Chapter Eighteen: The Resurrecting Taiyin Human Emperor

Even the fragments of the Human Emperor's weapon—once known as the Lunar Moon-Blade, which stood like a dark mountain amidst the lake of blood—were beginning to recover. The damaged, long-dormant dao patterns etched into its surface were mending themselves bit by bit, triggered by the spontaneous restoration of the weapon's spirit.

After spending several days constructing an automated system to dispense healing potions, Fang Zheng felt a glimmer of hope, which helped suppress his mounting anxiety.

Once the healing tower reached high into the clouds, Fang Zheng gazed down at the spectacular blood-red lake below. "Right, according to the tropes in most novels, the blood left behind by a powerful expert should contain at least some energy, shouldn't it?"

He opened his inventory and looked at the dark-red bucket he had labeled "Tainted Blood Bucket," pondering, "If his blood can be supplied infinitely, could his lingering soul extract the energy within it to recover faster?"

No sooner said than done. Taking advantage of his current height, Fang Zheng immediately used dispenser blocks as a foundation to construct a 1000x1000 aerial platform made of oak blocks. Below every single block of this massive platform, he placed the tainted blood buckets from his inventory.

A magnificent sight ensued. It looked as if a deity had fallen from the sky. Beneath the 1000x1000 square platform—a total area of one million square meters—a torrent of blood descended.

The vast, dark-red blood, surging forth from the void, fell like a crimson celestial river, pouring ceaselessly onto the giant mountain of shattered black blade fragments. At the same time, the black phantom, hit by countless splashes of healing potions, was also being washed by the blood. Gradually, the black mist that formed its body thinned, while a faint, blood-colored mist grew slightly more prominent.

Watching the blood flowing from the sky, Fang Zheng felt a sense of accomplishment. "The lava and water in the MC world look too pixelated, but this world is more detailed; it actually looks quite spectacular."

"Let's add a bit more; I'm idle anyway."

Another busy day passed. When Fang Zheng, feeling mentally exhausted, descended to the black mountain of blade fragments, he noticed that the once-pitch-black peaks, previously covered in scars, had begun to change. The scars were fading, and the color was shifting from deep black to a translucent, pristine white, shimmering with the luster of a crescent moon.

At the summit of the warm, lunar-like peak, the black phantom stared with bright, bulbous eyes at the bizarre, blocky-headed creature standing before him. The phantom raised an arm and made a grasping gesture. Instantly, specks of light began to rise from the vast blood lake below. These firefly-like glimmers gathered, coalescing into a large mass of fresh, red blood in the phantom's palm.

The phantom projected a faint feeling of gratitude toward Fang Zheng. Seeing the blocky-headed creature looking confused, the phantom spoke: "Thank you."

Seeing that the creature still did not understand, the phantom could only nod helplessly.

Fang Zheng grew excited at the reaction and began pacing around the phantom, muttering, "What's your name? Who are you? Where is this? Can you understand me? What language is that? Can you teach me your language? Can you learn mine? Can you talk to me? Is this white thing a blade tip? Were you killed by someone? Is the blood lake below yours..."

***

Listening to the strange language, the black phantom appeared somewhat stiff. His reason had not yet fully returned, and although he tried multiple times to project his divine sense to communicate with the blocky man, he received no response. To a cultivator, language was secondary—a sliver of divine sense could convey any intent—but this peculiar blocky man, despite possessing mysterious powers, seemed unable to comprehend his divine sense or his words.

To relearn a language, even for the black phantom, required sufficient information. Simply listening to the blocky man's endless mumbling yielded nothing.

In desperation, the still-dazed phantom reached out and offered the mass of fresh red blood, nodding again. Fang Zheng looked at the blood offered by the phantom and his nod, failing to grasp his intent.

"Uh... are you giving this to me?"

"Alright then."

He waved an empty bucket, and a new item appeared in his inventory. Fang Zheng looked at the dark-red and bright-red buckets side by side, then at the massive flow of blood descending from the sky, and mused, "Could this be some kind of essence blood he refined from the dark-red tainted blood? It should be more useful than the original. I might as well replace it all."

He spent some time replacing the blocks that were continuously pouring out the dark-red tainted blood with ones dispensing the fresh, red blood.

Below, the black phantom watched the crimson blood falling from the sky. Though it was not as potent as the blood from his peak, which could permeate the starry sky and drown the sun, it possessed a vast amount of divine energy and fragments of Lunar Laws. A single drop would be enough to slay a Saint.

His lingering consciousness, along with the spirit of his weapon—which had died upon his own demise—was constantly bathing in this blood of his former self, extracting the rare essence to replenish his being. More importantly, under the constant soaking of the swirling mist, his state was recovering bit by bit out of thin air.

His fragmented memories, his former consciousness, and even...

The phantom opened his hand, looking at a faint, blood-red shadow blooming with luster like moonlight in his palm. This was not the tainted blood from outside, which had lost most of its essence, nor was it the blood refined from that tainted source. This was living blood—extremely weak, yet undeniably real, radiating faint traces of Imperial Law and vibrant life force!

The Lunar Body, which he had possessed in his peak years after attaining the Dao long, long ago, was slowly returning from nothingness.

***

Though it was extremely slow.

But...

Chanting in an ancient language, he whispered, "Soon. Before long, when the first drop of living blood coalesces and the first thread of primordial spirit forms, the Lunar Rebirth Technique can be activated. The Lunar Human Emperor at his peak shall return!"

With this soft voice, as the blood recovered, the black mist on the phantom's body faded. A faint, crimson glow emerged, gradually revealing the image of a heroic man with graying hair.

The man, his body hollow and ethereal like a shadow, looked at the blocky figure in the sky with crescent-shaped pupils that shimmered with light. As his consciousness strengthened, his rationality returned, allowing him to think.

A faint ripple of divine sense drifted out: *(The power to create from nothing, the art of the Void?)*

The crescent moons in his eyes became full circles. The warm, moonlight-like radiance pierced through the solidified space, gazing at this seemingly eternal, stagnant fortress of laws. He watched the millions of divine and demonic phantoms guarding the fortress, each possessing combat power beyond the Ninth Heaven of the Quasi-Emperor realm.

Fragments of memory surged like a tide. He recalled his past and shook his head with a self-deprecating whisper:

"I thought that by relying on my invincible combat power, I could force open the Path to Immortality without needing to follow the right time and place. Little did I know..."

"The Path to Immortality is merely a halfway trail beyond the boundaries of the world."

"What guards this path are nothing but pathetic phantoms of law. When I shattered them, there was nothing left at the end of the path but emptiness."

"Even crossing that void, it was not the true Immortal Domain, but an ocean churning with the waves of broken worlds."

"How truly unwilling I am..."

"If I could not pierce the barriers of the Immortal Domain, I can only blame my own insufficient strength."

"To have shattered the Path to Immortality, yet be unable to even find where the Immortal Domain lies—what a joke that is."