Chapter 1426 — Ground That Every Strategist Must Contest

" Divine Emperor Langxuan roared with laughter and boarded the tower ship with him. Demon King Dutian stood behind Shen Mu, looking this way and that, and after a while could not help saying, "Celestial Venerable, on this trip to the Ancestral Court, the Heaven Alliance's tower ships and great vessels are mighty indeed, but I fear they will be hard to move about? A ship this big cannot enter a spirit-energy translocation bridge. " Langxuan glanced at him and smiled. "You have some insight. But you underestimate the Heaven Alliance's wealth.

This time the Heaven Alliance means to migrate to the Ancestral Court wholesale. If the Heaven Alliance simply flew there, who knows how many gods and demons would die of exhaustion on the way. So these past days the Heaven Alliance's Daoist sects have gone on ahead to the Ancestral Court to design and build an entirely new spirit-energy translocation bridge there.

It is a great bridge.

" He could not help a note of pride. "This great bridge requires eleven grand spirit-energy translocation bridges.

We eleven Celestial Venerables each put up the money and each build one.

Mine is nearly finished; it stands on the Heavenly River outside the South Heavenly Gate.

" One after another the tower ships and great vessels slowly set sail, heading beyond the South Heavenly Gate. The fleet had not gone far when they saw countless folk of the Heavenly Artisan god race bustling to and fro, with Shi Qiluo of Zaofu Heavenly Palace presiding in person, directing and dispatching. And above the Heavenly River stood an altar of unimaginable size!

This pyramid-shaped altar, its base occupied the entire Heavenly River! The narrowest stretch of the Heavenly River is at Jingping, where it is called the Surging River, and even there it is eight hundred li wide; by the time the Heavenly River reaches the Heaven Alliance, its width is even more terrifying, ten thousand li, green waves like a sea!

This altar was the foundation of the spirit-energy translocation bridge, so vast, so magnificent, that Shen Mu's heart quailed to see it! From the day the Heaven Alliance resolved to open the Ancestral Court, eight months had passed, and in so short a time the Heaven Alliance's Zaofu Heavenly Palace had built so magnificent a structure!

The spirit-energy translocation bridge had been designed by Shen Mu and the Black Tiger God; he knew every figure of it perfectly. Those figures were all of a piece: touch one, and the whole was set in motion; change one, and all must change, all must be recalculated.

Zaofu Heavenly Palace had enlarged the spirit-energy translocation bridge a thousandfold. The mere alteration of the figures was an immense undertaking, and yet they had calculated it out and built it in so short a time.

The Heaven Alliance's reserves were truly unfathomable! When Divine Emperor Langxuan's fleet came before the grand spirit-energy translocation bridge, it happened to be the moment the eleventh Celestial Venerable, Shi Qiluo, opened the bridge. Countless runes lit up on the altar, and the whole pyramid seemed to come alive, its tiers beginning to rotate in different directions, clack-clack, clack-clack! Countless runes on the altar's surface and within it came to life, a sight to make one gasp in wonder!

Around the altar, gods and demons still drove their divine abilities and Daoist arts, drawing the waters of the Heavenly River to cool the giant structure. The altar Zaofu Heavenly Palace had built was too large; when the runes turned, the heat could not disperse, and so the Heavenly River had to be used to cool it, lest the altar, built at such pains, be burned to ruin. At last, with a thunderous boom, from the top of the pyramid altar a pillar of incomparably brilliant light shot into the sky, a pillar so thick it pierced the void, pierced the starry sky, and vanished. Boom, another violent tremor came, and another pillar of light shone in from the other end of space.

Above the Heavenly River two enormous funnel-shaped pillars of light took shape!

The two pillars of light locked together, joined, and again a terrible tremor came. Around the altar, countless Heavenly Artisans raised a shout that shook the heavens: "The bridge is open!

The bridge is open! " On the tower ship, Demon King Dutian stared, dumbstruck, and could only marvel at the Heaven Alliance's magnificent power. He muttered, "The Heaven Alliance really is filthy rich.

. . " Shen Mu and Divine Emperor Langxuan saluted Shi Qiluo from afar, and then the fleet set out, sailing into the grand spirit-energy translocation bridge.

When the fleet emerged from the spirit-energy translocation bridge, Shen Mu saw that the other altar had been built in the Ancestral Court, not far from the Primordial Jade Pool.

One after another the tower ships slowed and headed for the Jade Pool. On the way, a tower ship slowly descended and sank among a dozen or so divine mountains.

That tower ship settled among the divine mountains as though a splendid divine city had sprung up among them, and from the city hundreds of thousands of people came out to look over their new home. Before long another tower ship came down, landing by the bank of a great river.

All along the way the tower ships kept descending. A migration like this truly opened one's eyes.

Shen Mu's eyes flickered. He took out the Moon Celestial Venerable's lantern and gave it to Demon King Dutian, then took out the jade bottle and gave that to him too.

With a stir of his divine consciousness he conveyed to him the geography of the Hundred Thousand Black Mountains of Great Black Wood, and said, "Go on to Dutian, and let our Jingping people come out and move about a little. " Demon King Dutian assented, and with the jade bottle and the lantern on a pole he flew swiftly away.

Divine Emperor Langxuan smiled. "A little bottle like that, how many people can it hold?

" Shen Mu smiled and gave no answer. Two days later, Demon King Dutian arrived at the Hundred Thousand Black Mountains, travel-worn, and sought out Yan'er. "The Sect Master sent me with the Gourd Heaven Bottle, to migrate the people of Jingping.

" Yan'er was startled and blurted, "You carried a whole great myriad heaven to migrate Jingping's people?

You packed several billion people of Jingping in there?

" Demon King Dutian shook his head hurriedly. "How could that be? The Sect Master gave only one month. The Emperor barely had time to load three hundred million people, that is, the people of a few hundred divine cities.

" Yan'er was speechless.

"Let the people out, but not all at once.

Our Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains are many, but they cannot take in so many at one time.

" Dutian laughed. "The rest can live in the Gourd Heaven Bottle for the time being.

This bottle can hold ten billion people without strain. "