Chapter 1703 — A Sword in Hand, Alone Across Ten Thousand Miles
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
With the armed might of the Heavenly Court at its disposal, preparing the Grand Cosmic Rite was a simple matter. The armies of every quarter sent in the slaves the Heavenly Court had taken captive, and in little more than a month the number of slaves reached what the Palace Master Lingguan required.
On the day of the Grand Cosmic Rite, Palace Master Lingguan paved an altar with the bones of countless slaves; ascending that altar, he took the flesh and blood of slaves as his offerings, sacrificing to the holy ones who had attained the Dao in the countless Great Luotian Heavens of the Ancestral Jade Capital City of the past age, twelve hundred Dao Lords in all, and with the blood of living beings he beseeched these Dao Lords to lend him their strength and take him under their protection. When the Rite reached its crucial hour, above the altar the phantom of the Ancestral Jade Capital City rose into being, pressing down upon heaven and earth and all that lies between. Vast, towering, magnificent, the divine city held sixteen rivers of primal chaos wound into ring upon winding ring, and between river and river stood ruin after ruin of the Jade Capital City.
Palace Master Lingguan worked his rites upon the altar, sacrificing living beings; among the countless bones the souls howled, piercing and desolate beyond words, and turned into stream after stream of black smoke rushing toward the Jade Capital City.
Wisp by wisp the black smoke poured into the city and gathered in those crisscrossing rivers of chaos, and the figures of Dao-attainers gradually took shape. Twelve hundred such figures, hazy and indistinct, as though wrought of black and white, and yet these figures stood firm within the rivers of chaos, having passed through the great calamity of destruction, undying through all ages.
These were the beings who had attained the Dao in the history of the Jade Capital City; mysterious as the Grand Cosmic Rite sounded, in truth it worked by the exchange of matter and energy, sacrificing living beings to borrow from these Dao-attainers their power.
Emperor Haotian and Taichu the Retired Emperor, leading the civil and military grandees of the Heavenly Court, watched the ceremony, and at this sight their hearts were both astonished and shaken.
"Your Majesty, the power of the Ancestral Jade Capital City is truly too great; it must be guarded against," the Retired Emperor Taichu advised.
"If every Dao-attainer of the Ancestral Jade Capital City were to descend, I fear this universe would not long survive. " Emperor Haotian nodded lightly.
"The Retired Emperor speaks the exact truth.
And yet the Dao arts and divine powers of the Ancestral Jade Capital City do make Us envious; this Grand Cosmic Rite, borrowing through sacrifice the strength of Dao-attainers of a past age, is extraordinary beyond measure!
As master of one of the Seventy-Two Halls, Lingguan's powers are vast indeed.
" Taichu said no more. Palace Master Lingguan was indeed mighty in the divine powers, versed in every kind of divine art and Dao technique, and this Grand Cosmic Rite opened all eyes. By comparison, even the achievements of today's Jingping Reforms could not match the accumulated legacy of the Ancestral Jade Capital City of the former universe.
Upon the altar, wave after wave of dreadful power surged in and came to rest upon Palace Master Lingguan; that power shook the void, and even Taichu and Emperor Haotian, both Dao-attainers, felt their hearts quail.
As for the other civil and military grandees, their Dao hearts had long since been shaken by that fearsome power, and they knelt prostrate on the ground, not daring to raise their heads. Headless, Palace Master Lingguan finished his rites upon the altar and stirred the Dao Fruit that was his own, joining his own Great Dao to that Dao Fruit.