Chapter 1472 — Seek Your Own Death, and Blame Not Heaven
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
At the very moment Venerable Lord Hongtian's palm descended over Tianfang City, a burst of dazzling light erupted between the two, and no sooner had it flared than it vanished without a trace.
At the same instant, upon Venerable Lord Hongtian's colossal face, the kindly, benevolent smile twisted into astonishment and fury. His frame was so vast that his expressions seemed to shift with agonizing slowness, yet the astonishment and rage were already fading, leaving behind only cold severity.
From his severed wrist, flesh and blood surged madly into being; sinews thick as mountains spread frantically outward, blood vessels proliferated like flood-dragons, and the bones of his hand grew like mountain ranges rising from the earth.
Just then, Venerable Lord Hongtian's brow furrowed once more.
He sensed something strange. He was employing the Dao of Creation to mend the damage to his flesh—and the Dao of Creation consumed his mana. Mana expenditure, by rights, should have been swiftly replenished given the heights of his cultivation.
Yet in that moment, he felt not the faintest tendency of his mana to recover.
He felt as though within his body there was an invisible lock, an exceedingly intricate and elaborate chain, binding his mana layer upon layer, preventing him from restoring his cultivation!
Scarcely had this thought crossed his mind when a stabbing pain lanced through his heart. In a daze, Venerable Lord Hongtian felt as though he had plunged into a bottomless well, gazing upward at the patch of sky framed by its mouth.
This sensation was somewhat akin to what he had felt at Yaochi, before the Tianmeng Council, when he and Shen Mu had fallen out and he had taken that strike from Shen Mu.
But the strange feeling quickly passed. The cultivation he had lost was negligible to him—a single hair from nine oxen.
His palm swiftly regenerated. He clenched it hard, and below, the severed hand burst apart, one Heavenly Dao Dao-soldier after another flying out from it and falling into his newly formed palm.
"Five Heavenly Dao Dao-soldiers are missing, and the most crucial of all—the Tiangang Dao-soldier—has been stolen."
Venerable Lord Hongtian had been gazing down at the divine city of Tianfang. Now he slowly raised his head, and saw that the broken continent of Tianfang City, under Di Qing's protection, had already broken through the encirclement of the Heavenly Court's armies and was fleeing outward.
At the edge of that continent, rays of light emerged one after another, and five masked figures burst forth from the radiance, rushing dozens of li before finally halting.
The five figures' bodies burst apart, then their blood flowed back, bound by a strange power, leaving them virtually unharmed.
The five missing Heavenly Dao Dao-soldiers were clutched in the hands of these five.
"Venerable Lord Mu, you still fail to understand what is meant by 'respond with order and fortune follows; respond with chaos and calamity follows.' You severed one of my hands and stole my Dao-soldiers—it seems there is no longer any room for reconciliation between us."
Venerable Lord Hongtian's body rapidly shrank, soon assuming ordinary height. With broad sleeves and flowing robes, elegant and unrestrained, he resembled a transcendent sage who had risen above the mundane world as he drifted in pursuit of that continent. "Self-made calamity admits no life."
"All armies of the Heavenly Court, annihilate the remnants of Xuandu's Tianfang City—leave not a single one alive."
His voice spread to the ears of every commander across the Heavenly Court's forces, deep and resonant, as he said unhurriedly: "This is a grand opportunity for you to earn merit, and a grand opportunity to plunder Xuandu's wealth and seize slaves."