Chapter 1373 — A Game of Mutual Destruction
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
Now Heavenly Venerable Hao had refined the Great Emperor's head into a treasure, using the Great Emperor's skull to overawe the Yuan World; the pressure this brought upon the great Heavenly Venerables, and even upon Tubo and the Lord of Heaven, and the Three Emperors of the Ancient Gods, could well be imagined! The Great Emperor, a being who stood on equal footing with the Heavenly Emperor Taichu, had had his head struck off by Heavenly Venerable Hao — how mighty, then, must Heavenly Venerable Hao's strength be?
The moment the Great Emperor's head appeared, all the myriad treasures of the heavens lost their colour! The Great Emperor's head opened both eyes, and two gazes brighter than sunlight by a hundredfold and a thousandfold, buzzing and humming, swept the sky above and the earth below of the Yuan World, the four quarters and the eight directions, illuminating one heaven of the Yuan World after another.
Heavenly Venerable Hao, first among the Ten Heavenly Venerables, though rumour had it that he was gravely wounded and his strength far beneath what it once was, his flame and his majesty were still beyond compare; every other Heavenly Venerable fell a notch short.
Suddenly the gaze of the Great Emperor's head fixed upon a place of darkness and did not move away. There karmic fire blazed, turning a thousand li into a crimson wilderness; amid the roaring karmic fire a man's primordial spirit surfaced, chains binding his four limbs, tormented in the flames, howling, fierce and hideous.
That primordial spirit was the former Crown Prince of the Heavenly Court's principal palace — the Evil Emperor, Xie Wuqi!
Heavenly Venerable You's paper boat came drifting faintly into being; he stood upon the ghost ship, and his own deterrent, too, had arrived without a sound.
That was Xie Wuqi — one of the mightiest beings of the Longhan age, bearing in his veins the blood of the Empress and of the Heavenly Emperor, with the makings of a Heavenly Venerable yet outmatched in wisdom, who had contended for the throne with the Heavenly Emperor and been cast down into Youdu, imprisoned within Jade Lock Pass! And now, at Xie Wuqi's side stood another man: the present Crown Prince of the Heavenly Court's Eastern Palace, Mingya! The one controlling the Great Emperor's head was Heavenly Venerable Hao, and he cared nothing for Xie Wuqi.
In those years it was he who had incited Xie Wuqi to rebel and make chaos, borrowing the Heavenly Emperor's hand to rid himself of this elder brother of his; Xie Wuqi had been dead so many years, he was not worth a thought.
In his gaze there was only Crown Prince Mingya. Crown Prince Mingya was one of the few possessed of the makings of a Heavenly Venerable; at a young age he had captured the Crimson Emperor Qi Xiayu, forcing Qi Xiayu to bow to the Heavenly Court.
His endowments were outstanding, the highest in talent and constitution among the younger generation of the Heavenly Court — and he was, besides, Heavenly Venerable Hao's younger brother.
But in truth, Crown Prince Mingya was Heavenly Venerable Hao's son. His son.
After the Heavenly Emperor's death, Heavenly Venerable Hao took possession of the Heavenly Emperor's fleshly body, and once controlled that body into the inner palace, doing certain absurd things.
Crown Prince Mingya was the fruit of that absurdity.
Heavenly Venerable Hao had once wished to put this fruit of absurdity to death, so that no stain would remain on him, but in the end he endured it.
He liked Crown Prince Mingya greatly; in name they were brothers, in truth father and son, and Heavenly Venerable Hao looked after him with especial care and placed great hopes in him.