Chapter 86: Heavenly Court – 42K Subscribers Requested

This fact left Wang Wu a little disappointed, because he had been excited, thinking his lover was an alien.

He didn't know why he was so excited, but he was excited nonetheless.

Yet this world does indeed have so‑called "aliens," like the Yin people's starships, a technology that comes from the Star Realm, a civilization vastly different from the Great Shang dynasty.

"So Wu Lang, do you want to go to Tongtian City and take a look?"

"Go to Tongtian City? I'm not going." In the cockpit, Wang Wu glanced at the Zi Yuan sitting beside him and shook his head.

In human form, Zi Yuan's restrained demonic aura does not make the three female demons especially frightened—or even resistant—but it does cause a little unease, to some degree.

In this respect, Zi Yuan is clearly still not as good as Wang Wu, or rather, far inferior.

If Wang Wu cannot transform into a Heavenly Demon and fully release his demonic aura, then in others' eyes he is a monster—a proper monster.

As for his human form, it is naturally human—genuine, authentic humanity, indistinguishable from any real human.

"But Tongtian City should still retain some Star Realm artifacts; Wu Lang, aren't you interested?" Zi Yuan asked curiously.

Wang Wu had previously been quite interested in the Star Realm, but ever since she told him that the mural on the tomb chamber ceiling depicted not the Yin people but extraterrestrial immigrants, his interest vanished instantly.

The Yin people are a proper native planetary race, with no mixed blood at all.

"By the way, what is the Star Realm? Where is the Heavenly Court of that demon god you worship?" While piloting the spherical fortress toward Si Hun Shan, Wang Wu asked the Zi Yuan beside him.

There was a seat for her in the cockpit, but because it wasn't near Wang Wu's pilot's seat, she didn't sit there; instead she moved a stool over and sat beside Wang Wu.

Zi Yuan has seen the world, certainly more than Zhu San Niang, and although the cockpit is quite novel to her, it doesn't make her as excited as Zhu San Niang and the others.

"The Star Realm is subordinate to the Heavenly Court." Zi Yuan fed a piece of jerky to the piloting Wang Wu and explained:

"The Star Realm belongs to the Heavenly Court, and the Heavenly Court is the dwelling of Demon Gods and Demon Generals. Even though Great Shang has been offering sacrifices to the Demon God for ten thousand years, it still knows little about that Heavenly Court."

Then she added, "As for the Star Realm, it is the home of the Star People; like my Yin Shang, the Star People are also a clan of the Heavenly Court. They have long been friendly with my Yin Shang royal house, and my Great Shang royal family once intermarried with the Star People's royal family."

"What about your shaman? What exactly is a shaman?" Wang Wu asked again, curious about the theocratic faction of the Great Shang dynasty.

"Shamans are loyal to the Heavenly Court, not to the royal house." When discussing the Yin Shang dynasty's theocratic organization, Zi Yuan's tone showed obvious displeasure: the High Shaman communicates with the Heavenly Court, while we prepare offerings to sacrifice to the Heavenly Court and pray—whether for favorable weather, for invincible victories, or to request bestowed treasures.

"If the Heavenly Court is satisfied with our sacrifices, it will grant our wishes."

"What about the Demon God?" Wang Wu was curious. "A Demon God should just be a demon, right?"

Zi Yuan nodded.

"They should be like me, possessing reason?" Wang Wu wondered, curious what the 'demon' of this universe and that mysterious Heavenly Court are like.

But Zi Yuan's response made Wang Wu pause; she shook her head.

"Whether Demon God or Demon General, they all crave flesh and souls, yet possess no reason, forever existing in chaos."

"But they are bound by rules; by offering human flesh as sacrifice and holding feasts to entertain the demons, they can receive gifts from the Demon God."

At this point, Zi Yuan looked at Wang Wu with a very complex expression and said, "Even a Demon God has no reason. But, Wu Lang, you..."

"I am an Outer‑Realm Heavenly Demon, not the same as your Demon God; we are a higher tier," Wang Wu said, using this as his current explanation for his transmigrator identity.

He no longer cared about concealing his transmigrator identity; after all, he had been taken for a monster, and now, having cultivated demon techniques from other universes, he was a genuine Heavenly Demon here.

Then why not just go with that and assign himself a plausible identity in this world?

"Outer‑Realm Heavenly Demon"

It's a perfect explanation—'Outer‑Realm' means beyond the universe, and 'Heavenly Demon' is non‑human, non‑demon, which is essentially a demon.

