Chapter 77 — The Crown Prince of Tiantu

From atop the dragon pillar Shen Mu raised his head and looked up. The thunderclouds were spreading ever wider, expanding outward without pause, like a vast vortex; countless thunderbolts and lightning flashes kept striking down, yet still they wheeled in orbit around that vortex.

The thunderclouds were moving—drifting toward the vanguard of the Jingping army. Of a sudden a bolt of lightning struck the ground, and the earth it struck erupted at once with firelight and electric light that went darting in every direction like golden serpents, while in the same instant a world-shaking roar burst forth.

Then, as though they had found their mark, countless bolts came crashing down from the sky in a frenzy, a spectacle like giant plows let down from heaven to till the earth, plowing from the front of the Jingping host straight into the army! Rumble, rumble— Countless thunderbolts met the Jingping vanguard, and in less than the space of a breath the huge beasts were struck charred black inside and out.

Crack, crack—the lightning struck the great beasts, and some were split open, belly and bowels laid bare, as if carved by a sharp sword.

The beasts bellowed in grief and bolted in all directions, some even charging backward, trampling as they went and crushing who knew how many soldiers to death. The rolling thunder followed at their heels into the midst of the army, and in a moment men and horses were thrown into chaos; who knew how many officers and men were struck by lightning and killed where they stood.

A tower ship was hit by several thunderbolts and instantly burst into roaring flame; the pill furnaces at its core exploded one after another, and the fire turned the alchemists and their boy attendants in the furnace chamber into living torches.

The wild medicinal power within those furnaces rushed out of the chamber and poured into the central grand furnace; the grand furnace could not transmute that terrifying power in time, and blew apart with a boom, and the great ship broke into pieces in midair, disintegrating in the sky!

Other tower ships, their grand furnace cores destroyed and their power gone, trailed billowing black smoke as they slid down slantwise from above, crushing who knew how many soldiers who had no time to escape. The Jingping host had once borne down upon the city with overwhelming momentum; now that momentum was gone entirely, and nothing remained but chaos.

"General Lu, this thundercloud has come strangely—as though it were aimed at our Jingping army! " A scout came hurrying with the report; reaching the central command, he dropped to one knee and said with clasped hands, "The thundercloud covers eighty li in every direction, and beyond those eighty li there is not a wisp of cloud!

" General Lu, a man tall and powerfully built, flashed a keen light in his eyes and said in a low voice, "Send in the Wind Marquis Army. Blow the thunderclouds apart!

" "Yes, sir!

Relay the general's order—the Wind Marquis Army is to work its arts and scatter the thundercloud!

" In the rear, the officers and men of one army were dressed in strange and outlandish garb, each bearing on his back a great gourd half a man's height; they opened the mouths of their gourds one and all, and at once gusts of black wind rushed up out of them into the sky.

The men of that army each stirred their vital essence and pointed, and the black wind howled and swelled, turning into a gale that joined into one vast sheet and blew toward the thunderclouds above!

But at that very moment, in the bookshop within the city, the Deaf Elder had finished his second painting: a picture of Whirlwinds and Sudden Rain.

With a flick of his brush tip the painting rose into the air, drifted up into the heights, and vanished from sight. No sooner had the Wind Marquis Army worked its arts and the black wind stirred the thunderclouds than a sudden, violent change arose: from within those clouds great tornadoes came down like divine dragons letting their tails drop from the thundercloud, plunging among the countless officers and men of the army.

The tornadoes numbered not one but several dozen; they caught up the black wind of the Wind Marquis Army and drew it into themselves, adding to their own power, and countless soldiers were swept up into the air, arms and legs flailing.

More terrible still, the moment those men were swept into the air, innumerable thunderbolts and lightning flashes came striking down and burned them to charred cinders in midair! Be they martial artists or wielders of divine powers, before such forces of heaven and earth they were helpless.

In the sky wind and thunder raged; a torrential rain came pouring down from heaven and drenched the Jingping army to the bone, and every flash, every bolt that fell upon those soaked soldiers and that waterlogged earth gained fresh power from it. Countless men shuddered and twisted in the lightning and turned to charred cinders.

"Demons and monsters, how dare you run wild! Black Tortoise Army—raise your shields!

" General Lu flew into a rage; bringing both palms down in a heavy slap, he shot up into the air and charged into the thunderclouds, wheeling back and forth and bursting one tornado after another with sheer force. Bolts of lightning struck toward him, but before they reached him they were deflected by the radiance given off by his armor and could not touch his body.

Below, meanwhile, the officers and men of the Black Tortoise Army shouted in unison, and their vital essence became great shields that rose into the air, hovering a hundred feet or more above the heads of the various armies and blocking the pouring rain.

The falling thunderbolts too were held off by those Black Tortoise shields, and the army's morale steadied at once; the commanders of the various units hurried to restore order, executing deserters and regrouping their forces. In Crimson Dragon City another great painting tore through the air and flew up into the heights—a Painting of a Hundred Demons.

The Painting of a Hundred Demons gradually faded into the air and disappeared.

Then from the thunderclouds demon gods with hideous, ferocious faces came charging out and surrounded General Lu in battle; his scalp went numb as he fought desperately to hold them off, and at that moment yet another great painting flew out from Crimson Dragon City.

General Lu stole a glance at it, and his soul nearly left his body in fright. It was a painting of meteors, and in it countless meteors fell from the sky!

"Retreat!

" The word had scarcely left General Lu's mouth when the heavens changed abruptly: huge meteors trailing long tongues of fire came plummeting down, cleaving the vault of heaven and crashing toward the Jingping host below. "One man's painting can hold off a million troops.

That reminds me of someone.

" On the border between the Kingdom of Jingping and the Wasteland, at Yanbian Pass, atop the gate tower, stood a middle-aged man with phoenix eyes and willow-leaf brows, a line of great generals behind him.

This man was none other than the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping.

Gazing out at the Jingping army as it fell into mortal peril, he betrayed not the least emotion, and said slowly and unhurriedly, "In the days when the Kingdom of Tiantu still stood, its crown prince was a man of peerless elegance and matchless gifts, the handsomest man in Tiantu and the most talented as well. Yet he was wholly absorbed in calligraphy and painting, and once said that he would hear nothing of the world's affairs with either ear and give his whole heart only to the books of the sages.

Then Ronglang invaded, bent on wiping Tiantu from the earth, and Tiantu could not withstand them; yet this crown prince was still lost in the way of the brush.

By the time he awoke from his immersion in brush and ink, Ronglang had already breached the capital and was slaughtering his people.