As Qiao Mu left, the eyes of thousands and tens of thousands of people fell on the founding emperor who was recuperating in a pool of blood outside the Golden Throne Hall.
Defeat 10,000 imperial guards, assassinate the emperor, and defeat the founding emperor... .
In the end, they were able to escape from the palace openly and no one dared to stop them.
At this point, the majesty of the Great Yan royal family has disappeared, and even the legendary founding emperor of martial arts has lost face and the halo that surrounded him.
Facing these thousands and tens of thousands of gazes, Yan Taizu practiced Qigong and regulated his breathing to heal his wounds with an expressionless face.
He naturally knew what these Royal Guards and Flying Fish Guards were thinking.
Yan Taizu looked up at the sky. It was already night and the bright moon was obscured by clouds, making it dark.
At this moment, it can be said that he is experiencing the darkest moment in his life in the past two hundred years.
All the pride, reserve, and decency.
All is gone.
"This is the feeling of a miserable defeat." Yan Shenji lowered his eyelids.
He has been invincible in the world for two or three hundred years and has never been defeated. He has always looked down on the heroes of the world, sitting in the deep palace and watching the ups and downs of the world. He regards himself as the only immortal person in the world and has never been defeated for two hundred years.
Emperor Taizu Yan thought about it carefully.
If time could go back and the battle just now could happen again, as long as he was decisive and used his treasured secret medicine, he would still have a 40% chance of winning.
His physical strength is not as good as Qiao Mu's, and Qiao Mu's internal strength is not as good as his.
If the Human King Sword is added, the chance of winning can reach 80%.
But these are all hindsight.
The battle between warriors is not about who has bigger muscles or more internal strength. Both sides stand out and show their panels. Whoever has a higher panel is more powerful, and the worse one will be simply sent away.
The chance of victory is just a matter of millimeters.
A moment's hesitation will lead to a huge collapse.
In the eyes of Emperor Yan, he did lose narrowly, after all, Qiao Mu was also seriously injured.
However, he also mastered the extraordinary skill of Flesh and Blood Transformation from Wu Qizhen, and the Heavenly Demon Disintegration, which made him more desperate than any other warrior.
Hesitation leads to defeat.
As for decisiveness... decisiveness would at most take away Qiumu's life.
By then, Yanshenji will be able to welcome the third stage of the resurrection of Qiaomu with full health, which is cause for celebration.
"Is this the progress of martial arts today?" Yan Shenji looked up at the sky alone.
At the age of three hundred, he is the most powerful person who has reached the pinnacle of ancient martial arts.
But he is only the strongest person in ancient martial arts.
Just like the songs people listen to on their mobile phones and computers, most of them are from the era of their youth.
Yan Shenji often praises the progress of contemporary martial arts, such as the super-grade light skill Tianlong Eight Steps, such as the sword exiled immortal, the martial saint and the like, such as Qiao Mu's display of flesh and blood... .
But in fact, he has been stuck in the era of nearly three hundred years ago, when he was already invincible.
The martial arts he was most proud of was the "Huangji Zhengong" he created in his prime.
This is actually a kind of arrogance of the old predecessors.
He praises the progress of today's martial arts, but actually he always thinks that he is the strongest. The so-called Tianlong Eight Steps Light Kung Fu is unrivaled in the world, but it cannot escape his control.
He has never really taken the current martial arts seriously, but just looked down on the martial arts world with the arrogant perspective of an older generation.
What about the Eight Steps of the Heavenly Dragon and the Hundred Transformations of Flesh and Blood... They are novel, but they are just gimmicks.
And now, this arrogance has been shattered with the first disastrous defeat in more than two hundred years.
“Each generation has its own talents, and the old are replaced by the new.”
"But the one who defeated me, Qiao Jin, is an ancient man from a previous dynasty who is older than me, but he practices the new methods of today..."
In Yan Shenji's opinion, this battle can actually be regarded as...
A showdown between ancient and modern martial arts.
And he had failed miserably.
Yan Shenji stood up and directed the royal descendants and the Imperial Guards to regroup and clean up the mess from tonight.
Compared with the level of martial arts, what Yan Shenji cares more about is actually the state of mind displayed by Qiao Jin, an immortal who is older than him.
Suddenly he had an idea and looked up.
Between the clouds in the night sky, there suddenly appeared a white-haired Taoist figure standing in the air. It was Qingyi, the Nascent Soul Elder of the Da Dao Sect.
"Elder of the Da Dao Sect, are you here to laugh at me?" Yan Shenji said indifferently.
For Yan Shen Ji at this moment, it can be said that this is the darkest moment in his life in the past two hundred years.
All the glory and honor became the stepping stones for the Qiao family to become famous with his miserable defeat.
"Victory and defeat are common in the military. I just want to talk to the old emperor about serious matters." Elder Qingyi said:
"Qiao Jin hasn't gone far yet, and there are still some ordinary mortal soldiers around him. They are all a burden to him."
"Burden?" Yan Taizu raised his eyebrows.
"That's right." Elder Qingyi explained:
"That stone city is actually a magic weapon made using immortal ways of refining equipment, but the craftsmanship of the refiner is not very good, most likely a self-taught immortal cultivator who changed his ways halfway through his career."
"It is not difficult for us to destroy the stone city and the people in it."
"Besides, old emperor, you still have a backup plan, right?"
"How about we join forces?" Elder Qingyi asked tentatively:
"You take action to entangle Qiao Jin, and I will cast a spell to help you. If we attack together, there is a 90% chance that we can kill Qiao Jin."
Although immortal cultivators look down upon ordinary warriors.
But Yan Taizu was the master of the Human King Sword. With the Human King Sword in his hand, Yan Taizu indeed caught the eye of Elder Qingyi.
