Nightfall

The black carriage traveled through the Wilderness, through the darkness over the grass and under the flying crows.

There were occasional flashes of swords in the distant Wilderness, and clouds were being torn to pieces.

Ning Que sensed the flashes of aura moving about. He brought the fruit in his hand to Sangsang’s lips and said, “I have never seen such an intense movement Heaven and Earth’s Qi. I wonder how many powerhouses are out there fighting.”

He had once witnessed the battle between Eldest Brother and the Chief Preaching Monk of Xuankong Temple, at the White Tower Temple of Chaoyang City in the Yuelun Kingdom.

His Eldest Brother had used the words of Confucius against the Chief Preaching Monk’s words of Buddha. Both parties had displayed an almost miraculous cultivation state, which was not any weaker than the Heaven and Earth’s aura fluctuations coming from the distance in the Wilderness.

However, neither Eldest Brother nor the Chief Preaching Monk were in a life and death fight that day. Ning Que could sense that the aura of Heaven and earth in the distance was like a thunderstorm, gradually becoming more frightening and shocking.

“I’ve seen this before.”

Sangsang took a bite of the fruit. The color of the fruit changed where it met her teeth and lips. It froze almost immediately, and when she chewed, there were cracking sounds as if she was chewing on ice.

Ning Que asked curiously, “Where have you seen something so magnificent?”

Sangsang answered, “When my teacher and Master Yan Se fought on the North mountain of Chang’an, the change in the aura of Heaven and Earth was also terrifying. However, they blocked themselves in back then.”

Ning Que took a bite from the frozen fruit. His teeth did not fall but he shivered from the cold. He smiled and said, “If we were still in Chang’an, our neighbors on Lin 47th Street wouldn’t have to buy ice or splash themselves with well water in the summer. They’d stay in the Old Brush Pen Shop and refuse to leave.”

Sangsang smiled and coughed twice.

The frequency of her coughs had lessened a lot since they left the Desolate Man’s tribe. Also, perhaps she had coughed too much over the past two years, she now only coughed a purely cool aura with no phlegm or any traces of blood.

Sangsang was now very clean, without any filthy blood, sweat or spit. She was pure inside and out, just like a transparent glass. In other words, she was becoming less and less human.

Ning Que embraced and kissed her. Then, he put his hand into her black fur coat, to stroke and rub her. Although very cold, she was still very soft, and it warmed his heart.

“I never imagined that I would marry a deity,” he said.

Sangsang looked up at him and reached out to flick the frost from his lashes. She corrected him seriously, “I am not a deity. I am a monster.”

Ning Que said, “Deity? Monster? You’re Sangsang.”

Through their journey to the south, the two had chatted about random and trivial things. Sometimes, they would reminisce about their lives in Min Mountain, the City of Wei and Chang’an. They did not talk about life, death or the future, nor did they leave any last words. Sangsang had already left her last words in the meditation courtyard of Tile Mountain. Ning Que did not intend to continue living, and even if he wanted to leave any last words, there was no one to hear them.

A heavy object suddenly fell from the dark clouds, roaring through the air and landing heavily on the wild plains a few dozen feet in front of the black horse carriage. The object plunged down heavily, splashing mud upon contact.

When the horse carriage arrived at the spot, Ning Que looked over to discover a shallow hole on the plains. It was half a human corpse. Judging by the skin color and muscle on the corpse, it must have been a powerful Desolate Man soldier. He could not help but freeze for a moment.

He knew how strong the bodies of The Desolate were. And the stronger The Desolate warrior was, the stronger their ability to fend off a blade. However, this powerful soldier had his body torn apart by a sword, and half of his body had been thrown all the way to their location. One could imagine how fast that sword had to be and how powerful the owner of the sword was.

“It is a Grand Cultivator in the Knowing Destiny State… It seems like the West-Hill Divine Palace has quite a few powerhouses.”

Ning Que said to Sangsang.

Moments later, the sound of an object flying in the sky over the Wilderness could be heard once more. Only this time, the sound was not like the whoosh before, but shriller and sharper.

Ning Que looked up vigilantly and saw a gleam of a sword speeding down against the black clouds. It did not pierce down at the horse carriage, but at a slightly raised meadow on their left at an angle.

The flying sword was very powerful as it pierced through the entire meadow. The tip of the sword emerged from the other end of the raised ground, smeared with black mud and grass. It then fell to the ground; the bright sword suddenly darkenened, seeming as if it was weakening.

The power behind the flying sword was so strong, it could only have been thrown by a powerhouse in the Knowing Destiny State.

Ning Que looked at the flying sword behind the meadow and discovered that the sword had a hilt. He suddenly understood that the owner of the sword was a powerhouse from the Sword Garret of the South Jin Kingdom, and was most likely the person who had cut the Desolate warrior in half.

A Sword Garret powerhouse in the Knowing Destiny State was felled, just like that.

Ning Que looked towards the battlefield in the south and watched as the changes in the Heaven and Earth’s Qi grew stronger and stronger. He looked on as the sword and talisman flashes grew increasingly frequent, and his expression grew increasingly solemn.

The black horse carriage was still quite a distance from the battlefield, but they had already seen the demise of two powerhouses. How many people were dying in the Wilderness at this moment?

