Chapter 158

Faced with the Heavenly Court's massive offensive, Qinglong certainly knew it couldn't win, but it just couldn't swallow that anger!

In my own sight, watching, my father was cruelly burned to death by that broken bird, his corpse burnt beyond recognition as a dragon... On what grounds should I let go of my hatred?

Qinglong never thought its father had any fault; why should the kirin clan slaughter the dragon race and its father have to die? What's wrong with increasing one's strength? All things in the world are inherently survival of the fittest.

Qinglong only resents that its father never truly attained the Dao; if its father had become Dao back then, that broken bird and his two lackeys would have to die, and all who obstruct the Dao deserve to be hacked to pieces!

As for the Heavenly Court's offensive...

Qinglong can clearly state: if Di Jun's background weren't that broken bird Jiaoming, this battle wouldn't need to be fought at all; as long as the Heavenly Court's strength can overwhelm the dragon race, Qinglong is willing to surrender on the spot and submit to any disposition.

Because survival of the fittest is an eternal heavenly principle, Qinglong has long had this awareness: if it can eat others, then others can naturally eat it; if its skill is inferior, there's nothing to say!

But who made Di Jun's background have to be Jiaoming? The more Di Jun tries to persuade it to surrender, the more it insists on fighting to the death; the avenging of its father's death admits no coexistence under heaven!

"Big brother, you're too extreme..."

In the Crystal Palace, a little yellow dragon timidly voiced its opinion: "If our strength is lacking yet we still fight hard, aren't we just courting death?"

"Shut up! You have no say in this!"

The azure, vermilion, white, and black true dragons all shouted at it in unison!

Little yellow dragon:...

Damn it, there's simply no room for my opinion in this family!

The indignant little yellow dragon, in its anger,... then burst into tears.

The headache-plagued Qinglong had no choice but to take it out of the meeting room: "Go play house by yourself!"

Cough!

Back in the meeting room, Qinglong sighed: "To fulfill Father King's wish of completing a stamp collection, I brought forth the yellow dragon—I truly don't know if it's right or wrong..."

"No matter what, this revenge war of ours must not implicate the yellow dragon!"

Qinglong said in a deep voice: "This suicide mission for revenge needs only us four; as for it, let it keep the incense of our true dragon line."

Qinglong's resolve to die is obvious; the other three dragons have long been mentally prepared to die together: fighting Jiaoming, they surely can't win, but surrender is absolutely out of the question!

After personally witnessing Father King's corpse, horribly disfigured, the four great true dragons had only one thought.

No coexistence under heaven!

But Father King had also said before dying, "It must protect its three younger brothers and preserve the bloodline of the true dragon..."

Thus, after some deliberation, the yellow dragon came into being... Qinglong extracted the origin from the ancestral dragon's corpse, then invested it into the ownerless Kirin Cliff, nurturing it with earthly vital energy; soon, the yellow dragon corresponding to the earthly vital energy of Central Province was born.

With the yellow dragon inheriting the true dragon's orthodoxy, it both fulfills Father King's wish for it to protect its brothers and accomplishes Father King's desire to gather the five directional true dragons...

"But big brother... will that bastard Jiaoming really spare the yellow dragon?"

The vermilion dragon asked its question somewhat hesitantly, after all, exterminating the root is the mainstream practice in the wilderness; it really finds it hard to believe that Jiaoming, after wiping out its four dragons, would still spare the yellow dragon.

"It will!"

Qinglong answered without hesitation: "The reason is only one—because he is Jiaoming, the Jiaoming who proclaims morality and womanly benevolence!"

The three dragons were silent in unison: "Indeed, if it were someone else—like Hongjun, the ancestral phoenix, or Di Jun and his ilk—then at the time of the dragon race's defeat, it would also be the day the five directional true dragons and all collateral secondary lineages die out."

Only Jiaoming wouldn't, because... he is Jiaoming...

Thus, the great war was on the verge of breaking out!

In the year of the Yao calendar, five elements, two meetings, six fortunes, the Heavenly Court, with the Heavenly Emperor personally leading the campaign, accompanied by Xihe who drives the sun, Donghuang Taiyi, and the fire official Zhuque, together with the foster father Jiaoming, making five Great Luo, marched to punish the disobedient East Sea!

Below the five Great Luo Golden Immortals, the Heavenly Court also dispatched eight hundred Phoenix clan Taiyi realm experts, plus the dragon clan kings who had surrendered to the Heavenly Court from various regions, totaling over three thousand Taiyi.

