Chapter 886 — Dragon's Roar in the Azure Sea, Accompanied by Song

"Could this Longbo be the very one Qu'er met in the East Sea in years past?

" Shen Mu thought for a moment, then stirred the Myriad Gods' Natural Art to enlighten the bone dragon. The dragon bones standing upon the sea suddenly clattered and shook; the waters rose to the sky, and the divine dragon's dry bones pulled themselves from the waves, stood upright, and roared, jaws wide: "Homeland! Homeland!

I cannot let my bones be buried elsewhere, I will go back to my homeland!

" Shen Mu stood below; the surging flood spread all around, held off by his vital essence.

The youth lifted his head and called out loudly, "Where is your homeland?

" Whoosh! The bone dragon suddenly soared into the air, shaking its head and swinging its tail as it flew into the distance. But it had neither flesh nor magic power left; it had flown scarcely a li before it fell from the sky, smashing the sea into flying shards of jade, its bones bursting apart and scattering in all directions.

Shen Mu used a spirit-summoning spell to rouse it, and the divine dragon's skeleton reassembled itself, soon restored to what it had been. It did not fly, but swam through the sea, yet its speed was great.

"Follow it!

" Shen Mu leaped onto Long Qilin's head, and Long Qilin hurried after. The bone dragon swam faster and faster, careering wildly across the surface, and then all at once it vanished before their eyes.

Shen Mu was taken aback. Long Qilin rushed to the spot and stealthily stretched out a claw to test it, and saw that his claw, thrust into the air ahead, vanished as well.

"It is a kind of blinding formation.

" Shen Mu stepped inside, and the sea before him receded in an instant; a vast and surging vision rushed at him. Countless divinities held down Longbo after Longbo, dragon-headed and man-bodied, at the sacrificial blade and struck off their heads. Heads beyond counting fell; blood became an ocean, and wave after wave of blood surged up into the sky.

High in the air stood an enormous altar, running with welling blood: it was a sacrifice of spectacular scale.

The shouted commands of the Feathered Forest Army's divine and demonic generals rang out without cease; the people of the Kingdom of Longbo had become the offerings of this sacrifice, their flesh and blood given up through the rite to the Heavenly Court, to be delicacies for the Heavenly Emperor and his civil and military officials. Shen Mu was stunned; he shook his head. Suddenly the illusion before his eyes vanished, and a bleak, withered reality appeared before him.

That earlier scene of sacrifice had been no more than the afterglow of history: in the Longhan era, Wei Suifeng had led the Feathered Forest Army to the Kingdom of Longbo to put down a rebellion, and had slain its people as offerings to the Heavenly Court.

What appeared before him now was the reality.

Ahead of him, countless colossal dragon bones lay every which way across a vast and boundless continent. Bones were everywhere; amid the collapsed grandeur of dragon palaces, ghost fires stirred up white bones and made these dry Longbo remains rise and walk about.

This place was like a netherworld of ghosts and demons.

In the sky, bone dragons with ghost fires floating in their eye sockets swam to and fro; in the vast city, bone dragons thronged the streets and markets, and he even saw a true ghost market. Those Longbo seemed still alive, buying and selling, trading goods within the dragon city. He could even hear the sound of haggling.

Shen Mu walked with Long Qilin and Yan'er into the city of the Kingdom of Longbo. Beside these colossal divine dragons he was a mere speck, and even Long Qilin, restored to his true form, would be a dwarf here. Here the divine dragons of prehistory had raised a splendid civilization and a mighty kingdom; Shen Mu moved among walking giants of white bone and watched them live as though still alive, carefree and untroubled.

Only, the sight was eerie beyond words.

He saw again the bone dragon that had led them here to the Kingdom of Longbo; it had taken the form of a Longbo with a dragon's head and a man's body, as though reborn, and was weaving through the air.

In Shen Mu's eyes lay heaped white bones; in its eyes, the Kingdom of Longbo was no ruin but a place brimming with life, and the Longbo were all still alive. It greeted the moving skeletons excitedly, wholly unaware that it was dead, and that its kinsfolk were dead as well.

Everything here was nothing more than Longbo who had died unjustly, having forgotten their own deaths, repeating in blind ignorance the things they had done in life. Yet this Longbo, having come home, had its obsession dispelled; it had found rest.

"Cult Master, do they not know that they are already dead?

" Long Qilin asked, his heart quaking with fear. Before Shen Mu could answer, all the divine dragons of the Kingdom of Longbo seemed suddenly to hear him; every last skeleton turned its head with one accord and looked at Long Qilin.

Startled, Long Qilin hastily hid behind Shen Mu again, tucked his tail tight, and trembled. Crash!

It was like the sound of a tsunami. In the blink of an eye, the Kingdom of Longbo, so noisy and bustling a moment before, saw all its dry bones collapse and crumble; countless bones fell to the ground, the ghost fires in their eyes went out, and not one Longbo rose again.

They had not known that they were dead, and now a single sentence from Long Qilin had woken them; at once the dead lost their hold upon the dry bones, and the whole Kingdom of Longbo died in a single instant. The sound of falling bones subsided; all around was a dead silence, not a sound to be heard.

The sky slowly darkened.

A faint sigh drifted over; ghost fires floated up into the air, and one little paper boat after another came sailing from Youdu, each with an old underworld courier standing at its prow.

Shen Mu saluted, and the old couriers returned his salute one after another. "The Longbo here have been dead for nearly a million years.

They did not know that they were dead, and so their souls lingered and would not go.

" One of the old couriers explained to Shen Mu, "Their will to live was too strong before, and I could not enter this place to guide their souls away.

But now that they know they are dead, I may come in and lead them to Youdu. " Shen Mu looked around. The dry bones of the great majority of the Longbo had had their heads struck from their bodies, the dragon heads fallen to the ground; he could not help frowning, and his voice came out somewhat hoarse: "Heaven Venerable You, Wei Suifeng, Command Lord of the Feathered Forest Army of the Heavenly Court in the Longhan era, was my eldest senior brother.

Was he truly so cruel? Did he truly have to exterminate the Longbo, kingdom and clan alike?

" "It was not Wei Suifeng who was cruel.

" That old courier said, "It was the whole Longhan Heavenly Court that was cruel.

" Shen Mu was taken aback. "To take a race or a nation that had rebelled and offer it up in sacrifice to the Heavenly Court, to the Heavenly Emperor: in the Longhan era, such things were commonplace.

" The old courier said, "The Feathered Forest Army put down the rebellion, broke the Kingdom of Longbo, and wiped out the kingdom and the clan as a sacrifice to the Heavenly Emperor, letting him feast upon flesh and blood; in that age nothing could have been more normal.

Your eldest senior brother followed the customs of the land; he could not change anything.

Had he changed it, he would have been a freak, an outcast. Throughout the Longhan era, such things happened all the time. Why must the Heavenly Emperor die?

Why is the Heavenly Alliance determined to be rid of him at any cost? This is the reason. " The hairs on Shen Mu's body stood on end. The ancient god, the Heavenly Emperor, had not died an innocent man!