Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)
chapter-646

Chapter 646 – Borrowing Imperial Blood, Descending from the Night into the Palace

“This is the will of the heavens.”

Starlight fell on the rainy streets, transforming into countless silver leaves.

Daoist Ji stood amongst the innumerable silver leaves and said, “All this is the will of the heavens.”

The Tianhai Divine Empress replied, “We saved him because We wanted to save him. It has nothing to do with whether he is Our son, and also has nothing to do with the will of the heavens.”

“The matter has already reached this point. Empress, are you still not willing to concede? At the end, you don’t even know who your true son is, yet you dare presume to vie against the Heavenly Dao? For the sake of saving some youth with which you share no friendship, cause, or blood, you ended up falling to the cycle of the Heavenly Dao and are powerless to escape. Do you not feel great sorrow over this?”

Daoist Ji continued, “The Heavenly Dao does not need to punish, only for you to act according to your will for it to attain its goal. The Heavenly Dao is indescribable. You believed that you were fighting against the Heavenly Dao, yet you didn’t realize that every time you fought was part of the Heavenly Dao’s plans. Do you not feel this to be very laughable?”

The Divine Empress indifferently replied, “If this is really a plan laid down by the Heavenly Dao, then you should have it come and kill me.”

Daoist Ji replied, “The Heavenly Dao cannot kill people, only people can kill people. You believed that you had everything under control, but truthfully, this is not so. You cannot control the heavens above, nor can you control the human world.”

As the words fell, a wind rose up from the capital.

It was a true wind, howling as if wishing to shatter eardrums.

The wind arose from the Imperial Palace.

……

……

Even if the Divine Empress had paid an enormous price to help Chen Changsheng change his fate and was no longer as invincible as she was at her peak, the situation in the capital was still under her control, at least on the surface. The most important reason was that the Imperial Design had already been activated.

Countless awe-inspiring sword intents rose up from all over the capital, dividing and surrounding those heroes of the world that had entered the capital.

Even those supreme experts by the Mausoleum of Books were also unable to leave.

With just a little more time, the true danger of the Imperial Design would be fully expressed. Besides an expert like Daoist Ji who might be able to safely escape, the remaining experts would probably all be killed.

If they wanted to obtain the final victory, they had to break the Imperial Design before the Great Zhou Army returned to the capital.

The pivot of the Imperial Design was within the Imperial Palace, and there in the Lingyan Pavilion was a Heavenly Slaughter Array for protection.

If experts of the Divine Domain wished to invade the Imperial Palace, they would suffer the attack of this Heavenly Slaughter Array and their souls would be extinguished.

And those experts below the Divine Domain were simply incapable of entering the Imperial Palace.

Because the person overseeing the Imperial Palace was Xue Xingchuan.

This was an array within an array that was simply impossible to destroy.

Besides Xue Xingchuan outside, there was one other most important person: Liang Wangsun, sitting within the Lingyan Pavilion.

Liang Wangsun’s blood was also imperial blood. Besides the Chen Imperial clan, only the soul in his blood could move the Imperial Design.

Earlier, it was because of this fact that Zhu Luo had guessed that he was in the Imperial Palace and issued that furious rebuke.

The inside of the Lingyan Pavilion was bright as day. Liang Wangsun sat at the very center, his eyes tightly shut, his face pale, blood flowing out of a wound on his hand into the White Sun Flame.

He had heard Zhu Luo’s question.

Disgraceful action?

It was.

This capital had once been the capital of the Liang Imperial clan.

The Imperial Design was the great array that had been left behind by the Liang Imperial clan in the first place.

It was just that later on, this capital and this array had all been stolen away by the Chen clan.

Now, his offering the Liang clan’s blood to the Chen clan’s Imperial Design was truly a very humiliating matter, and even calling it disgraceful was not excessive.

But Liang Wangsun did not believe so, because he was well aware that his foes were the Chen clan. The object of his hatred was the Chen clan, not the woman with the surname of Tianhai.

