Chapter 1760 — Counterattack on the Heavenly Palace
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
At Lanfeng Valley, the first reinforcements to arrive were, unexpectedly, the Silent Artisan and a host of Jingping's heavenly craftsmen; scarce had they come before they threw themselves into their work, and by the next day teleportation portal after teleportation portal stood erected. The second batch to arrive were Dao Lord Lin Xuan, the Dao Ancestor, and other masters of the esoteric arts from the Daoist sects; no sooner had they arrived than they adjusted the numerology of every portal, linking each to the portals of Jingping's other divine cities.
The many alchemists who stepped out of those portals made up the third wave of reinforcements, and these, once arrived, at once drew out their own pill furnaces and refined the elixirs needed to sustain the portals. When all this was done, the portals of Lanfeng Valley were joined to Jingping's many divine cities, and the armies of gods and demons of every great city began to march through them in perfect order.
A teleportation portal is a treasure devised from the teleportation divine art; to transmit across such vast distances by that art drains mana to a fearful degree, a drain even Shen Mu could not withstand when he assassinated the avatar of the Spirit Official. The portals, by contrast, consumed elixirs.
Moving troops on Jingping's scale devoured an immense quantity of them, and so portals were seldom used to convey armies, unless the situation was desperate. Now was the most desperate hour of all!
When Heavenly Venerable Yue and God King Langwan rushed back, the Woodcutter Wen Tiange knew that Jiang Baigui had already reached the Xuandu battlefield; only so did those two have the chance to come. "Wuyou Township!
March out!
" The gates of the divine cities of Lanfeng Valley opened one after another; the surviving officers and men of Wuyou Township went forth to war. Di Yiyue, the Azure Emperor, Indra, Tian Shu, Yan Yunxi, Zhuo Cha, the Fisherman, and the veteran generals who had survived out of the Kaihuang Heavenly Court each led their armies out of Lanfeng Valley and on toward the Heavenly Court's main camp.
A host of heavenly deities and mighty warriors heaved Shen Mu's coffin onto their shoulders and bore it at the very front.
Ling Yuxiu and the officers and soldiers of every army of Jingping stood upon the city towers, watching the army of Wuyou Township leave Lanfeng Valley behind. The army of Wuyou Township was the vanguard, and a vanguard is a keen blade, made to tear the enemy open; if it cannot tear the enemy open, then the keen blade is snapped in two!
On this march the army of Wuyou Township would face a hard fight such as none had known before, and how many of those riding out today would live to come back was a number no one could tell.
Ever since the Heavenly Court's invasion began, Jingping and Wuyou Township alike had stood on the defensive: the Heavenly Court came to attack, and Jingping and Wuyou Township stayed to hold. Now, for the first time, they struck first; one could well imagine how terrible the Heavenly Court's fury and its counterblow would be! Yet if this battle was to be won, that keen blade, Wuyou Township, had to thrust deep and pierce the hide of the Heavenly Court's seeming invincibility!
"Li Youran!
" The Crimson Emperor Qi Xiayu went out from the city alone, halted Indra, and said, "You are Li Youran!
" Indra shook his head: "Benefactor, do not cling to name and form. I am a wrathful Buddha; the Buddha is the Tathagata, who regards all living beings as equal, without form and without name.
" He led his army away. The Crimson Emperor Qi Xiayu urged her phoenix ship into flight, stood upon its deck, and asked down at him: "Have you forgotten the past?
" Indra raised his head and gazed long at her lovely face.
"Benefactor, you still have the Phoenix Clan; there is no need to cling to the feelings of one heart.