Chapter 1173

Densely packed witch scripts were exposed under the illumination of the Sun and Moon Golden Pupils.

Chains spread from the Celestial's limbs and bones, even from the depths of its bloodline.

Like shackles that had pierced its body, locking every inch of bone and flesh, they pulled the Celestial tightly, extending toward the sky.

As the threads of spiritual emotions it had stolen were drained away by the chains.

The Celestial was suddenly terrified and roared: "No, don't!"

It grabbed the chains spreading from its limbs with both hands, but was completely unable to stop the threads of human spiritual qi from being drained away by the chains.

Finally, the blue-black stone body became numb bit by bit, turning gray-white.

The Celestial's movements became increasingly stiff, but the cracks on its body where the Myriad Heavens God-Demon Wheel had entered began to heal.

Even as Cui Dan's Five Emperors Wheel turned, the increasingly powerful Myriad Heavens God-Demon Wheel was squeezed out of the stone body bit by bit.

But the Celestial felt no joy; instead, it became extremely terrified.

It pulled on the chains with incomparably powerful force, and runes also appeared on the Heavenly Court battle armor on its body.

"The time of heaven is angry, the divine spirit is furious; the strict killing is exhausted, abandoning the wilderness!"

The Celestial, whose stone right arm was already covered in gray-white, reached forward.

A trace of Dao rhyme from the Heaven-Condemnation Dao Fruit and the Majesty Dao Fruit was drawn out of the Celestial's body, draining all the explosive and sharp malevolent qi in the surroundings, mixed with a trace of the essence of the Heavenly Realm...

The battle armor on the Celestial's body and the cloak behind it, which looked like wings, turned into threads of crimson, blood-red silk.

With great difficulty, it pulled out a battle blade bit by bit...

"Heavenly Soldier Battle Method..."

"Majesty!"

The long blade carried the power of Heaven-Condemnation, and the Majesty Dao Fruit drained the most explosive and sharp malevolent qi nearby.

Using the essence of the Heavenly Realm mixed with the power of the Heaven-Condemnation Dao Fruit, it forged a long blade and slashed backward at the chains on the Celestial's body.

At this moment, Cui Dan and the others realized that the Celestial had never been serious when facing them.

Or rather, it had some reservations.

Otherwise, once this blade was unleashed, it wouldn't have taken more than one move to slay them.

But that blade of Heaven-Condemnation was snapped in two upon the chains.

Accompanied by a 'bang' sound!

Both the Heaven-Condemnation and Majesty Dao Fruits were also abandoned by the Celestial and dissipated into nothingness.

The Celestial could no longer care about Cui Dan and the others at all!

It became visibly panicked: "God King! Majesty God King, Heaven-Condemnation God King... This subordinate was ordered to suppress demons, but was harmed by the Immortal Qin Great Alchemist Xu Fu, who imprisoned me with witchcraft and evil methods! Now he has cast me into a stone man, insulting the Heavenly Court. This subordinate only begs for the blessing of Heavenly Law to help me slash through this witchcraft and magic!"

"God King!"

The Celestial was terrified and desperate.

Xia Yi quietly transmitted his voice: "Sure enough, that chain is extracting human spiritual qi. Celestials are also human, but compared to us, Celestials lack spiritual emotions. After being extracted by this chain, their consciousness is very empty, as if there is a black hole constantly devouring their joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, devouring everything about them."

"That's why it could only turn into a stone statue to delay it, but after discovering our existence, it was stimulated by our spiritual emotions and suddenly woke up, thirsting for human qi."

"That's why it tried to disguise itself, trick us into sacrificing, and steal human qi..."

"It was also because you exposed its true identity that it had to reveal itself and use force, treating us as delicious spirit stones, wanting to plunder human qi."

"From beginning to end, the Celestial was just this chain, just a puppet driven by the witch method laid out by Xu Fu. I fear even its current despair and anger are just the last of its spiritual emotions and human qi being squeezed out by that chain!"

Cui Dan looked at the Celestial, which had been stimulated to its most negative, desperate emotions, yet was still unable to delay its transformation into a stone statue bit by bit.

His heart was also extremely solemn.

"Have you noticed that these stone statues are very familiar?"

Cui Dan asked Qing Jiao.

Qing Jiao smiled bitterly: "These stone statues are very common on the Five Sacred Mountains, often worshipped as mountain gods and earth deities by those entering the mountains. Even outside the Five Sacred Mountains, across the entire Divine Land, aren't such anciently carved stone statues everywhere?"

"The only characteristic is that they are hard. If it weren't for cultivators repeatedly studying them and finding they aren't carved from any heavenly materials, I fear they would have already been collected as treasures by people!"

"For a period of time, it was popular in the Central Lands to use these stone statues as 'Stone Wengzhong' and tomb guardians, burying them in tombs or under the foundations of one's own mansion."

"Legend has it that they imitate the Stone Wengzhong of the Immortal Qin Golden Men!"

Cui Dan sighed: "Now that you see this scene?"

Qing Jiao said honestly: "It makes my blood run cold!"

"If these stone statues were all refined by the Immortal Qin using witch methods on Celestials, if these stone statues are all chains anchoring the Emperor Dao Fruit."

"If, when necessary, the Emperor Dao Fruit can turn all the stone men back into Celestials, driving them to plunder human qi and pull the Emperor Dao Fruit back to the Earth Immortal Realm."

"Then the things buried in tombs and under the foundations of houses everywhere in the Central Lands are not stone statues for warding off evil, but demon gods waiting to claim lives!"

