Chapter 1773 — Upheaval at the Ancestral Shrine
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
If I wait even a step too long, I am only a defeated general who surrendered, fit for nothing but a cell. .
.
" Power is a commodity that can be bought and sold; dynasties may change, but the men and the factions at the heart of power are never replaced.
That is how the game has always been played.
The Empress had seen it all too many times. She had barely finished the thought when, behind Emperor Haotian's head, the Lingxiao Treasure Hall shuddered, the knotted red cords opened of themselves, and surges of the might of the Dao came pouring out, filling Haotian's body in an instant, surging without cease! The Empress's heart lurched, and she hastily snuffed out her little schemes. "All armies, make ready to enter the Ancestral Court! " Emperor Haotian rose to his feet, his former dejection swept away, and cried out in a loud voice, "The Ancestral Court is our homeland, the place where we rise again!
This war is not yet lost! " For all the fire in his words, few answered.
The several hundred thousand soldiers of the Heavenly Court walked stiffly through the starry void like walking corpses.
Haotian turned his head and said joyfully to the Empress, "Mother, the Third Young Master has broken through the seals and come forth. All is settled! Once we reach the Ancestral Court, everything that is past will be only tempering for us, and it will make us stronger than ever!
" The Empress smiled and said nothing.
At last the remnant army of the Heavenly Court entered the Ancestral Court, and ahead of them the vast Heavenly Court came into view.
The Heavenly Court was a supreme divine weapon forged from countless divine arms and mighty treasures fused into one, and it was the strongest fortress in the world today, their last hope. Once inside it, and once the world barrier of the Ancestral Court was sealed, Jingping and the allied armies of the myriad heavens and worlds would shed oceans of blood trying to break in. And the Ancestral Court was unimaginably rich; hold it, and one stood on ground where defeat was impossible.
Jingping had been a barren land, yet in two hundred years it had grown to its present scale and all but unified the Yuan Realm. The Heavenly Court of today was better off by far than Jingping had been then, and given time it too could become immeasurably strong.
Yet the joy on the faces of Haotian and all his soldiers froze, and they stood in the sky like wooden statues. Before them, above the Heavenly Court, five dao trees hung suspended at its east, south, west, north and center, the dao trees of five Dao-achievers, radiating a stern and forbidding Dao-might. And within the Heavenly Court stood divinities to rival Tianzun, each of a different countenance, filling the place with their divine power.
Below, throughout the Ancestral Court, divine cities great and small lay scattered in every direction, blazing with light, each garrisoned by mighty Tianzun-level divinities.
Farther off, where Tianzun Mu's territory had once been, where Great Black Mountain stood, beneath the World Tree, magnificent divine cities had risen from the ground, and there were even divine cities built upon the leaves themselves.
The Ancestral Court was now another world entirely, utterly unlike the place they had left when they marched out in full strength to make war upon the Yuan Realm. Suddenly Haotian dropped down and sat where he fell, and burst into loud, uncontrolled weeping.
"Tianzun Mu, to defeat Us, to seize Our power and Our throne, you have no shred of shame! " He wept bitterly, wept till he was nothing but tears, cursing and sobbing at once: "You knew you could not beat Us, so you set loose the prehistoric powerhouses beneath the World Tree.
You are a scoundrel, you are the criminal of the whole cosmos!