Chapter 1733 — Hunting the Divine Official

"Just who is this fellow called Lingguan?

" Lady Tianyin was somewhat at a loss. Lingguan had appeared out of nowhere, looking mighty and terrifying, and then for no reason at all he had died, leaving her not knowing what to do. "That man looked so strong — who killed him?

" She quickly put the bizarre affair out of her mind and threw herself wholly into dealing with the army of the Heavenly Court's Seven Lords that had broken into the Tianyin Realm.

The Seven Lords of Heaven were the most ancient of the Imperial Throne powerhouses, and the seven who were least often replaced — the seven elders of the Heavenly Court, meritorious officials who had served the Emperor since the Dragon Han Era. They held mastery over the seven administrations of the Heavenly Court — Administration, War, Law, Fire, the Baleful Prison, the Water Prison, and the Years — and they were formidable in the extreme.

Even without that Lingguan, the Seven Lords alone would have been hard enough to deal with, and there was the Jade Pool of the Ancestral Court besides! "The Tianyin Realm must never fall into the hands of the Heavenly Court.

If it does, they will release the black sand and turn it into corpse-ghosts, and all of Jingping — the whole Yuan Realm, even — will be reduced to a wasteland! " So the Battle of Tianyin began in earnest.

In the Grand Clarity Realm of the Land of No Sorrow, Lan Yutian sat idly beside Lady Yuanmu.

Something seemed to be wrong with Lady Yuanmu: a moment before she had been laughing and chatting with him, and then in an instant she fell into a daze, and for quite a while she did not stir at all. After a time, Lady Yuanmu came to herself and took up the thread where she had left off, tittering: "Who would have thought that the dashing, gallant Imperial Heavenly Worthy of those days would turn into a little fatty? My sister would be utterly heartbroken if she saw you now.

" Lan Yutian looked up, shot her a glare, and tossed away the pebble in his hand. "I'm not fat anymore.

Yuanmu, you've been hit by someone's dirty trick. " Lady Yuanmu was curious.

"I've been hit by a dirty trick?

How come I don't know about it?

" "You keep drifting off. And after you drift off, you forget that you drifted off. " Lan Yutian said this very seriously: "Just now, when you came to find me, you drifted off twice in the space of a few breaths! Each time was very brief — the span of one character, twelve miao, and three hu, and you would wake up.

" (Note: the character, the miao, and the hu are ancient units of time: one character is about five minutes, one miao is nine seconds, one hu is 0.

09 seconds. ) Lady Yuanmu blinked. She had not felt herself drift off in the slightest. Lan Yutian propped his chin on his hand and pondered.

"You must have fallen under someone's divine ability. If I wanted to kill you, I could surely kill you. But I also sense that there is a strange power sealed inside you, and if I kill you, I will release it.

And then I definitely would not be able to beat you.

Not even if a whole crowd of us fell on you at once.

" Lady Yuanmu saw him squatting on the ground, a murderous light in his eyes, as though about to make his move, and Lan Yutian said, "The moment you raise the intent to kill, you lose your senses. I think you must have fallen under my brother's Reincarnation Art.

Every time you raise the intent to kill, you go through a reincarnation — I do not know whether I have guessed right.

" He looked up. Lady Yuanmu's eyes had gone savage, yet she stood there woodenly, motionless — clearly she had fallen into that dazed state again.

"Whether I am right or not, I will know as soon as I take a look inside your consciousness!

" Lan Yutian's spirit-consciousness rippled, and with a whoosh he plunged into Lady Yuanmu's consciousness.

A moment later he arrived in the vast ocean of Lady Yuanmu's thoughts, looked around, and could not help but be appalled.

It was not as he had supposed — that she reincarnated once each time she raised the intent to kill.

She had reincarnated nine hundred and sixty times!

Not only that: deep in the ocean of Yuanmu's thoughts he saw the consciousness of the Empress lurking, like a dark sunken cave mouth hidden beneath the sea, growing ever stronger! Clearly, the peril he had sensed came from this!

If Yuanmu were killed, the Empress would be released, beyond all suppression! Therefore Yuanmu absolutely must not die; if she did, the Empress would be set loose!

Yuanmu was a vessel created by someone to hold the Empress in check! And that someone was certainly Shen Mu! And the reason Lady Yuanmu reincarnated again and again was probably simply that the Empress was too strong for Shen Mu to suppress completely, so a flaw had appeared in the Reincarnation Art.

Lan Yutian withdrew his spirit-consciousness and stared, wide-eyed. After a while he muttered, "My brother is vicious. . .

His Way of Reincarnation has reached an inconceivable level. I cannot make sense of it.

" Lady Yuanmu was no longer a danger to him — but sooner or later, the Reincarnation Art Shen Mu had left behind would be ground away to nothing by the Empress, and when that day came, the Empress would merge completely with Lady Yuanmu and become the true Goddess of the Returning Abyss, slaughtering unchecked.

The danger was extreme! Lan Yutian propped his chin on his hand and mused, "Still, my brother can take the Empress by surprise and make her stall. Every time she stalls, I am in no danger.

In that case — why should I not think about how to plant some other divine ability inside the Empress? Then even if she breaks free in the future, the danger will not be so great.

.

.

" He set his mind to it and thought and thought. The Grand Clarity Realm truly was, as its name said, a place of utter clarity and quiet — while the other heavens of the Land of No Sorrow grew ever bloodier.

Yet in the Nether Capital of the Yuan Realm, which overlapped the Land of No Sorrow and Jingping, the Nether Heavenly Worthy was locked in battle with the Void Heavenly Worthy, and that fight was savagely fierce as well. Fengdu could hold no longer.

King Yama led the ghosts and gods of Fengdu against the monsters and devil-gods of the Nether Capital, and the foe had already broken into one divine city of Fengdu after another. King Yama had abandoned several divine cities in succession and made his stand at the Eighth Divine City — and Fengdu had only nine divine cities in all!

The Eighth Divine City was already in dire peril. Under the assault of countless devils and monsters from the Nether Capital, the whole city had been riddled with holes, and the street fighting had become a desperate, tangled stalemate. As more and more devils and devil-gods poured in, King Yama had no choice but to order the Eighth Divine City abandoned.

Just then, the Heavenly King Tianshu charged into the Nether Capital, leading many devil-gods who cultivated the demonic path to reinforce it, easing the pressure on Fengdu for a time. On another battlefield, the Nether Heavenly Worthy had transformed into a youth.

He raised the Book of Life and Death, lantern in hand, treading upon a paper boat, and fought a great battle against the Void Heavenly Worthy, who wielded the Styx Whip! Both were famed for the vastness of their primordial spirits, and the power of those primordial spirits was immensely overbearing.

In the boundless Nether Capital of the Yuan Realm they fought with all their strength — the long whip became a great river, the golden light of the Book of Life and Death blazed, the horse-lantern danced, and in the span of a single stride they crossed a thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers!