novelnext Chapter 413 - 255: I have arrived outside the Celestial Gate. Your Highness, you may now fight without restraint.
Chapter 413 - 255: I have arrived outside the Celestial Gate. Your Highness, you may now fight without restraint.
「Imperial Palace.」
The ambient qi roiled violently.
Luo Ying, Luo Shengmiao, Master Bai Yue, and others from the Endless Pavilion were desperately dodging the treasure swords erupting from White Jade Capital.
Even the Qi Cultivators of the Dao Alliance had joined forces, unleashing their swords to resist the might of White Jade Capital.
This White Jade Capital, constructed by a Saint of the Mo Family, stood like a steel Great Wall before the assembled cultivators.
「On another front.」
Liu Zixuan, the Saintess of the Ziwei Immortal Sect; Sui Yuqing, the Fairy Ci Hang from the Celestial Master’s Mansion; and Jiang Shan had all joined forces to battle the Imperial Experts of the Dragon Guardian Pavilion, who were led by Zhong Yuli.
Lotuses bloomed with every step Jiang Shan took. Brilliant golden Sanskrit characters materialized around him as he continuously chanted Buddhist Scriptures. A massive, three-headed, six-armed Angry Eyes Vajra Body, surging with Buddha Qi, slowly rose from behind him.
"Amitabha Buddha. All living beings suffer; all phenomena are without substance."
After reciting this line, Jiang Shan struck out with a seemingly casual palm. The Angry Eyes Vajra Body mirrored his action, unleashing a terrifying force like Mount Tai crashing down.
From a distance, it looked just like a vast mountain falling from the sky.
Directly in front of Jiang Shan was none other than the Rakshasa Zhong Yuli, a Half-step Human Immortal.
His expression was calm. An ornate, yellow-green Luo umbrella appeared in his hand. As he opened it, twelve streams of multicolored light shot out, positioning themselves in twelve directions and sealing off the surrounding space.
He then clasped his hands behind his back.
A towering, cyan Dharma Body of a man in a Confucian Shirt rose from the ground. It wore a scholar’s cap, held a Feather Fan, and its eyes blazed with cyan light.
The towering Dharma Body flicked out two fingers, instantly blocking the fist of the Angry Eyes Vajra.
"BANG!"
Amid the tremendous crash, sand and stones were sent flying across the entire Great Yan Dragon Wall Plaza. Waves of qi rolled out, and violent ripples spread across the surface of the Array.
The name Thousand Mechanism Rakshasa was legendary. Zhong Yuli had become famous five hundred years ago. His Innate Treasure, the Thousand Mechanism Umbrella, was a Secret Treasure of the Mo Family.
A practitioner of Confucian and Daoist Dual Cultivation who had achieved Harmonious Confucianism, he was a rare prodigy of his time. The only person who could be considered his peer was the young Confucian Sword Immortal from two hundred years prior—a Great Yan scholar who had placed second in the imperial examinations and was hailed as the master of the Sword Dao.
Perhaps in this era, only Jiang Shan—hailed as the first of his kind from the Great Golden Cicada Temple in five hundred years and known as a True Buddha—could truly test his strength.
Jiang Shan had once passed through the mass graves of an Ancient Battlefield where 400,000 soldiers had been slaughtered. He single-handedly chanted Buddhist Scriptures to guide their vengeful souls to salvation. In that single act, his merit was perfected, and he became a Buddha on the spot.
The Celestial Dao merit he gained from that one deed alone was enough to meet the conditions for forging a Buddha’s Golden Body. That was how he earned the name of True Buddha.
Protected by this immense Merit Golden Light, Jiang Shan’s Arhat’s Body was the strongest in his realm. Within the Nirvana of the Buddhist Twelfth Realm, he had never met his match.
Yet now, the two of them were fighting on equal terms.
Jiang Shan and Zhong Yuli were both top-tier masters of the Twelfth Realm.
They were men from different eras, yet they were clashing in the same one.
One had to admit, it was a kind of fate.
In the second tier of the battle, Sui Yuqing, the Fairy Ci Hang, and Liu Zixuan, the Saintess of Ziwei, joined forces against Chi Ming Red.
Chi Ming Red’s Martial Dao Piyao phenomenon was incredibly domineering. He wore a cyan Flying Sword at his waist and wielded the Qilin Long Spear. His multi-colored studded armor erupted with a terrifying brilliance, capable of blocking the Sun, Moon, and Seven Stars Bracelet—a sect-guarding treasure wielded by the Saintess of Ziwei. It was clearly no ordinary item.
The Chi Family, like the Huo Family and the Pei Family, was one of Great Yan’s great Military Families.
However, the Huo Family’s history was less than a hundred years, and the Pei Family had already fallen into ruin.
The Chi Family, however, still stood at the pinnacle of Great Yan’s Military Families.
As the Patriarch of the Chi Family, Chi Ming Red’s ancestor had been a Grand General who followed the Grand Ancestor of Great Yan on his western expedition to Mobei and his crusade against the Wilderness World. More importantly, theirs was one of the few Military Families in the history of Great Yan to be granted the title of "Celestial King."
The title of Celestial King was glorious enough to ensure a family’s prominence for centuries.
The peerage of Great Yan typically consisted of Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, and Baron.
But above them was the option of being a Titled King, like Prince Zhenbei.
And above a Titled King, there was the Celestial King.
The status of a Celestial King was even higher than that of an Alien King. They could command the deployment of the entire nation’s armies, possess their own fiefdom and Mufu, and govern their lands autonomously without needing to report to the Imperial Court.
It was very much like the State Governors and Dukes and Kings of a thousand years ago.
The last Celestial King had been the one who turned the tide during the defense of the Capital City, when the Emperor himself had to guard the nation’s gates. Even so, his title of Celestial King was quickly revoked after the new Emperor ascended the throne and consolidated his power.
The Chi Family was the only Military General Family that still enjoyed the honor of the Celestial King title.
These were all part of Great Yan’s effective forces.
At the moment, all the various cultivators had their own tasks to attend to.
The White-robed Celestial Master, Xu Changqing, was locked in battle with Yuan Xuangang.
Lu Mingyuan’s avatar was also contending with the Demon Dragon summoned in the sky.
’Father’s secrets are beyond my imagination. I have no idea how he got his hands on all this.’
According to rumor, the True Dragon Race, the purest bloodline of the Demon Race, had already gone extinct in this world.
Those that still existed were all mixed-blood mongrels.
The last True Dragon in the world fell in the Dragon-Slaying Blessed Land, one of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands.
When the Dragon-Slaying Blessed Land first appeared, it attracted countless people who fought over it, with the Three Religions Immortal Forces all entering the fray.
As time passed, the opportunities within the Blessed Land dwindled, but it gave birth to a power named Ashen Dragon Valley.
That was right. The Celestial Dragon Master, one of the seven leaders of the Endless Pavilion, was the Valley Master of Ashen Dragon Valley.
Soon, Lu Mingyuan received a telepathic message from the Celestial Dragon Master.
"Your Highness, this creature is indeed a descendant of the True Dragons, though it is still a juvenile. The current Holy Emperor has been nurturing it with the nation’s National Fortune, allowing it to grow up in the Drumming Institute. It’s exceptionally intelligent. The Holy Emperor used the Vast Righteous Qi of the Drum Academy Gentlemen to purge its violent instincts, making it extremely receptive to human nature."