Chapter 918: The Old Acquaintance of Revenge

As a comparison target for someone else seriously injured, Manifest Sage True Lord Yang Sheng said he had been offended.

If the occasion were appropriate, he would have drawn his three‑pointed double‑edged blade and given Thunder Lord a proper lesson.

The Jade Emperor, who had not remained seated but stepped down from the throne's stairs and stood, looked at Thunder Lord and said, "Speak."

Thunder Lord hurried forward two steps, avoided Yang Sheng's icy gaze, and gave a detailed account of what had happened then.

"He really is injured, but… he's still not easy to deal with," the Jade Emperor thought to himself.

"What about his few disciples?" the Jade Emperor asked.

What he really wanted to ask was, of course, Sun Wukong.

"He hasn't shown up yet," Thunder Lord said.

"Alright, you may leave." The Jade Emperor waved his hand and dismissed Thunder Lord.

Thunder Lord's gaze was resentful; he had come all this way, not for this outcome. But now Yang Sheng stood beside him, and he had just said something rather inappropriate.

Taking into account the Manifest Sage True Lord's thoughts, bestowing favor on him now would clearly be inappropriate.

Thunder Lord, helpless, could only step back three times while looking back, and then leave first.

Yang Sheng stepped forward, knelt on one knee before the Jade Emperor, and said, "Your Majesty! I wish to go and slay that wretch, take his head, and thereby raise the might of the Heavenly Court!"

The Jade Emperor looked at Yang Sheng, shook his head slightly, and said, "No need; I have already made arrangements for this."

"Your Majesty…" Yang Sheng still intended to say something.

The Jade Emperor had already cut him off: "No need for more words; if the monster monk truly reaches the Heavenly Court, then it will be your turn to act, understand?"

"Yes." Yang Sheng bowed his head, accepted the order, and left.

After a while, Venus approached and said, "Your Majesty."

"What do you think is Tang Xuanzang's true condition?" the Jade Emperor asked.

Venus pondered briefly: "His injury is certain, but I think it is definitely not as he has shown; it should be either lighter or heavier than what he displays."

That sounded somewhat like nonsense.

"How light, how heavy?" the Jade Emperor said.

"If it's light, then naturally Tang Xuanzang is feigning weakness. In the later stage of his westward journey he often used this trick, luring many monsters and fools into traps." Venus said, "If it's heavy, I suspect he has a final killing move."

"Wait until we gather our strength and kill him in one strike, then counterattack—finish the battle in one go."

If Tang Luo is indeed seriously injured.

Without doubt, the Heavenly Court and the Great Thunder Sound Temple could very well join forces, concentrate great power, and directly overwhelm the opponent.

But that would also give him the maximum opportunity to counterattack.

For example, he might have only a terrifying final strike left, a mutual‑annihilation technique or the like.

"Make preparations on both fronts." the Jade Emperor said in a low voice, "The Heavenly Palace will wait for him to enter the net, continuing to drain his strength along the way."

"Yes." Venus was about to receive the order and depart.

"Wait, let him go." the Jade Emperor suddenly said.

"He… has recovered?" Venus stared for a moment, then realized whom the Jade Emperor meant.

"More or less, he can help us probe Tang Xuanzang's depths again," the Jade Emperor said.

Speaking of which, as the controller of this colossal Heavenly Court, constantly probing the injured Tang Luo seems to have become overly familiar.

In fact, there is apprehension, but more importantly, both the Heavenly Court and the Great Thunder Sound Temple need to preserve their strength.

The Jade Emperor and Maitreya both clearly understand that their current enemy is Tang Xuanzang, but their greatest foe is not him; it is the Tathagata, the Supreme (Three Pure Ones), and also each other.

Therefore, they cannot afford to pay too high a price in dealing with Tang Xuanzang.

Moreover, Tang Xuanzang is no ordinary cat or dog; together with the unknown whereabouts of Sun Wukong, he is capable of delivering a heavy blow to the Heavenly Court and the Great Thunder Sound Temple.

Thus, neither the Jade Emperor nor Maitreya has launched a direct assault.

What they want is "no injury"—since that's impossible, minimizing loss and cost is necessary.

Although some may see it that way, the deaths of Lightning Mother, Wind Earl, and Rain Master already represent a considerable cost.

But the enemy is ultimately Tang Xuanzang together with the hidden Sun Wukong.

These losses are still far below the upper limit of what can be borne; even if they died merely as probes, that remains the case.

Now the "he" the Jade Emperor speaks of, used to probe Tang Luo, lies within the tolerable range and can even be called a use of waste.

But this "waste" should be able to exert considerable value.

——

Before him lay a continental world.

The end of the Chariot Road is still a considerable distance from that world, but it can no longer be extended forward.

A power separates that world's location; this power belongs to the Heavenly Court.

Tang Luo has already reached the border of the Heavenly Court's territory; through this world he can soon truly reach the Heavenly Court.

He dismounted the carriage, retracted the Chariot Road and the remaining thousand terracotta warriors atop it, and Tang Luo tore apart the Heavenly Court's protective barrier, which to him was as fragile as a thin potato chip.

He quickly entered this world.

After experiencing the obstruction of Thunder Lord, Lightning Mother, Wind Earl, and Rain Master, Tang Luo subsequently engaged in successive battles with personnel from the Heavenly Court and the Great Thunder Sound Temple.

The strongest of these obstructions came from the Great Thunder Sound Temple.

As many as ten thousand precept monks formed ranks and arrived; the bulk of the damage to the terracotta warriors occurred at that time.

Speaking of which, everyone sent out by the Great Thunder Sound Temple was dressed as a precept monk.

It seems the number of precept monks is especially large, as if they could never be used up.

