Chapter 1718 — The Dream-Chasing Youth, Part One

She saw those gods and demons descend upon the human gatherings throughout Yanming Heaven, each displaying its powers, their majestic dharma-forms of god and demon cowing the humans of those settlements.

At a single word from those gods and demons, the people of every village and city over forty years of age walked out of their own accord, formed up in ranks, came to the village mouth or the city gate, and boarded the ships moored there.

Ships great and small — divine boats, divine barques, divine warships — lifted off and flew toward the giant tower-ships suspended in the sky. Those vessels carried the people up to the tower-ships, then scattered again in every direction, going on to gather humans elsewhere.

Bai Yuqiong, alarmed and uncertain, said: "Heavenly King Yiluo, what is this..."

"The Heavenly Court's countless gods and demons are attacking the Land of No Sorrow and Jingping; the soldiers cannot go hungry."

Heavenly King Yiluo said: "His Majesty says the Southern Heaven is the Heavenly Court's granary; when the grain ripens, it must be harvested."

Bai Yuqiong was seized with a chill, and stared dumbly at those giant tower-ships hovering in the sky over Yanming Heaven, while vessels great and small sailed in and out without cease, bearing shipload after shipload of the Southern Heaven's able-bodied and its elders.

Already some tower-ships were full of slaves and had begun to sail, heading for the Heavenly River.

"His Majesty sent me here chiefly not to rid him of the rebel Meng Yungui, but to hold the Heavenly Court's granary. Of course, to rid him of that traitor Meng Yungui would also be a great merit!"

Heavenly King Yiluo laughed: "And more to the point, Meng Yungui cares for the lives of these baseborn wretches; it was for the sake of these Southern Heaven wretches that he rebelled. Meng Yungui hides himself and flees hither and thither; it is hard for me to catch him. But if I seize these wretches, then Meng Yungui has no choice but to come and take the ships! He knows full well it is a trap, and still he must thrust himself into it."

He suddenly burst out laughing: "Heavenly Preceptor Bai, tell me, which of us is the Heavenly Preceptor — you or I? Since we entered the Southern Heaven, it is I who have been devising all the stratagems, while you, a Heavenly Preceptor of such fearsome renown, have not offered one single plan!"

Bai Yuqiong made haste to bow: "Heavenly King Yiluo is matchless in arms, and surpassing in wit besides; Bai would not presume to display his clumsiness."

Yiluo laughed heartily and shook his head: "You and Meng Yungui are on excellent terms; I see you would rather your friend did not die by your hand. Heavenly Preceptor Bai, you should know that you are of more use alive than dead; at the very least you can shelter the people of the heavens under your name. Meng Yungui failed to see this, and his Feather Ascension Heaven will one day be purged!"

Bai Yuqiong shuddered and said no more.

Heavenly King Yiluo's face turned cold, and he gave the order: "Pass my command down. The Heavenly Court's soldiers fight bitterly at the front, staking their lives; they deserve their pleasures! The livestock of Yanming Heaven, of whatever age, shall all be driven onto the ships and sent to the Origin World!"

Bai Yuqiong's body trembled.

Heavenly King Yiluo glanced at her. Bai Yuqiong did not move.

The order was passed, and the Heavenly Court's soldiers went at once to carry it out. The people in the villages and cities had had no wish to resist, and had not dared; but now that whole villages, tribes, and cities were to become the rations of gods and demons, they remembered at last to resist.

Bai Yuqiong looked down. Village after village, the people were put down by the gods and demons.

In the villages, in the cities, the crying rose to heaven; women and children clung to one another; the young tried to fight to the death to protect their wives and children, but it availed them nothing.

In that moment they overcame the servility in their hearts, but they had no strength to resist.

Bai Yuqiong strove hard to steady her mind as she watched scene after scene unfold. She felt that she, in this moment, was like the numbed people of the Southern Heaven: no blood in her, nothing left but servility.

Now the people of Yanming Heaven had overcome the servility in their hearts, had overcome the enslaving education of Heavenly Venerable Fire; yet the servility in her own heart she could not overcome.

She strove to persuade herself that she still had human heavens under her command, and that to rebel against the Heavenly Court for the sake of the Southern Heaven's slaves would cost those people their lives.

That she was only enduring in silence, only bending to preserve what she could; that it was not that a kneeling self was hidden in her heart — that she had always stood upright, and had never knelt.

Yet her conscience told her that she had always been kneeling, and had never once stood.

Suddenly, from the distant Heavenly River came waves of dreadful palpitation. Meng Yungui, leading more than a hundred officers and men of the Feather Ascension Camp, had stormed the Heavenly Court's supply ships, slaying the Heavenly Court's soldiers aboard the tower-ships!

Heavenly King Yiluo's eyes lit up; with a swish his twin wings unfolded behind him, and he laughed aloud: "Heavenly Preceptor Meng has walked into my jar!"

He shrieked and flew there; and at that same moment, from tower-ship after Heavenly Court tower-ship, countless Heavenly Court gods and demons flew out of the holds and hurled themselves madly at the tower-ship where Meng Yungui stood!

Heavenly King Yiluo had long since laid an ambush. These Heavenly Court gods and demons were picked fierce generals, of profound cultivation, drawn up in strict formations, and they were many!

At the very front charged twenty thousand of the Divine Martial Guard!

The Second Divine Martial Guard had been smashed by Long Qilin, Meng Yungui, and the rest, and only a little over twenty thousand remained; discounting the sick and maimed, some twenty thousand still.

Yiluo commanded troops and was skilled at integration; he formed these twenty thousand into a single battle array, taking the Heavenly Court's Vast Heaven Diagram as its diagram.

The breath of these twenty thousand Divine Martial Guards was joined, their mana joined, their momentum joined; they stirred the Vast Heaven Diagram, and lo, palace after heavenly palace rose up out of the diagram, and the palaces formed a small Heavenly Court!

Within that small Heavenly Court, the primal spirits of the twenty thousand Divine Martial Guard officers and men merged and became one primal spirit towering to the very heaven, in the likeness of Divine Emperor Langxuan, raising a hand and pointing one finger!

Divine Essence Finger!

The power of that blow could not match a true Heavenly Venerable, and fell far short of Divine Emperor Langxuan; yet the power of that blow was also inconceivably great!

Had the Second Divine Martial Guard not been so grievously mauled, that blow would have carried the power of a Heavenly Venerable!

The Vast Heaven Diagram, too, was a battle diagram Meng Yungui himself had designed; now it was turned against him to kill him — what irony.

Meng Yungui stood upon that tower-ship, of one mind with the hundred-odd Feather Ascension Camp officers and men behind him, forming a small-scale array; their vital essence was as one, and they stirred the array. Meng Yungui's cultivation was at the Emperor Throne realm, while the other Feather Ascension Camp officers and men were far inferior.

Together they stirred the array, and it too was a small Vast Heaven Diagram — Divine Essence Finger!

Boom!