The first loss.

Yao Jun looked at the now blank spot, his pupils shrinking as a horrible sense of unease, and tremendous fear, washed over him. He clutched his chest so hard that his fingers dug into his flesh, tearing out small chunks when he moved his slightly trembling arm away from his chest. He took a breath so deep that it sucked in all the air and rain in the area, temporarily drying up the area around him.

His expression turned steely as he ignored the pain and forced his body to stand up. It felt like all his organs and flesh were being torn away from his body, but right now he didn't think he could afford to let the pain incapacitate him, he knew that something horrible must have just happened.

His eyes narrowed as he cast his gaze towards the distant city, his mind cooling down and turning razor-sharp. He took a step forward and vanished into a ripple in space, appearing directly above the city and gazing down on it, quickly scanning it. He quickly found what he was looking for, a branch of the Heaven's Secrets Company. This branch almost resembled a miniature city tucked away close to the center of the actual city, hundreds of houses of varying size and grandeur surrounded by a large wall and a defensive array.

Yao Jun's gaze locked onto a gothic church-like building with three spires attached to the front of the building. By just putting a bit of Qi into his eyes, he could see that this was the main building of the branch, containing the various counters where one could buy information and the like.

Yao Jun descended like a shooting star once he locked onto his target, paying no heed to the defensive array, or the ceiling of the building. He crashed right through both of them with brute force and landed inside the building, the loud sound of the array and ceiling breaking drawing the attention of everyone within the branch. Five people at the late stage of the Immortal Rebirth realm who seemed to work as guards quickly ran towards Yao Jun, placing their hands on the weapons at their waists.

"Halt! This place belongs to the Heave...!"

Yao Jun waved his hand, a fierce gust of wind blowing the five guards away and causing them to crash into the walls, sliding to the ground without any energy. His gaze landed on the closest counter, one manned by a woman from the Final Fire clan, her charcoal-like skin a clear give away. There were currently three people lining up by the counter, but Yao Jun didn't bother with any of them.

He stepped towards the counter, the three people standing there sinking into their own shadows until only their heads remained in the open. They didn't even dare argue or complain, the mere sight of Yao Jun's eyes enough to turn them silent from fear. Yao Jun stopped in front of the counter, the woman trembling slightly under his gaze as he spoke up.

"Where is the World Tree clan currently engaging in war, and where is the closest spatial array that will take me there?"

The woman continued to tremble under Yao Jun's gaze, her lips quivering as they continuously opened and closed. Yao Jun's gaze alone was enough to scare her witless, but the energy radiating from his body due to his somewhat unstable emotions nearly forced her down onto her knees, her breath stuck in her chest.

The woman's refusal to speak quickly tore at Yao Jun's already small patience, resulting in him stretching out his hand to use a bit of poison to make her talk, whether she wanted to or not. But just before his finger could make contact with her forehead, a loud voice hastily called out to him.

"I can show you the spatial array, please stop!"

Yao Jun's hand stopped right in front of the woman, his head turning sideways to glance at the man who had spoken up. The man seemed to come from a somewhat strange race, his skin was covered in a thin layer of gray fur and his hair resembled a pink sea anemone, a rather peculiar sight.

The pain in Yao Jun's chest started to subside as he turned his head, but his instincts told him that it wasn't a good sign. Yao Jun didn't pull his hand away from the woman's face so the peculiar man quickly threw Yao Jun a pendant and a jade slip.

"The pendant is the key to the spatial array, you can use it to set the coordinates you want to reach, the spatial array itself is located five rooms into the back, down a descending staircase. I've opened the path, so you can check for yourself. The jade slip contains information about the war, it's everything you need to get there so please just leave her alone!"

The pendant and jade slip stopped in front of Yao Jun, held aloft by a stiff breeze as he gave them a quick scan, simultaneously checking the path that the man had spoken about by merging his mind with the surrounding space. Once he saw that there was indeed a spatial array within the building, hidden away by an array created whenever the path was closed, he put away the two items and headed directly for the array.

The woman behind the counter, as well as the rest of the people in the room, let out heavy sighs of relief when Yao Jun left them without any further incidents. The woman from the Final Fire clan couldn't help but turn towards the peculiar man, her eyes warily glancing down the path Yao Jun had taken.

"Manager, did you really have to give him the key to the array? Isn't normal procedure to call for reinforcements from the other branches and have them come here through the arrays?"

There was no shortage of people who wanted to take advantage of the Heaven's Secrets Company, but even so, they had survived in this universe for countless years already. In truth, they were no weaker than any of the great clans or sects, so getting a few Earthly Deities, or even Heavenly Deities, to arrive for an emergency was not too hard for them. The furred man shook his head lightly, pointing towards the hole in the ceiling.

"Normal procedure is for normal people, the one we just dealt with is far from normal."

