Chapter 1776: The Almighty Cauldron
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Entering the void, Zhang Ruochen used the Secret Tome of Time and s.p.a.ce to form a personal protective s.p.a.ce to protect himself from the harmful energy inside.
Activating his Heaven’s Eye, he could see a huge continent floating in the distance.
It was a reddish-yellow place with a thick b.l.o.o.d.y fog filling its airs.p.a.ce. The land had mountains and rivers, but blood instead of water flowed in them. The blood-filled rivers, lakes, and oceans were horrible.
“Is this what Blackheart Demonlord calls the Infernal Asuran Icon? As the picture scroll lies open, it becomes a world of its own.”
With his current level of cultivation, Zhang Ruochen could only sense the incredible divine power in that continent and vaguely see its countless flowing inscriptions.
A silver moon was hanging in the sky above the Asuran Continent which, by eye measurement, could have been thousands of square miles in size. Meanwhile, Yueshen was standing right in the middle of the moon.
Not long after, a plume of b.l.o.o.d.y vapor, in the form of a shackle, rose from the Asuran Continent. It then twisted tightly around the moon and simultaneously shot beams of blood up into the sky, striking Yueshen at the center of the moon.
Although Zhang Ruochen was standing thousands of miles away, the mighty divine power forced him back from where he stood.
He took out the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron, thinking of a way he could pa.s.s it to Yueshen.
Boom!
The s.p.a.ce that was about a thousand miles away from where Zhang Ruochen was suddenly crumbled as a fiery red flame rushed into the void.
“Yanshen! That old man must be here to kill me.”
Zhang Ruochen’s expression changed. Jumping into the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron, he desperately drove the bronze cauldron toward the Asuran Continent.
“Where are you going? Even Yueshen cannot save herself. Do you think that she can save you?” Yanshen called out shrilly from the center of the fire.
His voice sounded ordinary, yet its shock wave had aggravated Zhang Ruochen’s injury. Not only was his body falling apart but his Saint Soul and Saint Qi were also on the verge of exhaustion.
The dimension that the Secret Tome of Time and s.p.a.ce formed could not withstand it. Borrowed power from Yueshen was no match either.
A G.o.d’s voice could wipe out the living beings of an entire realm.
Zhang Ruochen had initially been able to kill the demon’s shadow and shatter his divine clone only because Empress Chi Yao had pinned down Blackheart Demonlord himself. Hence, he had not been able to spare his efforts on anything else. Another reason was that the demon’s shadow and divine clone had limited abilities.
Just when Zhang Ruochen was about to run out of strength, glaring green light erupted from the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron. After that, several golden characters, which glowed more intensely, appeared above the cauldron.
Yanshen’s eyes were fixed on the cauldron, and he saw a beautiful giant hand materialize above the bronze vessel. It extended out of the moon and stretched thousands of miles away.
Yanshen did not know why, but fear suddenly rose within him.
“Merits Unbounded!”
Yanshen used a Power of Merits as he reached out, and his hand turned into a cloud of five colors. He chased after the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron, wanting to s.n.a.t.c.h it before Yueshen.
Without Bloodlord Erjia and the Infernal Asuran Icon to bog down Yueshen, Yanshen would not have been so confident in fighting against her, even with the Power of Merits.
However, things were different now. Yanshen was confident because he just wanted to take the cauldron.
With help from the Power of Merits, Yanshen had boosted his strength and gotten the upper hand. He successfully pushed Yueshen’s power back.
“It is not easy to collect the Power of Merits. According to the rules in the Fane of Merits, Supreme Saints and G.o.ds may only use the Power of Merits in the event of a war with the Infernal Court. You have broken the rules of the Fane of Merits and the Celestial Court, Yanshen,” said Yueshen.
“Are you trying to threaten me with rules now that you cannot contain my ability, huh?” Yanshen sneered.
“You think too highly of yourself! I am just saying that the Power of Merits belongs to the entire Celestial Court. It is not your personal property. Since you have used what does not belong to you, you have acted against the rules and rightly deserve punishment.”
Boom!
The moon that hung in the sky above the Asuran Continent suddenly broke apart like a supernova.
Yanshen thought Bloodlord Erjia must have defeated Yueshen, and a triumphant smile spread across his face. But the next moment, his smile froze.
A stream of white light burst out of the broken moon and whizzed toward him.
It was the Sun-moon Crystal Coffin.
“This is not good!”
Yanshen’s eyes became luminous as he raised his hands to prop up a five-colored Power of Merits that was the size of a star. The shock wave generated by the energy could nearly match Yueshen’s power. Yet, little did he expect that the Sun-moon Crystal Coffin could effortlessly penetrate his five-colored Power of Merits.
“How could this be? How could it defeat my Power of Merits in the blink of an eye?” Disbelief was written all over his face.
Then, Yueshen’s voice rang in Yanshen’s ear. “To a G.o.d, divine cultivation is the bare basics. Mastering the Canon1 will allow you to stand proudly at the top of the universe.”
As she spoke, a dazzling light appeared in front of Yanshen, cutting through a quarter of his body. His left hand and leg were severed before they were taken away by Yueshen.
