Chapter 1671 — I Held a Dream: The Youth Chapter
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Nor was the whole of the Yuji Heavens starving and freezing; on the contrary, certain great clans and powerful houses still possessed untold wealth, but knowing these were chaotic times, they moved out of Yuji and fled elsewhere for refuge.
Along the way, Shen Mu, the Haotian Emperor, and the rest encountered more than a dozen such tower ships, heaped with treasures, sailing out beyond the sky, with rebel troops in hot pursuit at their sterns.
The spiritual-energy transfer bridges had been wrecked by the rebels to keep the Heavenly Court from attacking, so they could only take the road of migration through the starry sky.
The Haotian Emperor watched coldly and said, unhurried, "These obstinate commoners always rebel at the slightest dissatisfaction, always stir up trouble, thinking We have treated them ill. Truly heinous! Did We cause all this? We have only just taken the throne—do We have such great power as to leave them unable to live within a few short years? This was wrought by the previous dynasty, yet they lay the blame at Our feet!"
The more he spoke, the angrier he became: "It is not that they cannot live—it is that they see We have just ascended, that Our foundations are unsteady, and so they seize the chance to extort Us! These rebels are all ambitious schemers, all worms gnawing at the Heavenly Court! Such a thing can never be tolerated; we must kill the chicken to warn the monkey, and make an example of them! Otherwise, once the breach is opened, the other heavens too will come to extort Us and beg favors of Us! We will make them know that this realm is not theirs—it is Ours!"
Ahead, two great armies of gods and demons were locked in battle over territory, fighting fiercely, in the thick of the slaughter.
Both sides had killed until their eyes were red; the battlefield had almost become a sea of blood, blades flashing, blood floating the oars.
Just then, all the gods and demons who had been fighting suddenly halted, frozen where they stood, holding the very postures of their killing, motionless.
Every god and demon on that battlefield, in an instant, was bereft of the breath of life!
Between heaven and earth it was as if all at once had fallen profoundly silent; only the sound of wind remained, and no other sound at all.
"The Void Celestial Venerable has struck!"
The Haotian Emperor smiled, and his figure rose slowly into the air; Shen Mu and those hundred-odd great ministers of the Heavenly Court rose with him.
Shen Mu looked around. The distant cities were the same: a whole city turned in an instant into a city of the dead, everyone within still holding the postures of life, yet all bereft of the breath of life.
One after another divine kingdom of the Yuji Heavens—all life, gods and demon gods alike—died in an instant.
In that moment flowers withered, trees wilted, beasts crouched low, birds fell from the sky; even the water tribes in the rivers, lakes, and seas, even the fish and shrimp, died in the very same instant!
The entire Yuji Heavens died in an instant. Apart from Shen Mu, the Haotian Emperor, and their company, not one living thing remained!
The company looked around: demonic qi swept in, and the land of the Yuji Heavens swiftly turned black, became dark soil; the mountains lost their color, the rivers, lakes, and seas darkened at flying speed, demonic qi spreading everywhere.
They raised their heads: the stars beyond the sky were dimming at flying speed, the moon had no light, and the sun too was invaded by a vast darkness, gradually swallowed by the dark.
The Yuji Heavens were utterly dead.
Shen Mu's hands and feet were cold as ice.
Though he had long foreseen that the Yuji Heavens' rebellion must end thus, to see it with his own eyes brought him a shock and a shudder beyond compare!
When Kaihuang died, he had already foreseen that Jingping could no longer contend with the Heavenly Court for Youdu; if it kept fighting the Heavenly Court, then Jingping too must meet the same end.