Chapter 655: The Real Deal Is Alarmed

“The Great Celestial Venerable was summoned to fight the demons?”

King Li’s head was spinning. For a moment, he could hardly process it.

He commanded the heavenly soldier camps, leading three hundred thousand heavenly soldiers and generals. They had every kind of unit, and he was an expert at setting up camp, marching and deploying troops, leading armies into battle, and spearheading assaults.

The camps had heavenly soldiers and generals specifically responsible for arranging the Star-Gathering Platforms, building altars to summon Star Lords, and laying out the Heavenly Cycle Star Formation. The camps were well practiced in such matters. Every stronghold and every fortified pass was designed and laid out this way.

Once activated, the formation could draw Heavenly Cycle starlight from beyond the pass, manifest countless stars, and set up a battle formation. Star Lord avatars would descend as well, guarding the stronghold. It was extremely effective.

But King Li had never summoned the Four Sovereigns, Five Elders, Nine Celestial Lords, Three Officials, or Six Ministries.

First, he couldn’t. Second, he wouldn’t dare.

There were fifty Celestial Court heavyweights more powerful than him above his head, and now someone had summoned twenty-seven of them at once. Even if they were only avatars, it was no small matter.

These twenty-seven deities were all rulers of Heavenly Palaces, each equivalent to the ruler of a miniature Celestial Court!

Their palaces had countless deities in their service, ready to work and even die for them!

Their avatars were spread throughout the Yin and Yang realms, and their presence could be found in countless worlds across the mysterious yellow sea as well.

Anyone who offended even one of them was bound to suffer for it!

Who could be so recklessly bold as to borrow the divine power of these twenty-seven chief deities?

“And the most outrageous thing is that they even dared summon the Great Celestial Venerable’s avatar!”

King Li shuddered. If those twenty-seven deities were chief gods, then the Jade Emperor, the Great Celestial Venerable, was the divine lord, the lord of all gods. How brazen did someone have to be to wield his avatar and send it to fight the demons?

“Who did this?”

He hesitated. As a subject, how could he stand by while his liege was summoned like a consumable to fight the demons?

If the Jade Emperor’s avatar were captured or killed, and word got out, wouldn’t the Celestial Court lose all face?

But intervening would be wrong, too.

If King Li sent troops to rescue them and brought Chen Shi and the others here, how was he supposed to get rid of them and carry out the Celestial Way divine beings’ plan?

Kill them himself?

Or assign them some other dangerous mission and send them to their deaths?

Killing them himself wouldn’t do, either. Among the six was a troublesome fellow named Chen Shi, with far too powerful a backing. King Li might not be sentenced to death for laying a hand on him, but he would have no way to answer to Houtu Huangdiqi and the Eastern Prince.

“Besides, I hear the boy has joined Golden Turtle Island. If he dies at my hands, Thunderclap Puhua Venerable and Doumu Yuanjun will probably come after me. There are so many people from their lineage in the Celestial Court. If they decide to take me on…”

Giving them a dangerous assignment probably wouldn’t work, either.

Rotating the troops at Siyuan Mountain Pass was already extremely dangerous. These fellows could summon the Great Celestial Venerable and the others at the pass. They might well be able to do the same elsewhere.

“How many troops are left at Siyuan Mountain Pass?”

King Li summoned the scout and said, “Order them to withdraw at once!”

“Reporting to Your Lordship, the troops being rotated out have already withdrawn. They’re resting in camp now.”

King Li paused. “There really are only six people at Siyuan Mountain Pass?”

He considered this for a moment, then summoned a divine general and said, “Have the troops who’ve been relieved of duty return to the Celestial Court by ship to recuperate. They held Siyuan Mountain Pass to the death and suffered heavy casualties. Let them go back and rest.”

The divine general hesitated. “Your Lordship, our remaining forces are limited. Should we requisition more soldiers from the heavenly soldier camps?”

