My brother is so cunning

Chapter 1026: Discussing the Dao with Martial Arts
Ordinary immortals, even those of the noble rank of Hunyuan Golden Immortal, would immediately stop and respond with a smile and kind words upon hearing a shout from the True Martial Emperor.

However, Wen Rui acted as if he hadn't heard anything and continued to move slowly, step by step, towards the outside of Lingxiao Palace.

Although both parties held the title of Celestial Venerable, Wen Rui had only two hundred years of experience and was a junior among the Celestial Venerables. His attitude was indeed somewhat arrogant.

Dark clouds gathered over the righteous and awe-inspiring face of the True Martial Emperor, as if a storm was brewing.

He patiently stepped forward a few paces and continued loudly, "I also admire your great achievements in quelling the demonic calamity and restoring the human world. I do not wish to make things difficult for you, but I want you to give an explanation to the Jade Emperor and the immortals!"

"If you leave without saying a word, where is the Jade Emperor's majesty? The gods are also filled with trepidation!"

The True Martial Emperor spoke righteously and sternly: "The Three Realms have just been established. The gods should be working together diligently to restore order to the human world. Because of your disturbance in the court, the gods are disunited, the order has been broken, and the moral order of the human world is obscured. If evil spirits take advantage of this weakness, the gods will be powerless to resist due to the depletion of incense offerings. You cannot escape the blame!"

This statement is not without merit. Zhenwu the Great did not simply take sides to support the Jade Emperor during court struggles, but rather acted out of public interest.

This is the contradiction caused by differences in perception. In the view of the True Martial Emperor, only supreme divine power can effectively suppress evil and heretical practices, and the source of divine power is the incense offerings of mortals.

There is a relationship of mutual generation and restraint among mortals, gods, and demons. Demons wreak havoc on the human world, while gods protect it. Mortals offer incense to the gods, who then transform the incense into divine power to slay demons.

Wen Rui severed the channel of incense offerings between mortals and gods. With the gods' divine power exhausted, they were unable to resist the evil spirits, allowing the evil spirits to take the opportunity to invade the mortal world and harm living beings.

No matter how reasonable the metal puppet's explanation may be, disrupting this system of mutual generation and restraint will not only harm the gods, but also all living beings, who are destined to suffer the calamity of evil.

The True Martial Emperor believed he had already given Wen Rui enough face and was patiently planning to reason with him. Otherwise, given his status, why would he need to be polite to this junior among the Heavenly Venerables? He could simply draw his True Martial Sword and kill him.

As for the puppet army with profound martial arts realm that Wen Rui once displayed, other immortals might be wary of them, but in the eyes of the True Martial Emperor, they were just a bunch of chickens and dogs.

When it comes to martial arts, the True Martial Emperor is the ancestor of martial arts!

His countless generations of disciples and grand-disciples have all been able to create the pinnacle of Taoist martial arts, rivaling the so-called profound Buddhist martial arts transmitted from the West.

Having witnessed the martial arts puppet battles, Emperor Zhenwu, being an expert, immediately recognized that the puppets' martial arts originated from the Western religion. How could the martial arts developed by the foreign monks of Xiniu Hezhou be compared with the martial arts of the Central Plains Daoist sect in Nanzhanbuzhou?

Martial arts puppets do indeed demonstrate Western martial arts to the fullest extent, but so what?
Even Venerable Kasyapa, who pioneered Western martial arts, and even the Buddha, were completely disregarded by the True Martial Emperor in the realm of martial arts.

Even if Wen Rui created tens of thousands of martial arts puppets, the True Martial Emperor was absolutely confident that he could take Wen Rui's head from among the army as easily as taking something out of a bag.

With such extraordinary confidence in his martial arts, the True Martial Emperor did not act rashly, but left Wen Rui room to explain. If he could admit his mistake to the Jade Emperor and give him a way out, it would not be unreasonable to punish him as a minor offense.

After all, before Zhenwu the Great came to the Heavenly Court to attend the court assembly, he also briefly inspected the living conditions of the mortal beings. From any perspective, the mortal beings could be described as living in peace and prosperity. He also highly recognized Wen Rui's achievements in spreading the teachings of the Jie Sect to educate the people.

