荒墟牧神 - 第760章 噬生寶鼎、亂世天網 - 錦書坊

Beyond the Jade Lock Pass of Youdu, a torn and battered banner flew. The yin wind plucked at it, flap, flap, and it shivered. The banner was ancient, and it had plainly been to war: it bore the marks left by divine powers, and scorch marks left by fire.

Its cloth was still stained with rust-colored blood.

Planting this great pole was a four-armed demon-god a hundred zhang tall, four enormously thick arms locked tight about the shaft, his gaze sharp and resolute, fixed dead upon the gates of Jade Lock Pass. With a rip, the great banner was torn open by the savage yin wind, and a long strip of cloth went tumbling away backward through the dark.

Where the strips of the banner drifted, rank upon rank of towering demon-gods stood in perfect order, clad in ruined armor, gripping broken godly and demonic weapons, standing silent behind the great flag.

Too many demon-gods to count, an army without end.

And at the center of that host, a canopy whose dome was pierced with several great holes shaded a stretch of some tens of li; beneath it stood pillars thick as columns, and beside them a throne coiled of dragon bone. The wind was fierce.

The towering being seated upon the throne shook out his crimson cloak, lest the yin wind carry it off.

His face was somewhat pale, and he coughed heavily several times. "Has the Crimson Emperor still not recovered from the wound the Divine Son of Youdu gave him last time? " A woman with a serpent's head on a human body swam up before him, though the voice from her mouth was a man's.

She asked it smiling.

The Crimson Emperor's expression turned somewhat ugly. He said indifferently, "The Crimson Emperor?

I am already dead. I am unworthy of that name.

The Crimson Emperor of today is that little wench Qi Xiayu. Call me Yan Qianzhong. " Lu Li laughed coquettishly: "In the last years of Shanghuang, the Crimson Emperor fought Qi Xiayu and was honored in defeat.

The Crimson Emperor died, true, but Qi Xiayu had no choice but to surrender. .

.

" Yan Qianzhong was greatly displeased: "Get lost.

" "Yes. " Wreathed in smiles, Lu Li walked off toward another camp. That endless army of demon-gods was not the whole of the force come to hunt him down this time; it was only the demon-god host under Yan Qianzhong's command.

Yan Qianzhong had once been the Crimson Emperor of the Southern Heavens in the Old Heavenly Court. In the last years of the Shanghuang era, when the Old Heavenly Court moved to destroy the Shanghuang Heavenly Court, the Crimson Emperor Yan Qianzhong faced Qi Xiayu. The two Imperial Throne sovereigns were monstrously strong, but Qi Xiayu was a notch above, and she slew Yan Qianzhong.

Yet Qi Xiayu was gravely wounded in turn and taken by the Old Heavenly Court, and with no choice left her she surrendered and became the new Crimson Emperor of the Southern Heavens. That was the tale Lu Li had just raised.

Yan Qianzhong, once the Crimson Emperor, had fallen after death into Youdu to serve as a ghost emperor — only he was far now from the gaudy world of the living.

As a ghost he had lost his six senses: nothing he ate had taste, no flower gave him fragrance. He could play the tyrant and lord it over others, yes, but he still had to answer to the Old Heavenly Court, and the thought soured him. Lu Li's raking up of that old business soured him further. Lu Li came to the camp beside it, where a god of immense stature stood, his whole body like bedrock, and she smiled: "Crown Prince Jiuxi, son of the Earth Mother Sovereign, how are your injuries healing?

" "Over these years I have swallowed more dead souls than I can count, and at last I am restored.

" The stone giant Yan Jiuxi bared his teeth in a grin. "In today's battle, the Divine Son of Youdu will surely yield up his head! " The demon-gods under his command were plainly all demigods — a demigod overlord of the Longhan era.

Lu Li smiled: "Crown Prince Jiuxi, this time we are not to kill the Divine Son of Youdu, but to seize his fortune and take his flesh.