Chapter 187: The Final Moment

In the end, it was the transformation of a new era.

Perhaps some would evolve along with the times and grow far stronger, but that was, after all, the rise of a mere few.

Yet he, as the Son of Heaven of a dynasty, could not consider those few new-era powerhouses; he had to think of the countless ordinary humans who could not evolve.

That was why this was the true source of his conflict with the True Dragon — he did not need the arrival of a new era; he wanted his people to live and work in peace.

But the True Dragon only wished to make the entire world stronger; how many lives would perish in the process, He simply did not care.

Between the two, there could be no compromise whatsoever.

In the end, he was still human after all.

Naturally, there would come a moment of death, and he feared that after he died, the next Son of Heaven would lack the ability, and when the next new era descended, the human race would be driven to extinction.

This was not him speaking in jest or trying to scare people.

Everyone in all of Great Qin knew that every day countless unfamiliar giant beasts would appear, those beasts seemingly endless, as though every species of the old era had followed along and evolved successfully.

Only their humans had been left behind — this was the True Dragon's injustice!

He had only given their humans a handful of new-era powerhouses, but was that truly the case?

Zhang Rang felt it was not necessarily so; only by truly investigating could one know how many weak races had perished because they could not adapt to the new era.

He feared that the next to face the peril of racial extinction would be their humans.

Because their humans had never been strong; in the past they relied only on wisdom, but now as the giant beasts grew ever stronger, it seemed their wisdom too was beginning to rise.

Once their humans could no longer outwit other creatures in wisdom either, then where would their humans go?

Lord True Dragon's gaze was fixed too far ahead; He had never truly cast His eyes upon those weak races cruelly abandoned by the times.

Nor had He ever cared about their humans; He only cared about whether the entire world was strong, He only wished to make the world stronger.

In His eyes, there was only the strong devouring the weak, the survival of the fittest; the weak were all defective goods that needed to be culled.

But he was different — he stood together with all the people of Great Qin, and now his Great Qin was strong enough.

He no longer needed to worry that his Great Qin's children would go hungry or suffer natural disasters; given the physiques his people possessed today, even if they encountered some natural disaster or beast calamity, as long as there was advance warning, they could very likely escape.

In other words, his Great Qin was already exceedingly powerful, powerful down to every human being today — every one of them a dragon-person.

And being powerful, his lifelong dream had naturally been fulfilled.

It was time for him to try and gamble once for the sake of future generations of humanity.

Once the True Dragon was slain, no new era would descend thereafter.

The true position of Banzhu of this world would naturally return to the hands of their humans, not to some giant-beast overlord or sovereign — even if their Great Qin were to perish afterward, this would hold true.

In the end, even if he ultimately failed, he could still leave behind a lesson, a case for posterity to reference.

If humanity had not perished by then, then everything had been his needless worry.

In fact, the moment he made this decision, he had already made every preparation.

Either wrest the position of world Banzhu back from the True Dragon's hands, so humanity no longer needed to fear the great upheavals of the eras — or perhaps all of Great Qin would march into destruction along with him.

Perhaps at that time no one would understand him, perhaps the humans of later ages would brand him a mad tyrant, perhaps he would be forsaken by all, perhaps…

Who knew? His mind was set!

The only thing he needed to consider was how many within Great Qin agreed with this mad idea of his; even he did not dare to act arbitrarily on this point, because in a certain sense this might well be dragging Great Qin into the Abyss, into destruction.

Perhaps if he insisted, those noble families of theirs would not dare oppose him openly, but he feared they would pay lip service while working against him in secret, and in a matter of such magnitude, he feared a scattering of strength, a failure to work with one heart.

Therefore, he made use of their greed, giving them confidence, giving them hope.

If they succeeded, all of Great Qin could become eternal and imperishable, and they too could reign supreme for generations.

Such a thing could never have succeeded in the past, and no one would have believed it, but this time the Dragon Transformation Elixir had given them hope — if the main ingredient truly was the True Dragon, then every one of them would become a True Dragon! Every one of them could become eternal!

At this point, greed had blinded their eyes.

Of course, in a certain sense, he could not be said to be deceiving them.

……

"Weng—!"

A violent tremor of the ground jolted Zhang Rang out of his reverie.

He looked up and saw that it was caused by the heavy body of the Dragon Mech piloted by General Wang stomping the ground.

At this moment General Wang was controlling the Dragon Mech, frantically replenishing it with the flesh and blood that the soldiers had transported in massive quantities, preparing for the fierce battle to come.

It seemed the moment was almost at hand.

At this moment, Zhang Rang murmured within his heart.

Then he turned his head to look at the wife beside him — Zhou Qingqing, the other main force of this great battle.

And as he turned, Zhou Qingqing, with perfect tacit understanding, turned her head at the same instant and met his gaze.

For a moment the two were startled, then they smiled.

Perhaps until the final moment, she should stay by his side forever.

At this moment, a strange enlightenment welled up in Zhang Rang.

……

Time thus passed another three days, and by now everything was prepared and ready.

At the sound of a long-drawn horn, a contingent of less than a thousand men began to move lightly toward Tiandu Feixu, carrying various strange implements of every description; above the army loomed a colossal humanoid weapon — the Dragon Mech.

Though this force numbered less than a thousand, it was every elite that all of Great Qin could muster.

Ever since the events of the old-era Duanlong Mountain Range and the new-era giant-beast overlords and sovereigns.

Zhang Rang had understood that once strength reached a certain level, numbers were sometimes truly no longer an advantage.

And on this journey they faced the True Dragon that had annihilated all of Great Zhou and reshaped the world; numbers were naturally useless before It.

What they needed was a small number of powerful elites, not bloated numbers of ordinary soldiers who, once casualties mounted, would break and rout and shake the army's morale.

Were it not for the fact that this expedition also intended to bring along the various, remarkably effective giant-beast weapons Great Qin had forged over all these years, to see whether they might have any effect.

Zhang Rang even felt that bringing along the five hundred strongest Ancient Dragon Humans and Dragon Machine Soldiers from the great army would be enough.

……

Five more days passed in Time.

After five days' Time, Zhang Rang and the others finally saw in the distance the towering empty city standing far away — that was the destination of their journey, the place where the True Dragon laired: Tiandu!

At this moment, everyone roused themselves, no longer listless as before.

Because the final moment was about to arrive!

"Halt the march!"

At this moment, Zhang Rang raised his right hand, transmitting his voice clearly into the ears of every soldier.

In an instant, the entire column immediately stopped, and countless people began to lift their heads and gaze upon the Son of Heaven of their Great Qin.

"Brothers, make camp and light fires on the spot. Today each and every one of you get a proper full rest for me. Tomorrow is the most important moment — there can be no mishaps!"

"From now on, whether Great Qin achieves eternity, whether you all become stronger from this day forth — it all depends on this very moment!"

At this moment, Zhang Rang no longer bothered to maintain the dignity of the Son of Heaven by referring to himself as 'Zhen'.

At this point, the entire punitive army of Great Qin began its final moment of rest.

……

(End of chapter)