Chapter 122: The Earth Immortal Emerges!

Facing Jiang Yu, Chen Shanhe was even more respectful than Li Hao, Liu Ban’nan, Lin Wangtian, and the others.

After all, to them Jiang Yu had merely taught according to their individual aptitudes. He had not passed on any of his core techniques, so at most they could be considered half-disciples. Chen Shanhe was different. Jiang Yu regarded him as his final disciple. Although he had not taught him anything of the highest tier, he had still imparted the Void Soul-Refining Art to him.

In ancient times, the Soul-Refining Art had been an immortal cultivation technique. Once mastered, it could refine mountains and rivers with a wave of the hand, and even smelt immortals and deities. The technique was fierce and overbearing. With the six realms held in one’s heart, every living creature within the three realms was nothing more than nourishment.

Perhaps Chen Shanhe felt that bowing was not enough to express the surging emotion in his heart. He simply gathered up his Daoist robe with one hand and knelt before Jiang Yu. With solemn dignity, he performed three bows and nine prostrations, obedient as a child.

Meeting an old acquaintance again, Jiang Yu could not help smiling. He waved his hand and said, “Rise. Of all my disciples, you are the most steady and the most genuine.”

Even Chen Shanhe, the unrivaled Earth Immortal Celestial Master beneath the heavens, did not dare reveal the slightest trace of arrogance before Jiang Yu. He had been Jiang Yu’s disciple then, and he remained his disciple now and forever.

Outside the main hall, the entire Chen family was shaken to its core. From the elders to the younger generation, every one of them stared in stunned silence.

This included the members of the Han family kneeling inside the hall. They looked as though they had witnessed the most unbelievable sight of their lives. The peerless Earth Immortal, a legend from a century ago, was now kneeling before a young man in his twenties like a devout believer, respectfully addressing him as Master.

Put another way, this young man had taught an Earth Immortal?

Their emotions were like a comet crashing to earth, like a storm sweeping across the clouds. Terror pierced to the depths of their hearts. Jiang Yu’s face was etched into their memories, destined to become the nightmare of their entire lives.

“How could this be? How could this be?”

Chen Chuwan repeated the words endlessly in her heart.

When Jiang Yu had personally told her that he knew Chen Shanhe, she had assumed he was joking. She had even wondered whether Jiang Yu truly knew Chen Shanhe, or perhaps whether Jiang Yu’s teacher or elders had once been old friends with him.

She had imagined countless possibilities and made endless conjectures. The one thing she had never considered was that Chen Shanhe might be Jiang Yu’s disciple. It was not that her imagination was insufficient; she simply had never dared think in that direction.

Had Jiang Yu not possessed another body, and had he retained his former appearance, everyone would have discovered that he was precisely the immortal depicted in the portrait hanging in the Chen family ancestral hall.

Chen Shanhe’s cultivation had reached the Earth Immortal realm. He did not need to rely on Jiang Yu’s appearance. Merely sensing Jiang Yu’s aura was enough for him to identify him.

Jiang Yu smiled at Chen Chuwan, who stood outside the hall, and said calmly, “Do you believe what I told you now?”

Chen Chuwan lowered her head, her face filled with countless tangled emotions. A thousand words surged within her, yet in the end they condensed into two simple ones.

“I believe you.”

The young lady of the Qin family had long since gone rigid as a stone statue.

She had always believed that reaching the Force Transformation realm at seventeen or eighteen made her a once-in-a-century martial arts prodigy. Yet Chen Shanhe’s single cry of “Master” shattered every trace of her pride. Only now did she realize that compared with the carefree young man standing in the Chen family hall, she was separated from him by the distance between heaven and earth.

The moment she remembered that Jiang Yu would soon pay a visit to the Qin family, endless terror seized her heart. Could the two Qin family Grandmasters and twelve Force Transformation masters withstand his advance?

Unbidden, the scene by the Cold Pool rose in her mind: Jiang Yu killing one person with every step, while half-step Grandmasters were as lowly as dust before him. Regardless of their realm, none could withstand the might of his fist.

On November seventh, China gained another Earth Immortal.

The news of Chen Shanhe’s emergence would soon sweep across China and, before long, across the entire planet. The power of an Earth Immortal was simply too great. Such beings had long surpassed humanity’s understanding of life itself. Conventional weapons were no longer effective against them.

The moment an Earth Immortal appeared, every nation on the planet would immediately take notice. In the long run, such a person was a strategic resource as important to a great power as a nuclear weapon.

No matter how formidable nuclear weapons were, they still had countless limitations. No one would use them lightly unless absolutely necessary. As the final trump card, they would only be considered when destruction was imminent, or when victory in a single strike was assured.

Earth Immortals were different. Their destructive power might not compare with that of superweapons, but they possessed one overwhelming advantage: a lone individual who could appear and disappear without a trace. Once they set their sights on someone, that person could hide in the heavens or conceal himself in the deepest abyss, flee to the ends of the earth or the gates of hell, and still find no one capable of saving him.

