Chapter 1726 — The Sage King of Jiangguo
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 5
Jiang Baigui said in a low voice: "Encircle but do not annihilate. Draw the armies of the Eastern Heaven out of their passes to the rescue.
" The Cyan Emperor's heart went cold.
Encircle but do not annihilate: this was to draw out all sixty of his Eastern Heaven's army marquises, to throw the Eastern Heaven's camps and formations into disorder, to crush the morale of the Eastern Heaven's armies. Whichever army marched out of the pass to his rescue would surely plunge headlong into the trap Jiang Baigui had laid, and would face a battle of annihilation, to be wiped out at a single stroke by Jiang Baigui's Jingping troops, who waited at their ease for the weary.
And he himself would become the bait by which Jiang Baigui would annihilate the Eastern Heaven's millions of gods and demons.
"Marquises of the Eastern Heaven, hold fast to your camps. You must not come to my rescue! " He strove to the utmost to break the encirclement, yet the wounds upon his body only multiplied.
He knew Jiang Baigui meant it so: to trade the life of him, the commanding general, for the chance to break the Eastern Heaven's armies.
Yet he could not escape.
"Imperial Preceptor of Jingping, I am dying. " The Eastern Emperor Azure Dragon was carried over by many soldiers.
From his battle with the Cyan Emperor he was spent, lamp and oil both exhausted, on the verge of his soul scattering, and he said in a thread of a voice: "I have won merit, have I not? Will Heavenly Venerable Mu revive me.
.
.
?
" His eyes were full of hope. Jiang Baigui shook his head: "Eastern Emperor, you may not die yet.
Send for the Medicine King!
" A middle-aged pill master came with several young pill masters, examined the Eastern Emperor's wounds, and said: "So long as a breath remains in him, he can be saved.
Bring that horse here. " Soldiers led over the dragon horse; it had not, after all, died in the battle between the Eastern Emperor and the Cyan Emperor, but had fled away together with the dragon the Cyan Emperor rode.
In that battle both men had been red-eyed with slaughter; in close combat, who had leisure to think of his mount?
The beasts had escaped instead.
The pill master reached out a hand and with a light twist drew from the dragon horse that thread of dragon qi belonging to the Eastern Emperor Azure Dragon. Robbed of its dragon qi, the horse at once became a jujube-red old nag again, all bones and hide, fouling itself as it went.
The pill master sent that thread of dragon qi into the Eastern Emperor Azure Dragon's body, easing his wounds somewhat, and several pill masters came forward and swiftly treated him. The Eastern Emperor would not die, but his wounds were truly too grave, and but little of his cultivation remained; the pill masters of the Jingping army dosed him too fiercely, so that he hurt until he wished for death, and he rasped: "You might as well let me die, and revive me; that would be the quicker mercy!
" "The number of those in this world who command the art of resurrection may be counted on one hand. I am one of them, yet I have not the strength of cultivation to revive Your Excellency.
Reviving you would take too long, and I have not so much time to spend on the Eastern Emperor. This body of yours was forged by Jingping's greatest heavenly craftsmen, and the Eastern Emperor divine artifact is one of a kind; neither may be squandered.
I still have need of you. You have a great use, and can break the Eastern Heaven utterly.
So you must not die, whatever the cost. " The army's pill masters tended him without cease, and the Eastern Emperor felt the hurts upon his very soul mending; but it hurt so much that he clenched his shattered teeth and endured in silence. His gaze fell upon the face of that middle-aged pill master, and he started slightly: the man was uncommonly handsome, a hero among heroes, of a countenance without peer.
Yet it was this very man whose fierce dosing made life worse than death. "And you are?