A thin bright line flashed through Ning Que’s eyes, which were followed by several more flashes.

He was watching the battlefield in the south, and the light in his eyes was what he saw over there.

Flashes of thunder and lightning were raging on the distant battlefield. The flashes of lightning were not as powerful as real lightning but were closer to the ground. They flashed without stopping and moved around as if they were chasing after someone.

How powerful was the cultivator who could call forth thunder and lightning?

Ning Que thought about what he would do if he were the one pursued by those flashes of lightning. He had no way to deal with them and could only be struck dead. There must also be more than one or two powerhouses of that caliber battling at the moment. What difference could he make if he brought Sangsang over there? Should they face death calmly or did he really expect something else to happen?

Hundreds of thousands of people, along with countless horses and carriages appeared in one place at the same time. That was truly terrifying. Neither Chang’an nor the West-Hill Divine Palace would be able to complete a review of their troops. But in the vast Wilderness, there was enough room for a grand parade or even a battle like this.

The new grass that had just emerged on the Wilderness was drenched in blood and trampled by horses. They had no choice but to die before their time. The grass roots were still there, but all evidence of green had been decimated. The sand that covered the plains had become a light dusting of ash that flew in all directions.

The war between the Desolate and the West-Hill Divine Palace coalition army had already gone on for many days.

Even though they were called natural-born warriors and had many powerhouses, the Desolate Man’s tribe had no way of defeating the entire world. They were already at a disadvantage at the beginning, and they lost the subsequent battles. They then retreated, and only held on because of their spirits, that had been polished by the millennia in the Cold Region of the Far North. However, everyone knew that the Desolate would not be able to hold on for too long.

The battle took place on the 18th year of the Tang Empire’s Tianqi era, the 3449th year of Dazhi in the West-Hill. It was very different from the numerous battles waged over the past years.

In previous wars, cultivators always played a supporting role. Regardless if they were Array Tactical Masters, Talisman Masters or Sword Masters who carried out assassinations, they were not the deciding factor in the outcome of the war. However, in this war, cultivators were very important.

The reason being that it was a holy war launched by the West-Hill Divine Palace. Cultivators from the countries in the Central Plains had all gathered in the Wilderness. Their numbers had led to a great change in the scale of the war.

Priests from the West-Hill Divine Palace, Haotian Taoism cultivation powerhouses from Taoist temples all over the world, cultivators from the South Jin Kingdom’s Sword Garret, Haotian Taoism visiting professors from the Great River’s Black Ink Garden, the rare Talisman Masters and Array Tactical Masters from the armies of all countries were participating in this war. On the battlefield in the Wilderness, the Qi of Heaven and Earth was controlled by several different threads of Psyche Power, pieces of Fu paper and tactical arrays. The rapid changes caused uneasiness and dramatic changes in nature.

During the late spring in the Wilderness, torrential rain, snow, dew and wind occurred from time to time before disappearing. Chaos and danger reigned on the battlefield and if not for the innately strong bodies the Desolate had, and for the fact that their commander had learned the skills of the Devil’s Doctrine on the sly, they would have been defeated during the first attack launched by the Central Plains cultivators and cavalry.

Even though the Desolate had managed to survive, many soldiers had died or were severely injured in the battles. Of course, there were even more soldiers from the Central Plains who had died under their axes and many cultivators who had been killed by ordinary Desolate soldiers.

In short, today’s Wilderness was like a waterwheel that pumped water continuously from streams formed by men to the wild. However, the water was made of blood and flesh.

The invisible flesh and blood waterwheel on the Wilderness battlefield came to a slow stop as the two warring sides withdrew their troops temporarily. The West-Hill Divine Palace coalition army and the cultivators wearily returned to camp while the warriors from the Desolate Man’s tribe supported their even more exhausted bodies through the wild plains, searching for the bodies of their companions and noting down their names.

There was a massive chariot in the middle of the West-Hill Divine Palace coalition army.

The chariot was three stories tall, and its base was made from a whole piece of bronze. The railings on the chariot were made of pure gold that glistened with holy light under the sun; it felt as if it would take away all the brilliance in the world. There was a balcony on the chariot, tucked behind curtains and gauze. No one could see what was inside, but they could make out a tall and large figure.

The chariot’s terrace towered over the Wilderness. It was taller than the meadow stretching out in the distance. It also gave off a sense that it reached even higher than the goshawk flying in the sky.

The tallest chariot was of course, for the tallest person.

The tall figure on the chariot was the Hierarch Lord of the West-Hill Divine Palace.

The most mysterious figure in the cultivation world had always been the Twenty-Three-year Cicada Cultivation, the leader of the Devil’s Doctrine. However, there was another saying that the truly most mysterious person was the Hierarch of West-Hill Divine Palace.

However, there wasn’t a single person who would dare to use the word mysterious to describe him.

Even the mysterious legends about the Hierarch Lord had an aura of awe and divinity.

The Hierarch of the West-Hill Divine Palace controlled all Haotian Taoism and had the power to overrule emperors in the secural realm. He was the most powerful person in the world and was worshiped by believers of all territories. He also surpassed the Tang Empire’s emperor in terms of power.

He was a bigwig standing on the top of the world, but not many have seen his face. The Hierarch Lord had never left Peach Mountain until he appeared in the Wilderness.