Chapter 1769 — The Blood-Rust Battle
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 1 of 4
The Heavenly Duke gazed at the corpse of the Ancestral God King, and a desolation beyond words rose in his heart. He had thought he would wail aloud and shed tears, yet his state of mind now stood too high, and he felt only that bleak chill.
He drew ever closer to the attainment of the Dao of which Tai Yi had spoken, but the ascent of his Dao realm had slowly stripped from him some of his most primal feelings.
His true body was still dissolving into starlight of the Heavenly Dao and streaming into his flesh, lifting his cultivation higher with every breath. He had cast off the shackles of the ancient god Heavenly Duke, but were the realm of the Heavenly Dao and the heart of Heaven not themselves another bondage?
When the peoples of the primeval age lifted their eyes to the starry sky, Heaven was born.
Thus the heart of Heaven is the heart of man, the heart of all living beings.
The Heavenly Duke had leapt outside the Heavenly Dao, yet he had gained the heart of Heaven, and that heart would hold him fast and bid him act according to its will.
Attainment was not so fair as he had imagined.
Nor was it so ill.
In word and deed he would never overstep the Heavenly Dao, nor would he be confined to the Heavenly Dao alone, for he could still comprehend other great Daos and exalt himself.
He sat in silence, contemplating in stillness, raising himself, striving to break through the last pass.
Elsewhere the armies of the Heavenly Court had already been driven from the Primal Realm, fleeing in rout with helmets cast aside and generals lost, and along the road the soldiers of the Court more than once sought to steady their ranks and raise a camp to face the pursuers of Jingping, but the pursuers of Jingping gave them no such chance. The troops sent to block the enemy, before they could even set their formations, were ambushed from Youdu by You Tianzun, whereupon the great host of Jingping swept down upon them, and what followed became a crushing war of encirclement.
At the same time the hosts of Jingping grew ever more numerous, for the Two Emperors of Chiming hastened to join them and reinforcements from the other heavens of the Primal Realm poured in, so that the allied multitude swelled day by day. And the armies the Court had dispatched to other heavens to plunder them met fierce resistance and bled through heaven after heaven before at last escaping back.
As they fled, heaven after heaven declared rebellion and rose against the tyranny of the Court.
Before the war Ling Yuxiu had raised spirit-energy transmigration bridges with the great heavens to link them in passage, and now the worth of those bridges stood revealed.
It was by those bridges that news of the defeats at Youdu and Xuandu swept so swiftly through all the worlds, and it was by those bridges that the lords of the heavens could reach the Primal Realm in so short a time to besiege the Court.
Emperor Haotian and the Empress launched several counterstrikes, seeking to wield the might of two who had attained the Dao to hunt and slay the high command of their foes, yet with the coming of Xu Shenghua, Yue Tianzun and the Xuanwu Two Emperors, Langwan and the rest, and with Yue Tingge who guarded the Western Lands leading the western host to seal their retreat and strike from behind, they were forced once more to withdraw in bitter hatred.
In Tianzun-level battle strength Jingping had now surpassed the Court, and with Tai Chu slain in battle and the Ancestral God King fallen in defeat, the cause of the Court could truly be called lost. The Court withdrew wholly from the Primal Realm and trekked through the starry sky toward the Ancestral Court, while along the way the great heavens raised their banners and marched forth from the stars to chastise the remnant.