Chapter 260 — The Old Ox and the Broken Cart
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 5
" The Dao Sovereign looked down, his face somewhat resigned: "I saw only an ox cart come, with two people and an ox; I did not expect sixteen people to pop out. The Youmo Cult plays its tricks well.
" The Left Protector Envoy Kong Lingxian raised his head and chuckled: "We folk of the jianghu like to play tricks, to scrape a living and beg a few coins from the spectators. We have made you gentlemen of property laugh at us.
" The Right Protector Envoy Xue Bi'e said with a smile: "Old bald donkey, old Daoist priest, when our cult leader went home for the New Year he told us to follow the Emperor.
If the Emperor is in peril, this old body and the old brothers of the cult cannot stand by and do nothing; otherwise, when the cult leader comes back after the New Year and demands an accounting, we cannot bear the blame. " The twelve Protector Elders and the two Heavenly Kings of the Youmo Cult jumped down from the cart. Heavenly King Shi and Heavenly King Yu stretched their limbs, bowed to the crowd all around, and said with an apologetic smile: "You are all personages high above; we old fellows pay our respects. When our cult leader handed the Emperor over to us, he was still alive and well.
If you kill him, and we give our cult leader a dead emperor, the cult leader will rage, and we shall have no choice but to die in atonement.
" The Beggar Sect's master Qi Dayou said in a loud voice: "Heretical demons! The court and the Youmo Cult are in league together.
Fellow Daoists of the Great Tingming Temple, by all means subdue the demons and rid us of them! " "Kill!
" A thunderous shout rang out, then thunder shook the heavens, and battle erupted. In an instant wild waves of qi lashed out in every direction, flattening whole swaths of mountain forest. This battle surpassed even the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping's campaign to quell the rebellion.
In that campaign there had been many sect-leader-tier beings, but compared with the sect-leader-tier powerhouses of the three holy lands they were still a notch inferior; and moreover the court too was the equal of a holy land. The strongest of four holy lands coming to blows — one can imagine the power. But this time the sect-leader-tier beings of the Great Tingming Temple and the Daoist Order had come out almost in full force, while the powerhouses of the court and the Youmo Cult had only half arrived; and with the Dao Sovereign and the Tathagata besides, the prospects of this battle were not cheerful. Once the fighting began, there were deaths. The long-eared monk went straight for Quan Dingwu.
Both powerhouses of the Divine Bridge opened all the divine storehouses in their bodies, and their fight shook heaven and earth. The long-eared monk was the head of the Arhat Court of the Great Tingming Temple, profound in the Buddha-dharma and master of the Art of Victory in Battle.
Quan Dingwu, for his part, was Grand General of Agile Cavalry, a lifetime of war and slaughter, destroying kingdoms and destroying sects, passing through death a hundred times.
In the early years, when the Grand Academy had just been founded and the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping gathered the masters of the realm to study the arts of the Dao and divine powers, Quan Dingwu had been among them; he was, one might say, one of the very finest powerhouses of Jingping. When the Art of Victory in Battle met the art of slaughter, at the first clash a sea of blood towered to the sky, and upon that sea of blood blazed roaring war-fires.
Such a marvel seemed truly to exist, yet it was formed of Quan Dingwu's killing intent. A great Buddha stood upon the sea of blood, and before the great Buddha was the long-eared monk; beside that towering Buddha he looked very small indeed. Out of the sea of blood and the sea of fire a man came howling at him — it was Quan Dingwu, behind him a horse trampling the fires of war, and on the horse a figure like a demon of slaughter, hideous and frightful, savage beyond measure.