Chapter 999 — Overawing the Realm of Wuyou (Third Update, Begging for Votes!)
The Herdsman of the Wasteland Page 1 of 2
In the thirty-three heavens of Wuyou Township, a killing stillness reigned.
The armies of every ministry in the Kaihuang Heavenly Court had finished their mustering; through the ranks the commanders wove back and forth before the lines, bellowing without pause to fire the troops' spirits. The gathering of the hosts into the thirty-three heavens served chiefly to shield the multitudes who had migrated here.
Divine cities stood one upon another, easy to hold and hard to storm, and the close coordination among the various arms of the soldiery was a thing the rabble of Creators could never hope to match. Yet for all that the Creators were a heap of loose sand, their fighting strength was terribly high; even an underage Creator was a thing of dread. A Creator of two or three years could wrestle and slay a flood dragon—no other race could boast the like.
Doubtless only a being such as Shen Fengqing, divine child of Youdu, could surpass them while still in swaddling clothes. Every eye was lifted, gazing at the sky.
Countless enormous planets swarmed there, cramming the heavens, some whole, some shattered, jostling and colliding. For twenty thousand years the Creators had descended time and again, inflicting grievous slaughter upon Wuyou Township. The dead-star belt was more perilous still: Creators lurking within it would visualize monsters of every kind to storm into Wuyou Township, and even visualize calamities—thunderstorms, floods, hurricanes—harrying the land without end.
And now word had come: the Creators, the whole clan of them, were marching to attack.
They would soon arrive at Wuyou Township! Though the thirty-three heavens of Wuyou Township had been forged over the years into a realm of iron, impregnable as a bucket of welded steel, it was the Creators who came against them—could their divine cities truly withstand such a foe?
Of a sudden the sky split asunder, and a pair of coarse, enormous hands thrust in from beyond the heavens, gently flicking the massed planets aside as one would flick marbles.
Then Creators appeared in swarms, plucking up planets and setting them far away. Their numbers swelled without cease, and before long a great swath of the dead-star belt encircling Wuyou Township had been cleared. To shift stars and change the courses of constellations—even the gods of Wuyou Township could not do it so lightly!
The faces of the divine generals of the thirty-three heavens grew grim; involuntarily they gripped their divine weapons tighter.
Cold sweat beaded on some brows and ran into their eyes; they hastily flipped up their visors and wiped it away. A general saw it and barked at them to lower their visors at once. Within the cities, a child cried, and its mother clamped a hand over its mouth, so that only a muffled sound escaped.
In the sky, an enormous face leaned down, sweeping its gaze over the divine cities one by one. "Hold your positions! " A divine general cried out in a harsh voice.
"Pass my command—hold your positions! Wait until the enemy enters Wuyou Township, then await my order!
" The gods guarding each divine city grew more frantic still, surging with vital essence; the heavenly palaces behind them swayed, and the primordial spirits within rose to their peak, poised to strike at any moment.
Yet the Creators in the sky faded from view. The army of gods and demons of Wuyou Township and its common folk alike raised their heads and looked beyond the heavens, and though they were veterans of a hundred battles, they could not help but feel dread. Beyond the heavens stood figures of incomparable grandeur, like ancient gods one and all, standing in the void outside the sky, ranks orderly, killing intent seething.
Seen from Wuyou Township, the Creators beyond the heavens stretched without end.
Their bodies were ramrod straight, clad all in dazzling golden armor, their hands gripping divine weapons and sharp blades that had plainly been steeped in more blood than any could reckon.
And those divine weapons were vast beyond measure; by the look of them, one or two such weapons alone could shatter a divine city, grind it to dust.
More terrifying still, the Creators beyond the heavens were divided into different formations, and in each formation the divine armor and weapons differed.
Those armors and weapons were covered in patterns formed of incomparably intricate runes; plainly every weapon had been forged through a thousand hammerings and a hundred refinings, concealing within it gods know how many dreadful formations and divine powers. Every weapon was a most fearsome instrument of slaughter.
In Wuyou Township, even the general commanding the army of gods and demons now had cold sweat on his brow, his palms trembling faintly. Clang.
He heard a sound behind him, turned, and saw a soldier had failed to grip his divine weapon, which had fallen to the ground.
"Pick it up! " he barked in a low voice.
The soldier hastily retrieved the weapon and looked up beyond the heavens, and suddenly his gaze went rigid, his mouth agape, unable to utter a word. The general spun round and looked beyond the heavens, and his own hand shook so that he nearly failed to hold his weapon.
There beyond the heavens, a million Creators each roared, and behind them a blaze of divine light burst forth—and heavenly palaces of magnificent scale rose up from the void! Countless heavenly palaces joined into one expanse; nearly every Other Shore Creator had two or three heavenly palaces floating behind him, and some had as many as a dozen or more, forming a minor heavenly court! The sight was enough to drive one to despair.
Though the Creators of the Other Shore World were peerless in divine-sense visualization, and had even received the Divine Treasury Heavenly Palace system, how could they possibly have developed to such a degree? One must understand that even in Wuyou Township, few could master the Minor Heavenly Court cultivation art!
Yet of these million Creators, nearly every one had mastered the Minor Heavenly Court art! In the Yuqing Heaven, the big-headed monstrous infant Shen Fengqing too was fully armored, gripping two great round hammers—heavy divine weapons forged specially for him by the heavenly artisans whom Kaihuang had charged with Wuyou Township's defense, made to deal with the Creators. The armor on his body had likewise been forged by Jingxin, and the runes branded upon it were formation patterns designed to counter the Creators' divine-sense attacks. Seeing the spectacle beyond the heavens, Shen Fengqing promptly tucked the two great round hammers under his arms and turned to walk into the Kaihuang Heavenly Palace.
Princess Consort Zhen hurried after him, saying, "Fengqing, where are you going?
" "Packing my things, getting ready to flee for my life. " The big-headed child turned back and said, "Mother, you come too.
This is no longer Wuyou Township.
Those tasty things have come killing their way here, and I can't hold them off—they might even eat me. Mother, call Father here.
We have a ship; we'll leave from the back.
I'll take you both back to Youdu. Tubo said that if I return, he will protect me with all his strength.
Our family can still survive! " Princess Consort Zhen said angrily, "The clan is here.
How can we abandon them and flee for our own lives? " Shen Fengqing scratched his head.
"Then how about you call them too? But not too many—that won't do.
With too many people I can't keep you all safe, and Tubo most likely won't be willing to take in so many either.
. .
" Princess Consort Zhen was furious.
She leaped onto his shoulder, seized his ear, and dragged him back, saying angrily, "There is no road to life out there either!
Hold Wuyou Township, fight to the bloody end—only then is there any chance of survival! Have you forgotten your little brother? He was captured by these Creators.