There were no troops below the Taiyi realm, for in the primordial era there was no karmic force to limit high-level combat power from sweeping all before it, so high-level combat power alone sufficed to decide victory, making it unnecessary to conscript middle- and lower-level troops; this also counts as a stark difference between primordial and later warfare, right...

On the contrary, the East Sea Crystal Palace side loudly advocated a sea-of-people tactic, not only deploying all four seas' true dragons and collateral secondary lineages onto the battlefield, but also sending ordinary water tribes en masse, clamoring that the entire clan must avenge the ancestral dragon!

Thus, the dragon side's troop numbers can be directly counted in hundreds of millions!

But warfare in the wilderness has never been something the lower ranks can influence; given that the dragon race's top-tier combat power is completely overwhelmed by the Heavenly Court, anyone can see at a glance that this is Qinglong using cannon fodder to die...

The Heavenly Court's Taiyi experts were utterly bewildered by Qinglong's move, not understanding what wind it was sucking up; no matter how many cannon fodder there are, they can be wiped out with a flip of the hand, right?

What exactly is the meaning of this?

But when this situation fell into the eyes of the Heavenly Court's true upper echelons, their pupils contracted and they silently cursed, "Not good!"

The cannon-fodder tactic is of no use to them, but for the Heavenly Emperor's foster father, it's practically a deadly thing...

Upon receiving the news, Di Jun loudly cursed Qinglong as a despicable little dragon; he all too well knows the foster father's soft-hearted mentality—if the Heavenly Court side fails to rein in its force, the opposite side will directly die in large numbers, and seeing that, the foster father would surely feel guilty enough to commit suicide on the spot?!

Despicable!!!

Di Jun fully understands that if this maneuver is mishandled, the battle need not be fought—or rather, if they win, they can return to arrange the foster father's wedding and funeral...

And Qinglong opposite surely knows your weakness just as well; this move, useless to anyone else, is practically a guaranteed-death special attack against you—Qinglong, who could devise such a suicide-tactic play, is certainly no easy opponent!

Di Jun couldn't help but sigh: having such a foster father is both a great blessing and a great calamity.

Di Jun never had a biological father, nor did he ever know how good a biological father could be to him; but even if it were better, it's impossible for a foster father to treat him better than this—in his view, you are more like a father to him than his own biological father!

Even though Di Jun is usually an unfeeling creature of power, when facing you he can't help but feel a softening in his heart... He naturally couldn't bear to watch you die, but this battle concerns the future of the wilderness, so he cannot avoid fighting, nor can he afford to lose.

So he must devise a solution that satisfies both sides...

Thus, on that very day, Di Jun decided to launch a decapitation strike.

He ordered the over three thousand dragon and phoenix Taiyi: "Ignore those ordinary dragon soldiers; just smash the Crystal Palace!"

With the order given, although everyone regretted not being able to go all out, they still complied; a full over three thousand Taiyi realm experts formed a wave that was basically invincible in the present wilderness, surging straight toward the East Sea Crystal Palace.

Meanwhile, as everyone set out, Di Jun immediately located Xihe, Taiyi, Zhuque, and you, deciding to seize the opportunity to behead Qinglong's four brothers!

Although you have always strived to avoid unnecessary casualties, the four Qinglong brothers are now obviously not innocent; their war will surely cause massive casualties, and in nature they are no different from the three progenitors of the previous two eras—they are premier war profiteers.

For such people, you naturally won't be lenient: back then, sparing Qinglong led to today's disaster, so this time you certainly cannot spare it again!

With you at the lead, Xihe, Di Jun, Taiyi, and Zhuque in tow, the five Great Luo Golden Immortals jointly assault the Crystal Palace...

Faced with the Heavenly Court's decapitation tactic, Qinglong was obviously somewhat caught off guard, but in the flash of lightning and stone fire, it still immediately made the correct choice: on one side ordering the Crystal Palace's Taiyi realm experts to meet the enemy, on the other side calmly waiting with its three brothers for you.

Not long after, the nine people from both sides finally met!

Upon seeing you, the Azure Dragon recalled the sorrow of these years, immediately letting out a roar; the four brothers revealed their true dragon forms and lunged straight at you.

The boundless Azure Dragon commanded thirty-six Sea-Stabilizing Pearls, the scene as if the primordial dragon had been reborn...

Before you could act, Di Jun and the three other juniors rushed forward first; three sun-like Golden Crows and a vermilion-feathered Vermilion Bird clashed with the azure, vermilion, white, and black true dragons, and the fight was instantly evenly matched, impossible to tell apart.

This is naturally Di Jun's tactic: hold the four-versus-four stalemate, then you, with your transcendent combat power, take them down one by one; in short, under the crushing superiority of top-tier strength, the Azure Dragon brothers had no chance from the start, and could only meet defeat and death...

