sounded.

Ten seconds later.

A terrifying figure suddenly materialized from the void. His face was stern, his eyes cold. “It’s been a while since I’ve encountered anyone daring to cause trouble in the Initial Land… huh?!”

The man stared blankly at the scene before him, instinctively rubbing his eyes. After confirming that he wasn’t mistaken, his eyes twitched, and he stiffly turned his head to look at the location.

“Shangnan Province? I remember this is Lord Li’s territory? No, are the people of Shangnan so martial-minded?”

The man’s scalp tingled. He had seen many people fighting in the Initial Land, but heaven and earth, a mass brawl in the Initial Land was truly a first for him.

But then, he noticed something was wrong. “What are these people saying? How… Holy crap, memory seizure?? So many of them? What the hell is going on?”

After a brief moment of shock, the newcomer’s eyes twitched even more violently. If it was just one or two troublemakers, he could easily suppress them. But this scale…

But then again, he never expected that he, a safety maintenance worker, would actually encounter something that he had never even heard of, let alone seen.

This is really defying the heavens!

After a moment of stiffness, the man could only say, “Nüwa, first transmit the message back to the login locations of the people fighting on the scene. After the people at their login locations are prepared, repatriate them all back to their login locations!”

“If the login locations don’t have the power to restrain these newly awakened Heroic Spirits! Then let them stay in the Initial Land…”

Under his organized arrangement, 90% of the people brawling on the scene were all kicked out and repatriated within three minutes. And the remaining ones were easily subdued by him!

Only then did the man silently wipe away his sweat. Then, his face twisted as he asked, “Nüwa, what the hell happened? How did this situation suddenly appear… Why did the memory seizure incidence rate suddenly skyrocket so much? What’s the trigger?!”

There was no answer, but a virtual projection instantly appeared before the man.

And after he finished watching it, a monstrous wave was stirred up in his heart.

“Sage Emperor Zhao Mo? He’s finally logged in!”

“So he became the trigger,” the man said, his face full of surprise. But then, he scratched his head in confusion. “That’s not right. Back when Qianlong awakened, many Heroic Spirits from the Qianlong era came to see him. But other than Heshen being memory-seized, everyone else was pretty normal…”

“How did the incidence rate suddenly skyrocket so ridiculously this time?”

“This has never happened before!” The man couldn’t understand. “What exactly is going on with this Sage Emperor?”