Chapter 1740 — Once More Treading the Road of the Old Garden
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
When the earth looses its killing intent, dragons and serpents rise from the land.
Among the Three Hosts of the Heavenly Court, the Earth Host was greater in scale even than the Water Host of the Heavenly River; it was only that the Water Host enjoyed the greatest renown of the three, and so eclipsed the Earth Host's brilliance. The gods and demons of the Earth Host came for the most part from the many heavens of the Heavenly Emperor's star-diadem, and among them were as many as eight commanding generals: Yaoguang, Kaiyang, Yuheng, Tianquan, Tianji, Tianxuan, Tianshu, and Beidou, who between them embodied the supreme authority of that star-diadem.
Of them all, the Great Emperor Beidou held the highest power; the divisions of Yaoguang, Kaiyang, and the rest all answered to his command, and he was honored as the Heavenly Lord. It was this Northern Dipper Heavenly Lord who now marshaled the seven divisions of the Earth Host to besiege the Grand Clarity Realm, striving to break inside and cut down Lan Yutian.
When the Grand Clarity Realm, topmost layer of the Sorrowless Land, erupted, the thirty-three heavens fused into a single body; heaven after heaven sloughed off its surface and collapsed, exposing the immense divine-metal structures within, and dreadful sword-lights shot upward from inside those thirty-three heavens, so that seen from afar the Sorrowless Land's thirty-three heavens were as one giant sword.
The Earth Host's armies, scattered through the many heavens within the Sorrowless Land, found themselves facing sword-light and sword-qi that flooded every heaven — a sword dao revived!
In that instant, one thought alone remained in every mind: flee for their lives! Yet there was no road of escape left to them; the thirty-three heavens had become a vast ocean of sword dao, and that sword dao was not merely the sword dao of Kaihuang Shen Ye — it was the spirit of an age, the tragic song of the Kaihuang era. When the light of the Sorrowless Land burned brightest and most sublime, that dazzling radiance lit the skies of the Yuan Realm and blotted out the suns the Xuandu host of gods and demons had dragged behind them.
The Northern Dipper Heavenly Lord stood at the entrance to the Grand Clarity Realm of the Sorrowless Land, watched this scene, and of a sudden wept tears like rain, murmuring, "There is no way out now. .
.
" Kaiyang, Yuheng, Tianquan, Tianshu, and the other emperors came rushing up to ring him round, and together they strove to break out beyond the heavens, crying sternly, "Heavenly Lord, if we do not go now, we never will! " The Northern Dipper Heavenly Lord was dazed and muddled; he looked down at the countless hosts of gods and demons of the Earth Host spread across the thirty-three heavens — but the Sorrowless Land had erupted, and millions upon millions of gods and demons were all buried in that vast ocean of sword dao.
Taihuang Heaven, Taiming Heaven, Qingming Heaven, Xuantai Heaven, Yuanming Heaven. .
. Heaven upon heaven had become a hell of sword dao!
Grim sword-qi turned those places into a slaughter ground where not even gods and demons could live. The Earth Host — the army that possessed the most gods and demons in all the Heavenly Court, the strongest force in ground battle — could scarcely hope to escape this calamity!
"There is no leaving now! " The Northern Dipper Heavenly Lord wept aloud: "None of our officers and soldiers can leave!
Nor can we.
.
.
" Before he had finished speaking, the whole of the Sorrowless Land's power burst forth, as though Kaihuang Shen Ye, that supreme sword-dao sovereign, had himself drawn his blade.
The great emperors of the Emperor Throne realm — Kaiyang, Yuheng, and the rest — disintegrated in the sword-light, split apart, shattered into countless fragments, and vanished into that radiance, leaving nothing whatsoever behind.