Chapter 427 — The Buddha's Bone Relic

The Wing King and the Kun King had by now revealed their true forms, hurtling in flight between the great sea and the sky like two beast-gods propping up heaven and earth, their howls deafening.

Great beast against great god: heaven split, earth cracked, dark clouds shut out the moon, and only now and then, when the sky tore open, did moonlight spill through. The Wing King and the Kun King were covered in wounds, but their will to fight soared to the heavens. The Wing King revealed her true form and became a giant bird, beating her wings across the face of the sea; wherever she passed the ocean was flung open.

Suddenly she spun, spun at furious speed, and in the midst of that spinning she savagely drew her saber: one stroke clove the sky, and she cut at the god who stood upon the sea, pressing down the Kun King. Her saber split the sky, and in that moment what spilled down from the riven sky was not moonlight but a sun, rolling down out of the crack her blade had opened. The Wing King's heart lurched; she did not know what was happening.

But her blade was already out and could not be recalled, so she threw all she had into the cut at the god who pinned the Kun King. At the same moment the dark clouds split, and another god thrust his head out from them, visage hideous, and brought his vast hand smashing down, five fingers like mountains, to crush her!

This god hidden in the clouds noticed the falling sun as well; he paused, faintly startled, somewhat puzzled. "What divine art is this?

" Just then the sun erupted.

Beneath it, razor-sharp golden rays drowned him!

And not him alone — almost at the same instant, the other gods of Heaven Above were attacked by that sun as well.

Its golden light was sharp beyond compare, piercing straight through the bodies of the embattled gods and leaving wound after wound behind.

Yan Jingjing was not violent the way Shen Mu was. Shen Mu simply hoisted up Xizhou's sun and smashed with it, a devastation terrifying to see but apt also to damage the sun; he had no notion of how to control it, how to unleash its power.

Yan Jingjing, however, as a Sun Guardian, had time and again commanded Xizhou in battle against enemies lurking in the dark, and she knew every function of Xizhou and the sun like the palm of her hand, wielding them as she pleased. Under her control, Xizhou could unleash its greatest power at the least cost. In that instant, several thousand li of the Divine Severing Mountains were lit. Beneath the sea, the Kun King drove his golden horn through the lower body of the god who stood upon him, nailing him to the surface of the sea; the god could not dodge in time, and saw himself shattered into fragments in the sunlight.

The hand that reached for the Deaf Elder broke apart in the shining of the sun; the palm that came down at the Dao Master was run through by ray after ray of light; and in that illumination the faces of gods and demons were lit.

The Buddha-light had been fierce, but it was scattered by the sunlight, and revealed the two figures standing unbroken within that light: Old Tathagata and the god, perished together. The rays bursting from the sun shone on, lighting the towering snow mountains.

The snow mountain where the Willow Immortal stood was dyed red, and the great serpent like an azure dragon fell from the mountain; the Yellow Immortal's sack was pierced through; the Yellow Immortal, beneath the god's foot, was trampled into mud — while that god's body bristled with the White Immortal's silver needles, like a great hedgehog. The sunlight shone further, lighting battlefield after battlefield: the figures of the Butcher and Star Lord Yan in midair were lit, and the falling forms of the Hermit of Qingyou and Lord Hua were drawn long by the light.

The sun's rays reached farther still.

The light of the ninth move of the Sword Diagram kindled at that very moment; Star Lord Qiao and another god were being drowned by the Sword Diagram. And at Xizhou's foot, two of the three-headed god's heads were mauling the Lame Elder and the Alchemist, battering them high into the air; from the Alchemist's body a Heaven Silkworm flew out and, spending all its strength, spat silk to wrap the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping round and save him from being killed. Boom — Xizhou rocked violently.

The three-headed god drew back his two heads and landed upon the ship, charging toward Yan Jingjing at the center of the four divine pillars. The Chief of the Sun-Herding Clan and the others went pale and rushed to block him, and countless Sun-Herders were smashed to powder by that god — and still he could not be stopped.

Xizhou's appearance had struck the battlefield like a thunderbolt; if Yan Jingjing were left free to attack the other gods, the gods of Heaven Above would likely be annihilated to the last. Yan Jingjing commanded this ancient divine artifact, Xizhou, whose power was the utmost of yang and the utmost of hardness, a threat to every living being.

Yet it was precisely because she commanded Xizhou that she could not move freely, and so she herself stood in the gravest danger: should anyone come close to her, it would go very badly for her indeed. When Xizhou appeared, this three-headed god had been nearby, hunting down the Lame Elder and the Alchemist; he was closest to Xizhou, and no one had imagined he would simply kill his way onto the ship.

The Chief of the Sun-Herding Clan held up the Sun Bell and met hard with hard, but he could not hold the god back and was driven step by step into retreat, until he had come to the very edge of the divine pillars.

Of a sudden the three-headed god loosed two of his heads again; they swung past the Chief of the Sun-Herding Clan and hurtled in among the pillars, one to the left and one to the right, spewing great water and great fire at Yan Jingjing. Yan Jingjing spat blood. She stretched out both hands to block, and at once the power of the sun fell off sharply.

On another field, the might of the ninth move of the Sword Diagram bloomed to the full; dazzling sword-light illumined the world and blotted out the radiance of the sun — then the sword-light slowly dimmed.

On that battlefield, Star Lord Qiao stood unbroken, gazing coldly at the man opposite: his old rival, the Human Emperor of years gone by. "You have grown old.

" Mockery showed on Star Lord Qiao's face. Of a sudden a crack appeared between his brows.

"In your prime, the moment you used that move, I would certainly have died. But now your qi and blood are all but spent, and that move failed to take my life outright — it merely. .

.

" His body suddenly swayed, and blood ran from the corner of his mouth. He laughed, heh heh.

"You still cut off my vital force.

But I am not so poor myself — at least I am dragging you along with me.

" Beside him, the god who had fought shoulder to shoulder with him suddenly split into four, into five, into six, collapsing down in chunks of flesh and blood.