Chapter 776 — A Hidden Oriole Seizes the Mandate of Heaven
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
Shen Mu had watched the whole of that battle in the heavens through Tubo's eyes — from the moment Tubo cut his way to the Southern Gate of Heaven, to his slaughter at the Jade Pool, to his shattering of the God-Slaying Terrace and the toppling of one heavenly palace after another. He had come to the Jade Capital City, the seat of the Heavenly Emperor, but by then the chains upon his body had grown so many that they bound him fast and tight; those chains were the laws of the Great Way of Youdu, and though he was trussed beyond all struggling, he still slaughtered his way madly onward.
The tighter he was wrapped, the plainer it became that those chains came not only from Youdu but from his own self as well. For one who is the incarnation of the Dao, every movement and every deed must accord with the Great Way; the mightier the ancient god, the more he is constrained by his own laws. So it was with Tubo.
Reincarnated though he was, he remained the incarnation of the Dao; reborn into the human race though he was, still he wore ox horns and a tiger's head.
The laws of Youdu would curb his strength in the world of the living, and even after he awakened the power of Youdu, his own strength would curb him too. The harder he fought and the more he killed, the deeper his own suffering grew.
Chaos reigned throughout the heavens; the gods of the Heavenly Court were cut down until their hearts went cold with dread, and to those gods, Tubo's fury was beyond all understanding.
Ancient gods share the lifespan of heaven and endure as long as the world endures; they can never comprehend the life and death, the love and hatred, the grudges and passions of mortals.
A mortal's life and death span no more than a hundred years, and a hundred years is but a fleeting instant to an ancient god — before they had even noticed these lowly little insects, the insects had already died of old age. That Tubo, reincarnated, should open the slaughter because of the deaths of the wife and children of his reincarnated body, and storm the heavens — that was truly going too far.
Worse still, he had massacred the gods of the Heavenly Court, striking them until some died and the rest fled for their lives.
Mortals were merely insects breeding and thriving in world after world; that an ancient god should reincarnate to taste the life of an insect, and then, for the death of insects, turn his slaughter loose upon the gods of the Heavenly Court — this baffled them. To make great ancient gods and demigods of ancient divine blood lie down in death alongside a mere handful of mortals — that showed Tubo had gone mad.
And yet even the Jade Capital City, most heavily guarded of all, could not hold back Tubo in his wrath: its gates were smashed through, and the gods wailed to the heavens and scattered in flight.
Tubo paid the fleeing gods no mind and walked on into the Jade Capital City, and behind him half the heavens had already been swallowed in the dark demonic qi of Youdu. And amid that demonic qi, chain after chain pierced through his mortal flesh.
The chains were pulled dead taut, and blood streamed ceaselessly from his body, becoming, where it fell, the demonic fire of Youdu. And still he pressed stubbornly onward, toward Chonghua Palace and the Hidden Dragon Hall within the Jade Capital City.
Chonghua Palace and its Hidden Dragon Hall were one of the thirty-six heavenly palaces and seventy-two treasure halls, the dwelling place of the imperial princes.
There lived the sons and daughters of the Heavenly Emperor. Tubo's goal was plain: to reach that place and destroy it.
The power of the Life-Slaying Cauldron was too terrible.