Anything that could make things difficult for the Chen clan, he was willing to do, let alone tonight’s grand undertaking which was highly likely to deny the Chen clan all hope!

As long as he could do this, what need was there to care for the trifling emotions of his elders?

……

……

“I also have the surname Chen, and no matter what, I’m still a descendant of the Chen clan.”

The Prince of Louyang had brought his several dozen subordinates away from the Little Orange Garden and stealthily made their way through the capital, avoiding with extreme difficulty the Imperial Guards searching for them as well as two locations that the aura of the Imperial Design had suddenly exploded out of. Finally, they reached the Imperial Palace’s Gate of Southern Splendor. Gazing through the darkness at the majestic and splendid sight of the Imperial Palace, he chose a very inopportune time to think of his childhood, a reflective look appearing on his face.

“Your Highness, now is not the time to feel emotional. Where are we going next?”

The Prince of Louyang was somewhat rudely awakened by his subordinate. Somewhat embarrassedly rubbing his cheeks, he said, “Just hide in the gardens. We’re not going anywhere—there’s no place safer than this.”

Amongst these princes of the Chen clan, the Prince of Louyang was the weakest in terms of strength and personality, and his backing was also the weakest. He naturally wouldn’t be able to attract any true experts. Those cultivators that dared to follow him into the capital were presumably also not heroes with virtue in their hearts. Most of them were people high on ambition who wanted to take advantage of the chaos. Upon hearing this prince’s words and recalling how useless he had seemed on the road, some of the cultivators became nervous and grumbled, “Only a world in chaos can produce heroes. If Your Highness does not want to appear, what need was there to make the journey?”

The Prince of Louyang said with a bitter face, “This prince didn’t dare to not come, or else my brother the Prince of Xiang would kill me.”

The attendants from the prince’s estate had long since understood the personality of their prince, but it was only now that those newly recruited cultivators truly put an end to any of their ideas.

Hearing the occasional sounds of fighting or miserable howls from the street, the Prince of Louyang grew increasingly tense, his face increasing pale. He muttered to himself, “What are they fighting over… The same for Mother—if they want to be emperor, just let them have it. Those sons of yours are extremely vicious.”

Just then, a man dressed in a blue gown and wearing a mottled tiger mask walked up to him and asked, “Your Highness, to go from the Gate of Southern Splendor to the Lingyan Pavilion is not far, right?”

“The Lingyan Pavilion is very high, but to walk to its base isn’t that far… Hey, just what are you planning? Don’t mess around—Divine General Xue is very strong, don’t you know?”

The Prince of Louyang looked at the man and uneasily advised.

The man was currently wiping the blade in his hands, not even paying attention to the Prince of Louyang’s words, but when the Prince of Louyang said ‘don’t you know?’, his hands momentarily went rigid.

“Your Highness, I want to borrow something from you.”

“What thing?”

“A little blood.”

Saying this, the man in the tiger mask raised the blade in his hands and made a cut on the Prince of Louyang’s right arm—blood instantly spilled out of the wound and the Prince of Louyang’s face instantly turned deathly white. He was just about to cry out in pain when he suddenly realized that he couldn’t let anyone else hear, and so hurriedly covered his mouth with his left arm.

The blue-clothed man was just prepared to knock the prince unconscious in fear that he would make a noise. He had not expected that the prince would be afraid of death to this extent and couldn’t help but freeze for a few moments.

By the time the prince’s attendants and the others had noticed this activity and hurried over, the man had already jumped over the wall.

One attendant’s farsighted eyes looked beyond the wall and his body turned stiff.

The blue-clothed man was charging towards the Imperial Palace.

……

……

The blue-clothed man’s speed was astonishing, giving off an almost inhuman feel.

A plume of smoke appeared in the darkness before the Imperial City, illuminated under the starlight. The man was in the very front of this plume, his body rendered almost indistinct.

Seeing this sight, some generals of the Imperial Guard with extremely long histories subconsciously recalled that fastest demi-human general from that great war several hundred years ago.

