Chapter 679 — Righteousness Is Its Root

"Poor demon.

You wanted to be a dog, but alas, they never cared in the least whether the dog lived or died. " Furiluo raised his head, his crimson eyes turning toward the voice. The Woodcutter Sage was walking toward him from afar, ringed by the roaring flames that consumed Xiancheng; the Celestial Master trod the magma and stepped out from the fire, and behind him the sky was streaked with fragments of Luofu Heaven trailing long tails of fire.

The Woodcutter Sage soon came to a halt before him and said in a low voice: "Furiluo, when you and I sealed the Pact of Tubo, you told me that it was not you who meant to destroy Taihuang Heaven, but someone else. I did not tell you then: when the nest is overturned, no egg stays whole. If Taihuang Heaven falls, do you think the demon race will survive? " Furiluo glared at him venomously and rasped: "Shike City lies farthest from the point of impact and has the strongest defenses.

The demons within can survive this collision. My race will not perish because of it!

" The Woodcutter Sage looked at him with pity.

"And outside Shike City?

" Furiluo panted heavily, breathing hard. Of the demons Shike City could preserve, not one in a hundred would remain; all the rest must die in the great collision of heaven and earth, with no chance of escape!

"Twenty thousand years ago, Chi Xi fled with the alien stars, evading pursuit the whole way to Luofu Heaven. The arrival of Chi Xi and the gods of the remnant clans of Chiming made Luofu Heaven unfit to live in, and so you had no choice but to strike at Taihuang Heaven. " The Woodcutter Sage said softly: "Then who was it that drove Chi Xi and those alien stars to Luofu Heaven?

Why Luofu Heaven, of all places? Have you never wondered at the reason? In truth you understand it very well, who the enemy of the Chiming era really is. You simply dare not think it.

You still cling to a shred of illusion. Now is the time for you to wake from that illusion. " Furiluo laughed loudly and cried fiercely: "They did scheme against the remnant clans of Chiming, and against my demon race as well, forcing us into war with Taihuang Heaven. But what of you? You are no better! It was you who built those blood-sacrifice altars!

It was with those altars that Lou Yunqu blood-sacrificed Luofu Heaven! Why were you able to escape? Because you were waiting all along for the Heavenly Court's people to come, so that by their hands Luofu would be blood-sacrificed and I would be driven into your camp!

I am no fool!

" The Woodcutter Sage regarded him and said, neither hurried nor slow: "You are indeed no fool, and I did indeed intend to use the Heavenly Court's hand to drive you into my camp. But if you think that the Heavenly Court would not have blood-sacrificed Luofu had I not built the altars, then you are far too naive. " Furiluo fell silent. The Woodcutter Sage went on: "Whether I built the altars or not, the Heavenly Court would have blood-sacrificed Luofu. Destroy the ancestral land of your demon race, Luofu Heaven, and use Luofu Heaven to strike Taihuang Heaven, and Taihuang Heaven too will sink into dead desolation, with no living thing able to survive here.

To survive and multiply, the demon race must be driven into Jingping. Then the Heavenly Court can use your demon hands to raze Jingping.

That is their true purpose.

" Furiluo slumped, and said in a hollow voice: "When you and I sealed the Pact of Tubo, you already foresaw this day, did you not?

Why did you not say so?

" "Before today, we were enemies.

Why should I have said so? " The Woodcutter Sage extended a palm and said gravely: "After this moment, are we enemies or friends? " Furiluo looked at that palm and hesitated.

After a moment, the two palms clasped firmly together.

The slanting fall of Luofu Heaven at last collided with Taihuang Heaven.

Beside the Spirit-Energy Transfer Bridge, Shen Mu stared blankly as Luofu Heaven descended from the sky, as Li City, that divine city long baptized in war, was crushed to powder beneath it. The flood of Taihuang Heaven's power-wielders surging in were frantically squeezing toward the Spirit-Energy Transfer Bridge; even he was jostled until he could not keep his footing.

The people trampling one another had no comradeship left; in that instant every one of them was only trying to save his own life.

"Shen'er!

" The Village Head, Granny Zhu, and the others forced their way through the crowd toward him. Shen Mu turned his head amid the heaving mass and managed to force out a faint smile: "I'm fine.

Really. " Where Luofu Heaven fell, the earth was like glazed crystal struck by a heavy weight; whole swaths of land cracked and flew up. From the fissures poured crimson magma.

The sight made the earth seem so soft, so fragile, lifted into the air like waves, surging and rippling in every direction. Those were walls of soil and mountain stone a thousand li high, or rather, waves mingled with magma and flame; even peaks ten thousand fathoms tall became a mere inconsequential splash within the waves.

The hurricane born of the collision was sweeping out, annihilating everything; lightning had become the most violent rain, blown outward with the wind, rushing with terrible speed toward every corner of Taihuang Heaven. A mushroom cloud of flame was rising into the sky, and soon it struck near the suns that the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping and Jingping's power-wielders had labored so hard to forge. Those two suns were like paper effigies, torn to pieces in the blast.

"Shen'er, go!

" The Village Head and the others shouted: "Get onto the Transfer Bridge, in this, you cannot survive!

" Shen Mu stared dumbly at the scene. Granny Zhu shoved through the crowd, seized his hand, and without another word dragged him toward the Transfer Bridge. The bridge was crowded everywhere with people, all of them scrambling madly upward, crushing and trampling one another.

Dragged by Granny Zhu, Shen Mu stumbled up the climb. He looked back, his gaze somewhat dazed. He saw god after god, demon after demon, around the great collision of heaven and earth, doing all in their power to hold back that world-ending impact, trying to win the people here a chance at escape.

The gods and demons of Taihuang Heaven and the Suspended Void Realm were shattered in a radiance unbearably bright; the light seared the flesh of the deities, set them aflame, evaporated them, reduced them to nothing! Even gods and demons were so utterly insignificant before this world-destroying power.

He could not see the demon race on the other side, for Luofu Heaven blocked his view, but surely on that side too a host of demon gods were roaring, fighting desperately, trying to hold back the shockwave of the collision and win their people a thread of life.

They knew full well that even as demon gods they had no power to resist, yet for the sake of their people they were willing to stake their lives. "I'm fine, I'm fine. .

.

" Shen Mu murmured.

Taihuang Heaven was finished; those who had not had time to withdraw were finished; and the demon race, who had warred with them for twenty thousand years, was probably finished too. Then he saw the First Ancestor Human Emperor, the man who had fled in that battle of life and death twenty thousand years ago, now descending from the sky, landing before the place where the two worlds collided.

The First Ancestor was resisting the mutually annihilating energies of the two colliding worlds, buying time for the Spirit-Energy Transfer Bridge. His cultivation art was the Heaven-and-Earth Heart Sacred Formula; his seal art was the Heaven-and-Earth Seal Art.

He stood amid the flood of earth, water, wind, and fire that was destroying heaven and earth, and in a trance it seemed he had returned to that battle of twenty thousand years ago, as though he had become the man he was twenty thousand years ago. Only this time, he did not flee.