Chapter 958 — The Demonic Thought Takes the Form of the Heavenly Emperor
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 3 of 5
Luckily, even the Great Void could not conjure an inner demon of the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor all at once; they still had a chance to flee into the Land of the Great Void.
Yet though the Ancient God Heavenly Emperor took shape slowly, the other inner demons formed with terrifying swiftness.
Demons bred in the minds of all aboard, and monsters appeared ceaselessly alongside the tower ship, hurling themselves at the racing vessel.
Thud!
A monster with six legs and two wings, wolf-like and tiger-fierce, leapt onto the deck, opened its great maw, and swallowed a true god in a single bite. Luo Wushuang sprang forward, his blade light flaring, and cut the monster down; but beneath the ship tentacles lashed and coiled, fastening onto the hull and dragging its speed down.
Luo Wushuang shook his blade, and the blade light split from one into two, from two into four, from four into eight; in an instant the light came pouring down like a waterfall from the sky, streaming along the deck and down the ship's sides.
The blade light avoided everyone aboard and in the blink of an eye swept the tower ship clean; the monsters beneath the hull were hacked into ten thousand pieces. Luo Wushuang was, after all, a great master of the Lingxiao realm, one who had entered the Dao through the blade, his strength supreme; many though the monsters were that came leaping up, he was enough to keep all aboard safe.
Just then a vast wheel of light appeared ahead, its radiance so dense and blazing that it dazzled the eye, and then a head slowly lifted.
"Heavenly Venerable Hong!
" Luo Wushuang gasped and drew in a cold breath: that Heavenly Venerable rising slowly before them was Heavenly Venerable Hong, one of the Ten Heavenly Venerables of the Heavenly Court. Though Heavenly Venerable Hong was still only a phantom, the wheel of light behind his head had already taken form; his palm rose and reached for the tower ship.
"Draw my blade against a Heavenly Venerable? " Luo Wushuang's face went ashen.
Whose inner demon this Heavenly Venerable Hong might be, he did not know — but it was also his own.
He dared not raise his blade against a Heavenly Venerable. That was a Heavenly Venerable.
The sovereign of the Heavenly Court!
Though it were only a phantom, though it were only an inner demon conjured by the Great Void, he dared not strike at a Heavenly Venerable.
A Heavenly Venerable stood for matchless divine majesty, for the highest martial power of the Heavenly Court; to raise a blade against one — no, even to entertain the thought was the gravest of sins!
"And yet.
.
.
" Luo Wushuang raised his blade in his one arm and soared into the air, resolve stark in his eyes, and roared in fury: "I dared to strike Heavenly Venerable Mu himself!
What then is Heavenly Venerable Hong to me!
I will shatter the god within my heart—" Behind him his heavenly palace flew out with a humming drone; his primal spirit stood in the Lingxiao Hall of that palace, and drew its blade as well, bringing it down in a single strike against the phantom of Heavenly Venerable Hong!
As the blade fell, Luo Wushuang felt a great and gallant spirit surge up from his breast.
His blade art had always been exacting in its calculations, upright and open, steeped in the true essence of compass and square — exquisite, but without gallantry. And now he had stepped clean outside compass and square!
The blade light struck Heavenly Venerable Hong's great hand and clove the phantom's palm open; the dazzling light then fell upon his brow and bit deep into his skull.
Crack! With a sharp report the blade in Luo Wushuang's hand burst apart.
Phantom though he was, Heavenly Venerable Hong's power was still unimaginably great, and it shattered to dust the divine blade that had grown up with him. The shock knocked the blood from Luo Wushuang's mouth and sent him tumbling backward; the tower ship came rushing up behind him, and his body slammed into it and slid for hundreds of zhang.