Chapter 1720 — The Heavenly Gate's Divine Fire Burns My Soul

Those Bai Yuqiongs truly existed; each had her own flesh, her own primal spirit—this was the Qionghua Palace's unique secret! Bai Yuqiong had been reborn one hundred and ninety-seven times, and across those one hundred and ninety-seven lives, to evade the death-tribulation the Yin Tianzi had brought upon her, she had cultivated far too many arts and divine powers.

She had once taken the Moon Heavenly Venerable as her master and studied the Zaiji Void Sutra before it was complete; she had once entered the Daoist order and been a Daoist nun, entered the Buddhist order and been a bodhisattva; she had even been a disciple to one great emperor after another of the Heavenly Court! Her arts were strange beyond measure, built upon the Moon Heavenly Venerable's Zaiji Void Sutra and fused with all manner of other methods.

In the use of space it could not compare with the Zaiji Void Sutra of today, but she had fused too many things, and had walked out a strange road of her own. The five Bai Yuqiongs pounced in the space of a breath, ignoring Yiluo's lesser Heavenly Court and primal spirit, driving straight at his flesh. Yiluo Heavenly King's body was wounded, and at once he unleashed all his fighting strength, no longer restraining his flesh; layer upon layer of golden feathers burst from within him, and his body grew larger and larger!

He was of the demigod race, patriarch of the Golden-Winged Roc clan from the Yuan Realm, his whole body divine sinew and demonic bone; his muscles bulged hideously, thumping and leaping outward, his wings ever wider, their shadow ever broader!

As a Heavenly King charged with the Heavenly Court's martial function, he had lived through too many slaughters; in battle experience and in ability alike he far surpassed any Heavenly Master! Yet before his flesh could fully shed its human shape, one of the Bai Yuqiongs drove through his roc's skull, pinned his head down, and smashed him savagely onto the deck of the great ship!

The other four Bai Yuqiongs formed a formation; before Yiluo Heavenly King could rise, the formation erupted, and in a single instant he took he knew not how many blows; his flesh burst apart with a boom, blood and gore flying! Yiluo Heavenly King's primal spirit transformed into a Golden-Winged Roc, wings spread, bearing the lesser Heavenly Court of six heavenly palaces on its back, and flew off, crying shrilly: "Shenwu Guard!

Activate the Southern Heavenly Gate! Strike down the rebel Bai Yuqiong!

" The twenty thousand officers and men of the two Shenwu Guards roared in unison, their dharma power blooming, and set the Ancestral Southern Heavenly Gate in motion! Between the two mountain ranges of that Southern Heavenly Gate, the dao fire in an instant blazed to its utmost; the dao fire's flames swept the heavens, burning the waters of the Heavenly River to vapor, twisting and collapsing the starry sky of Yanming!

Tongues of fire licked the stars, licked the Heavenly River, and wherever they passed, all things became nothing! The five Bai Yuqiongs had no time to pursue Yiluo Heavenly King's primal spirit; they hurried to block the Southern Heavenly Gate!

She could evade the might of the Southern Heavenly Gate's dao fire, but the common folk of Southern Heaven aboard this ship could never evade it; she could not let the awakening of the people of Southern Heaven—bought with Senior Brother Meng Yungui's death—come to nothing! Her aura erupted utterly, her divine power meeting the Southern Heavenly Gate's dao might!

The raging dao fire came surging at her face, and the five Bai Yuqiongs blocked it before them; the dao fire, as though meeting an invisible wall, struck again and again, quaked again and again, trying to break through that wall.

Before the wall stood Bai Yuqiong's figure; behind Bai Yuqiong were all the living souls aboard the ship. The bodies of the five Bai Yuqiongs were scorched; her snow-white arms turned black as charcoal; suddenly one Bai Yuqiong became ash, swallowed by the dao fire; then a second Bai Yuqiong was consumed by the dao fire; then the third, the fourth!

Soon only a single Bai Yuqiong remained on the ship, her body shuddering, no longer able to hold on.

Yiluo Heavenly King's primal spirit cried shrilly: "Burn her to death for me!

Burn those maggots on the ship to death! " Beset by fury and humiliation, he summoned the other armies and ordered the tens of thousands of Heavenly Court gods and demons to join in driving the Ancestral Southern Heavenly Gate.

The Ancestral Southern Heavenly Gate is a gate of the Great Dao born of heaven and earth, holding within it the most sacred dao fire; even the twenty thousand experts of the two Shenwu Guards, at the Jade Capital, Lingxiao, and even Imperial Throne ranks, could not drive this gate's power to its utmost.

Now, with tens of thousands more gods and demons of every host added, the might of the Ancestral Southern Heavenly Gate rose sharply once more! Bai Yuqiong was pressed back and back, her body shuddering more and more; she had retreated to where the people of Southern Heaven stood on the ship, her foot already treading on the hem of Meng Yungui's corpse.

Bai Yuqiong wept aloud; one hand seized the Reincarnation Jade Pendant at her breast; her heart quivered, and she abruptly exerted her strength.

"I am Bai Yuqiong! " The dao fire of the Ancestral Southern Heavenly Gate swallowed her, and from the flames came her voice: "I am Bai Yuqiong of the human race—" The cry was clear and soaring, somewhat like the call of a phoenix, yet not quite the same.

Though the dao fire swallowed her, it could advance no further; Yiluo Heavenly King and countless Heavenly Court gods and demons saw that within the dao fire Bai Yuqiong's figure stood erect, still not burned to ash.

The woman bathed in the dao fire; from within her came an unbelievable heat, an unbelievable flame, joined to and mingling with the dao fire of the Ancestral Southern Heavenly Gate.

Within her, something seemed to awaken all at once, to be about to tear her shell apart, tear her flesh apart, grow out of her body, escape from it.

Then the gods of the Heavenly Court saw Bai Yuqiong's body begin to change: piece after piece of incomparably gorgeous feather drilled out from within her, beautiful beyond measure even in the Southern Heavenly Gate's dao fire. "It is a phoenix!

" a general cried aloud.

"It is no phoenix! A phoenix is flesh and blood!

" Yiluo Heavenly King, feeling the dread that a natural enemy brings, cried shrilly: "It is the Vermilion Bird—quick!

Recall the Southern Heavenly Gate!

The dao fire cannot harm her; it only strengthens her!

" At that very moment, all the gods and demons saw a Vermilion Bird of incomparable splendor soar up from within Bai Yuqiong in the dao fire, break free of the shackles of her flesh, and spread wings of peerless magnificence in the flames.

In that instant, all the Heavenly Court gods and demons controlling the Southern Heavenly Gate felt at once that they had lost their grip on it; the might of the dao fire in the Southern Heavenly Gate was greater than before, yet those who controlled this gate of the Great Dao were no longer them. "Retreat—" Yiluo Heavenly King roared, beat his wings, and rose, bearing his heavenly palaces away!

On a tower ship in the distance, Shang Pingyin, who had been raving mad all this while, suddenly came to his senses at the sight and cried shrilly: "You must not retreat! Form ranks at once and fight!

" But it was already too late. Yiluo Heavenly King's order became the death warrant of the Heavenly Court's army; had the Heavenly Court's gods and demons not retreated, but formed their ranks, they could still have withstood the might of the Ancestral Southern Heavenly Gate's dao fire.