Chapter 734: Losing One’s Head to Greed

Chapter 734: Losing One’s Head to Greed

Waves surged across the surface of the Forbidden Sea as Xu Qing and the Captain went back toward Sea-Sealing County. All of a sudden, Xu Qing stopped in place and looked off into the distance. He felt like he could hear a voice in his mind, and could just barely make out some images floating in front of him. Unfortunately, the images were blurry, like runny ink.

When Xu Qing suddenly stopped in place, the Captain looked over in surprise. Then he followed Xu Qing’s gaze off into the distance. He didn’t see anything.

Curious, he asked, “What’s going on, little Ah Qing? Did you see something?”

Xu Qing didn’t respond at first. After seeing Xu Qing just looking blankly off into the distance, the Captain was about to ask another question. That was when Xu Qing’s expression returned to normal.

Realizing he was looking in the direction of the Nightspirit Region, he said, “It seems like something is calling out to me. Something I originally assumed didn’t exist.”

***

On the Nightshade front lines, a violet moon descended, casting violet light in all directions, and causing the previously bright canopy of heaven to suddenly dim. Down below, all living beings trembled as the violet light grew stronger. At the same time, a terrifying aura spread from the violet moon. From a distance, it looked like the violet moon took up about half of the sky. Cultivators on both sides of the conflict could look up and see all the various craters and depressions that covered its surface. A huge stone stele could be seen on the violet heavenly body, shining with shocking, dazzling light.

A godly aura caused heaven and earth to distort. It blurred the world as clouds of mutagen rose up, within which could be seen innumerable violet worms that seemed to phase back and forth between illusory and corporeal.

Down on the battlefield, King Heaventide and his subordinates were deeply shaken. Many gasped for breath, and many trembled physically.

On the Nightshade side, the priests in the violet robes looked more pious than ever, and they raised their voices exuberantly. The other Nightshades also started to get excited, and one by one, they dropped to worship the violet moon. To them, the arrival of the violet moon indicated that their god hadn’t abandoned them. They...still had a god!

In contrast, King Heaventide was struck as if by countless bolts of lightning. He was a Smoldering God, so he knew how terrifying actual gods were. What was more, he knew that his own battle prowess didn’t qualify him to even fight back against a real god.

“How could this be?? Don’t tell me Crimson Mother woke up? No, that can’t be. They weren’t chanting about Crimson Mother. They mentioned Violet Lord! I’ve never heard of this Violet Lord before. Could he be an embodiment of Crimson Mother? Or maybe some ancient god nobody has heard of before?”

King Heaventide was particularly shaken considering that he could sense how true and real this violet moon was. The pressure it exuded, and the mist of violet threadworms, couldn’t have been more real.

This really was like the arrival of a god! The fluctuations and the feelings became a tempest in his heart, raging out of control. Without any hesitation, and without any regard for the lives of his subordinates, he found himself thinking of only one thing: run away! He had to run away before this Violet Lord arrived. That was his only chance to survive.

Gritting his teeth, he shouted, “Withdraw!”

The deputy general bowed his head. “Your humble servant would never.”

“Then get moving!” King Heaventide shouted in a voice as loud as heavenly thunder. The army immediately surged into motion to chase after the fleeing Nightshades.

King Heaventide led the charge.

However, things didn’t go very well. The Nightshades were relying primarily on teleportations to make their escape, so pursuing them meant constantly tracking the lingering teleportation signals. And thus, after three days of pursuit, King Heaventide’s forces found themselves deep inside the Nightspirit Region, surrounded by thick, dark fog.

Clues they had come across on their journey seemed to indicate that the Nightshade army were preparing to make their last stand, and that included the seventeen high priests.

King Heaventide looked out into the fog for a time. Upon sensing the fluctuations of teleportations, his eyes shone with determination and he issued more orders.

Before long, he and his army were racing through the fog. The fog seethed as it swallowed them up.

Seven days later, the fog in that part of the Nightspirit Region churned. Rumbling sounds rose into the dome of heaven. And then a deafening boom echoed out, accompanied by a huge mushroom cloud.

A group of bedraggled figures stumbled out of the fog, led by King Heaventide. He no longer looked as awe-inspiring as before. His eyes glittered defiantly, but his armor was smashed and his complexion wan. He was clearly wounded, and was bleeding all over. His subordinates were all in the same condition, being severely injured and extremely weak. As for the size of his army... only one in ten had survived. Ninety percent of his forces were not coming back.

Looking back at his subordinates, his heart burned with fury. Then he thought about what happened after they raced into that fog, and his fury rose to such a high level that blood sprayed out of his mouth.

First the Nightshades summoned an illusory god to startle me, making me lose face and lose the initiative. Then, allowing anger to surpass reason, I chased them past the range of the immortal skills to this spot. The immortal skills were what prevented the Nightshades from detonating weapons with large areas of effect. As it turned out, they had domain treasure fragments here that they could detonate at will.

King Heaventide felt deep regret. Considering how badly he was injured, he was now worried about what else the Nightshades might have planned. Gritting his teeth, he focused on getting to safety.

After reaching the border of the Holytide Region, he had his army set up camp. Then he stewed in his defiance, rage, and regret as he tried to decide how to explain all of this to the emperor.

It was at that exact same moment that he was finally given a few jade slips that had been sent by Seventh Prince. The first one was a message explaining that the High Commander had gone missing in Sea-Sealing County, and that Sea-Sealing County had refused to send further troops. The second one notified him that Sea-Sealing County had some Dawning Suns, and that Seventh Prince’s garrison had been wiped out, resulting in severe casualties. Those two jade slips caused killing intent to erupt in King Heaventide. However, he now had a way to explain this disaster to the emperor.

It was all Sea-Sealing County’s fault. Because they didn’t send reinforcements, he wasn’t able to fully deploy the immortal skills in time to foray into the Nightspirit Region. That left his army somewhat stranded, and thus led to the big defeat.