No problem at all, absolutely no flaw.

"Wow, so Wu Lang, you really are a demon!" Shu Niang shouted from the cockpit.

"What's wrong?" Wang Wu looked at her. "I told you already."

"But… it doesn't look like it at all…" Shu Niang mumbled, then smiled, "But a monster is a demon, I don't mind; as long as I can stay with Wu Lang, that's fine."

"I love you too, Shu Niang."

Wang Wu said gently; hearing this, Shu Niang immediately lowered her head shyly, curling her body into a ball.

The monsters, for some unknown reason, always react extremely strongly whenever I say something like that. Normally they behave like this; if Zi Yuan weren't beside me, she would pounce within a second.

As for… uh…

"Ha ha." Seeing Shu Niang's cute reaction, Wang Wu laughed.

"When you talk about the Heavenly Court, it sounds like all the gods have gone mad and become monsters," Wang Wu muttered while still driving, recalling what Zi Yuan had just said.

"They really have all died," Zi Yuan said. "I have seen the appearance of the Heavenly Court."

"How did you see it?" Wang Wu was startled. "Didn't you say you know little about the Heavenly Court? How have you seen it with your own eyes?"

"Wu Lang, do you know the staircase in my tomb that leads to my burial chamber?" Zi Yuan asked, not answering Wang Wu but posing a question.

"The Heaven‑climbing ladder?" Wang Wu nodded. "I've heard about it before…"

He was startled, his words cut off, then he looked at Zi Yuan:

"So that Heaven‑climbing ladder… does it really work?"

Zi Yuan nodded.

"My father the king had two plans for me after death. The first was to ascend that Heaven‑climbing stair after death, using the Soul‑Dividing Vessel granted by the Heavenly Court to separate my demon body from my soul, and then be guided by the Demon God to the Heavenly Court, just like the ancestors of past generations."

"The second was to lie in that pupal coffin, awaiting the next Grand Sacrifice, when my father would pray to the Demon God to resurrect me."

At this point, Zi Yuan looked at Wang Wu, a hint of mockery and sorrow in her eyes:

"But the Heavenly Court has long rotted, and there is no longer any guide. Even if one relies on oneself to traverse the nine‑thousand‑nine‑hundred‑ninety‑nine layers of the Heavenly Stair, what appears before one is merely a decayed, mad, already dilapidated deathland."

"I don't want to become that," Zi Yuan said. "I don't want to become such a thing…"

"So I leapt down, casting myself into the endless darkness beyond that Heavenly Stair."

The later version then continued from the version Zi Yuan first told Wang Wu:

Consciousness fell into boundless darkness, yet for some reason it never truly sank.

Unable to think, thoughts stalled, yet she could still feel clearly. At that moment her mental state was close to "nothing," but "I" had not completely vanished.

She remained in that state, persisting until the eternal darkness shattered, her consciousness resumed its flow, and she returned to this world.

"Since the Star People are friendly with your Great Shang, even intermarried, why didn't the Star People come to aid you when the Great Shang perished?"

Wang Wu recalled that Star People again; when he heard that the Star People had intermarried with the Yin people, his mind began to race.

He began to wonder what the Star People actually looked like—whether they resembled humans or had their own aesthetic system.

"The Star People perished early," Zi Yuan noted the excited expression on Wang Wu's face, shook his head, and said, "When our Great Shang served the Heavenly Court, the Heavenly Court was already out of its destiny."

"The Star People and our Great Shang are the Heavenly Court's last dependents; the Star People served the Heavenly Court even earlier than we did. Yet the Star People, like the Heavenly Court, have run out of destiny, merely clinging to their dwindling foundation."

She sighed and continued:

"But the Star People are ultimately not the Heavenly Court; their foundation has never been as deep as the Heavenly Court's. They vanished completely millennia ago, and our Great Shang's connection with the Star Realm has been utterly severed since then."

"I see…"

After hearing Zi Yuan recount the ancient secrets, Wang Wu nodded.

Simply put, the unlucky emerging civilization Great Shang worshipped a higher civilization that had long perished, its corpse rotted away, existing only as a zombie driven by instinct.

Yet they indeed received countless benefits from that higher civilization, including contact with another higher civilization, which was in fact the Heavenly Court's dependent Star People.

The Star People also took good care of this junior, giving the Great Shang dynasty many things.

