Chapter 520 — A Forceful Coercion

"This is Xing An. He was the sage before the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping."

Shen Mu gave the company a rough introduction to Xing An. Around the campfire, faces turned anxious — especially the girls: Si Yunxiang, Xue Hu'er, and Ling Yuxiu. They had all seen Xing An before, and knew well how powerful and how terrible the man was.

Whether it was at the Heavenly Sage Academy or at Granny Zhu's mountain manor — at the battle of the Heavenly Sage Academy, nearly half the masters of the world had been wounded by Xing An's hand, Emperor Yanfeng among them!

That battle had left those masters utterly convinced. Even with so many of them, they had been unable to do anything about Xing An; in the end it was only a dose of Shen Mu's tonic that forced him to withdraw.

And now this killer was sitting right beside them. Not to be alarmed was impossible. Though the Grand Academy now gathered the most formidable beings of the Jingping court — among the first-rank ministers there were one or two who had completed their Spirit Bridges and leapt up to the Heavenly Court to become deities, and the emperor himself had become a god — Xing An was still the mightiest existence in the world today!

If Xing An wished to kill them, no one in the Grand Academy, not even a deity, could stop him!

Shen Mu laughed. "As a sage who appears once in five hundred years, Xing An is our senior. It is a good thing that he wishes to understand our Heaven Alliance. There is no need for anyone to be alarmed."

So he said, yet Shen Mu's face was pale; plainly he himself was exceedingly alarmed.

Xing An's target this time was clearly him. As the strongest of the previous age, Xing An had his own style and dignity; he would not raise a hand against his juniors — and even when he did, he waited until a junior had grown up and reached the divine realm in some aspect before he struck to cut away a piece of their body.

Shen Mu, however, was an exception.

Shen Mu had offended him far too deeply.

At the battle of the Heavenly Sage Academy, Shen Mu had used a tonic to give him a taste of fleeing in defeat; hunted the whole way by the Butcher, he had fled in panic and hidden himself in the Desolate Ruins, spending a long time healing his wounds.

Many of his collections had also been plundered by Shen Mu — and that was the deadliest part of it.

Then came the battle at Little Thunderclap Temple, where Shen Mu had actually stolen his chest and cleaned out his entire hoard!

Not content with stealing his chest, Shen Mu had dragged him to Fengdu; there, under the influence of the Realm of the Living Dead, Xing An had lost every shred of face and had nearly failed to return alive to the world of the living. That debt, too, was to be laid at Shen Mu's door!

That Xing An had not simply killed Shen Mu outright was already beyond expectation.

That he could keep his composure upon meeting Shen Mu compelled admiration for the attainments of his mind. Of course, the journey to Fengdu had shattered his Dao heart; his present state of mind was still exceedingly fragile — yet even fragile, it far surpassed everyone present.

Shen Mu, Wang Muran, Xu Shenghua, and Dao Lord Lin Xuan traded words back and forth, recounting how they had divined the heavens and calculated how high and how thick the sky was. Silence fell around the campfire; even Xing An sat wordless before the flames.

The red dragon carp sizzled over the fire, fish oil dripping bead by bead into the flames with a hiss, and the fragrance of fish drifted out, enough to make the mouth water.

"Shen, my dear minister, did you not come to punish them severely? Why are you instead eating here? You have committed the crime of deceiving your sovereign — I shall have you killed..."

Emperor Yanfeng came over reeking of drink, a wine jar in hand, his voice thick with wine. Then the emperor caught sight of Xing An across from Shen Mu, and in an instant his drunkenness vanished; he turned to leave!

Xing An said calmly, "Your Majesty had best stay and sit a while. Otherwise your Grand Libationer and your family's princess will both breathe their last."

Wine jar in hand, Emperor Yanfeng steeled himself and turned back, sitting down by the campfire with a smile that was not a smile. "Brother Xing An, since our hasty parting last time, I lay on a sickbed for nearly twenty days."

Xing An's face was placid. "I lay there for more than four months."

Emperor Yanfeng handed him the wine jar, his eyes flickering. "Yet in these days apart, I have crossed the Spirit Bridge and become a deity. Brother Xing An has surely not yet taken that step?"

Xing An took the jar. "These past days I have been hiding in the Tower of Heavenly Records of the Grand Academy, reading through the various texts and studying Shen the Great Divine Physician's Spirit Bridge space-divination model over and over. To cultivate the divine realm is not difficult for me, but it will take a year."

He tipped his head back and drank. Emperor Yanfeng stared at his throat, wanting to strike, yet never finding the opening.

Shen Mu and the others were startled inwardly: Xing An had been hiding in the Grand Academy's Tower of Heavenly Records all these days, and no one had noticed. Cold sweat rolled down their foreheads.

Xing An set down the jar. "Whether Your Majesty has attained the divine realm makes no difference to me. Attain it, and you are still no match for me — merely a false god, at most a little deeper in cultivation than before. In Daoist arts and divine powers you have made no great advance. Summon your civil and military ministers — the Duke of Wei, the Heavenly Strategist General; those two are deities, and with you, they would have the strength to fight me. But the Grand Academy, and your capital with it, would be utterly destroyed."

Veins stood out on Emperor Yanfeng's forehead; then he suddenly relaxed and laughed. "What were you speaking of just now?"

"The Heaven Alliance."

Xing An said, "They have discovered that the sky is a hundred thousand li high and three hundred zhang thick. So they formed the Heaven Alliance, intending to probe its mysteries and pierce through this false firmament."

Emperor Yanfeng laughed and cursed, "Nonsense — they are only children making mischief. I know of this matter too; the Fire Mountain Magistrate reported it to me. When I heard the words 'Heaven Alliance,' it gave me such a fright — I thought you few meant to overthrow me!" And he burst into loud laughter.

His laughter, however, did not carry. It reverberated back and forth within the space around him, shaking everyone by the campfire until their blood and qi churned.

Startled, Emperor Yanfeng hastily stopped. He had meant to use his laughter to draw the Heavenly Strategist General and the others over; but though he had attained the divine realm, Xing An's dharma power was still far deeper than his. With his own dharma power Xing An had formed a strange force field, wrapping his laughter inside a tiny space so that he could not send word.

His cultivation was, after all, immensely powerful; mere laughter had nearly shaken Shen Mu, Ling Yuxiu, and the rest to the point of vomiting blood, and so he had no choice but to stop.

Xing An glanced at Ling Yuxiu. "Your Majesty rejoices too soon. There is a darkness under the lamp. Your princess has befriended heroes far and wide; the young people here are all leaders of their various sects and schools, and in the future they will all be figures who dominate a region. The Hierarch of the Nether Demon Cult, the Dao Lord, Shang Cang, Little Jade Capital, the Buddhist sect — all these future leaders are on good terms with her. When her momentum is complete, you will have no choice but to abdicate in her favor. It is only that you keep your eyes on the world and never see her beside you."