Elder Qingyi also had a plan in mind. If Emperor Yan agreed, then naturally this warrior would be the vanguard, while he would soar high in the sky and use his magic to injure people from a distance.
Regardless of success or failure, he, who is high above the clouds, will not face any risks.
The only one in risk is Yan Taizu. The worst that can happen is that he can use his escape technique to run away.
cooperate
Emperor Taizu Yan did not agree immediately. Instead, he had a thoughtful look on his face, as if he was lost in thought.
After a moment, he suddenly asked:
"I heard that immortal cultivators cultivate a pure heart, so they must cut off distracting thoughts and abandon desires?"
"That's right." Elder Qingyi nodded:
"Could it be that what you are asking for is... a method of cultivation? If we can kill Qiao Jin this time, it's not impossible."
"The world is bitter and turbid. To be a cultivator, one must not be contaminated by the mundane world. One must naturally discard distracting thoughts and get rid of the worries in one's heart..."
Yan Taizu seemed quite interested in this: "I would like to hear more about it."
Elder Qingyi glanced at Grand Ancestor Yan, thought for a moment, and then said:
"Mortals are weak and it is difficult for a mortal to survive in this chaotic world, so they have families and clans."
"Ordinary mortals rely on their families, clans, and blood ties to survive together in this chaotic world."
"This is the way of survival for mortals, but it is only the way of survival for mortals."
Emperor Taizu Yan seemed to be thinking about something.
"Family and clan are ultimately places where the weak gather together for warmth. A truly strong person doesn't need to gather together. One can cultivate the Tao alone." Elder Qingyi said meaningfully.
“When a person’s heart is strong enough, he will be able to ignore the shackles of ethics in the world and face up to the burdens on his shoulders.”
"The cultivators of immortality care about wealth, companions, the law, and the land. Companions are Taoist companions, not wives and families. Only those who can accompany each other in the pursuit of the Tao are Taoist companions. It is not simply a blood relationship or a moral code."
He tried to clear up Yan Taizu's confusion.
In his opinion, it was somewhat misguided for Emperor Yan to have lived for three hundred years and become like this.
During the past three hundred years, with Emperor Yan sitting in the palace and guiding the younger generations, the entire royal family had not produced a single exceptional warrior.
The only grandson of the emperor who had outstanding talents died in his youth.
A figure like Yan Taizu was somewhat delayed by being tied down by his family. He should have had a brighter future.
Yan Taizu listened silently and was also deeply moved:
"The world is indeed filthy, and a mortal heart cannot withstand the passage of time. Beauty always fades, heroes always grow old, and without the path to immortality, there is no way to transcend."
“No one can be strong all their life without ever feeling depressed or weak.”
“The so-called people who never give up and are always steadfast actually only live in the fictional stories of storytellers.”
Elder Qingyi frowned as he listened to Ancestor Yan's sigh, wondering what was going on.
The two parties are not acquaintances, so why listen to you complaining about the passing of time
However, after taking a closer look at the bloodstained robes of Yan Taizu, whose face was worn out and bleak, Elder Qingyi also understood something:
This is more than just a disastrous defeat.
This battle obviously broke Yan Taizu's martial arts spirit, so he pulled him here in the middle of the night to be sad.
"It's just..." Yan Taizu sighed again:
"Ordinary people in this world are constantly struggling with their own weakness and cowardice throughout their lives, and they stumble forward."
The words haven't finished yet.
The Human King Sword in his hand pointed diagonally at the sky, and an illusory chain emerged from the void and tied to the back of the Taoist Qingyi.
Elder Qingyi was completely defenseless and fell to the ground in a mess.
The expression on Yan Taizu's face turned cold and hard, and he slowly approached with the Human King Sword in his hand.
"The aliens are really cunning. I'm so seriously injured, but you're still staying in the sky. I wasted all my time talking to you."
The obsession of Emperor Yan is the Great Yan Dynasty and the Great Yan royal family. Elder Qingyi wants him to give up his obsession and abandon his family, which is like dancing in a minefield.
"You want me to join hands with the aliens to kill the people of Jiuzhou? You underestimate me a little bit." Yan Taizu looked at the Human King Sword in his hand and said lightly:
"If you don't have the capacity to tolerate others, how can you be called a king?"
The Human King Sword was the sword he used in his early years.
Many years ago, when he was young and strong, when he held the Sword of the King of Men and rose up in rebellion with various grassroots heroes, when he was not yet called the Taizu of Dayan.
He once had another title that was well-known throughout Kyushu:
King of men.
Emperor Taizu of Yan regarded all the people in the world as the subjects of the Great Yan Dynasty. If the subjects were strong, the country would be strong. Even if someone was better than him, he was confident that he would win in the end.
With a flash of sword light, Elder Qingyi was split into two, but the two halves turned into thin pieces of paper, obviously a paper man.
The upper body of the paper figurine was still staring at Yan Taizu:
"Old Emperor, I really underestimated you."
"When you lose your reputation, status, and face and are defeated miserably by your enemies, is it the time for you to rebuild your martial arts heart?"
"Thank you for your enlightenment: victory and defeat are common in the military." Yan Taizu said calmly:
"Who doesn't have cowardice sometimes? But life is long."
Forty years ago, before and after the alien war, Emperor Taizu Yan did not take any action.
He thought he was the only immortal in the world and invincible two hundred years ago, but he witnessed the difference between immortals and mortals with his own eyes.
The complex emotions involved cannot be explained to outsiders.
When Taizu of Dayan was in his prime, he would not be servile to the nine great immortal sects.
The royal family, which was more than 200 years old, chose to keep a low profile.
And now the three hundred year old Yan Taizu... .