The woman followed the man's finger, her gaze moving through the hole and landing on the massive list floating above the planet, the All-god's List that showed the rankings of the top people in the ongoing competition. The name that the man was pointing at was the brightest one, like burning stars that covered the heavens. Rank 1: King of Demonic Deities, Yao Jun.

Yao Jun paid no attention to the people behind him as he headed for the spatial array, quickly descending the stairs and entering the room covered in countless small runes. He found the keyhole for the pendant and slotted it in, sinking a bit of his mind into it to input the coordinates described in the jade slip. It might be a bit careless to use these items without giving them a more in-depth examination, but right now Yao Jun felt that he had no other options, he had to get to the others as fast as possible.

The spatial array came alive with a bright silver light, space around Yao Jun turning as thick as paste as it started to twist and distort. The silver light swallowed everything, Yao Jun barely able to see a multicolored tunnel spread out around him as he was flung through space. He flew through the tunnel at an astonishing speed, breaching through the end of it after just half a second.

The blinding silver light vanished once Yao Jun broke through the other half, allowing him to give his surroundings a quick check. He was currently flying in the empty space between planets, an utterly massive speartip-shaped planet covered in lightly red dirt spreading out in front of him. According to the report he read, this should be God Piercer planet, it should be where the war was being fought right now.

But strangely enough, the entire planet was completely quiet, he couldn't see any signs of battle anywhere on the planet. He channeled some Qi into his eyes, his vision drastically strengthening and allowing him to see that the entire planet was actually covered in glowing runes. Peering past the runes he could see several seas of people currently engaged in battle, there were so many that they covered at least two-thirds of the planet's surface.

Yao Jun descended down to the runes and created an orb of ice, flicking it down onto one of the runes. The orb flew directly through the rune without harm, but Yao Jun lost control over it the moment it passed through them. If his guess was correct, it should be this array that cut off his connection with Little Gray and the others. Seeing as it didn't prevent the orb of ice from entering, it should be focused on keeping things in rather than keeping them out.

Yao Jun wasn't sure what else the array did, but right now he didn't care too much about finding out. His eyes swept over the array, following the flow of Qi until he found a spot where it converged and formed an anchor, one of the spots that kept an array together. He flew over to the anchor and gathered all his force in his foot, descending down onto the anchor and smashing right through it. Like this he would at least have an escape path should he need to bring Little Gray and the others away.

Yao Jun's connection with Little Gray and the others was restored the moment he passed through the array, and his worst fears were confirmed, he couldn't feel Little Thunder. His pupils shrank to a point where they were little more than pinholes, his head turning towards the west, where he could sense Little Gray and the others.

He vanished into a ripple in space and appeared in the air above the area where a large battle was currently taking place. Yao Jun looked down on the area, Little Gray and the others all entering his eyes, they were currently doing their best to fight a way through the sea of people, desperately heading in the same direction. Yao Jun also saw Guo Luo and Yun Yantian in the midst of the battle, sticking close to Little Gray and the others, his heart heaving a short sigh of relief.

His gaze then turned towards the direction that Little Gray and the others were heading, his eyes quickly finding his parents kneeling at the side of a ruined corpse that had lost all its flesh and blood, all that remained were bones and a bit of fur, as well as a gleaming azure crystal in the chest cavity.

Yao Jun's breath caught in his throat when he saw the corpse, his heart nearly stopping. Even if there was no skin or connection anymore, he could tell, he just knew whose corpse this was, who these bones belonged to.

Yao Jun descended to the ground like a bolt of lightning, crashing into it with such force that thick cracks spread through the area, the loud rumbling blotting out all other sounds. Strangely enough, silence spread over the area after Yao Jun crashed into the earth, the battles in the area around him halting.

The fighters could sense it, each and everyone, something dreadful had arrived. It was as if a strange energy was hanging in the air, pressing on all of their chests so hard that their hearts felt like they were about to stop. Yao Jun's eyes were firmly locked on the corpse as he walked over, each step slow but so heavy that the earth beneath his feet sank down and started to splinter.

Guo Luo and the others also saw Yao Jun's, everyone's eyes were practically glued to him right now as he slowly walked over to the bones on the ground. Yao He and Yao Xun looked at the son they hadn't seen in years, noticing all the small and large changes that both time and his experiences had left on him.

They could easily see it, he had left them as an overly-eager and excited boy, but he returned as a hardened man who could shake the world. But they didn't say anything, all their words caught in their throats when they saw the anguish in his eyes, the pain that radiated from his body as he looked at the bones. Yao Jun looked at the corpse, his arms and legs trembling fiercely as he spoke up with a shaky voice.

"Get up, Little Thunder."

There was no response to Yao Jun's statement, which was practically begging. Yao Jun quickly took several breaths, red veins starting to spread through his eyes as he spoke up again.