The Great Thunder Sound Temple does not have the Bodhi Courtyard or Arhat Hall institutions found in martial‑arts novels' monasteries.

The precept monks can be said to be the Great Thunder Sound Temple's sole "armed force," occupying only a small fraction of its monk population.

From the repeated appearances of precept monks now, Tang Luo feels that the renewed Great Thunder Sound Temple places greater emphasis on combat than before.

Those precept monks generally have combat power exceeding their own cultivation.

The so-called "killing enemies above one's level" is nothing to these monks.

Moreover……they are quite restrained against Buddhist divine abilities and spells, not merely a matter of knowing oneself and the enemy to counter, but they have cultivated specific methods for this purpose.

Tang Luo naturally would not think this is Maitreya specially prepared to deal with him.

Let alone that what Tang Luo cultivates is the Seventy-Two Transformations, which is the Eight Nine Mystic Skill, basically not an orthodox Buddhist method, even if it were.

Although he is strong, strong enough to make Maitreya wary, it does not reach the point where Maitreya would specially train these special precept monks; the existence of these precept monks is probably to deal with the residual forces of the Tathagata.

When the Heavenly Court and the Great Thunder Sound Temple were probing Tang Luo, how could they not be exposing some of their own information?

Idly thinking about the situation of the Heavenly Court and the Great Thunder Sound Temple.

Tang Luo floated in the high sky, looking out, this continent-shaped world has abundant heavenly and earthly qi, almost reaching the former Mountain and Sea Realm.

Just as he was surveying the world, a change suddenly occurred.

In the sky, the celestial body that originally emitted light and heat, which circled the world, instantly became dim.

Only sparks remained, like a piece of charcoal.

The whole world fell into darkness, and within this darkness, some red light was mixed in.

The temperature began to drop; in just a few seconds, it had already reached the point where exhaled breath condenses into ice.

The ground could be seen quickly covered with a layer of frost.

Tang Luo turned his head and glanced.

As expected, the whole world was sealed off, turning into an inescapable dead land.

Of course, this inescapability is for ordinary people; for Tang Luo, it's roughly equivalent to going from a thin potato chip to a thick wavy potato chip.

From this it can be judged that this is still only a probe by the Heavenly Court.

Not an intention to settle Tang Luo here.

Cold, deathly still.

A breath close to death spreads, making people feel suffocated.

In the surrounding sky, where the deathly aura is thick, large numbers of heavenly soldiers slowly walk out; their armor is very old, even rotten, as if just dug up from the ground.

The dead!

These heavenly soldiers are a group of the dead crawling out of hell.

They should not exist here, in the human world.

"This is the old armor, right?" Tang Luo said, "Are they nostalgic old acquaintances?"

The armor of these undead heavenly soldiers differs from that of the current heavenly soldiers of the Heavenly Court; it is the armor from the Mountain and Sea Realm era.

Tang Luo feels his "old acquaintance nemesis" passive is about to trigger again.

"Tang Xuanzang!"

An angry roar came from all the heavenly soldiers' mouths; in the white frost on the ground, a huge hand suddenly stretched out, grabbing toward Tang Luo.

That arm likewise emits icy cold and deathly stillness, but overall it looks like burning blue flame.

It is dancing ice.

Tang Luo casually pressed down, crushing the ice giant hand beneath his feet.

As the giant hand shattered, it turned into countless solid fragments that enveloped Tang Luo.

Those undead heavenly soldiers also formed ranks and charged toward Tang Luo, killing intent palpable.

"Are there people in the Heavenly Court who hate me this much?" Tang Luo mused while casually blocking the attacks of the heavenly soldiers and ice.

The person who came with the undead heavenly soldiers hides no hatred toward himself.

Like erupting volcanic magma, it cannot be suppressed at all.

Tang Luo does not remember having such an enemy in the Heavenly Court.

Changing to Sun Wukong, back when he caused havoc in the Heavenly Palace, many immortals suffered under his staff; on the surface they laughed, but inside many were cursing.

But Tang Luo never caused havoc in the Heavenly Palace.

Who could hate him so much? Those who truly hate him are mostly dead already.

Unable to recall, Tang Luo stopped thinking; the bone claw great palm seal appeared, and with one motion he swept out an empty space around him.

Before the heavenly soldiers could regroup to surround that empty space.

A figure appeared beside Tang Luo, thrusting a sword forward.

That figure is entirely ice-blue, with surging resentment, anger, and deathly aura emanating from him.

The sword thrust at Tang Luo is entirely made of golden flames, full of vigor that clashes with his body, angry and lively.

Ice and fire, two heavens.

Tang Luo moved his body, shattering many heavenly soldiers, retreating several hundred meters to avoid this sword.

After staring at that ice-blue figure for a few seconds, he spoke, with a tone not quite certain: "Li Jinzha?"

"It's me." Li Jinzha grinned wickedly, "Who would have thought? I crawled out of hell to take revenge on you!"

"Revenge?" Tang Luo frowned, "Were you deceived by the Jade Emperor?"

"I know very well what happened." Li Jinzha said, the golden flaming sword in his hand blazing fiercely.

"Forget it, I'll give you a chance." Tang Luo closed his eyes, quickly opened them, and casually flicked.

He threw a person out, who collided with Li Jinzha.

Li Jinzha's flaming sword flashed, instantly cutting that person in two; the deathly aura and icy cold, completely opposite to the vitality on the sword, burst forth, utterly destroying the severed corpses.

Not even ashes were left.

"Since you don't want this chance, then go die." Tang Luo vanished "in place", appearing before Li Jinzha, the liuli bone claw grabbed down, tearing his body apart.

Together with the long sword in his hand.