Chapter 606 — The Old Soldier at Dusk

The scripture of the Great Nurturing Dark Demon Sutra had once more become a ball of thread. Granny Zhu handed the thread to Shen Mu, but he shook his head. "Granny, you keep the scripture for now. Luofu Heaven is full of peril, and it would be of no use in my keeping."

Granny Zhu took out a small bamboo basket, a little flower basket round above and square below, and laid the ball of thread inside. The basket also held scraps of cloth, scissors, silver needles, and the like—her own primordial soldiers, most likely.

The two of them looked up at the churning river of blood in the sky. That blood river had trapped the halberd-wielding deity on the altar at its center, and the purpose of this sacrifice did not seem to be a simple summoning of gods and demons.

The blood river had not transformed into the blood-light that calls down gods and demons. Instead it split into streams of plasma that became in the air a variety of profound patterns. Those runes were exceedingly abstruse—surely a sacrificial art of the demon race.

Sacrifice, in truth, originated with the demon race. Shen Mu had learned a few sacrificial arts himself; the Talisman Command to Summon Ghosts and Dispatch Gods was one such art, and it came from the Dutian Demon King. The Dutian Demon King had spread this sacrificial art to Jingping with the aim of summoning himself there and invading it, though after encountering Shen Mu he abandoned that notion.

—The demon race, too, had many heavens. Dutian and Luofu Heaven were both among them, and both worlds had fallen into ruin, each seeking a way to prolong the lives of its people and ensure their continuance.

In fact, most sacrificial arts came from the demon race. The demons had created a great many sacrificial methods and built a unique civilization, vastly different from those of Jingping and Taihuang Heaven.

The human race had also learned some sacrificial arts from the demons. The Great Nurturing Dark Demon Sutra, for instance, contained many sacrificial methods, which were likewise cultivation techniques of the demonic path.

What the human race learned from the demons was not limited to sacrificial arts; there were also many demonic techniques. The witchcraft of the Loulan Golden Palace, for example, was passed down from the Kuiwu Deity, and the Kuiwu Deity was a demon god sent down from the Heavenly Court to the Dark Capital.

"Something is wrong!"

Granny Zhu studied the blood river encircling the altar in the sky. More and more blood-colored runes were surfacing, and within that encircling river the halberd-wielding deity from the Desolate Ruins seemed caught in a trap, ramming again and again, trying to break through the sacrifice, yet never able to break it.

He even tried to charge out of the altar, but could not break free either.

The demon god presiding over the sacrifice was not strong—otherwise he would not have died to Granny Zhu's sneak attack—and his strength was surely far inferior to the halberd-wielding deity's. Yet his sacrificial art was truly unfathomable.

Even in death at Granny Zhu's hands, his flesh-and-blood sacrifice could still trap the halberd-wielding deity at its center, leaving his opponent no escape!

"He means to sacrifice the halberd-wielding deity as well!"

Granny Zhu shuddered and murmured, "He is using the halberd-wielding deity as an offering, along with the blood river, sacrificing them to some ancient being, summoning that being to descend..."

Shen Mu's study of sacrifice was not deep—his attainments were in fact inferior to Granny Zhu's—but even so, he could see that the halberd-wielding deity's situation was exceedingly grim.

The halberd-wielding deity wore armor, and from beneath it beads of blood were slowly drifting out, floating into the air to merge with the blood river!

Not only that—the halberd in his hand and the armor on his body were both beginning to lose their essence!

The demon god's sacrificial art was simply too powerful!

The halberd-wielding deity was already much weaker than before. As his strength waned, more of his blood and vital essence drained away, making it even harder to resist the sacrifice.

"The demon god you just killed, Granny—he must have been one of the demon race's foremost sacrificial masters! You killed an extremely important demon god!" Shen Mu blurted out, seeing the halberd-wielding deity's plight.

Granny Zhu said bleakly, "But I cannot save the deity on the altar. If we charge in, we will only die. We cannot even stop this sacrifice, cannot stop the ancient being's descent..."

On the altar, the halberd-wielding deity dashed this way and that, but his losses only mounted. At last he gave up resisting, stood at the altar's summit, and gazed up at the sky.

This was a deity at the end of his road. He was about to be broken down as an offering, to become the nourishment for another ancient being's descent.

"I should have died long ago..."

The halberd-wielding deity's voice came through, desolate and bleak. Standing atop the altar, he spoke loudly, his voice carrying far. He murmured, "I should have died long ago. I should have died in the calamity twenty thousand years ago. I should have fallen on the battlefield like my comrades. I should not have fallen silent, should not have become a stone statue in the Desolate Ruins, should not have lingered on until now, guarding some damned hope, some damned future..."

Shen Mu and Granny Zhu stood stunned, watching the deity on the altar. They wished to save him, but there was nothing they could do.

The deity knelt on one knee, leaning on his halberd to resist the blood sacrifice, his voice sinking low. "Hope, the future, the Carefree Land... We have been silent too long, Kaihuang. Silent until we lost the will to fight, silent until the stone statues grew cold, silent until the common people we once swore to protect have all died out, until no familiar faces remain, silent until even these lands have changed beyond recognition! And you..."

His voice suddenly rose, and he hurled a thunderous accusation at the heavens: "Kaihuang, what of you? Where are you?"

"Is the ideal world in your heart that Carefree Land where you cower?"

"Can you bear to watch your subordinates, the old soldiers who followed you, wither away one by one?"

"Can you bear to watch the lands change hands, to watch the people you protected grow old one by one?"

"Why have you not appeared?"

"It has been twenty thousand years! Have you still not emerged from your defeat? Have you still not regained your faith, still cannot bear to leave the Carefree Land? We are waiting for you, waiting for you to summon your old followers and do battle against that Heavenly Court once more! Where are you?"

...

Shen Mu and Granny Zhu heard his voice echoing between heaven and earth. In this dying Luofu Heaven, no one could answer his accusation.

"My wild goose plume, dissolve with me in soldier's liberation!"

On the high altar, amid the thick blood-light, the deity rose to his feet and summoned all his strength to activate his divine weapon. In that instant, an incomparably intense radiance burst from the altar's summit, so dazzling that one could scarcely open one's eyes to look, and one could only hear his voice rolling back and forth through the air like heavenly thunder.

"Kaihuang is absent, but the guardianship remains!"

"I, Luo Yu, soldier of the Yaoguang Division of the Heavenly Emperor's Star Constellation, once of Kaihuang's old guard, with this broken body, protect my people and stop your descent!"

"Soldier's liberation—"

"Divine liberation—"

The light exploded, and a world-shaking roar followed. A terrifying tremor surged out from the altar's summit in all directions. Granny Zhu immediately unfurled her Great Luotian Star Force Field to shield herself and Shen Mu as a surging wave of energy engulfed them!