Chapter 941 — The Bloodshed at Langxuan Divine Palace
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 5
Shen Mu and the others crossed the Heavenly Street and came to another street, which had long since emptied, not a soul in sight.
Yun Chuxiu said in admiration, "The Heavenly Venerable is truly magnificent: wherever he goes, not a blade of grass survives, and babes hush their crying at his name!"
Shen Mu roared with laughter. "After all, I am a Heavenly Venerable. When I travel, of course I cut a magnificent figure!"
Little Tubo poked his head out of Long Qilin's ear and surveyed the surroundings with the gravest scrutiny, looking most awe-inspiring. Fearing he might come to harm, Long Qilin hastily dropped his ear and stuffed him back inside.
Little Tubo pounded on him from within, but Long Qilin endured it and never let him out.
Yun Chuxiu noticed this Little Tubo and a look of astonishment crossed her face. Something seemed to occur to her, and the woman abruptly burst out laughing.
They arrived before the Langxuan Divine Palace. Though its grounds were not as vast as those of the Jade Pool, it ranked among the most magnificent and sprawling complexes in the Heavenly Court, palace on palace, courtyard upon courtyard.
All was gold and splendor here. The palaces hung suspended from one another, wrapped in wreaths of cloud and mist, with no ropeways to join them; one had to fly across.
In truth, this was so of most structures in the Heavenly Court: no place was entirely joined to the next. The Jade Pool, for example, floated in the heavens amid clustering clouds, connected to all else only by a tributary of the Heavenly River, and the Jade Terrace on which it stood touched nothing else in the Court directly.
The Heavenly Market, too, hung apart from the rest, and one had to fly there from elsewhere.
Nor were the Court's other buildings linked together. This was because when the Heavenly Court was first founded, in the early years of Longhan, it had not possessed its present scale. It had been composed of thirty-six Heavenly Palaces and seventy-two Treasure Halls, and each Heavenly Palace, each Treasure Hall, and the Jade Capital City was a single whole in itself.
Only when these structures were pieced together did the Heavenly Court come into being; and hence it came about that its palaces and halls were so often unconnected one to another.
Later, many of those original thirty-six Heavenly Palaces and seventy-two Treasure Halls were relocated to other corners of the universe, to hold guard over distant regions.
Add to that the merging of the Xiaohan Heavenly Court, the Longxiao Heavenly Court, and the Longhan Heavenly Court, stitched and joined together; the Court expanded ceaselessly through history until it reached its present scale.
Yet the tradition that each place within the Court stood independent of the others had likewise been preserved.
The Langxuan Divine Palace had already learned that the Heavenly Venerable Mu was hastening their way. The disciples of the Langxuan Divine Emperor within the palace dared not be negligent and reported it at once. The one who presided over the Langxuan Divine Palace was the Divine Emperor's eldest disciple, Chang Xiting; hearing that the Heavenly Venerable Mu had come to call, he was at once seized with a splitting headache.
"The Heavenly Venerable Mu has truly come?" he asked, again and again.
"Eldest Senior Brother, he is already outside the palace!"
Chang Xiting sneered. "What has he come here to do? Is he not afraid of death?"
The others exchanged glances, and one of them, summoning his courage, said, "Eldest Senior Brother, who would dare kill him? A few days ago, at the Jade Pool, even a Heavenly Venerable made his move, and still he did not die. If he dies here in our Langxuan Divine Palace, the disaster will be immense! If other powers seize upon it and claim that the Langxuan Divine Palace murdered the Heavenly Venerable Mu, we shall all be buried with him!"