The blue-clothed was naturally not Jin Yulu, but he presumably had some relationship with the demi-humans.

Tonight, the gate to the Imperial Palace was not shut. Like a flash of lightning, the blue-clothed man went straight through the Gate of Southern Splendor.

There was no one at the Gate of Southern Splendor, only an empty plaza, yet it seemed like a limitless lethality was hidden away.

The blue-clothed man was not the least bit surprised. With a roar, he cut with his blade towards the distant Lingyan Pavilion.

The blade in his hand carried the blood of the Prince of Louyang. As this blade slashed down, the Qi within the Imperial Palace naturally responded and began to transform, countless streams of golden light appearing out of the void!

Was this the Heavenly Slaughter Array?

This blue-clothed man had still not stepped into the Divine Domain, yet he was able to use the smear of imperial blood on his blade to force the Heavenly Slaughter Array to appear. His strength was terrifyingly powerful!

The countless golden streams of light condensed into lines that set layer after layer of restriction around the Lingyan Pavilion. Several of these lines seemed to, whether accidentally or by design, drift across the floor of the Imperial Palace like fallen leaves blown about by the wind.

The blue-clothed man exploded all his true essence. Dragging a blurred image behind him, he lunged to the side, yet he was unable to avoid two streams of golden light.

With several bangs, Qi was thrown into chaos. The blue-clothed man had sacrificed quite a few magical artifacts and all had been shattered, yet he was still unable to avoid the remaining might of the Heavenly Slaughter Array. Countless bloody wounds and cuts appeared on his clothes, and the mask over his face was cut apart and blown to the ground by the wind.

This was a face in which heroism and tyranny interweaved, its surface covered in hard and sharp fur. It was obvious that he was not a normal human, but a demi-human expert in a state of wild metamorphosis.

There were not many such young demi-human experts in the world to possess such swift speed.

From some place in the Imperial City came the cry of some general.

“Xiao De!”

Yes, this blue-clothed man who charged straight into the Imperial Palace was the supreme expert of the youthful generation of demi-humans, ranked fifth on the Proclamation of Liberation, Xiao De!

This demi-human had an extremely resounding reputation, yet he could not cause a single change in the atmosphere over the scene.

Because this was the Great Zhou Imperial Palace.

With countless low buzzes, countless troops suddenly appeared in the Imperial City, a dense mass.

The crossbow bolts on the divine crossbows shone with a biting light in the darkness.

The center of the Imperial Palace was still empty, excepting Xiao De.

Even for the fifth-ranked expert of the Proclamation of Liberation, daring to charge into the Great Zhou Imperial Palace would still end in death!

Seeing the divine crossbows in the darkness and sensing the terrifying Qi of the Heavenly Slaughter Array gradually fading, Xiao De chose without hesitation to…

Release his blade.

Kneel on the ground.

Raise his hands.

Call out.

“I surrender (降)!”

……

……

‘降’ was a word with many meanings.

It could mean ‘surrender’, and it could also mean ‘descend’.

The demi-human expert Xiao De, under these countless divine crossbows of the Great Zhou Dynasty, had unhesitantly called out ‘surrender’.

Thus, the person in the night sky began his descent.

Those experts of the Divine Domain that could walk with the wind were all at the Mausoleum of Books.

If the immortal birds and strange beasts of the various sects dared to appear in the skies over the capital tonight, they would undoubtedly be shot to death or pursued to death by flocks of Red Falcons.

Who was flying in the night sky?

It was an enormous red kite.

The red kite flapped about in the wind.

There was a thread under the kite, and at the other end of the thread was a person.

This person’s face was covered in a white sheet of paper that also flapped about in the wind.

Three holes were poked in this white paper and it seemed rather horrifying.

Second on the Proclamation of Liberation, Painted Armor Xiao Zhang!

He jumped down from the sky!

He avoided the golden threads of light Xiao De had just forced out and dropped like stone, smashing towards the Lingyan Pavilion!