Chapter 1107 — The Mantis Stalks the Cicada, the Dragon Sparrow Lurks Behind

The Black Tortoise Heaven Palace sailed north along the Heavenly River, drawing ever farther from Heaven's court, and all around it the stars blazed. Now and again the palace passed one sun after another along the river's bank, their radiance splendid and bewitching, the scenery fair as a painted scroll.

Heaven's armies had been routed, and no pursuers came. The Azure Sky Canopy of Colored Glass was too conspicuous by far, and so Crown Prince Youming put it away, stored within the Lingxiao Hall and set under strict guard.

The people of the Black Tortoise Heaven Palace made sacrifice to their war-dead, and then held a revel.

With the starlight and moonlight shining without, and the radiance of countless treasures blazing within, the sky was truly hung with rainbows, enough to steep any heart in delight. The laughter and glad cries that came from the Black Tortoise Heaven Palace drifted into the Heavenly River, and the Dragon Kings within sent up their shrimp soldiers and crab generals to poke their heads above the water and stare.

Crown Prince Youming was simple-hearted and carefree. At the revel Yin Tianzi plied him with cup after cup until he was dead drunk.

Dragon Qilin and Yan'er marked this and took warning in their hearts; they knew Yin Tianzi would scarce sit still, and would soon lay hands on the Azure Sky Canopy of Colored Glass.

The revel went on. Crown Prince Youming lay slumped over the wine table, and Yin Tianzi slung the prince's arm over his own shoulder and made for the door, saying drunkenly, "I will see His Highness down to rest."

Dragon Qilin and Yan'er followed quietly after, and saw that when Yin Tianzi had helped Crown Prince Youming away from the revel, he had gone no great distance before he brought out a paper effigy and gently pressed it to the prince's back.

Yin Tianzi released Crown Prince Youming and took out another paper effigy, which he stuck upon himself; and Crown Prince Youming did not fall, but only stood swaying to and fro.

Yin Tianzi lifted his hand; Crown Prince Youming lifted his hand as well.

Yin Tianzi lowered his hand; Crown Prince Youming lowered his arm as well.

Yin Tianzi took a step; Crown Prince Youming took a step along with him.

"Heh heh, Brother Daoist, you hid the Azure Sky Canopy of Colored Glass within the Lingxiao Hall and set guards over it. If I forced my way in, would not the Northern Emperor know at once that it was I who stole the Canopy?"

Yin Tianzi said with a smile, "Of course it is you who will go in and fetch out the Canopy yourself to give to me. I will carry it far away, and lay the theft at the door of Longshan the Wanderer and that woman."

He gathered his mind and spirit in secret, took the other paper effigy from his own body, crouched down and set the effigy on the ground, and blew upon it softly.

On the ground the little paper effigy walked forward, and Crown Prince Youming, lurching and staggering, walked toward the Lingxiao Hall.

Yin Tianzi drove the little paper effigy onward, the effigy and Crown Prince Youming moving in perfect step, the same motions in each, and so he steered Crown Prince Youming all the way to the front of the hall.

The Divine Man Xuangui and the Divine Maiden Tengshe, charged with guarding the Azure Sky Canopy of Colored Glass, saw them and hastened to pay their respects.

The paper effigy waved a hand, and Crown Prince Youming waved a hand as well.

Yin Tianzi whispered to the effigy, "I will keep watch here. Go down and join the feast. I will stay here and sober up."

The paper effigy repeated these words, and Crown Prince Youming repeated them after the effigy, and the divine ones charged with guarding the Azure Sky Canopy of Colored Glass were astonished and delighted. They bowed to Crown Prince Youming and flew off to the feast.

The paper effigy walked on again, steering Crown Prince Youming into the hall.

Yin Tianzi's heart pounded wildly. He pressed down the surge within him and made the effigy spread its arms, and Crown Prince Youming within the hall spread his arms likewise and embraced the Azure Sky Canopy of Colored Glass.

After a moment Crown Prince Youming came staggering out, the Azure Sky Canopy of Colored Glass borne on his shoulder.

Yin Tianzi was wild with joy, his heart all but leaping into his throat.

Crown Prince Youming drew nearer and nearer to him, and just then, suddenly, he sensed two auras racing close.

Yin Tianzi was startled, and before he could react two figures slammed into him from left and right and crushed him hard between them, and he could not keep from spitting out a mouthful of blood.

On his left was none other than that fat girl of three or four hundred catties who called herself a princess of the Southern Emperor's house, and on his right was Longshan the Wanderer—though this Longshan the Wanderer had six heavenly dragons clinging to his body.

The two were plainly beings of the Lingxiao realm, and the fat girl's cultivation was likely the higher; she had sent Longshan the Wanderer and Yin Tianzi flying together.

Yin Tianzi himself now stood at the very peak of the Lingxiao realm, a man of many arts, yet to attain the Throne of Emperor was a thing of immense difficulty, and so he remained trapped at Lingxiao.

The Dragon Han Era had endured four hundred thousand years down to the present, and in the six hundred thousand years since the Heavenly Venerable Yu first opened the Heavenly Palace realm, fewer than ten mighty ones had attained the Throne of Emperor. Yin Tianzi was not among them.

Even so, he should not have fallen to a sneak attack by two, but his wounds had never healed. Though a measure of his cultivation had returned, the injuries remained.

And beyond that, his whole mind and body had been given over to the paper effigy art that held Crown Prince Youming in thrall, so that he had suffered a grievous loss.

Moreover, even had his wounds been healed, even had he ears for every quarter, he could never have been Yan'er's match.

Yan'er bore the bloodline of the Azure Dragon and the Vermilion Bird, and she was the Heavenly Venerable Yue's serving maid. She had cultivated at the Heavenly Venerable Yue's side and had learned too the Daoist arts and divine powers of the Southern Emperor, the Vermilion Bird, so that her powers were exceedingly high.

It was only that Yan'er had little liking for cultivation, nor had she fathomed the Daoist arts and divine powers with her whole heart, and so she long failed to break through and attain the Throne of Emperor.

Yet she was, after all, a fearsome being who had once devoured an ancient god, and having digested that god, her strength was fiercer and more savage than before.

As Yin Tianzi was sent flying through the air, he saw the fat girl come at him like a whirlwind, and the space around him turned to mirrors, and he could not help but shudder.

All about him space was like mirror upon mirror, each reflecting his figure; then the mirrors began to crack, and the him within them began to break apart.

Yin Tianzi had seen the Heavenly Venerable Yue plot against the Heavenly Emperor's reincarnated body, Chuxiao; even the Emperor's reincarnation, beneath the Heavenly Venerable Yue's Way of Space, had been torn into pieces in an instant.

This fat girl's spatial divine power seemed even a shade superior to the Heavenly Venerable Yue's. Yin Tianzi felt his fleshly body and primal spirit all but shatter with the mirrors, his soul on the verge of scattering utterly.

"Longshan the Wanderer! I swear I will make you adulterers pay!"

Yin Tianzi cried out, and his body suddenly sank, plummeting toward the ground. The ground rolled with demonic qi, like a dark demon flower pushing up out of the soil, its bud opening outward.

Yin Tianzi's body, torn into four and five pieces, fell into the surging demonic qi.

The demon flower bloomed fully, thirty or fifty feet tall, then burst apart with a bang, scattering into waves of demonic qi.