King Li shook his head. “If those six can’t become Celestial Way divine beings, then this will be the last batch of heavenly soldiers and generals. The Celestial Court will be left with no one to use. We must ration them. We can’t keep throwing them around as carelessly as before.”

In the past, there had been so many immortals ascending that he had never thought heavenly soldiers and generals were precious. Now that the Celestial Way magic treasure had been destroyed and no one could ascend, the soldiers and generals had become precious, too.

The divine general took his orders and left.

King Li gazed toward Siyuan Mountain Pass in the distance and said in a low voice, “Someone come! Order the Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, and Chen posts of the Jia Guard to mobilize all their forces. Have them enter from the eastern side of Siyuan Pass. While the pass pins down the demons, cut off their retreat.”

At his command, five armies set out, racing toward the enemy’s rear.

King Li hesitated, then slipped out of the central tent and headed toward Siyuan Mountain Pass. He murmured, “I want to see how long you six can hold out…”

He reached a spot more than a hundred li outside Siyuan Pass and stopped to watch from afar.

At Siyuan Mountain Pass, Chen Shi maintained the Small Heavenly Cycle Tribulation Formation divine ability, continuously drawing power from the Ancient Star Region. Starlight surged like a tide into the pass, activating the twenty-eight Star-Gathering Platforms.

Under the command of the rulers of the various Heavenly Palaces, one divine avatar after another guarded the modest pass, battling the demon troops charging toward them.

Divine avatars kept falling to the demon soldiers, but new talismans immediately flew in. Infused with starlight, they rapidly grew into fresh divine avatars and joined the ranks.

The most eye-catching were the rulers of the twenty-eight Heavenly Palaces, their divine power surging fiercely. Each possessed extraordinary abilities. Empress Houtu’s reincarnation art and mysterious yellow swords overturned yin and yang, reversing life and death. Doumu Yuanjun had three heads and eight arms, wielding the sun, the moon, a bow and arrows, a golden spear, a golden bell, a shield, and a sword. Clad in azure, her skill in battle was unmatched!

Thunderclap Puhua Venerable rode the thunder, guarding the sky. Wherever he went, lightning burst forth, destroying bodies, while the thunder entered the mind and shattered Primordial Spirits.

The divine beings among the Four Sovereigns, Five Elders, Nine Celestial Lords, Three Officials, and Six Ministries were either Great Emperors or Venerables. Watching them fight left Niu Jingjing, Longyuan Ling, and the others dazzled.

“Guard the area around me and watch out for any stragglers,” Chen Shi called out.

The five of them tensed and hurriedly focused, protecting Chen Shi as he stood on the Star-Gathering Platform.

As long as Chen Shi remained standing and had the magic power to sustain the formation, there was still hope of holding Siyuan Pass.

If Chen Shi faltered, they would all die without a burial place!

“But can we really handle the external Dao?” they wondered, unsure.

Just then, Chen Shi spread out his Wuji Dao Field, and they each breathed a sigh of relief.

Chen Shi’s Wuji Dao Field could suppress the demons’ external Dao. Without that threat, they were no weaker than the demon soldiers.

Chen Shi relaxed and focused on activating the Small Heavenly Cycle Tribulation Formation.

Under his control, the Small Heavenly Cycle Tribulation Formation merged perfectly with the Universal Sacrificial Rite passed down by Chen Yindu and Creation Little Five, transforming Siyuan Pass into an enormous killing formation. Any enemy who entered it would be torn to pieces!

The Small Heavenly Cycle Tribulation Formation drew on the power of the Ancient Star Region, evolving it into the Heavenly Cycle stars. The Universal Sacrificial Rite, meanwhile, unified the Celestial Court’s three thousand six hundred principal deities and manifested them in the form of talismans.

