Chapter 606 — The Old Soldier at Dusk
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
The halberd-wielding deity was already much weaker than before. As his strength waned, more of his blood and vital essence drained away, making it even harder to resist the sacrifice.
"The demon god you just killed, Granny—he must have been one of the demon race's foremost sacrificial masters! You killed an extremely important demon god!" Shen Mu blurted out, seeing the halberd-wielding deity's plight.
Granny Zhu said bleakly, "But I cannot save the deity on the altar. If we charge in, we will only die. We cannot even stop this sacrifice, cannot stop the ancient being's descent..."
On the altar, the halberd-wielding deity dashed this way and that, but his losses only mounted. At last he gave up resisting, stood at the altar's summit, and gazed up at the sky.
This was a deity at the end of his road. He was about to be broken down as an offering, to become the nourishment for another ancient being's descent.
"I should have died long ago..."
The halberd-wielding deity's voice came through, desolate and bleak. Standing atop the altar, he spoke loudly, his voice carrying far. He murmured, "I should have died long ago. I should have died in the calamity twenty thousand years ago. I should have fallen on the battlefield like my comrades. I should not have fallen silent, should not have become a stone statue in the Desolate Ruins, should not have lingered on until now, guarding some damned hope, some damned future..."
Shen Mu and Granny Zhu stood stunned, watching the deity on the altar. They wished to save him, but there was nothing they could do.
The deity knelt on one knee, leaning on his halberd to resist the blood sacrifice, his voice sinking low. "Hope, the future, the Carefree Land... We have been silent too long, Kaihuang. Silent until we lost the will to fight, silent until the stone statues grew cold, silent until the common people we once swore to protect have all died out, until no familiar faces remain, silent until even these lands have changed beyond recognition! And you..."
His voice suddenly rose, and he hurled a thunderous accusation at the heavens: "Kaihuang, what of you? Where are you?"
"Is the ideal world in your heart that Carefree Land where you cower?"
"Can you bear to watch your subordinates, the old soldiers who followed you, wither away one by one?"
"Can you bear to watch the lands change hands, to watch the people you protected grow old one by one?"
"Why have you not appeared?"
"It has been twenty thousand years! Have you still not emerged from your defeat? Have you still not regained your faith, still cannot bear to leave the Carefree Land? We are waiting for you, waiting for you to summon your old followers and do battle against that Heavenly Court once more! Where are you?"
...
Shen Mu and Granny Zhu heard his voice echoing between heaven and earth. In this dying Luofu Heaven, no one could answer his accusation.
"My wild goose plume, dissolve with me in soldier's liberation!"
On the high altar, amid the thick blood-light, the deity rose to his feet and summoned all his strength to activate his divine weapon. In that instant, an incomparably intense radiance burst from the altar's summit, so dazzling that one could scarcely open one's eyes to look, and one could only hear his voice rolling back and forth through the air like heavenly thunder.
"Kaihuang is absent, but the guardianship remains!"
"I, Luo Yu, soldier of the Yaoguang Division of the Heavenly Emperor's Star Constellation, once of Kaihuang's old guard, with this broken body, protect my people and stop your descent!"
"Soldier's liberation—"
"Divine liberation—"
The light exploded, and a world-shaking roar followed. A terrifying tremor surged out from the altar's summit in all directions. Granny Zhu immediately unfurled her Great Luotian Star Force Field to shield herself and Shen Mu as a surging wave of energy engulfed them!