Chapter 1494 — A Standoff Between Two Venerables
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
Then why should I not play the thief as well? " As though possessed, she slipped quietly toward the inner palace, heading straight for the altar where the Heavenly Duke had been born. "Once Taichu's eggshell is in my hand, I can simply say that the thief who stole Pixiang Hall took it too.
A treasure like this in my grasp is no less than the profits of Xuandu!
" She set off to steal the other half of Taichu's eggshell, but when she came to the altar of the Heavenly Duke's birth and looked, her hands and feet went cold all at once: that altar too was utterly empty! The other half of Taichu's eggshell had likewise vanished into thin air! "Who dares steal my treasure?
" Celestial Venerable Xu flew into a towering rage. In the Heavenly Court, someone kept transforming without cease: now a bird or a beast, now an insect or a fish; crouching by a wall he became a tender blade of grass, standing in a garden he became a flowering tree. Through a thousand transformations he made his way out of the Heavenly Court.
The Divine Constabulary activated the Soul-Summoning Mirror and shone it about, when suddenly the mirror tore free of control.
With a whoosh it floated up into the sky, its light blazing out over a vast range, and with a hum it wrapped all of Jade Capital City in its radiance!
Bristling with killing intent, Celestial Venerable Xu stood above the Soul-Summoning Mirror, watching its surface, surveying the scenes within Jade Capital City. Anyone who was using a transformation art, once caught in that mirror light, burst with a bang back into his original form! Many of the gods and devils in the Heavenly Court were alien beings who had become gods; demon cultivators and devil cultivators were thick there, and since their true looks were savage, they usually transformed themselves into something more comely.
Now, under the mirror's glare, they revealed their true bodies one after another, and Jade Capital City was truly overrun with monsters and fiends! And in the Heavenly Duke's inner palace there were no few beautiful consorts and palace maids; some were bathing, and some, lonely in the spring palace, were secretly meeting gods in licentious trysts. Caught in the mirror light, they too were thrown at once into a flurry of chaos and confusion. Cold sweat broke out on Celestial Venerable Xu's brow.
The Heavenly Court was ordinarily sacred and majestic beyond measure, but with one sweep of her mirror every shadow in it had come crawling out, beyond any hope of setting right. The chaos here was too great; even she could not, for a time, pick out which one was the thief who had stolen the Heavenly Duke's eggshell and Pixiang Hall.
And at that very moment, a youth had already leaped into the Heavenly River and transformed into a giant kun, sinking into the water at his ease and swimming out of the Heavenly Court. When he came to the Southern Heavenly Gate, the great kun gave a leap and vaulted clean over it; the divinities guarding the gate looked up and saw it, and all cried out in admiration.
The great kun plunged back into the Heavenly River with an enormous splash, and as it sank beneath the water it became a fish-dragon and slipped away unseen. How far it swam, who can say; the fish-dragon became a giant crab of the Heavenly River and scuttled sideways along, then climbed the bank. The giant crab shook the water from its shell and became a youth, who let out a long breath, took out a divine hall and looked it over, joy rising on his face, then hurriedly tucked it back into the Taotie Pouch and pressed on in haste. The youth was swift beyond measure, skimming like light over water, racing far from the Heavenly Court, meaning to follow the Heavenly River upstream toward the Heavenly Sea.