Six thousand years ago, Western Ox New Continent cut off contact with the Ming Dynasty. After more than six thousand years of decline, the present age had finally produced a lawless lunatic like Chen Yindu, who studied deities and talismans, manifested even deities such as the Great Celestial Venerable and Empress Houtu as talismans, and incorporated them into the Universal Sacrificial Rite.

Using the Fulong Village medicinal pills to unlock supreme wisdom, Chen Shi merged the Small Heavenly Cycle Tribulation Formation from the Great Wilderness Ming Dao Collection with the Universal Sacrificial Rite. Then, combining them with the Star-Gathering Platforms, he created an entirely new way of fighting.

The divine avatars he summoned were not very powerful. Even the strongest was no stronger than he was. But combined with the Universal Sacrificial Rite’s formation, they were equivalent to twenty-seven Heavenly Palaces jointly protecting the Celestial Court, forming an almost invincible defense!

“Too bad this isn’t the complete Luo Heaven Sacrificial Rite. It only has twenty-eight Heavenly Palaces.”

Chen Shi lamented inwardly. The twenty-eight Heavenly Palaces made the formation almost invincible, but it still had plenty of flaws. It could not be called perfect.

To make it perfect, he would have to add the chief deities of the Earth Spirits’ lineage. Unfortunately, the starlight of the Ancient Star Region conflicted with the land deeds of the underworld, making it difficult to form a unified array.

The demon soldiers surged in. In a short time, countless of them were killed or wounded, but no one could break through the tribulation formation and reach the pass.

Seeing this, Xiahou Feng and the others relaxed as well. They thought, “Fellow Daoist Chen from the heavenly soldier camps really is formidable. Maybe we’ll actually survive this.”

They had barely thought this when vines suddenly whipped through the sky, coiling around the withered bones of a great demon as they swooped down from above!

Before the great demon’s bones had even drawn near, countless vines dropped from the sky and wrapped around Thunderclap Puhua Venerable.

Thunder erupted all around Thunderclap Puhua Venerable, and he had just burned the vines to ash when the great demon was already upon him.

Vines coiled around the demon’s bones. It was impossible to tell whether the vines controlled the bones or the bones controlled the vines. They moved with astonishing agility, nothing like a human. Their joints could all be disassembled and reassembled, allowing them to fight Thunderclap Puhua Venerable at close quarters.

Only a wisp of consciousness resided inside Thunderclap Puhua Venerable’s avatar. Caught off guard, he was slain by the demon bones, which exploded with a bang.

In the distance, King Li had been secretly watching the battle. At the sight, he couldn’t help shuddering.

“It’s started! The Celestial Court bigwigs’ avatars are getting taken out!”

His face turned ashen. He muttered under his breath, “Please don’t let anyone find out I had anything to do with this… It’s fine if Puhua Venerable’s avatar gets taken out. As long as it’s not one of the Four Sovereigns, one of the Five Elders, or one of the Nine Celestial Lords, and most importantly, not the Great Celestial Venerable, it’ll be fine…”

The demon bones let out a shrill howl. Taking advantage of the moment, the demon soldiers surged forward, about to break into the pass.

Standing on the Star-Gathering Platform, Chen Shi circulated the Primordial Chaos Infinite Innate Art. A Thunder Ancestor Talisman flew over, and while it was still in midair, surging starlight poured into it. The talisman transformed from a flat image into a three-dimensional form, once again creating an avatar of Thunderclap Puhua Venerable. He raised a hand, unleashing ten thousand thunderbolts that blasted the great demon’s bones away!

Using the Thunder Ancestor Talisman, Chen Shi recreated Thunderclap Puhua Venerable and summoned a new avatar to fill the gap in the formation.

But the other vines in the sky were writhing as well. They controlled one set of great demon bones after another, sending them hurtling toward Siyuan Pass.

Chen Shi maintained the formation. All twenty-eight Heavenly Palaces were under attack at almost the same time, and deities kept dying. He had no choice but to draw on his cultivation to reinforce the formation and summon more divine avatars.

