Chapter 887 — The Longhan Cataclysm: Blood Stains the Heavens

"You spent too short a time in the Longhan Heavenly Court," said the old Nether Emissary, his face hidden in shadow so that none could make out his features, his voice carrying not a trace of emotion.

"You merely dwelt in the court for a while — you have no idea of the darkness of the Longhan era. In the age of the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor, countless post-heaven races were wiped out; even the demigod races lived in constant fear. What you saw at the Jasper Pool was only the brightest, most dazzling face of that age. Of its ugliness, you know nothing.

" Shen Mu was silent for a moment.

"How ugly?

" The old Nether Emissary abruptly stretched out a finger and pressed it to Shen Mu's forehead.

The scene before Shen Mu's eyes shifted, and he entered the old Nether Emissary's memories. He arrived in an age that seemed utterly barbaric, where people wore animal hides or grass skirts, ragged and tattered, and yet not far away stood an immense temple, blazing with gold and splendor, luxurious beyond compare.

Before the temple rose a lofty altar, where folk who could not cover their bodies or fill their bellies fed the fairest boys and girls with their best food, then offered the children upon the altar, praying for favorable winds and rains. Light flashed atop the altar, and the phantom images of the Heavenly Emperor and the divine kings of the Heavenly Court appeared, taking the boys and girls away to consume.

He saw another scene as well: a race that had offered no blood sacrifice to the Heavenly Emperor and the divine kings of the Heavenly Court had its people seized by towering deities, dragged to the altar, and beheaded as offerings to appease the wrath of heaven.

Beneath the altar, countless corpses and white bones were piled into mountains. The old Nether Emissary then showed Shen Mu yet another memory, in which slaves of every race were quarrying the mines of the Yuan Realm.

Adepts of the divine arts, chains pierced through their bodies, pus oozing from their wounds, walked barefoot into bottomless mine shafts and cut ore in the glow cast by divine metal.

And the ones guarding these slave adepts were the divine men of the Xiaohan Heavenly Court. The keen edge of the divine metal made their skin fester without stop, and their souls felt as though they were being sliced by knives in every instant — a torture hardly different from death by a thousand cuts! The old Nether Emissary's memory shifted once more, carrying Shen Mu into yet another recollection.

It was war among the races of the heavens.

Before the fighting, the chieftains ordered sacrifices — slaughtering civilian slaves as offerings to the gods of the Heavenly Court, praying for the gods to come and reinforce them. Countless bodies fell before the battle lines, and the light of blood shot straight up into the clouds.

When war broke out, the gods and demons of the Heavenly Court descended to the mortal world to feast upon the sacrifices.

These ancient gods threw themselves into the slaughter on the field between the two armies — yet they did not strike at the fellow ancient gods who had also descended from heaven, but at the enemy armies. Whoever destroyed the opposing army first would be victorious.

To these ancient gods of the Heavenly Court, war in the lower realm was merely a game, of no consequence, a chance to enjoy their blood offerings.

But to the mortal races, every battle was a struggle for survival itself. And every time, they had no choice but to sacrifice to the Heavenly Court, because if they did not sacrifice, their fate was annihilation!

Shen Mu's body trembled as he broke free from the old Nether Emissary's memories, gasping for air in great gulps like a drowning man who had just crawled ashore.

In such a horrifying age, the founding patriarch Wei Suifeng had indeed had no choice but to do as the Romans did!

The old Nether Emissary said, "What I have seen is but the tip of the iceberg.

There is far more that I have not seen.

This was the daily reality of the Longhan era.

Against such a Longhan Heavenly Court, against such an Ancient God Heavenly Emperor, demigod and post-heaven race alike wished nothing but to see them destroyed. " Shen Mu pulled himself together. When he had traveled back to the early years of Longhan, his stay had been far too short; it had been the time of the Heavenly Court's grand banquet, the Jasper Pool Banquet, when the court had gathered the chieftains of every race and the ancient gods in extraordinary clamor.

What he had seen was indeed the most prosperous and flourishing side of that age. He had not gone down to the mortal world, had not seen how the people of the heavens and myriad worlds lived.

And so he had felt little aversion to the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor, and when he judged that he could join hands with him, he had taken the initiative to contact the Emperor through Yan Qiling and forge an alliance.

Only now did he realize how naive he had been.

Although the Heavenly Alliance had been established at his suggestion, and he was one of its founding elders, he had never understood why the Heavenly Venerable Yun and the Heavenly Alliance had chosen at that time to join hands with the Longxiao Heavenly Court established by the Heavenly Venerable Hao — setting aside the mortal enmity between the two sides — and to scheme by every means to do away with the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor. Now it seemed clear: the Heavenly Court built by the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor had been monstrously cruel, plunging all races of the world into a terror that they might be wiped out at any moment.

The Longxiao and Xiaohan Heavenly Courts had likewise been his pawns for maintaining his dominion; he made these two lesser courts govern the mortal world in his stead, offering sacrifices to the lofty Longhan Heavenly Court on high, and he set them against each other so that they could never grow strong!

In those days, the contradiction between demigods and post-heaven races was not the primary contradiction at all — the primary contradiction was with the Longhan Heavenly Court! That was why the Xiaohan Heavenly Court and the Longxiao Heavenly Court had to join hands, why all races — demigod or post-heaven — had to unite, and why the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor had to be eliminated! This world is not a matter of simple black and white.

In hindsight, the Heavenly Alliance degenerated, replacing the ancient gods as the corrupt rulers of the Heavenly Court, yet at the time it still had people of noble hearts and lofty aspirations striving for the survival of every race. It was precisely because the Heavenly Alliance had schemed to destroy the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor that the ages that followed — the Chiming Era, the Shanghuang Era, the Kaihuang Era, and the present Jingping Era — came into being.

Otherwise, had the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor been allowed to rule on, the entire universe, the heavens and myriad worlds, would have sunk forever into that barbaric age, unable to develop! The later Heavenly Alliance may have decayed, but the earlier Heavenly Alliance did one great deed that affected all post-heaven races, demigods included.

To destroy the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor — that was a deed of boundless merit!

"So was it right for me to ally with the Heavenly Emperor? " Shen Mu mused.

In the ruins of Longbo Country, old Nether Emissaries rode paper boats, flying silently to and fro, ferrying the people of Longbo aboard. Some Longbo refused to board and flew about in all directions to evade capture.

The old Nether Emissaries raised their horse lanterns, and the lamplight fell upon the faces of these Longbo souls.

Once struck by the light, the Longbo souls lost consciousness and, dazed and passive, lined up to board the boats of their own accord. The boats, laden with Longbo, sailed into the Nether Capital and vanished.

Soon all was quiet again — dead silent.