Chapter 424 — Defying the Azure Heaven
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 4
Two violent collisions rang out; two blood-drenched gods and demons burst out from behind that ocean of blood, dragging broken limbs and severed arms, wailing shrilly. But they were, after all, unmatched in strength; though they had lost the initiative, gods and demons were gods and demons, and together they broke the Village Head's move.
Yet what awaited them was still the bloody ocean.
One Sword Opens the Emperor, Bloody Ocean!
The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping shook his sword, wielding also One Sword Opens the Emperor, Bloody Ocean, the same move as the Village Head's; and though the move was the same, the two men's technique differed somewhat, and their inner meanings were worlds apart.
This move the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping had comprehended who knows how many times over from the diagram of the Sword God with the Sword upon His Back that the Deaf Elder had transformed into; one might call it the awakening of his sword art.
The two gods and demons were stricken with terror; no road remained behind them, and they could only charge into that sword-light like a sea of blood.
Chi, chi, chi, chi — countless piercing sounds came; divine blood gushed in that ocean; from the sword diagram a few divine bones rolled out.
Other starlights rushed in and struck the sword diagram; the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping spat blood; the sword diagram was broken, and it looked as though those starlights would cross the Divine Severance Mountains, when the Gray Immortal opened his sack and shook it to the wind; at once the sack swelled madly, like an enormous cave mouth, and drew those starlights in.
The Gray Immortal swiftly tied the sack shut and was about to deal the gods and demons inside a deadly blow, when the sack suddenly burst, blasting the Gray Immortal backwards; the Willow Immortal hastily flung out her arm, her hand soft as a snake without bones, and coiled it about the Gray Immortal. Scarcely had she caught him when she felt the dreadful power of a god-demon of the High Heavens come from within the Gray Immortal; her face changed greatly, and at once her arm was twisted by that force into a wringing knot.
The Willow Immortal tumbled and rolled, spinning madly, straining with all her might to shed that dreadful force.
Seeing that things were going badly, the White Immortal at once flew forward, and needle after needle from her tray pierced into the bodies of the Willow Immortal and the Gray Immortal, drawing that dreadful power out of them; only thus were both their lives saved.
Pa, pa, pa — great waves burst open upon the sea surface, and one towering figure after another stood upon the sea, the waters surging in from all sides: Star Lord Qiao, Lord Hua, and Star Lord Yan at their head, forming a triangle, while the other thirteen gods and demons spread out around them.
These sixteen gods and demons pressed the Kun King so hard that his two arms trembled and he could not hold the sea aloft, grunting again and again, until suddenly his arms snapped with a crack. The sixteen gods and demons pressed down still further; the Kun King could not help spitting blood, and hurriedly laid the sea flat. Peak after peak thrust up out of the sea surface; the crowd stood upon the several peaks of the Divine Severance Mountains, below them swaying green waves, and beneath the water the mountain's body.
This sea was not deep, only some hundred zhang thick; the turtle-shell ship that Xuan Shengwu had become sailed upside down along the sea's underside, and the Soaring Serpent and the Dark Turtle, their eyes flickering, watched through the sea surface the reflections of those gods and demons, waiting for the moment to strike. The Village Head, his brows and beard snow-white, looked toward Star Lord Qiao, Lord Hua, and Star Lord Yan, and said in a deep voice, "Star Lords, all of you, you must know what consequence opening those treasures would bring.