Having become enemies, you naturally would not hold back; in this melee of dragons and birds, you instantly revealed your true form as a firebird, and at the same time, a platinum-colored true fire, far hotter than the three Golden Crows, blazed up fiercely.

After who knows how many eons, this round of death-bringing sun finally reappeared in the world!

Floating in the field, you truly resembled a Golden Crow even more than the three proper Golden Crows!

The terrifying sun plummeted suddenly onto the nearest Vermilion Dragon, shocking it so that its soul nearly fled; though it tried to dodge, the Vermilion Bird blocked it, leaving it only to watch helplessly as the sun crashed down...

Soon after, the Vermilion Dragon let out a mournful cry and fell!

The charred corpse of the Vermilion Dragon fell powerlessly into the sea, as if the scene of years past were reenacted.

Seeing this, your heart suddenly trembled, yet you continued to launch an attack at the next target.

After a while, the Black Dragon fighting Xihe also let out a miserable scream, its corpse sinking into the sea...

After a while, the White Dragon facing Taiyi also met its end, its corpse falling into the azure waves...

Under your methods, honed over many years as a Great Luo, those juniors had virtually no capacity to resist; even if the Vermilion Bird did not hold back the three dragons, you could practically take them on alone.

To slaughter the young with old age—that's just utterly unreasonable.

The vermilion, black, and white true dragons are dead; only the Azure Dragon remains, still facing off against Di Jun, the thirty-six Sea-Stabilizing Pearls flying up and down, putting Di Jun in a rather sorry state, ultimately unable to overcome this eldest son of the primordial dragon.

Seeing his three brothers fall one after another, the Azure Dragon howled incessantly, his bloodshot eyes filled with madness, and the Sea-Stabilizing Pearls grew ever stronger!

Fortunately, the Vermilion Bird, Xihe, and Taiyi rushed forward to help, preventing Di Jun from being injured; the four birds joined forces to besiege the Azure Dragon, and no matter how frenzied it became, it could only be reluctantly suppressed...

You, who had slain three dragons, did not step forward this time to kill the Azure Dragon; you simply stood dazed, retracting your true fire, lowering your head to silently gaze at the three charred corpses bobbing with the waves in the sea.

You…… have grown weary of slaughter.

Old man, one is always prone to overthink...

Seeing you hesitate to slay the Azure Dragon, the four juniors sighed inwardly, knowing you were having another bout of your illness.

But since you were unwilling to kill, Di Jun and the others naturally would not slight you; thus they never dealt a killing blow, only joining forces to suppress the Azure Dragon until finally subduing it, sealing its magical power, and escorting it before you...

You gazed blankly at the Azure Dragon, looking at its blood-red eyes, and after a long while said, "I don't want to kill you."

The Azure Dragon said nothing, merely lowering its head in silence.

In the Demon calendar, the fifth epoch, second assembly, sixth period, the Heavenly Court employed a decapitation strategy, in one battle slaying three sea true dragons and capturing the eldest son of the primordial dragon, the Azure Dragon, afterwards imprisoning it in the heavenly prison!

As the true dragons were either slain or captured, the remaining Dragon Palace strongholds were quickly defeated; aside from the hundred or so diehard Dragon Palace loyalists who were slain, the remaining several thousand second-generation dragon descendants all surrendered, and even those below the second generation gave up resistance, forced to accept the Heavenly Court's jurisdiction.

Afterward, in the Crystal Palace, the fifth true dragon son of the primordial dragon, the "Yellow Dragon," was captured; Di Jun originally intended to eradicate them completely, but thanks to your intervention, the ignorant young Yellow Dragon was brought by you to Mount Yu Jing.

You intended this way to put an end to the irreconcilable enmity with the Dragon Race...

Di Jun, though his heart ached at this another act of mercy of yours, could only reluctantly admit: "Who made me your adoptive father?" Eyes tearing up.

Regardless, the Heavenly Court won a great victory in this battle, thoroughly pacifying the Four Wastelands and Four Seas of Zhongzhou, utterly crushing all remnants of the Dragon Race's forces!

Thus, the Heavenly Court unified the primordial wilderness, becoming the first great unification regime in primordial history, completely ending the era of barbaric fragmentation in ancient times.

History, a new chapter has been opened...

In the Demon calendar, the fifth epoch, eighth assembly, fourth period, the Heavenly Court moved its capital to beneath the Heaven-Supporting Divine Mountain in Zhongzhou, renaming this mountain "Mount Buzhou"!

The era of the Demon Race's Heavenly Court has officially arrived!

(End of chapter)