Chapter 8：Riot

"Divine Power: Searing Blood," Harun realized, as he witnessed the rash celestials' brutal fate, that Servan had just used the Blood Crow clan's Divine Power: Searing Blood. After forming their Celestial Nature, cultivators all acquired a Divine Power. The heaven-born started with one. The Celestial Nature was intrinsically linked to the Dao cultivated in the mortal world and the cultivator's true nature. And unlike what his passion for poison might suggest, Harun's Dao was Gluttony.

Thus, his Celestial Nature took the shape of the World-Devouring Serpent, granting him the dreaded Devouring Divine Power. A pity that before he could use it to fulfill his dream of 300 lambs per day, he was downgraded, and now had to make do of a venom-based Divine Power. Oh well, Heaven didn't have lambs anyway.

"Any other question?" Servan asked, and this time, silence reigned.

"Very well. Please write down your names on paper slips, and place them in this infinity urn," Servan said and slapped his cosmic pouch, making a large gray urn appear and drop before the pages. As the name implied, the infinity urn could virtually hold anything—granted it could pass its entrance.

Yes, unlike cosmic pouches, infinity urns actually had a size limit. Thirty-thousand paper slips could fit in, but a pillow wouldn't. Harun often wondered what kind of sick individual invented such a useless transportation tool. Rushing to complete the task, the 30,000 pages wrote down their names, and one after the other, dropped them in the urn.

"I will now pick one page from the registry to select the six names," Servan said and pulled out the registry from his cosmic pouch, opening it at a totally not random location. Thus, as Harun daydreamed of phoenix meat and divine wine, "Harun Erdevan!" Servan picked his name.

"What? Me? For real? Oh, ok," Harun vigorously nodded, and though silently cursing the vicious Servan, stepped toward the urn to pull the first name out.

"Bager Loran. Dildar Geli. Yekta Erwin…" Each time Harun pulled a name out, he read it for all to hear, then dropped the paper beside the urn. The closer he was to the sixth name, the faster his heart beat. The sixth name came, and shocked out of a functional state, Harun's heart stopped still.

"What's wrong? Read the damned name!" Angered voices came from the nervous pages. This was the sixth name, their 0.003% chance of reaching Heaven in a single bound—not that it matters since they're already in Heaven but you get the gist.

"Well, don't say I didn't try to spare you all from a blood spurt. Let's go," Harun shrugged, and waved the paper at the 30,000.

"Harun Erdevan!" He exclaimed with a silly grimace and stuck his tongue out for good measure. Alarmed, the 30,000 swept the paper with their Divine Senses, even the five previous winners, that'd already formed a faction of their own, double checked. And once certain that he spoke true, they all lost their shit.

"Bullshit! One name, over thirty-thousand options! And the one tasked with picking them is on the list? Who believes that?"

"There is a 99.9966% chance that his name isn't picked! How did he defeat the odds? Rigged! This lottery is rigged!"

Harun wanted to say that the math probably wasn't that precise, but reckoned it didn't really matter. Further angering 30,000 clamoring folks of the same cultivation realm was probably not the best idea. The magistrate could handle that.

"Oh? So what you're saying is that I, a member of the Blood Crow clan, rigged the game for a mortal-born celestial's sake?" Servan asked, stressing the Blood Crow clan part to wake up the protesters. Yet, Harun couldn't help but feel that it was to him that Servan spoke, and so turned to face him.

"Thank you sir for your grace! Without you, I couldn't possibly get this chance. In the future I swear to repay the kindness you showed me manifolds!" Harun bowed toward Servan. Since it was now abundantly clear that Servan was dead-set on sending him to the Peach Banquet, Harun no longer bothered with restraint, and fanned the flames of war.

If they initially felt that Servan's words made sense, when they heard Harun's heartfelt thanks, the 30,000 pages woke up to the scheme.

"Despicable! Do you think that just because you're the city magistrate you can invert black and white?"

"Servan Diljen, his Divine Majesty has just died that you're already fostering a clique?! Are you trying to rebel?"

"The urn is his, of course he chooses who appears and who doesn't! This is bullshit!"

"Even a tiny city magistrate is already this corrupt! How much did they pay you?!"

"You can kill a few, but can you kill 30,000 Celestial Kins?"

The protests turned into frenzied roars that boomed across the courtyard as the protesters closed on Servan. Initially, when he heard that Harun had left to meet Gerden, Servan had his spies monitor the registrar's office and make sure that Harun wouldn't be too bruised for the banquet.

But Harun came out unscathed, making Servan realize that something unexpected must have occurred. Fearing that the boy unveiled the plan, Servan planned to use this rigged selection to demonstrate his absolute control of the pages' fate—silently telling Harun that he could only resign to his arrangements.

Never did he expect that with a few words, the situation would spiral out of control.

"Get lost!" Vast Heavenly Qi erupted from Servan's body, slamming into the 30,000 and making the hundreds at the forefront directly burst into a blood fog. Scarlet flames followed, condensing the picture of five, three-legged blood-flame crows in the sky.

Over 100 meters tall, the mystical beasts spread their wings, unleashing scalding heat waves that rained on the protesters, burning over 1,000 to ashes in a single move.

The ability to turn the Celestial Nature into Divine Totems, the mark of a Celestial Guard. Faced with such a destructive force, Celestial Kins could only surrender their lives. But while one thousand startled Celestial Kins couldn't threaten Servan, the reckless offensive of tens of thousands was a different matter.

"Brothers, we're merely stating the facts, but being slaughtered like cattle! Enough is enough! He's cutting off our path to retreat, leaving us no other choice! Today if we can't change the magistrate, our lives end! Charge!"

Using the fact that all the attention had been shifted from him, Harun snuck into the mob, and screamed to lift the troops' spirit. Galvanized, they all activated their Celestial Natures, turning into wolves, crows, snakes, pigeons, eagles, pigs, donkeys and so much more as they hurtled at the magistrate with the full might of their cultivation bases!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Divine Powers, martial arts and Daoist spells poured forth. Servan avoided many, but more slammed him in. Granted, the pages weren't a military corps, but among them were past mortal sect masters, generals and emperors. In this occasion where birth didn't matter, they took the leadership and coordinated the assault.

Initially, Harun wanted to use the chaos to escape, but Servan soared into the sky, and unleashed a seven-star martial art.

"Sky-Rending Flame Claws!"

Servan's blood flames turned into 30 massive flame claws—each large enough to trap an elephant—that dropped on the page army with grating, metallic sounds.

*BANG*

Their moves collided, releasing an explosion of Heavenly Qi that sent both sides flying across the courtyard.

This time, although he stood as far away from the conflict as possible, poor Harun couldn't escape the calamity, and was sent reeling by a shock-wave.