Chapter 1769 — The Blood-Rust Battle
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 4
That road could be called a road dyed in blood. Fleeing and slaughtering their way onward, they came to the old battlefield where the Creators had been exterminated, the Bloodrust Belt, and there met with a sudden turn. Shu Jun, last God King of the surviving Creators, stood at the heart of the Bloodrust Belt, his breast full of sighs, for more than a million years before it was here that he had led the Creators in decisive battle against the ancient gods and demigods headed by Tai Chu, Heavenly Emperor of the ancient gods.
It was the grandest battle in all history, unmatched by any campaign in the million years after, until only the recent war for the Primal Realm surpassed the Bloodrust campaign in scale.
In that battle he, a primeval God King, was utterly routed. The race of Creators that had walked out of the Ancestral Court was buried clean away, not a shred remaining, so that even he, their God King, survived only as a wisp of consciousness hidden in a fragment of Tai Chu Origin Stone.
Later Wei Suifeng found him and hid the stone away, and by winding paths it passed into the hands of Shen Mu, whereby he won new life.
Of that campaign only the remnant that had hidden beforehand in the Grand Void survived, namely the branch of Langwan.
"In those days my errant command buried the age of the Creators, and the race of Creators all but perished by my hand. " Shu Jun passed altar after altar, those bloodstained altars that had once been the fount of civilization in this universe, for the Creators could never return to their glory of old and could only merge into the present age.
"Yet the Creators may still blaze splendid in this new age. " Shu Jun bowed low, and the Upper Consciousness of the Three Enclosures burst forth, his voice ringing like struck metal and brimming with surging passion: "For the Creators of posterity, O my compatriots, follow me, your once-defeated leader, and awaken once more to do battle with the Heavenly Court.
" The great host of the Court had entered the Bloodrust Belt, and within that vast interstellar ruin a rolling tide of divine consciousness suddenly erupted and swept the Belt.
A humming filled the air as the Upper Consciousness of the Three Enclosures kindled every altar in that long narrow waste, and above altar after altar the visions of ancient gods emerged, while Shu Jun charged foremost and the visions condensed from the lingering consciousness of the dead primeval Creators followed at his back to slay their way into the armies of the Court. The soldiers of the Court fought desperately and pressed forward, and at last, before the hosts of Jingping could arrive, they burst through the Bloodrust Belt, yet their dead and wounded lay heavy, and countless corpses of gods and demons were left behind.
The Bloodrust Belt dimmed, ancient altar after altar was shattered, and the ruins would never again behold their former splendor.
When Langwan found Shu Jun he was kneeling before the broken bones of the Creators.
Langwan stepped forward and gazed at the man who had buried an age, and after a moment said slowly: "God King, the guilt is not yours.
In that battle any man in your place would have lost. " She had once reproached Shu Jun, but after she learned the whole cause and consequence of the Bloodrust campaign, the hatred in her heart dissolved.
Shu Jun rose unsteadily to his feet and wiped the bloody tears from his face and shook his head: "I am no longer God King of the Creators.
I am now of humankind, and you are God King of the Creators. Of our race only a few hundred remain.
Shu Jun, our power to multiply is frail, and for the breeding of our race you must bear the burden.
You must find the mightiest of men and with his bloodline mend the blood of the Creators.