Chapter 894: Get Over Here!
This type of boldness was befitting of the Firemoons’ number one chosen. This type of domineering attitude was perfectly suited to the chosen whose daoist name harkened to the name of the species itself: Sir Firedark.
She didn’t want to be a Smoldering God. She wanted to be... an actual god! By using the immortal emperor’s body as nutritional materials, she could ignite her godfire! She wanted to reach godly ascension in one smooth step!
That thoroughly surpassed anything that Sir Heavenink or the other Firemoons would think of doing. And it formed the most eye-catching thing in the entire emperor’s mausoleum at the moment. And for multiple reasons, it quashed any thoughts the other three chosen had about trying to vie for supremacy in the future. With a person like this, it didn’t matter how you tried to compete with them, how you tried to gain victory, or how you tried to fight them.
Sir Heavenink sighed. Tuo Shishan bowed his head. Fan Shishuang looked on bitterly. None of them wanted to just give up. Although Sir Firedarks’ goal was something beyond them, they still had their own paths to follow, and their own breakthroughs to achieve. Now, they wanted all that more than ever!
Meanwhile, Xu Qing opened his eyes and looked at Sir Firedark.
Even working together, he and the Captain couldn’t defeat Sir Firedark in combat. They could only pin her down. She was one of the rare chosen Xu Qing had met who could be considered beyond exceptional.
Back in the imperial palace of humankind, when Fifth Prince came back from his border campaign, he had brought some shocking news with him. The Firemoon Darkheavens were apparently trying to... establish a fourth god for themselves. Xu Qing had originally assumed it was Master Stillwinter. After all, Master Stillwinter’s soul had more than ninety god monuments in it, which seemed like a ceremony of godly ascension.
That was why he had killed Master Stillwinter and thrown him into his mage trove to use as kindling. Only after killing him did Xu Qing come to realize that Master Stillwinter was not the fourth god the Firemoons had been grooming. Put most precisely, Master Stillwinter was an unfinished product. Perhaps he could even be considered a failed tool.
Now that Xu Qing could see what Sir Firedark was doing, it seemed... that she was the fourth god the Firemoons were grooming.
But... is it really her?
He suddenly felt inclined to look at the Captain.
The Captain was surrounded by freezing flames. His eyes had a crazy look in him that made it seem like he had been starving for tens upon tens of thousands of years, and was about to do some binge eating.
The opportunity Sir Firedark had been waiting for... was the same opportunity the Captain had been waiting for!
“Finally... the time is here!” the Captain said, licking his lips. Suddenly looking quite mad, he threw his head back and laughed. “Little Ah Qing, look over at that crappy Tuo Shishan and the others. They’re like wimpy little sparrows, nothing more! All they want is some supreme yin and supreme yang. They just want to be solid Smoldering Gods. Talk about lacking ambition!
“On the other hand, Little Swallow has really got some guts. She’s using the umbrella as heaven, the corpse of a god as fuel, all to reach godly ascension in a single step. But even she only counts as a medium-sized sparrow. Who the hell goes around ignoring food that’s right in front of you?
“As for this big job, little Junior Brother, we’re going way past the sparrow level... to the eagle level!” At that point, the Captain loosened his hold on the rope connecting him to Xu Qing. Taking advantage of the rejection power of the moon, he grinned wildly and pointed at one of the 108 heavenly bodies. “Hey you... get over here!!”
The emperor’s mausoleum trembled due to the sounds coming from the starry sky above. It came from... behind the 108 planets!
They had one part facing the lands below, and that was their planetary surface. But on the other side... each of them had a bitter, anguished face! In the past, the 108 faces had nothing occupying their foreheads. But as the Captain performed an incantation gesture, light flickered dramatically as... a pearl appeared on the forehead of each face! Those pearls were the very same items the Captain had taken from the shell-eagles. There were 108 of them! That was one of the first steps the Captain had taken to prepare for this moment.
The pearls erupted, one after another, releasing spectacular energy. The entire starry sky rippled, and the river of stars passing through it grew dim! And thanks to the pearls and the Captain’s strange methods, the detonations caused the 108 planets... to start moving.
Deafening rumbling sounds echoed out as the 108 planets, including those occupied by Sir Heavenink, Tuo Shishan, and Fan Shishuang, turned around to reveal their faces! They looked down at the emperor’s mausoleum, their wails of grief growing explosively loud.
Thanks to the stimulation of the pearls, it caused the faces’ screams to turn piercing. Their cries joined together into one unified cry, and the explosive sound locked the sun in place but sped up the moon. It was capable of shaking the starlight dragons, crushing the sacrificial objects, and shaking everything under heaven! The dramatic development caused looks of surprise to appear on the faces of everyone present.
Without any hesitation, Xu Qing shot off the moon and appeared next to the Captain, his eyes glittering from the starlight, but his expression neutral as ever. This development fell roughly in line with what he had expected would happen. That was especially true of how the terrifying sound of the faces’ wailing caused the sun to lock in place but the moon to speed up....
Next is step two of the Captain’s plan. I bet he wants the sun and moon to collide!
As Xu Qing pondered that, he watched the moon accelerate rapidly. As it got closer and closer to the motionless sun, a tideflow power built up, completely changing the structure of the emperor’s mausoleum.
The Captain laughed madly. “Little Junior Brother, I bet you’ve been curious all along about what this big job is. I couldn’t say anything before, because this place and everything around it is connected to a god.
