Chapter 1651 — Still as at First Sight
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
He knew he had only one chance, for their cultivation far exceeded his, and only as he took their blows would he have his opening to strike them. It was a blow of mutual ruin.
Di Yiyue had sword in hand, standing upon another Gate of Reincarnation, her red robes streaming.
Seeing that fluttering red, the bridal red he himself had draped upon her, Yin Tianzi recalled the days he had spent with her. Perhaps those were his happiest hours since the assassination of Yu Tianzun.
Ever since joining Haotian to kill Yu Tianzun, he had dreamed nightmares, sunk in guilt for that murder, for Yu Tianzun had been the hero in his heart, his elder brother, the man he looked up to.
Yet under Haotian's coercion, to save his own life, he had joined hands with Haotian to murder Yu Tianzun in the Winding Corridor Pavilion at Yaochi.
After Yu Tianzun's death he kept staring at his own hands, always feeling them stained with blood that would never wash clean. (For details see earlier chapters.
) After that killing he had no choice but to mount Haotian's war chariot and become Haotian's hound, forced to grow more cunning and more sinister, and only thus did he survive the cruel Longhan era and live on as the Black Emperor of Mingdu.
The Four Emperors changed crop after crop, yet he alone remained an evergreen, standing unfallen. Still he lived in constant fear, seldom tasting true joy, until he met Di Yiyue.
Those were happy days, when he laid down every burden and every guard and fell in love with her, and his heart was true. Yet when the Ten Heavenly Venerables told him to move against the Kaihuang Court and to do away with Di Yiyue on their wedding day, he hesitated and struggled.
He had even dreamed of defying Heaven outright, of eloping with her, of hiding his name with this woman and living out an ordinary life.
He had even thought of going over to Kaihuang's court, of wedding Di Yiyue and fighting the Ten Heavenly Venerables in a blaze of glory, dying heroically on the battlefield to wash away his past sins and win a fair name after death. But then cowardice took him. He dared not oppose the Ten Heavenly Venerables, he would not surrender the station he had bought with betrayal and flattery and the sale of himself, and so on their wedding night, as Di Yiyue turned shyly away from him, he tremblingly raised his sword and drove it into his bride's back.
He watched Di Yiyue in phoenix crown and wedding silks, clad in bridal red.
The two were very close now, the Gate of Mingdu beneath her feet erupting with might to suppress his cultivation, while the sword in her hand sought his chest.
If he urged his Reincarnation art now, she could never evade it.
Yin Tianzi lifted his hand, a smile on his face, the smile that had charmed countless girls. Slash!
Di Yiyue's sword light pierced his heart, raining through him and bursting from his back to sweep the celestial court behind his head, splitting palace after palace, toppling hall after hall, shattering the very foundation of his Dao. Yin Tianzi's palm also touched Di Yiyue's cheek.
He stood upon the gate facing her, just as when they first met, when he saw that beautiful, gallant god-clan girl and was moved to tease her. Then too he had reached to touch the girl's face, and the girl too had thrust a sword at his heart.
Then, his other hand had caught her blade.
This time, he did not. His smile remained as before, as if to wake her memory, but Lady Tianyin's palm had already reached his back, a blow so savage it shook his primordial spirit to pieces and blasted his soul into soul black sand. At the same instant Di Yiyue's sword light dissolved all five of his Heavenly Palaces, and his rampant power ran out of control, for the palaces borrowed strength from the Jade Capital of the Ancestral Court, and when they collapsed that borrowed strength turned wild.