Chapter 1700 — The Youth Honing His Blade

When Shang Pingyin saw Hermit Longshan again, his Dao heart nearly crumbled on the spot.

He still remembered that battle at the Xuanwu Heavenly Palace on the Northern Celestial River all those years ago.

It was the greatest rout of his life!

He had led the Celestial River Navy, the Shenwu Second Guards, and Beiluo Shimen, yet Hermit Longshan had smashed them with the formations of the Glazed Azure Heaven Banner until they broke and scattered, and the slaughter was so grievous that the four great hosts were all but erased from the Celestial Court, leaving him prostrate and spiritless for hundreds of thousands of years! His palms trembled faintly.

Seen today, Hermit Longshan's formations of that year still looked crude, and after six hundred thousand years of advance in formations and arcane mathematics, Shang Pingyin could now unravel those old formations with ease. But could Hermit Longshan have made no progress?

For a heaven-defying genius of that order, what terror must six hundred thousand years of progress hold?

Meng Yungui lifted his head to gaze at Long Qilin standing atop the Twenty-Eight Heavens, his heart full of reverence and awe.

Who was the first Celestial Master of the Court had never been settled.

Some said Shang Pingyin, evergreen through the ages, was the first Celestial Master of the Court, others said Yue Tingge's brilliance far surpassed Shang Pingyin, and still others said Meng Yungui had surpassed his forebears. But as to the first Celestial Master under heaven, there was no such dispute.

There was only one man, the one who had shaken the world in the Longhan Era and then vanished without a trace, Hermit Longshan!

Hermit Longshan could be called the god in the heart of every Celestial Master in history!

That name meant invincibility!

Prince Youming felt uneasy instead, for the trick behind that battle, which Shang Pingyin and Meng Yungui did not know, he knew all too well.

Back then it was Shen Mu who had borrowed Long Qilin to face Shang Pingyin, beating Shang Pingyin together with the Shenwu Second Guards, the Celestial River Navy, and Beiluo Shimen into utter defeat, and forging Long Qilin's peerless renown!

And now the one who had come was only that flippant and hollow fellow Long Qilin himself. Could Long Qilin truly defeat Shang Pingyin and preserve his myth of invincibility?

He had no confidence at all.

Long Qilin himself had little confidence either.

Though he had toiled over arcane mathematics and the way of formations these years until his attainment ran deep, far beyond what it had been, to match wits against a battle-hardened Celestial Master like Shang Pingyin still left him nervous.

"I must not shame myself! " Long Qilin silently cheered himself on: "These years I have studied the way of formations, and though I cannot match the Sect Master, Jingping's formations outstrip these bumpkins of the Court by I know not how much!

More crucial still, the Glazed Azure Heaven Banner has been recast by Blind Master and Mute Artisan, surpassing its past self beyond measure!

This battle, I can win! " With a stir of thought, he set the Glazed Azure Heaven Banner in motion! The soldiers of the Yuhua Camp within the banner at once felt the shifting of the formations through the Twenty-Eight Heavens, lifted and carried by the formations beyond their own control, their mana spilling outward to join seat after seat of formations, changing as the formations changed!

At the same time, they felt themselves joined to mighty treasures, wielding vast power, and could not help but startle with delight!

Yet Meng Yungui, standing likewise within the Twenty-Eight Heavens, hesitated, for what the soldiers of the Yuhua Camp could not see, he could see clearly, that Hermit Longshan's shifting of the formations held a certain stiffness. "Hermit Longshan has not appeared for hundreds of thousands of years, and must be a little rusty.

" A thought moved in Meng Yungui's heart: "I will first help him grow familiar with the shifting of the formations, and he will surely regain his fluency.

" His divine sense rippled, turning to a voice that rang in Long Qilin's mind, guiding him in how to shift the formations. Urged by Long Qilin, the Glazed Azure Heaven Banner swept toward the Shenwu Second Guards, and with Meng Yungui's guidance he gradually relaxed, the formations turning ever more smoothly.

The great host of the Court had pressed upon Yuan World, its first vanguard already entering Yuan World to probe, seeking the weak points in Yuan World's defenses.

Yuan World stretched vast, ringed by countless worlds without number, for in those years Yuan World had held three courts, Longhan, Xiaohan, and Longxiao, and set against Yuan World the Court's armies were but a drop in the sea.

Nor could Jingping and Wuyou Township guard every point, so to strike at the weak point was the most economical path.

The divine and demonic vanguard that charged into Yuan World galloped unchecked, burning, killing, and plundering, for Jingping had never seized the whole of Yuan World, and within Yuan World there remained divine kingdoms great and small, and these kingdoms were not Jingping's lands, some even his enemies, and they surrendered to the Court's vanguard at once.

Some were Jingping's vassals, resisting with all their might even as they begged Jingping for aid, while many small states surrendered at the rumor of approach without any resistance at all.

Before the Court's main force had even come to Yuan World, a third of Yuan World's lands had already fallen into the Court's hands. When the Court's main host appeared above Yuan World, the world barrier of Yuan World was crushed outright, like an egg stripped of its shell, laid bare before the Court's armies.

Palace after resplendent palace drifted in the sky, countless gods and demons standing upon the clouds, the gods and demons of the Court venting to their hearts' content the tempers gathered over a dozen years of marching, Lord Thunder and Mother Lightning hurling thunder and lightning crackling down from the heavens to blast the land below into scorched earth.

The Court's armies marched into kingdom after kingdom, and those kingdoms suffered at once, for after the long march these gods and demons had bellies full of sullen anger with nowhere to vent it, and in Yuan World they had found their outlet at last, and naturally lorded it over all, with no lack of burning, killing, plundering, and seizing men and women. Some officers even led their hosts in sack, wiping out cities and beheading the residents of these kingdoms to count their heads as battle merit.

Worse still were those who looted the treasuries of Yuan World's kingdoms, even entering the emperors' harems, slaying the emperors, and sporting in the harems day and night.

The chief commanders of the Court's routes all turned a blind eye, for in this campaign against Yuan World the soldiers needed to vent, lest trouble breed, and so they let them run wild.

After a dozen days Emperor Haotian issued a decree, commanding: "Tell them not to carry the revels too far. " The commanders of the routes received the decree and ordered the troops整顿ed, and only then did they grow somewhat more orderly.

After this sack, the marquises of the routes had all scraped together immense wealth, with baggage, grain, and slaves to hand, and all rejoiced, only the kingdoms that had surrendered to the Court were left a wasteland, their states ruined and their houses broken. After resting several days, Emperor Haotian decreed: "Black Emperor of the Northern Heaven, lead the forty marquis hosts of the Northern Heaven, and advance from the Kan Lands in the north of Yuan World.