But the death and decay of that Heavenly Court civilization made their behavior extremely bizarre, which likewise heavily affected their dependent civilization, rendering it equally twisted.

Whether Great Shang or Starfolk, that is the name of the race. Both civilizations contain extremely bizarre and cruel rituals, all to please the Heavenly Court deities that had long become rotting corpses.

Of course, a higher civilization is still a higher civilization; although it spawned the Great Shang dynasty's ten‑thousand‑year cruel tradition, it indeed made the Great Shang the strongest empire on this planet.

They conquered everything within sight, even capable of dispatching fleets to expedition other planets in this star system and establishing colonies there.

Although this solar system seems to have only one planet suitable for human habitation, the other planets contain nothing but massive ancient civilization ruins and various monsters.

Like the decayed, bizarre demon generals and demon gods of the Heavenly Court.

What is on the Sun? What is on the Moon? What is on Mars? What is on Mercury?

The answer is walking corpses and roving flesh, ghosts and demonic hauntings, and enormous cities long abandoned.

These things still dwell in their former homes, repeatedly reenacting what they once did.

However, the merchants are not unfamiliar with these things, because they were originally built by the previous dynasty. Many of the Shang dynasty's technologies were inherited from the Xia dynasty, which established many cities beyond Earth.

Yet due to rebellion and the sustainability issues of off‑world colonies, the cities cut off from supplies could only march toward death in despair.

In fact, this was done by the Yin people, because the Yin people sparked the rebellion that ended the Xia dynasty.

Corpses that die on Earth become monsters if left untreated, let alone in space; the entire universe's environment is that strange.

The Shang people dispatched a fleet to explore farther places, a star system dozens of light‑years away.

According to the Xia dynasty's remaining survey records, that star system hosts other civilizations—ordinary, relatively low‑level ones that have not yet manifested off‑world technologies.

The Yin people sent a fleet to reactivate a Xia dynasty port city at the edge of the solar system, then set out from there to embark on the conquest of the star sea.

And then the Shang dynasty also perished.

Strictly speaking, this era has reverted to a barbaric age—a time of warlords, with the planet divided into numerous city‑states and kingdoms that constantly wage war and annex each other.

Perhaps one day another nation will sweep across the lands, unify the world, gather a fleet again to enter the star sea, and follow the previous dynasty's records to conquer the primitive civilization dozens of light‑years away.

But that was tens of thousands of years ago; perhaps before a new great unified empire arises, the other side will have already moved on.

From past to present, each era has its unique pinnacle skill and trend: the Sage of the Xia dynasty, the Demon God of the Shang dynasty, and the True Dao of the Great Zhou era.

The Sage's might crowns the universe, the Demon God's power penetrates heaven and earth, and the True Dao's force pierces void, shatters delusion, and gives rise to all laws of heaven and earth.

Overall, each version is indeed stronger than the previous.

The current True Realm version far surpasses the earlier two; the previous one might still be workable, but True Realm unquestionably overwhelms the Sage's power system.

Demon cultivators still exist today, but among a million practitioners, there may not even be a single one who follows the Sage's path.

But in any case, regardless of the dynasty, it is clearly the human race's version. Monsters and the like are essentially invisible, serving only as concubines that bring disaster to human regimes.

Leaving Si Hun Shan and Wang Gu Lin, he walked intermittently, and midway returned to tidy up Zhu San Niang's family's belongings and took them away.

In the heavy snow season, Wang Wu, with his spherical fortress, has been living outside He Dong Xian for several days.

He doesn't intend to go inside; he lives in a forest about a dozen kilometers outside He Dong Xian, on the outskirts, not venturing deeper, because now he no longer needs to reside deep in Wang Gu Lin to ensure concealment and safety.

Living here also allows him to occasionally use a camera to spy on distant human towns and find human life rather interesting.

However, in the past few days Wang Wu has noticed that the area outside He Dong Xian has become much more bustling.

Specifically, armies—large numbers of troops—are constantly pouring into He Dong Xian.

And a few days later, Wang Wu saw something different in the southern sky of He Dong Xian.

A massive warship.

It floated tens of thousands of meters above the sky, slowly moving toward the direction of He Dong Xian.

Though it appeared slow, its speed was at least eight hundred kilometers per hour.

That speed doesn't seem fast, but given its enormous size, that's another matter.

Spacecraft.

This is Wang Wu's first time seeing this thing.

(End of chapter)