Chapter 1009 — The Mighty Pass Stretches Long, Hard as Iron
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The Taiqing Realm Dao Sword had already attained the domain of the sword dao, which set it apart from the Thirty-Two Heavens of sword dao that had come before.
Those earlier Thirty-Two Heavens had still not shaken off the pattern of Dao-entering sword moves, whereas the Taiqing Realm Dao Sword entered the domain of the sword dao, somewhat akin to the Supreme Divine Consciousness Domain, and was therefore called the sword domain. Yet the sword domain was still not the same as the Supreme Divine Consciousness Domain.
The Supreme Divine Consciousness Domain laid greater weight on the consciousness's influence over external things: upon entering the consciousness domain, all things gradually came to stillness, and this was the utmost of contemplation.
Kaihuang's sword domain, by contrast, laid greater weight on attack; it was the utmost of the sword.
To Shen Mu, the Taiqing Realm Dao Sword was already beyond comprehension, beyond fathoming, and yet above this heaven there was another heaven still, and it made his scalp go numb.
At last Kaihuang unleashed the Thirty-Fourth Heaven sword domain: that was the Shangqing Realm sword domain, and the moment this sword appeared, the whole of Kaihuang's heavenly court came near to boiling over. The old ministers of the Kaihuang Era, tears streaming down their faces, their voices turning into a flood, called out Shen Ye's name together; that fervor was like a great deluge sweeping heaven and earth, and the gods and demons of the new generation in the Worry-Free Land were swept along despite themselves, plunging into worship of Kaihuang.
Their cries were like those of the primal age, when creation revered the Great Emperor, so fervent, so frenzied, so utterly unreasoning.
Qin Hanzhen and his wife frowned slightly, watching the crowd that had lost its reason; such fervor was something the couple had never encountered, and it left them rather uneasy. Yan Yunxi frowned as well; this turn of events unsettled her greatly too. She had never seen Kaihuang use the Shangqing Realm sword domain before; it must have been a sword art he created after taking possession of the Worry-Free Land.
But that was not the point.
The point was that Kaihuang's old ministers and the gods and demons of the new generation now regarded Kaihuang as an omnipotent deity. In the duel between Kaihuang and Shen Mu, both of them had wielded the Thirty-Three Heavens sword dao; the old ministers, awakened by the spirit hidden within that sword dao, seemed to have returned to the glorious years of old.
Yet the situation was far more tangled than she had foreseen.
Shen Ye had not been Kaihuang from the very beginning; it was through battle after battle, through desperate struggles of life and death against his enemies, that he had gradually become the leader of that age. Too many legendary tales clung to him; imperceptibly, he had become the symbol of an era, the backbone of an era.
In the late years of the Kaihuang Era, even the old ministers had come to see Kaihuang as an invincible being, an omnipotent being, the wisest and most enlightened of beings; they dared not question, would not question, any of his decisions. That too was why, after coming to the Worry-Free Land, the old ministers had so abruptly lost their spirit and vigor, and it was the root of the failure of Kaihuang's reform. They had enshrined a god within their dao hearts, and that god was Kaihuang; he had become their faith.
When Kaihuang's image toppled, their faith collapsed, and they sank into despondency and decay for twenty thousand years.
And now the Thirty-Three Heavens sword dao seemed to carry them back to the age of blind worship of Kaihuang. Yan Yunxi's heart was in a tangled mess.