Chapter 1730 — Ten Steps to Slay a God

"Time is short. Drink no more."

Empty wine jars were piled around Cloud Heavenly Venerable and Shen Mu. Only one jar remained untouched. Cloud Heavenly Venerable laughed. "Beings like you and me can hardly get drunk anymore. You need to go and block the Palace Master of the Lingguan Hall. After all, he has split himself into thirty. Killing him will not be easy. Let this jar of victory wine stay here. Whoever returns first, you or I, drinks this jar of celebration wine!"

"Agreed!"

Shen Mu also knew there was no time to waste. He rose to his full height and said with a laugh, "This jar of wine shall be the victory wine. Whoever returns here first earns the right to drink it!"

He turned and departed.

In the brief instant of his turning, Cloud Heavenly Venerable sensed a faint, barely perceptible presence enter his shadow. It was Lord Shang, leaving Shen Mu's shadow to lurk within his own. In ordinary times it would be nearly impossible to detect, but Lord Shang deliberately emitted a subtle fluctuation to signal his arrival.

Cloud Heavenly Venerable gazed down at the battlefields below. The theaters of war surrounding the Land of No Sorrow stretched vast and magnificent. Jingping's reinforcements and supplies poured ceaselessly through the传送 gates to this place. The sovereigns of the Land of No Sorrow who commanded the Thirty-Three Heavens had all led their troops onto the battlefield. Of the Four Great Heavenly Masters, only the Woodcutter remained to oversee the whole situation, unleashing his wisdom to its fullest in directing the battle!

Because Moon Heavenly Venerable, Cloud Heavenly Venerable, Shen Mu, and others held the Land of No Sorrow, even the Martial Heavenly Master led the warriors of the Dou Niu Heavens charging into battle, rather than staying to protect the Woodcutter Wen Tiange.

Cloud Heavenly Venerable's eyes flickered. The Palace Master of the Lingguan Hall's first battle, and the most perilous one, would be the Land of No Sorrow!

The Land of No Sorrow was nearest, so it would inevitably be the first battlefield he reached, to hunt down the Four Great Heavenly Kings of the Land of No Sorrow: the Founding Emperor Yi Yue, the Elder of Qinghuang, Emperor Shitian, and the Underworld King Tian Shu!

Beyond them, he would also hunt the Four Great Heavenly Masters on the Land of No Sorrow battlefield: Wen Tiange, Yan Yunxi, Zhuo Cha, and Han Tang!

With the Land of No Sorrow in chaos and leaderless, even with Jingping's heavy weapons and countless gods and demons, without anyone to coordinate them, defeat and annihilation would be unavoidable.

The second place the Palace Master of the Lingguan Hall's ancient god avatars would reach was the South Sea battlefield. There, the Southern Emperor Vermilion Bird, the Two Emperors of Chi and Ming, the First Ancestor Human Sovereign, and the Red Emperor Qi Xiayu awaited.

Then came the Tianyin Realm, to hunt the Tianyin Niangniang!

The Heavenly Lord and the Earth Lord, who resided behind Taihuang Heaven in the heartland of Jingping, were the fourth place he would go.

Youdu, where the Little Earth Lord Shen Fengqing dwelled, was the fifth place he would go!

Then the Two Emperors of the Black Tortoise, who had just descended upon the Kan Region of the Northern Frontier, and Wei Suifeng, who commanded the overall situation there.

The next targets would be the Dao Ancestor of the Daoist sect, and the Great Brahma Heavenly King of the Buddhist sect!

Nearest to the Daoist sect was Emperor Yanfeng in the Jingping capital, along with the Earth Virtue Primordial Lady Gongsun Yan; then Jiang Baigui of the Eastern Sea, and the Eastern Emperor Azure Dragon, who had just been reborn.

After the Eastern Sea, the Palace Master of the Lingguan Hall would arrive at the Western Lands, where the Western Emperor White Tiger had descended. Eliminating the Western Emperor and the Heavenly Master Yue Tingge was his aim!

After that would come the Lord of the Beast Realm, the Dragon Qilin, and finally the Void-Born Flower beneath the World Tree of the Ancestral Court!

What Shen Mu had to do was reach all these places in the shortest possible time and slay the Palace Master of the Lingguan Hall's ancient god avatars!

The Palace Master of the Lingguan Hall was a being who had achieved the Dao across four lifetimes: three lifetimes of Dao Fruit, one lifetime of Dao Flower. He cultivated both the Dao Realm system of the Miluo Palace and the system of achieving the Dao through force, attaining the Dao through four great paths.

His physical body was divided into thirty parts, transforming into thirty of the most powerful ancient gods, each comparable in strength to a top-tier Heavenly Venerable!

The techniques he had cultivated were surely beyond counting; the great paths he had walked were multifarious. The Dao arts and divine powers mastered by his thirty ancient god avatars would surely not repeat one another!

Neither Cloud Heavenly Venerable nor Lord Shang could hope to discern, in the shortest possible time, the great paths and divine powers each avatar commanded, and slay them.

The fastest being in this world was the ancient god Southern Emperor Vermilion Bird, who held the Ancestral Ground of Dao Fire. But the Southern Emperor was no longer an ancient god, and the Ancestral Ground of Dao Fire had fallen into Jingping's grasp.

Moon Heavenly Venerable's Ultimate Void was not speed itself, but the folding of space, giving the illusion of supreme velocity.

Third in speed was the Lame Elder, whose speed had reached the point of ignoring space altogether.

Then came teleportation divine powers, and the spiritual energy resonance between different worlds.

And Shen Mu was the only being who combined the strengths of several schools—even the spiritual energy resonance had been pioneered by him and the Black Tiger God in his youth.

Therefore he was the only one who might possibly intercept and slay the Palace Master of the Lingguan Hall's thirty ancient god avatars. Even so, there was still a great chance the rescue would fail.

Cloud Heavenly Venerable looked toward the battlefields surrounding the Land of No Sorrow. Across those fields, there were several brief, urgent, and incomparably fierce fluctuations of divine power—eight in total!

Eight brief fluctuations of divine power might not stand out across the vast, boundless battlefield, but the shock they delivered to a Heavenly Venerable was unparalleled. Even those at the Emperor Throne level could not sense how terrifying the power hidden within those eight brief fluctuations was—but to a Heavenly Venerable, it was utterly horrifying!

Moon Heavenly Venerable, Lang Wan, You Heavenly Venerable, Taishi, and Lan Yutian all felt their hearts tremble. They roused themselves and peered into the battlefield. At the same moment, on the Heavenly Court's side, the two Taiji Ancient Gods, the Ancestral God King, Void Heavenly Venerable, Lady Yuanmu, and even Emperor Hao and Taichu could not help but change expression, all gazing toward the battlefield.

Emperor Hao even directly transformed into a woman, taken over by the Second Young Master, gazing from afar at the situation on the battlefield.

The eight divine power fluctuations came from different directions, belonging to seven war zones plus Taihuang Heaven, where Wen Tiange oversaw the overall battle. The intervals between the eight were very short—only a single breath's span!

Eight locations, eight breaths, and then the dust settled!

Cloud Heavenly Venerable gazed toward those eight locations from afar. Eight ancient gods of exceedingly strange appearance lay dead across the battlefield. The one before Wen Tiange had not yet fallen—its corpse was tilting, about to hit the ground.