Chapter 1287 — The Eighteen-Layered Heavenly Gate
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
Lü Zheng fled at breakneck speed with the Woodcutter Sage and Yan Yunxi clamped beneath his arms, while the Black Tiger God had turned into a black cat and crouched upon his shoulder; behind them came Niu Sanduo, bearing the Heavenly Master Wudou on his back — and the Heavenly Master Wudou, who had traded two blows head-on with Heavenly Venerable Hao, was gravely hurt. Not far off, Heavenly Lord Xi staggered along, half his body still flesh and blood, half scoured down to bare bone.
Qi Xiayu's body was a ruin, her heavenly palaces all but destroyed, and in her chest stood a peach branch, already putting out roots and shoots, its thick roots piercing through her heavenly palaces and creeping from one to the next.
Xiu Zhong and the Silkworm Maiden were in a sorrier state still: one had lost his body, the other her head, and they could only run on merged into a single form. And there in the sky the Heavenly Court's third Heavenly Master, Bai Yuqiong, was likewise drawing away, spitting blood as she went.
The mantis stalks the cicada, the oriole lurks behind — Bai Yuqiong, strongest in battle of the four great Heavenly Masters, had hidden herself at the very rear, and with a spatial formation had nearly flayed Heavenly Venerable Hao alive, and with Heavenly Venerable Yue's zither strings had cut the head from his shoulders; a truly appalling tally of carnage.
Yet her own wounds were among the heaviest of them all: in his towering rage, Heavenly Venerable Hao had come near to smashing her to pieces.
The whole company fled like madmen. Having taken such a loss, Heavenly Venerable Hao would surely hunt them down to the last soul and never suffer a single one of them to escape. Yet to their astonishment, he did not give chase.
"Heavenly Venerable Hao must be too gravely wounded to hold his own injuries in check!
Follow me back and kill him! " the Woodcutter Sage cried out loudly.
No one paid him the least heed.
The Woodcutter Sage struggled a while, unable to wriggle free from beneath Lü Zheng's arm, and at last burst out in fury, "Donkey, put me down!
" This time Lü Zheng did not jeer at him as he once would have, but only kept running, head down.
The Black Tiger God could not help saying, "Master, look at who is left standing.
Apart from you, who here can still fight? " The Woodcutter Sage was struck dumb.
He looked at the others: Heavenly Lord Xi shed flesh and blood with every stride he fled; Qi Xiayu lurched and stumbled, liable to drop dead at any moment. The Silkworm Maiden and Xiu Zhong were worse off still, the Dao-wounds Heavenly Venerable Hao had left in their bodies running riot, wantonly wrecking their spirit-sense and their flesh alike.
Within Yan Yunxi every bone and every organ had been shattered; now only a single breath held her in life, and should that breath fail, the woman was gone, jade fallen and incense scattered.
The Heavenly Master Wudou had taken two of Heavenly Venerable Hao's heavy blows head-on; though he now looked the least wounded of them all, his injuries were in truth the gravest, and he had only a single severed arm left — of his whole martial prowess, nothing remained but his legs. As for the donkey Lü Zheng, the old ox Niu Sanduo, and the Black Tiger God, Heavenly Venerable Hao's silkworm silk had drained every scrap of cultivation from them, so that they could no longer even ride the clouds and mists, and must sprint on the strength of their mortal flesh alone.
In this battle they had gone up against a Heavenly Venerable Hao who was already an arrow at the end of its flight, and there had been no fewer than seven Emperor Throne-level beings among them — and this was the outcome all the same! It should never have come to this.