Chapter 1476 — What Lies Beneath the Feet of Heaven
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 3
The Heavenly Duke and the Heavenly Dao were not omnipotent, nor did they permeate every crevice. In this world there were places the radiance of Xuandu could not reach, and places the Heavenly Dao could not touch.
The place the Heavenly Duke could not illuminate was beneath his own feet.
Within Xuandu he was a four-faced god, much like Shen Mu's sphere of divine treasury; no matter from which direction one attacked him, one was only ever striking his front.
To attack him was to attack the Heavenly Dao, and one would suffer the Heavenly Duke's most ferocious retaliation!
Xuandu was the Heavenly Duke's birthplace, and there his strength would rise to its absolute peak; his power was in no way inferior to that of the Heavenly Emperor Taichu in the days of his zenith!
Even a Heavenly Venerable, facing such an onslaught, could not be certain of escaping injury, or even death.
Yet the Heavenly Duke could not illuminate the soles of his feet. Xuandu was the brightest of places, and the Heavenly Duke the most radiant of the ancient gods, but it was precisely for this reason that the darkest place in the world had come into being.
That place was the Tianyin Realm beneath his feet.
The Heavenly Dao likewise could not reach here, so that it had become a gathering ground for the black sand of souls. Here the Heavenly Dao did not exist, and the black sand of souls gathered and became corpse-ghosts that devoured all things, never to be sated.
The great Dao of Youdu could not reach here either. Tubo governed the wandering souls of the world, but before the black sand of souls even Tubo was powerless.
Lady Tianyin was the divinity born of this place.
Lady Tianyin looked upon the countless living beings she had awakened with her Dao in the Tianyin Realm, then looked again at the Ancestral Divine King. Her strength was simply not enough to contend with him.
To force a war with the Ancestral Divine King for the Heavenly Duke's sake would only see her slain by him, and even the living beings of the Tianyin Realm would be wiped out entirely!
Though she had walked out her own path and was no longer the simple, ignorant ancient god of old, yet, as Shen Mu had said, her Dao and divine arts were for creating life, not for killing, not for battle.
After a moment, Lady Tianyin drew back, guarding the living beings of the Tianyin Realm, and said, "When you make your move, Divine King, do not harm the innocent."
The Ancestral Divine King smiled faintly and took out the treasures of the Heavenly Dao he had forged from the divine metals and divine materials of the Ancestral Court, assembling them into a supreme treasure of the Heavenly Dao. "Rest assured, my lady," he said. "Heaven has a virtue for cherishing life, and I am not a cruel, bloodthirsty man. I will not let the life of your Tianyin Realm be utterly extinguished. However, when my divine arts erupt, I cannot guarantee they will not affect the Tianyin Realm. You need only do your utmost to protect them. And if the living beings of the Tianyin Realm truly do perish, then you may simply create another world and evolve all living things anew."
Lady Tianyin raised her brows, but suppressed her anger and did not turn on him.
The Ancestral Divine King lifted his head and gazed at the soles of the Heavenly Duke's feet. "No one knows a father like his son," he said with a smile. "The Heavenly Duke is my father, my greatest father-god. But he is too bright and too sublime; he believes good and evil are simply the ways by which this world operates, and need no interference. He will not think of the demigods, nor will he think of his own sons and daughters. The life and death of his children, the glory of his children — none of it has anything to do with him. And yet he is far too hypocritical."