Even with sincerity, great restraint, and humbled himself to offer kind advice, Emperor Zhenwu watched helplessly as Wen Rui completely ignored him, treating him as if he were invisible and his words as nothing, slowly and leisurely continuing his meandering walk out of the hall. If Wen Rui had turned and run away in a panic, Emperor Zhenwu would have simply considered him a junior acting rashly, and could have been understanding; he could have confronted him later.

However, his unhurried, leisurely, and swaggering walk out in front of Zhenwu the Great seemed to deliberately ignore him, and even carried a certain provocative connotation.

So crazy!
It's not the kind of loud, boisterous arrogance; it's a higher level of arrogance.

Compared to direct belittling, boasting, or confrontation, "ignoring" is more like an invisible knife. It doesn't argue with you, doesn't clash with you, and doesn't even acknowledge your existence—it's like you're talking to thin air, and the other party doesn't even lift an eyelid.

The underlying logic of this attitude is: "Your opinions, feelings, and values ​​don't even have the right to be evaluated by me."

Zhenwu the Great was not a narrow-minded deity, but being ignored like this in front of all the immortals and gods, even he, with his great magnanimity, could not save face.

I have seen arrogant people, but never such arrogant people!

Even the True Martial Emperor was momentarily unable to comprehend why Wen Rui dared to be so arrogant towards him and why he dared to ignore him.

"Good, good, good!"

The True Martial Emperor said "good" three times in a row, and instead of being angry, he laughed, but his laughter was rather sinister.

"Little Celestial Venerable Wen, if you don't want to hear me discuss the Dao with you, then this Venerable does know a little about martial arts! Oh, right, martial arts is also a Dao. Little Celestial Venerable can create puppets that are proficient in Buddhist martial arts, so your understanding of martial arts must have reached a certain level. This Venerable will first discuss martial arts with you, and then discuss the Dao of Heaven with you!"

After saying this, the True Martial Emperor suddenly plunged the True Martial Sword into the ground. In an instant, the entire Lingxiao Palace seemed to shake. The Xuan Tian evil energy surging in from outside the palace condensed into a huge black dragon, which opened its blood-red maw and pounced on Wen Rui.

"True Martial Emperor, quickly withdraw your divine powers!"

The Jade Emperor, regaining his senses, saw the True Martial Emperor make his move. He, who usually liked to call for outside help, unusually spoke up to stop him: "Both of you are pillars of the Heavenly Court and the Three Realms; you must not fight each other over ideological differences..."

But the black dragon had already taken shape, charging towards Wen Rui with a world-destroying aura, as if it would swallow him whole and grind him into dust at any moment.

The black dragon, formed from the Xuan Tian evil energy, was the most ferocious and malevolent being in the world. The power surging around it was the innate divine power of the True Martial Emperor, which was condensed from the three evil energies of the Northern Heaven Army Evil, the Xuanwu True Evil, and the Netherworld Cold Evil. When the dragon swayed, the beams and pillars of the entire Lingxiao Palace groaned under the weight, and the glazed tiles on the roof rattled as if they were about to collapse and fall at any moment.

The mere release of the Xuan Tian evil energy caused the immortals in the hall to feel their breathing become sluggish. When it pounced on the Creator Celestial Venerable, the evil wind stirred up by the dragon claw carried a sharp whistling sound that tore through space. Wherever it passed, the air was compressed into visible ripples. Even the white light shield summoned by Venus was violently distorted by this wind and almost collapsed.

The most terrifying thing is its corrosive power. The fragments of evil energy that fell to the ground took root and sprouted on the gold bricks, turning into black vines that spread wildly. The immortal artifacts it touched all cried out in agony. Even the Panlong Staff of the Antarctic Immortal was forced to automatically release golden light to protect itself.

The malevolent energy is the nemesis of the immortal energy. The True Martial Emperor, who guards the northern sky, has slain countless billions of demons to collect such a powerful and abundant Xuan Tian True Malevolent Energy. Its ferocity has long exceeded the range that ordinary immortals can deal with.

(End of this chapter)