Chapter 1043 — Nine Farewells to the Heavenly Worthy

Long Qilin and Yan'er stepped cautiously out from behind him. Gazing at the countless experts of the Azure Dragon Heavenly Palace filling the sky, their hearts thumped wildly.

"Long Pang, is this going to end well?"

In her panic, Yan'er found herself involuntarily transforming into a little green sparrow. She landed atop Long Qilin's big head, scratched at his scalp with her claws, and whispered, "The young master seems to have beaten the East Emperor's reincarnated body far too badly..."

Far off, a sudden thunderous crash rang out—a palace the East Emperor's reincarnated body had smashed through could bear it no longer and toppled, swaying.

The fall of that one palace was one thing, but other palaces came crashing down after it, boom upon boom, rousing the dragon experts in the sky from their shock.

Yan'er grew more frantic still, her scratching making Long Qilin's head itch worse and worse.

Long Qilin steadied himself and said quietly, "Whether this can be smoothed over is hard to say. But this time the Cult Master came to the Eastern Pole Heaven to visit the East Emperor, and the East Emperor meant to borrow the Cult Master's name to establish his own authority. The Cult Master was merely striking back."

Yan'er was baffled by his meaning.

Long Qilin, however, saw it all with perfect clarity.

The East Emperor clearly intended to suppress the Heavenly Worthy Mu's reputation, and that was why he had staged so grand an occasion, stirring up the greater part of the Azure Dragon Heavenly Palace's dragon clans.

Had it been merely a test of Shen Mu's potential, there would have been no need to summon every civil and military minister of the Azure Dragon Heavenly Palace, nor to alarm so many. Clearly the East Emperor harbored other designs.

That the East Emperor wished to make use of Shen Mu's title of Heavenly Worthy to build up his own prestige was, after all, understandable.

In recent years the Azure Dragon Heavenly Palace had tottered amid wind and rain, and the days of the ancient gods had grown worse by the day. The fame of the Heavenly Court's Ten Heavenly Worthies rang ever louder; at times the Ten Heavenly Worthies, in their dealings, disdained even to borrow the name of the ancient gods' Heavenly Emperor—the nominal overlord—and issued orders directly under their own title of Heavenly Worthy.

To dare disobey meant the confiscation of one's household and the extermination of one's clan, all hinging on a single thought of the Heavenly Worthies.

The crisis of the Azure Dragon Heavenly Palace was plain for all the people of the Eastern Pole Heaven to see: pressed from above by the Ten Heavenly Worthies, harried from below by the Azure Emperor of the Eastern Heaven, and now the Heavenly Worthy Yuyuan had descended from the Heavenly Court bearing six divine cities in his palm, arraying millions of gods and demons in arms!

What was more, the Heavenly Worthy Yuyuan formed hand seals and pointed straight at the Azure Dragon Heavenly Palace, arrogant beyond measure, crushing the confidence of the Eastern Pole Heaven's dragon clans.

As one of the four rulers among the ancient gods, the East Emperor did indeed need an opportunity to lift morale and restore faith.

To suppress Shen Mu was, first, to make Shen Mu understand his place in their partnership: without the support of these ancient gods, Shen Mu would accomplish nothing at all!

In this partnership, the ancient gods were the masters, holding the dominant position, while Shen Mu was the subordinate, able only to act on their commands.

Second, though the Heavenly Worthy Mu's name did not rival that of the Ten Heavenly Worthies of today, he was still the highest elder of the Heavenly Alliance in the open. To make Shen Mu suffer defeat at his hands would still build, in the hearts of his subjects, the image of the ancient gods as invincible.

Shen Mu had come to the Eastern Pole Heaven, and the East Emperor had set two trials. This was his purpose.

"Only, what he never expected was that the Heavenly Worthy Mu is a Heavenly Worthy too."

Long Qilin shook his head. From the very start the East Emperor had miscalculated, thinking he could control Shen Mu and take advantage of him.

Yet as an ancient god he had always stood high above, never seeing that the times had changed—that in this world the ancient gods were no longer the mightiest of beings.

And Shen Mu, as one of the three heroes of the Jingping Reforms, did not aim to surpass the ancient gods; rather, whether ancient gods or new, all gods were to serve mankind.

Shen Mu's aims and those of the ancient gods were fundamentally at odds—one might even say opposed. The East Emperor wished to control Shen Mu; how could Shen Mu ever submit willingly?

What was more, this Heavenly Worthy Mu of theirs had once been somewhat inflated, but in recent years the inflation had dwindled steadily. The Jingping Calamity had been a tremendous trial, and both his cultivation and his foundation, his cunning and his depth, had grown enormously.

And after his journey through the Great Void, though Shen Mu would not dare claim to be invincible among Heavenly Worthies of his own realm, defeating the reincarnated body of an ancient god was nothing worth mentioning.

Suddenly another thunderous crash rang out—a massive dragon-shaped archway came crashing down.

Yan'er had just begun to relax, but at the sound she could not help clenching her claws, prying a dragon scale off Long Qilin's head.

Long Qilin smarted with pain, but endured it without a word.

In the sky, many dragon clans, great and small, seemed to be roused by the sound of the archway's collapse and came back to their senses one after another. None of them had expected this outcome; likely even the East Emperor himself had not foreseen it.

Their gazes turned toward Shen Mu. He stood on Dragon Island, his sword core already withdrawn. As the saying went, when a thousand men point at a man, he dies without illness—yet beneath the stare of so many dragon experts, Shen Mu remained perfectly composed.

"Big brother, what do we do?" The civil and military officials of the Azure Dragon Heavenly Palace asked the Crown Prince Yuanlong one after another.

Crown Prince Yuanlong had no ideas either. Though he was an existence of the Imperial Throne realm capable of holding his own, in the Eastern Pole Heaven he was like that archway which had just fallen—fine to look at, but of little use.

The one who truly held sway in the Eastern Pole Heaven was still his father, the East Emperor. The power in his own hands was scant.

The East Emperor enjoyed long life and deep vision, and his hunger for control was strong. As his eldest crown prince, Yuanlong had been able to cultivate to the Imperial Throne realm only by relying on the chaos of the Shanghuang era: he had gone down to the mortal realm to do battle, escaping the East Emperor's shadow, and only thus had he attained the Imperial Throne.

Yet once the Shanghuang era ended and he returned to the Eastern Pole Heaven, he had returned to the East Emperor's shadow.

Beneath his father's shadow, he could make no decisions.

Just then, an ancient and boundless aura rose from the Azure Dragon Heavenly Palace, growing stronger and stronger. The East Emperor's enormous body coiled about the palace, round after round, his azure scales catching the sunlight like mirrors, mirroring the surrounding palaces with utter clarity.

The East Emperor's dragon head hovered above the Lingxiao Hall, then slowly lowered, his dragon whiskers dancing. Arriving above the Dragon Island in the Jade Pool, his whiskers struck the water's surface, raising wave after wave.

Shen Mu lifted his head and gazed up at the descending dragon head of the ancient god, then smiled. "Your Majesty the East Emperor, I suppose I have passed this trial?"