A million-strong army could not compare with the divine might of a single Earth Immortal.

Even the strongest fortress in the world would be nothing more than a joke before one.

Given all this, how great a storm would Chen Shanhe’s emergence unleash? One nation with two Earth Immortals, twin dragons advancing side by side—perhaps even those few supercontinents would be forced to fear them.

“The Qin family is finished.”

The Qin family’s young lady closed her eyes and collapsed limply onto the ground.

If word spread that Chen Shanhe was still alive, who would dare act recklessly?

Though he had vanished for thirty years, the name Chen Shanhe still suppressed the three hidden clans. Only in recent years had the people of those clans begun to stir restlessly.

Chen Shanhe stood restrained before Jiang Yu and recalled, “Thirty years ago, I suddenly sensed that my end was near. I feared that once I passed into meditation, I would never again see my revered master’s face. I searched everywhere for a method to extend my life, but found nothing. In the end, I could only exhaust the strength of the Chen family to purchase this mountain and establish a small formation, then fall into an endless slumber.”

“If Master had not awakened me, I might have slept for the rest of my life, until my lifespan ran out and I passed away in meditation. Only by doing so could I survive long enough for Master to appear. To see you once more in my lifetime—Shanhe would die without regret.”

Chen Shanhe, who felt that his life was nearing its end, held no grand ambitions.

His sole wish was not for the Chen family to preserve its glory, nor to live another hundred years, nor to reach the summit and seek a higher transformation. He wanted only to see Jiang Yu one more time.

Chen Shanhe had lived for more than three hundred years, already the limit of an Earth Immortal’s lifespan. Had he not entered his deep slumber, he might have passed away twenty or thirty years ago.

Though his hair and beard were white and long, and he possessed the bearing of an immortal with a vigorous spirit, the condition within his body was horrifying. His vital energy and blood had withered, every organ was nearing failure, and even his Earth Immortal bones had begun to grow brittle.

He had wanted to present his best appearance when he met Jiang Yu. Thus, upon emerging from seclusion, he had used a secret method of the Void Soul-Refining Art to burn the last of his life force and return himself to his peak one final time.

This state could last for a little over a month. Once that time elapsed, Chen Shanhe’s life would come to an end.

Of course, during that month, Chen Shanhe would no longer be restrained by rules and laws of any kind. What taboos could still bind a man who was already dying? After emerging once more in the world following thirty years of silence, he might well crush everything in his path to pave the way for the descendants of the Chen family.

Anything he believed posed a threat to the Chen family would be destroyed.

There was no one in the world capable of stopping this Earth Immortal. Even if Gu Changsheng of China arrived, he would likely be unwilling to fight an Earth Immortal who cared nothing for the consequences.

Chen Shanhe had no scruples.

Gu Changsheng did.

Even if he killed Chen Shanhe, Gu Changsheng would suffer severe injuries and need decades to recover his peak cultivation. He might even be unable to return to his former state for the rest of his life.

The higher one’s cultivation, the more difficult it was to heal injuries within the body.

Jiang Yu walked up to Chen Shanhe and rubbed his head. Chen Shanhe bent his waist lower without saying a word.

No matter how one looked at it, the scene seemed profoundly incongruous. An eighteen- or nineteen-year-old youth was reaching out to pat the head of a man more than three hundred years old, while that three-hundred-year-old man was bending down as though thoroughly enjoying it.

Chen Kun’s mouth hung open wide enough to swallow an egg.

His grandfather was unbelievably docile before Jiang Yu.

He was an Earth Immortal! Yet Jiang Yu was actually patting his head as if he were a child.

Chen Kun felt that he was going insane. Everything he had witnessed that day exceeded the limits of what he could accept.

“Now that I have come, I will not stand by and watch you pass away before my eyes.”

Before obtaining the Golden Flame Coral Fruit, Jiang Yu would never have dared make such a promise.

To extend the lifespan of an Earth Immortal, he would have needed to recover his Golden Core cultivation and possess supreme divine abilities.

But now that the Coral Fruit was in his hands, Jiang Yu could begin refining a great elixir capable of extending human life. Allowing Chen Shanhe to live another twenty or thirty years would be no difficult matter.

“These people are yours to deal with.”

Jiang Yu looked at the members of the Han family kneeling on the ground.

They were all deathly pale with terror. If an Earth Immortal took action, a hundred lives would not be enough to save them.

From beginning to end, Chen Shanhe had barely glanced at them. In his eyes, they were nothing but insignificant lives. With a wave of his sleeve, he could kill an entire multitude.

Facing them, the majesty of an Earth Immortal was fully revealed.

“Go back and tell your masters that I, Chen, will pay them a visit before long.”

Instead of relaxing, the people from the Han family felt as though they had fallen straight into the abyss of hell.

The Earth Immortal was enraged.