Chapter 1241 — Carrying the Coffin Around the City
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
This war had already dragged on for years, both sides attacking each other, each with its victories and defeats; yet all-out battle was more than either could sustain, the slain and wounded too many. So all-out battle had lasted only the first two years.
Both the Heaven Court and the Creators of the Carefree Land and the Othershore Void had suffered grievous losses: the four Celestial Masters of the Heaven Court were checked by the other side's Mysterious Celestial Master, and every stratagem and every formation was shattered by him. The other side even knew their Celestial Masters' very temperaments; whether in clash of arms before the lines or in raids on baggage trains and seizures of grain, they were no match for that man.
And the Carefree Land and the Othershore Void, for their part, suffered from having far fewer troops than the Heaven Court.
Shang Pingyin arrayed his forces squarely and honorably, never taking the unorthodox path, always encircling his foe with the most overwhelming strength, and so the Carefree Land and the Othershore Void had no small number of troops swallowed up by him.
As for Yin Tianzi's assault on the Great Void Youdu, he pushed all the way to the Void Bridge; had the Little Earth Lord Shen Fengqing not fought with all his might, had the sons of the Shen family not come bearing the coffin and staked their lives, they could never have retaken the Great Void Youdu. Afterwards, because both sides' lines were drawn out so long, they could only harry one another on a small scale.
The Land of the Great Void was too vast, full of endless tracts of territory; building divine cities and forging mighty passes was the inevitable choice of both sides.
In the reaches where there were no cities or passes, the gods and demons and the wielders of divine powers of the two sides contended; often they roamed about, seeking the chance to cut down an enemy and earn merit.
By this point the focus of the struggle had shifted to the Realm of Supreme Divine Consciousness. For the body of the Great Emperor there, and the bodies of the clan chiefs and elders of the various Creator races, both sides were resolved to fight.
Only, the Realm of Supreme Divine Consciousness was dreadfully terrible; whoever entered it was assimilated, changed from a solid form into a plane, then into a single point, and at the center of the realm even Heavenly Venerables were frozen in place by congealed time and space.
So although the armies of both sides eyed the Realm of Supreme Divine Consciousness with hungry greed, neither dared lightly set foot within. One day, a hundred and more great banners came crackling and flapping, skimming low over the ground, flying over mountains, rivers and lakes; not far from the Realm of Supreme Divine Consciousness, these hundred and more banners suddenly dropped flat, lying motionless upon the earth, merging with the ground, so that without close study not one of them could be found. In the sky, several dozen gods and demons of the Carefree Land bore a coffin, polished to a gleaming sheen, flying past above; those several dozen gods and demons had eyes like torches, their gazes like pillars of light falling from the heavens, and after one circuit of inspection they went on their way.
When they had gone far, the ground stirred, and the hundred and more banners slowly reappeared, then went flapping on again. All at once the banners stood bolt upright, one and all, the cloth whirling furiously and transforming into young women in the bloom of youth.
"The one who just flew past should be one of the bandit chiefs of the Carefree Land, by the name of Fang Youji, Junior Guardian of the Crown Prince to the traitor Shen Ye.
" The woman at their head surveyed her surroundings, utterly composed.
"But he is not the purpose of our coming.
The body of the Great Emperor is. There is no need to clash with him.