Chapter 540 The Human Emperor Banner is Hungry

Lu Ye unleashed his own Great Dao.

Ribbons of the Great Dao, like coiling serpents, emerged between heaven and earth.

Each Great Dao had reached a state of perfect and unblemished perfection, appearing exquisitely sublime, evoking endless admiration.

The Quasi-Emperors' eyes bulged in shock.

Their gazes seethed with disbelief.

Why?

It was simple—cultivating even a single Great Dao to its peak was already a lifelong struggle few ever master.

Yet now, Lu Ye had revealed over two hundred distinct Great Daos.

The number of Great Daos he had cultivated outnumbered even the combined total of all the Quasi-Emperors present.

How could such an impossibility exist?

Where had he gotten the time—the lifetimes—for all of them?

Many Quasi-Emperors immediately spotted Great Daos mirroring their own.

Some cultivated the Great Dao of Fire, and Lu Ye also possessed the Great Dao of Fire—yet his dwarfed even their own, despite it being their primary focus.

Had Lu Ye not chosen the Great Dao of Protection to ascend as Emperor and Sage, any one of these Great Daos could have allowed him to forge a Dao Fruit and prove his path to Emperorhood.

"Because I have refined more Great Daos, my insight into what the Great Dao truly is cuts deeper. So today, this lecture will unveil the essence of the Great Dao!"

"The so-called Great Dao, the beginningless source..."

When the discourse reached the Seventh Heaven, all Great Daos were activated, making this a spectacle without precedent.

The entire Heavenly Gate was bathed in ethereal, prismatic light.

The fragrance of the Dao permeated the air, drunkening the mind and allowing glimpses of one's true self.

Others from the Heavenly Gate also listened to this discourse and soon fell into profound enlightenment.

Lu Ye's speech blossomed golden lotuses, his words ringing with celestial authority.

The Great Dao resonated, and heaven and earth responded.

It was as if all the Great Daos of the Seventh Heaven were quaking, weaving a spectacle so magnificent it inspired boundless envy.

Other Quasi-Emperors of the Seventh Heaven witnessed this scene, their eyes aflame with desperate envy.

They dared not imagine the profound epiphanies they would gain if they had been present for this discourse.

Why hadn’t Lu Ye sought their aid when he called for reinforcements?

So cold of him!

Had he asked, would they have refused?

Rage! Envy! Bitterness!

They swore that if Lu Ye were to deliver such a discourse to them, they would willingly pledge their very souls to him.

At the QuasiEmperor level,

everyone's goal becomes singular: to prove their path and become full Emperors. All other matters must take a backseat.

Of course, the Dark Clan's different and likely doesn’t count.

This lecture went on for a full thirty years.

Lu Ye didn't hold anything back, sharing all his insights and knowledge to the extent that QuasiEmperors could comprehend.

Everything he spoke was immensely beneficial to them.

By the time Lu Ye concluded, the many QuasiEmperors had all fallen deep in meditation.

Their brows sometimes furrowed, then smoothed in realization.

Feeling the thick energy around him, Lu Ye simply closed his eyes again and went into seclusion.

He'd only just reached the Broken Realm; he still had a long way to go in his cultivation.

"Master, master... hungry..."

A childlike voice of the Human Emperor Banner echoed in Lu Ye’s mind.

Hmm?

Lu Ye thought it was weird.

For the Human Emperor Banner to complain of hunger—wasn’t he slacking?

He summoned the Human Emperor Banner, which now radiated an unprecedented aura, thrumming with energy that shook the soul.

Upon its surface, eyes appeared and disappeared.

One look showed some belonged to his three former wives, others to the twenty-plus QuasiEmperors.

Having devoured the souls of over twenty QuasiEmperors, shouldn’t the Human Emperor Banner be so full it should be questioning its purpose? Why was it still hungry?

But Lu Ye quickly understood—oh, that's why.

Among those QuasiEmperors, some had been broken down into True Spirits.

For the Human Emperor Banner, True Spirits were useless—dumb, numb, and useless in a fight. To make them useful, it had to nourish them with Soul Essence.

In the end, the True Spirits of the QuasiEmperors were indeed transformed into angry ghosts.

But the Soul Essence ran out too.

The Human Emperor Banner could, in theory, extract Soul Essence from a QuasiEmperor’s soul, but it didn't want to.

Such powerful souls—it really wanted to keep them whole.

Thus, the Human Emperor Banner was hungry.

Lu Ye sighed. What do you do when your kid's hungry?

He took out the Mask of Deception and called upon the Dark Origin.

"Here, here!" An Yuaner was thrilled and answered right away.

"Open your Dark Expanse, let's go for a walk!"

"Hell yeah! Nothing beats adventuring with Nine Lives."

Lu Ye wasn't planning a full-scale slaughter, just a bit of hunting to keep the Human Emperor Banner sated.

He was currently at the Broken Realm cultivation level.

However, below the Great Dao Realm—including the Great Dao Realm itself—there shouldn't be anyone who could last one move against him.

But against an actual Emperor, was there any hope of victory?

Originally—not a chance.

The key now was that the Human Emperor Banner now contained a full twenty-one Quasi-Emperor souls, along with three ex-wives whose might eclipsed even those Quasi-Emperor souls.

The reason there were only twenty-one Quasi-Emperor souls was that three had been consumed by Lu Ye's three exes.

Twenty-four in total.

Lu Ye pondered.

With twenty-four Quasi-Emperor souls, what kind of killing array would be most suitable for him to set up?

After thinking for a while—

"System, analyze if the Triune Eight Wastes Formation is suitable for souls."

"[System ping] Calculating!"

Lu Ye couldn't help but smile. God bless cheat systems!

"[System ping] Calculation complete."

Data streams poured into Lu Ye's mind.

After a quick glance, he understood everything.

Excellent!

Based on the Triune Eight Wastes Formation, the system had derived the Triune Eight Wastes Soul-Refining Formation.

This formation grouped eight Quasi-Emperor souls per layer, arranged in three interlocking tiers—inner, middle, and outer—which could merge and shift endlessly, thrumming with death qi.

It specialized in attacking the enemy's soul. With this, even if an Emperor appeared, Lu Ye would have nothing to fear.

"Good!"

Lu Ye's figure vanished.

This time, he'd wipe out every organization that had Quasi-Emperors involved. No more of this "our Quasi-Emperors acted alone" nonsense—if those Quasi-Emperors had succeeded in capturing Lu Ye and seizing everything he had, you think these factions would have disavowed it after they ascended to the Emperor Realm?

No clean hands in this.

Lu Ye's figure blinked through space rapidly.

Some factions had already been pissing their robes, abandoning the Nine Heavens like rats overnight.

They thought escaping the Nine Heavens would save their skins.

After all, Lu Ye probably wouldn't dare to venture into the outer realms, right?

If Lu Ye were crazy enough to cross into the outer realms, it wouldn't just be a matter for Quasi-Emperors to handle.

There would truly be an Emperor taking action.

Thus, when these factions arrived in the outer realms, they secretly sighed in relief.

Now they were golden!