Chapter 998 — Fleeing Helter-Skelter (Second Update!)

Yet their wings were hardly uniform: some large, some small, some long, some short; some had many pairs of wings, and some had visualized their wings in a riot of colors. The nature of the wings differed as well: some were of the thunder attribute, some of wind and fire, and some, at a single flap, brought down torrential rain and flooded everything around. And that was still not what left Shen Mu most speechless. What left him most speechless was that the Creators of the various tribes marched in utter chaos, straggling and dawdling—not like an army come to overawe the Land of No Sorrow, but like refugees fleeing disaster!

Shen Mu was so angry his hands trembled. He drew several deep breaths and said in a low voice, "Even if we brought in the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping to whip these fellows into shape, it would probably take more than ten years before they'd obey military orders and move as one, before they'd become a usable army. With rabble like this, how could we ever scare a great sovereign of Kaihuang's generation so badly he wets himself?

" He knew well how mighty the Kaihuang Heavenly Court was. In both formation arts and the art of war, the Kaihuang Heavenly Court had already forged a powerful civilization, and the battle-hardened gods and demons there had a command of the battlefield far beyond that of the Creators.

In single combat, the Creators were far too strong; but in large-scale clashes on the battlefield, the Kaihuang Heavenly Court's strength far surpassed the Creators'!

After all, within the Kaihuang Heavenly Court there was a terrifying being like the Celestial Master Zixi, Yan Yunxi! The scholar Zixi—that is, Yan Yunxi—was the supreme master of formation arts, a being who dared all alone to plot against two Earth Mother Primordial Sovereigns and to stand firm against a Throne-tier powerhouse like the Martial Celestial Master Zhuo Cha! What was more, the teleportation formation and the teleportation power were products of the Kaihuang era, representing the highest attainment in the arts of calculation of that age!

The Divine King Langwan said, "The Holy Infant need not worry. You need only use your consciousness to commune with the Creators, and you can marshal and array them at your ease, and make them move as one.

" Shen Mu shook his head. "Moving as one is still not enough to make an army that takes every objective and wins every battle.

We also need the Creators to form all kinds of battle formations, their leaders to master every art of war, and the different formations to combine into different killing arrays. The divine weapons in each Creator's hand, their powers—all of it must become part of the battle array. Right now it's far too chaotic. . .

" He sighed. "If we go to the Land of No Sorrow in this noisy rabble, Kaihuang will laugh at us. That won't be an army at his gates—it'll be a public humiliation. For now we can only have them try to form up in order along the way.

But my consciousness isn't strong enough to reach every Creator.

" The Divine King Langwan said, "You may use my consciousness to reach them all—to move troops and dispatch generals, to array and deploy them.

" Shen Mu sighed. "Then that's the only way.

" His consciousness joined with the Divine King Langwan's, and at once he felt how vast and deep this woman's consciousness was—like an ocean stretching boundless to the horizon!

At a single movement of their consciousness, Shen Mu felt his field of vision stretch out madly, flying out farther than he could reckon! Not only that, he could clearly touch every single Creator, and every Creator's thoughts and consciousness were clearly reflected in his mind!

Such powerful consciousness was truly unfathomable!

With the Divine King Langwan's help, moving each Creator became much easier. He thought to himself, "This method of moving troops, dispatching generals, and arraying forces should be brought back to Jingping! The union of consciousness and vital essence should be brought back to Jingping as well! If that were done, forging an invincible army of gods and demons would be easy—a trifling matter!

" All along the way, using the Divine King Langwan's consciousness, he issued orders to every Creator, having them change their ranks, adjust their formations, cast aside those chaotic visualized objects, and divide into separate arrays, each visualizing only one kind of object. As for the Creators who would not obey, Shen Mu had the tribal chiefs and elders go restrain them; if an elder would not obey, the chief went to punish him; if a chief would not obey, the Divine King Langwan stepped in. Marching and drilling troops the whole way was truly arduous.

Even borrowing the Divine King Langwan's consciousness to command all the Creators, it took Shen Mu more than a month before these Creators stopped wandering off in every direction on the march. Only then did Shen Mu understand why the Kaihuang Heavenly Court, once the Four Great Heavenly Kings were no longer there to hold the command, had collapsed so swiftly. To change commanders on the eve of battle with a great enemy before you is the gravest taboo in the art of war.

The Four Great Heavenly Kings of the Kaihuang Heavenly Court had held the armies, but for various reasons they could not take part in the war, and command passed to the Four Great Celestial Masters—so that the army collapsed like a mountain toppling. If merely drilling troops was this hard, how much worse was it to change commanders on the battlefield? "Neat ranks are still not enough.

The formations I've had these Creators set up are only impressive on the surface—good enough to frighten others, but to frighten a master of formations like Yan Yunxi, hardly. " Shen Mu was uneasy at heart.

"I hope she's still in Fengdu and hasn't returned to the Land of No Sorrow. " The Land of No Sorrow, the Thirty-Three Heavens. Ever since Kaihuang came to the Other Shore World, where a single sword-strike of land became the Thirty-Three Heavens, and founded the Land of No Sorrow, the Land of No Sorrow had known one calamity after another.

The Star-Makers among the Creators had created countless stars, surrounding all Thirty-Three Heavens of the Land of No Sorrow.

Numberless stars blocked every road into the Land of No Sorrow, and now and then stars would fall from the sky and crash down upon it. Each time, the Heaven-Watching Bureau of the Land of No Sorrow had to give early warning, and gods had to strike and shatter the planets before the Land of No Sorrow could be kept safe. Yet from time to time Creators would still come charging out of the mass of stars to attack the Land of No Sorrow, causing great trouble, and every time many were killed or wounded.

It was not until Kaihuang's one hundred and seventh generation descendant, Shen Fengqing, returned with his parents from the outside world that this situation gradually changed.

Every invading Creator was devoured by Shen Fengqing, and only then did the Creators' invasions stop.

Now, countless stars and their fragments locked the Land of No Sorrow in from outside, and only a few gods of the Land of No Sorrow could sail out through the tower-ships. In the Thirty-Third Heaven, reports kept coming in.

Yan Yunxi, dressed in men's clothing like a scholar, leafed through the reports and laughed. "These Creators have actually begun to learn how to array themselves. How interesting.

Their formations might fool others, but brought before me, they're simply a small sorcerer meeting a great one. Your Majesty, have your injuries healed?

" Kaihuang frowned. "My injuries are healed; there's no need to worry about me.

This time the Creators of the Other Shore World have turned out in full force. I fear they mean to wipe us out in one stroke. " Yan Yunxi laughed.

"Why does Your Majesty worry so? With the Divine Child here, the Creators can raise no great storm.