What remained of Yanshen was struck by a hand, causing him to tumble back in the air. He nearly shattered into pieces again.
The next moment, Yueshen was seen standing near the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron. Her white gown fluttered in the air, while her body was soft and slender like the flexible twig of a willow tree.
However, this willow twig had defeated Yanshen completely.
Zhang Ruochen was covered in blood, so Yueshen placed him into the Sun-moon Crystal Coffin. When she glanced back, she noticed that Yanshen was trying to flee.
“Why leave since you have made it here?”
Now that the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron was in her hand, it began to spin and shoot out golden characters, which then turned into a golden stream that traveled across the darkness of the void, eventually hitting Yanshen’s body.
The golden characters seemed to possess terrifying power as the stream completely immobilized Yanshen.
“This-This is…”
Yanshen finally knew what the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron was.
He had been very confident at first, thinking that he could get away from Yueshen even if he was not her match.
Yet, at that moment, fear filled his eyes.
He realized that the cauldron in Yueshen’s hands could kill and smelt G.o.ds.
What puzzled him though, was how the cauldron ended up in the hands of a Saint King.
Yanshen tried to warn Bloodlord Erjia, but the golden characters had subdued him. He could not make a sound or even use his spiritual power and divine will.
Leaving Yanshen aside, Yueshen looked at the Asuran Continent in the distance. The continent looked like a piece of drawing as it rose. It then flipped upside down and crashed down on Yueshen.
Her dark hair blew in the wind, and her eyes were as beautiful as the stars. From in between her hands, the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron slowly flew up, growing bigger and bigger as it spun. After a while, Yueshen looked like a speck of dust in front of the cauldron.
Boom!
The Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron and the Asuran Continent clashed, sending a tremor throughout the void.
The impact from the clash was transmitted to the material world and caused a ma.s.sive amount of s.p.a.ce fissures to appear in the million-square-mile Shatuo Domain.
If the battle dragged on, the Shatuo Domain might become a semi-void, much like the forbidden land of the Divinity Bestowment Altar.
Fortunately, the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron had bored through the Asuran Continent, and the entire realm began to collapse.
Bloodlord Erjia and the Infernal Asuran Icon fell from the broken Asuran Continent, but Yueshen swiftly grabbed the picture scroll.
She then shot out streams of golden characters at Bloodlord Erjia.
“No! I will bust the myth of the invincible Yueshen today!”
Bloodlord Erjia tried to resist. He summoned a powerful divine power in his body to try and fight back the golden characters, but he failed. Instead, cracks started to appear on his divine body.
Yueshen looked at Bloodlord Erjia with a distant expression as she put him and Yanshen into the Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron.
She then jumped out of the void and returned to Mount Yueshen. “G.o.ds of the Celestial Court, if all of you still refuse to reveal yourselves, Bloodlord Erjia and Yanshen will die today,” she called out in a divine voice while she stood in front of Guanghan Temple. Her voice was heard throughout the Celestial Court.
The Kaiyuan Deer Cauldron was suspended above Mount Yueshen, and Bloodlord Erjia as well as Yanshen, could be heard groaning from the inside the cauldron. They were suffering from the pain of the divine trial.
Youshen and Bloodlord Sijia listened on with bated breath. Sensing that staying at the edge of the Shatuo Domain was not the safest idea, they quickly fled—the farther, the better.
Unlike Youshen and Bloodlord Sijia, Blackheart Demonlord was much more powerful. Even so, he also left the Shatuo Domain at once, avoiding Yueshen like the plague.
None of the Shatuo Domain’s cultivators said a word. Some were kneeling on the ground, bowing before Mount Yueshen, while some were quaking in their boots with cold sweat trickling down their spines.
Everyone could see that Yueshen now possessed the ability to kill the G.o.ds.
Would today be the day some poor G.o.ds met their ends?
Rarely would G.o.ds die from the infighting inside the Celestial Court. But once that happened, it could cause a terrifying change and affect an immeasurable number of living beings.
The death of a G.o.d was not the end of things because it could create a chain reaction that destroyed an entire realm.
A while later, the sky in the Shatuo Domain turned into a shade of dark red.
Everyone looked up and saw a majestic temple; it was bright red and floating among the clouds of blood. At first glance, it looked as if it was just a few thousand miles away, but careful observation seemed to suggest that the temple was in another s.p.a.ce and time, as though it was billions of miles away from the Shatuo Domain.
Seeing the temple, a rare and grave expression appeared on Yueshen’s face. “Jiatianxia!”
“Long time no see.”
A loud and ancient voice filled the air.
“Are you going to do the dirty job yourself, Jiatianxia?”
There was a long silence from the owner of the sanguine temple as if he was in his own world, thinking of something.
“I have to admit that you have improved so much after one hundred thousand years. I may not be able to gain an upper hand again like before. But, with this cauldron, I could easily enter the Heavenly Realm. I could also kill everyone, except you, in the Fane of b.l.o.o.d.y War and wipe out every race in the Heavenly Realm. Would you like to try me?”