Chapter 1717 — Death to the Oathbreaker

Through Long Xiao's nine heads clamored the sundry and demonic thoughts of all those beings, confounding his consciousness, so that he could not marshal his divine sense or his divine powers; at the sight of Shen Fengqing's great hand sweeping toward him, all his former bluster vanished in an instant, and he turned and fled!

Yet the space he inhabited was passing strange: flee which way he would, Shen Fengqing and the Heavenly Wheel of Six Paths were always before him. He swelled his primordial spirit and hurled himself at Shen Fengqing in a frenzy, meaning to slay him by sheer might of soul.

But strike as he might, his blows landed upon Shen Fengqing with not a shred of force, and Shen Fengqing's palm simply closed about his nine necks and lifted him bodily into the air.

"Stop! " The eyeballs of Celestial Venerable Long Xiao rolled white as he was squeezed, and he gasped in desperation: "Stop!

I surrender!

I surrender to Celestial Venerable Mu!

" Shen Fengqing shook his head. "The Nether Capital has its own laws.

Once a compact is struck, there is no regret afterward.

Those who betray faith and forsake righteousness shall die.

" He opened wide his mouth, and Long Xiao watched in horror as he was carried up to those jaws, his voice shrill and desperate: "Were my physical body still with me, I would not die by your hand!

I do not accept—" Gulp. Shen Fengqing swallowed him down, and his three eyes slowly closed one after another.

"Your physical body has been there all along.

At this very moment, you and I are inside it.

" His form gradually faded away, and the Heavenly Wheel of Six Paths likewise dissolved into the darkness: "Long Xiao, you were one who would not be enlightened.

" The darkness dispersed, and the towering, measureless physical body of Celestial Venerable Long Xiao lay coiled within the Heavenly Palace, its long necks rearing beyond the palace into the sky, eyes bulging wide as though searching everywhere for something.

Then, all at once, his body lost all strength; the nine heads drooped feebly, and those long necks turned utterly limp. His heads tumbled from the sky, and on head after head the eyes bulged round while the flames within them yet blazed fiercely - like eighteen suns smashed down from the heavens.

But he had not a breath left in him.

He had violated the Compact of Little Tu Bo, and Little Tu Bo, Shen Fengqing, had appeared within his physical body, before his very primordial spirit, and taken his soul straight away. The body he had sought so desperately, sensed so desperately - it had been there all along.

In that instant, nearly all the primeval behemoths of the Beast Realm, wherever they were, raised their heads of their own accord.

In the sky eighteen suns fell; Long Xiao's necks and heads crashed one after another into his Heavenly Palace, toppling palace upon palace.

Long Xiao was dead.

The gorgeous Heavenly Palace he had raised with countless treasures of the Ancestral Court was shattered and split apart by his own falling corpse.

The Heavenly Palace dropped out of the sky, plunging toward the earth.

Within the Divine Sense Cage, Long Qilin suddenly flung himself to the ground, wailing aloud; he had sensed the death of his foster father.

Within the palace, countless strange beasts scattered in every direction as the Heavenly Palace collapsed and fell from the heights; some behemoths could not fly, and for them only one road lay ahead - death.

Even the kings among the great beasts guarding the Divine Sense Cage fled about like headless flies; not a few behemoths threw themselves straight off the edge of the falling palace, only to be dashed into pulp of flesh and blood!

To remain within was still more frightful: the palace was crumbling, and the tumbling, toppling great halls often crushed the behemoths beneath them, body shattered and bones ground to powder!

Long Qilin rose, wiped away his tears, and from his throat sent forth a low, strange roar. Outside the Divine Sense Cage, an enormous Void-Mother Beast thrust her head out of the void, swept her sharp claws, and tore the cage asunder.

Long Qilin, leading Tiny Tu Bo and his own sons and daughters, walked out of the cage and climbed onto the head of that measureless Void-Mother Beast; then, with a single shake of his body, he revealed his true form and became a colossal creature a thousand li in length, with the head of a qilin and the tail of a dragon, roaring up at the heavens in a dragon's cry that rang without cease! Across the lands of the Beast Realm, countless behemoths suddenly reared up on their hind legs, their bodies quaking, transforming into towering giants with beast heads and human bodies that propped up heaven and earth!

From within their bodies came thundering reports - peng, peng, peng - as though door after door was opening in their flesh; those were the layers of Divine Treasures within them! Treading auspicious clouds, these primeval behemoth adepts of divine power soared into the air and flew toward the falling Heavenly Palace, and giant after giant took that plummeting beast-race palace upon their hands and shoulders, slowing its fall until it fell no more.

At last the Heavenly Palace ceased to descend and rose instead, ever upward.

Many of these beast-race adepts had come from the school of Lan Yutian - non-human creatures cultivating the Dao.

Those beast-cultivators had later left the Ancestral Court at Great Dark Mountain and followed Long Qilin into the Beast Realm. Here, Long Qilin had led them in fusing the Divine Treasury Heavenly Palace cultivation system with the particular traits and talents of the beast race, founding a civilization that belonged to the beasts alone. Over the years, he had achieved no mean success!

The beast-race Heavenly Palace returned to its former place, and Long Qilin stood amid its cloud-wreathed halls with the massive corpse of Long Xiao behind him.

In the ruins of the beast race's Heavenly Palace, behemoth after behemoth shook its body, flinging off rubble and beams; these were the sovereigns of the many races of the Beast Realm, holding power second only to Celestial Venerable Long Xiao, each ruling over its own kind.

One by one the colossal kings of beasts advanced, came before the Void-Mother Beast, and looked up at Long Qilin standing atop her head. Suddenly, one Primeval Beast King bent its forelegs and knelt prostrate upon the ground.

Behind it, one after another, the Primeval Beast Kings bowed their heads and knelt.

Long Qilin loosed a long dragon's cry, bright and weighty, ringing across the wilderness and the hills. The Primeval Beast Kings lifted their heads and answered with deep, drawn-out roars and bellows that shook the mountains and the stars.

On this day, the old lord of the Beast Realm passed away, and a new lord was born.