“Saying a single word could have caused unpredictable variables. But now that everything is in motion... nothing anybody says can change how this job will turn out! Little Junior Brother, my target here is the fleshly body of the ancestral emperor in that coffin on the altar!”
The Captain pointed at the altar and licked his lips. “Or perhaps it’s best to use the term ‘lord of this god domain.’ You see, that body down there was prepared as a new body by the spider god that was sealed countless years ago by the three gods of the Firemoon people.
“I want that fleshly body! If I suppress it and fuse with it, then I can get the approval of this god domain! Get it? I’m going to take advantage of this opportunity to make myself the ruler of the god domain!
“As for you, your target is going to be the emperor’s soul, which is also the soul of a god. I take the fleshly body, you take the god soul to be a heavenly dao. If you succeed, then you’ll get the same benefit as me. You can be one of the rulers of this god domain. With authority of the god domain, the two of us will reach a much more profound level together!
“I’ve been preparing for this for a long time! I can’t succeed alone because the god soul will interfere. And that’s why I need your help, little Junior Brother!”
As the Captain’s voice echoed out, the intense sound of the faces’ wailing was so intense it overwhelmed everything else. And yet, Sir Heavenink and the other chosen heard him, and the details of his plot left them completely taken aback. They were plotting to become Smoldering Gods. Sir Firedark was plotting to reach godly ascension. But these two humans... were plotting to become the rulers of an entire god domain! This was the Great Hunt of the Firemoon Darkheaven people, sanctioned by their three gods. In fact... those three gods were obviously plotting the same thing!
The chosen considered interfering, if not for their species then for their own sake. If things went on like this, it could have a huge negative effect on their own breakthroughs.
The umbrella that Sir Firedark sat on was also releasing a deafening wail. As it shook back and forth, Sir Firedark’s eyes opened wide and pulsed with killing intent.
Only Xu Qing seemed unsurprised by all this. After all, there were two idioms that perfectly encapsulated the Captain’s style. The first was snatching food from the tiger’s mouth and the second was dancing on a knife’s edge . Based on how well Xu Qing knew the Captain, from the moment they arrived in the god domain, he had speculated that something like this would happen.
Given all that, it probably wasn’t best to say this was a ‘crazy’ thing to do. Instead, it was a very ‘Erniu’ thing to do. It wasn’t something that could be stopped easily, not even by the other cultivators present in the emperor’s mausoleum.
With the sun locked in place, the orbit of the sun and moon had been altered. And there was no way to stop the momentum of the moon. Terrifying and boundless coldness raced right toward the sun.
108 planets wailed, their screams spreading in all directions as the sun and moon collided! Heaven and earth shattered. The starry sky shook violently. Space collapsed. Fire and ice smashed into each other, and a dark, terrifying light of destruction began to spread. The sun shattered. The moon collapsed. Countless chunks of ice and burning sparks sprayed in all directions. Fire rained down in the emperor’s mausoleum. So did ice and even stars.
The only safe spot was where Xu Qing and the Captain stood.
Everywhere else, the mausoleum shook dramatically! The entire surrounding planet trembled! The whole god domain was shaken violently! A massive wind swept out that was the result of ice and fire destroying each other, or yin and yang joining together in formlessness. It was the direct result of the sun and moon colliding. It was... a tempest of primal-chaos that descended on the entire mausoleum. The starlight dragons went dim and collapsed within the wind. The bells tolled, sounding out a dirge of death. The drums and gongs resonated as they woke the souls of the deceased. And the wind caused the gigantic umbrella to shift, revealing... the holy coffin on the altar below it!
Surrounding the altar were the lands made of the skin patchwork. Among those patches of skin was one in particular that had a pair of eyes. The eyes opened, and in response, all of the soldiers and chariots arrayed in the mausoleum woke up one after another! However, that didn’t matter, as the path had already been cleared!
As the wind blew, the entire starry sky seemed to tilt onto its side as if to impede Sir Heavenink, Tuo Shishan, and Fan Shishuang. It was already impossible to stop events from playing out, so the main thing to do now was worry about self-preservation.
But Sir Firedark, whose breakthrough had been interrupted thanks to the Captain, felt that old hatred rising up again in her. She took a step forward.
Despite everything that was happening, Xu Qing still didn’t look surprised. Things really weren’t very much different than he’d expected. And he also knew that his Eldest Brother probably had more tricks up his sleeve. As for what trick was coming next, Xu Qing was fairly certain he knew. After all, he had loaned something to the Captain that the Captain hadn’t returned yet. Therefore, Xu Qing didn’t do a thing as Sir Firedark closed in.
Next to him, the Captain laughed madly. He had set up this entire situation in a previous life, so seeing it play out in front of him was very gratifying. And of course, how could he not be prepared to deal with Sir Firedark?
As Sir Firedark closed in, the Captain looked up proudly, then threw his right hand out with a flourish.
When Sir Firedark saw what was in that hand, her face fell.
“You’re crazy!!” she blurted, reversing course and racing backward at top speed.
The Captain was holding something in his hand that almost looked like a pearl. It was an ancient sun, also called a Dawning Sun, which was a domain treasure of humankind!
“Get over here!” the Captain said to the retreating Sir Firedark. Laughing maniacally, he hurled the Dawning Sun toward the altar below!