"Get up, I didn't give you permission to rest yet."

Once again, the only thing that met Yao Jun's statement was a silence that felt so loud it seemed like thunder in his ears. Yao Jun clenched his fists so hard that his nails pierced into his palm and drew out drops of blood that ran down his hand and dripped onto the ground, his mouth opening once more.

"Please...don't leave me..."

Yao Jun had lost battles before, he had been forced to give up on things and he had been forced to flee. But this was the first time Yao Jun had ever truly lost something, lost someone close and dear to him. It was his worst fear and his main reason for cultivating, to ensure that he didn't lose any of those close to him. And yet here he stood, gazing at the corpse of the first friend to join him on his travels, powerless to help him in any way.

Yao Jun bent forward and picked up the glimmering crystal laying in Little Thunder's chest cavity. This was his Demon Crystal, the very essence of his energy and practically his heart. Even now it gleamed with light and lightning as if it still wished to fight at Yao Jun's side. Yao Jun's eyes were locked onto the crystal, his voice dreadfully low and cold as he spoke once more.

"Who saw what happened?"

Yao He and Yao Xun felt their hearts clench, not only because of the sorrow they could see in Yao Jun's eyes, but also because of the boundless rage hidden in his voice. Yao Xun opened her mouth to say something, but Yao He placed his hand on her shoulder and shook his head. He stretched out his arm and pointed at one of the people that had been closest when Little Thunder suffered the attacks.

Yao Jun followed his father's finger, his gaze landing on a middle-aged man standing a few tens of meters away, grouped together with a few other people for safety as they seemingly tried to hide away from ongoing battles. Yao Jun took a step forward, the earth beneath him exploding as he shot forward, had it not been for a barrier of ice he quickly erected in front of his parents, the fragments would have moved fast enough to tear them apart.

Yao Jun arrived in front of the group and didn't even bother asking any questions, his right hand stretched out and clamped down on the face of the middle-aged man that his father had pointed out. His poison and mental energy rushed into the man's mind and tore it open, laying all his memories bare for Yao Jun.

Yao Jun made sure to go over everything that the man had seen since the war started, paying extremely close attention to the last few moments that Little Thunder spent alive. Once he had seen everything, Yao Jun's eyes narrowed so dangerously that the rest of the people in the group fell to the ground, trembling in fear and on the verge of begging.

Yao Jun let go of the man, who fell to the floor with a thunderous headache and a back dripping with cold sweat. Yao Jun took another deep breath and then walked back to Little Thunder's corpse, kneeling down in front of it. He slammed his forehead against the ground three times, heavily kowtowing to the bones as he spoke up, his voice a strange mixture of warm and cold.

"Thank you for protecting my parents, I promise you that the road to the yellow springs won't be lonely."

Yao Jun stood up after finishing his kowtows, his eyes were no longer bloodshot but so calm that they gave off an icy air. Yao Jun stored Little Thunder's bones into his God Gate, his eyes giving the surrounding area a few sweeping glances before he uttered a short word.

"Come."

Yao Jun's words seemed to be a trigger, space around Little Gray and the rest of his Demonic beasts rippling for a short moment before they all arrived by him. Little Gray and the others quickly dropped to their knees, not even daring to raise their heads to look at Yao Jun right now. Yao Jun turned his head to Guo Luo and Yun Yantian, a thin and forced smile appearing on his face.

"Sorry, but we'll have to save our heartfelt reunion for a bit, there are some people that I need to kill."

Yao Jun raised his right arm as he spoke, the earth all around them starting to tremble and crack as if an earthquake was taking place. The strange earthquake only lasted a single second before a thick pillar of blue magma and a massive spike of ice shot up from the ground in the distance, each one resembling a mountain as they stretched towards the sky and wreaked havoc on everything around them. Both pillars started to unleash thousands of small streams of energy that stretched out and connected with some of the people present, sticking to them like harmless worms. Yao Jun pointed at the pillars and the streams of energy they unleashed, directing Little Gray and the others.

"While protecting my parents, Luo'er, and Brother Yantian, kill anyone who has one such stream on them, leave not a single one alive no matter how much they beg. As for those two over there, I will personally have them fall into hell."

Yao Jun's gaze was firmly locked at the base of the two pillars, at one familiar man clad in the robes of the Heaven's Gate sect and a familiar woman clad in the robes of the Merged Heaven clan. Little Gray and the others quickly let out loud shouts of acknowledgment, Yao Jun slowly stepping forward as his sword appeared in his grasp, his gaze firmly locked on the two people as he spoke.

"I don't have a lot of regrets in my life, I try to live without them. But Qiao Xian Yi, Yuan Shen, I now regret with all my heart not being able to kill you back then, so allow me to fix that now."