Watching from afar, King Li’s face turned deathly pale. In a short time, the Heavenly Official Great Emperor had been slain, the Earth Official Great Emperor torn in two, the Great Southern Pole Longevity Emperor had his skull split open, and the Red Sovereign of the South had been smashed to pieces!

King Li trembled and turned to leave, muttering, “Out of sight, out of mind. It wasn’t me, anyway. Even if those Great Emperors and Venerables come after someone, they’ll be coming for Chen Shi…”

Despite saying so, he couldn’t help glancing back.

He saw the Green Emperor have his heart and lungs torn out, the Great Emperor Dongyuan skinned and dismembered, and the Heavenly Lord Imperator on the brink of disaster.

Chen Shi remained on the Star-Gathering Platform, moving his feet from one spot to another without the slightest panic. With measured precision, he turned immortal essence into talismans. Whenever a Great Emperor’s or Venerable’s avatar died, he created another to fill the vacancy.

“That kid is calm, I’ll give him that. But he can’t keep this up for long,” King Li thought.

Just then, he saw several sets of great demon bones reach the Jade Emperor, the Great Celestial Venerable, and surround him. King Li’s calves were shaking. His voice trembling, he said, “Great Celestial Venerable, put up a fight! Don’t die at the hands of the demons… We’re doomed!”

The Jade Emperor, the Great Celestial Venerable’s avatar, was slain by the great demon bones!

King Li was distraught. Trembling, he headed back, muttering, “It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine. The Great Celestial Venerable has countless avatars. He won’t notice if one goes missing… No, we’re finished! Who would dare attack the Great Celestial Venerable’s avatar? If he loses one, he’ll definitely notice!”

He looked back and saw Chen Shi cast another talisman, summoning a new avatar of the Jade Emperor, the Great Celestial Venerable.

“We’re finished! The Great Celestial Venerable has this place marked now.”

King Li’s expression shifted uncertainly. Suddenly, he quickened his pace back toward camp, thinking, “By now, all twenty-eight of them probably know what happened here… I used to be the one putting others in their place. Now Chen Shi has stuck me with twenty-eight pairs of trouble! Right, I know nothing about this. I’m completely in the dark. Whatever happened here has nothing to do with me!”

In the Southern Pole Heavenly Palace, inside the Divine Firmament Jade Purity Palace.

The Great Southern Pole Longevity Emperor sat in his palace, with countless deities standing in attendance on either side. Seated there, he contemplated the mysteries of fortune and calamity, rarely moving. He was renowned for remaining unmoved since time immemorial.

Just then, the Great Emperor furrowed his brow slightly and slowly opened his narrow eyes, revealing a puzzled expression.

A goddess attending him asked, “Your Majesty, what troubles you?”

“My avatars number in the billions, existing simultaneously in countless worlds. Some manifest their sanctity and earn the reverence of the commoners, their incense offerings flourishing. Others are ruined by reckless fools. Yet amid these countless worlds, there is one strange occurrence. Someone awakened my avatar in the same place, and it died twice in succession.”

The Great Emperor grew even more astonished. “Now it’s the third time. I can’t ignore this matter… Hmm? Someone is awakening my power again!”

At the same time, in Gouchen Heavenly Palace, inside the Purple Radiance Garden, the Gouchen Heaven Emperor was also gradually furrowing his brow. He murmured, “Strange, very strange. The wars raging throughout the world are tangled and complex, and they are the very source of my incense offerings. Why, then, is this one battle causing my avatars to die again and again? I must take a closer look.”

In Ziwei Heavenly Palace, the Ziwei Emperor rose from his throne, smiling. “I want to see who’s so recklessly bold as to destroy my avatar!”

In the Celestial Court’s Lingxiao Treasure Hall, the Jade Emperor, the Great Celestial Venerable, slowly opened his eyes.

“King Li, look at the mess you’ve made!”