Cui Dan said coldly: "My Cui family's old mansion foundation also has such stone men..."

"After all, the legend of Stone Wengzhong has existed for a long time, and these stone statues seem to truly have divine properties, capable of receiving worship and bearing wish power to ward off demons and ghosts. They were used by wealthy families and regarded as auspicious objects!"

He smiled bitterly: "The Qin Qin Shi Huang is the Qin Qin Shi Huang! A tyrant of a generation!"

"I fear the talk of Stone Wengzhong was intentionally fabricated by the Immortal Qin."

"In this way, if the Qin Qin Shi Huang were to be resurrected, he would only need the Emperor Dao Fruit to move, and the terracotta army spread across the Central Lands would be resurrected, driven to plunder human qi. The first to bear the brunt would be the wealthy families and clans everywhere. Caught unprepared, we would be plucked off one by one by the stone statues and sacrificed."

"This sacrificial power could even pull the entire Emperor Dao Fruit, along with the Qin Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum, down to the Central Lands."

"I fear that in an instant, the world would change color, and the Immortal Qin could once again dominate the Central Lands!"

Cui Dan and Qing Jiao seemed to see the terrifying scene of the Qin Qin Shi Huang returning to the Central Lands, the stone army resurrected, attacking everywhere, and blood-sacrificing everything.

The first wave of blood sacrifice would take out the wealthy families and clans everywhere, providing blood sacrifice power for the descent of the Emperor Dao Fruit.

Then they could gather the common people.

Using power and fear to intimidate the common people into providing wish power and spiritual emotions, scraping together faith, and allowing the entire Immortal Qin Empire to slowly recover.

At that time, the Twelve Golden Men that had been silent for a long time, the Great Wall that spanned the boundary sea, the Epang Palace that had been mostly destroyed by Xiang Yu, and the various Myriad Heavens Star Ships.

Would all be pulled back under these chains reinforced by wish power.

The Dao Fruits of the various Dao Lords of the Immortal Qin would also be pulled back from destruction and from wherever they were entrusted.

In the shortest possible time, the Earth Immortal Realm would be forged into an iron bucket to confront the Heavenly Court.

As a Confucian disciple, looking at it from the perspective of the human race in the Earth Immortal Realm, Cui Dan greatly admired the Qin Qin Shi Huang's grand scale and spirit; it was sharp and decisive.

After resurrection, in a short time, he could restore half of the Immortal Qin's foundation.

But as a member of a wealthy and powerful clan, he really couldn't laugh!

Because there were truly stone men buried under his family's ancestral graves and old mansion...

"Is this the Emperor Dao Fruit?" Cui Dan smiled bitterly: "It never avoids blood sacrifice and power, never masks violence and intimidation, yet it decorates itself with morality and law!"

"Your Majesty Jade Emperor!"

The Celestial wept blood and wailed: "Your Majesty Jade Emperor!"

That chain continued to indifferently and ruthlessly extract everything within its body, like blunt knives scraping its memories, paralyzing its entire body with a pain that gradually became numb.

The Celestial was like a black hole, greedily absorbing the threads of human qi in the surroundings.

Even the faint trace of sympathy from Cui Dan and Jiang Shang was swallowed and sucked away!

But humans protected by the Yuan Spirit Dao Fruit found it difficult to feel the sensation of the Celestial being swallowed bit by bit by the emptiness in its own heart.

Although they knew that this revival of the Celestial was treating them like plump, juicy oranges.

Like someone thirsty to the extreme seeing nearly a hundred soft, juicy oranges, only wanting to peel their skin and greedily seize that sweet juice.

But the fact that the Celestial was tortured into an inhuman shape by the Witch Dao method and sacrificial ritual laid out by Xu Fu still made everyone feel a trace of sympathy.

The crowd didn't yet know that this was the essence of Witch Dao sacrifice, the stubborn disease of the Divine Dao.

They only thought that the Emperor Dao Fruit was extracting human qi, and that the Emperor Dao Fruit was thirsting for human qi; after all, the Emperor Dao Fruit needed the nourishment of the masses, which was a matter of course.

Cui Dan sighed and said to Jiang Shang: "Qian Shidi, do you have any divine pills refined with wish power?"

Jiang Shang smiled slightly: "Refining pills with incense, heavenly silver, and wish power is a Divine Dao pill method, and also an important branch of the Pill Dao, especially for ghosts and gods; it is much more useful than ordinary spirit pills. Qian Shidi naturally has some stock here!"

"Give me some..." Cui Dan said: "Forget it, give them all to me!"

Jiang Shang took a handful of spirit pills from his treasure pouch, and Cui Dan wrapped them in the Five-Colored Divine Light and sent them to the Celestial.

"Take these pills and use the petrified state to delay that thing's extraction of you; you should be able to hold on for another ten thousand years. We will carve the sacrificial method here. In the future, if someone climbs the stone mountain and offers sacrifices to you, you can help them crush the Primordial Divine Stone in return. In this way, there will be a glimmer of life!"

The Celestial looked at him numbly, swallowed the pills in one gulp, and then burned its wish power, ignoring the frantic extraction of the chains, thoroughly reviving its own flesh and blood.

Even the blue-black stone body briefly recovered a trace of flesh-and-blood color...

"Senior Brother!"

Jiang Shang exclaimed, and Cui Dan also raised the Myriad Heavens God-Demon Wheel to protect everyone.

Xia Yi sneered: "Why are you being such a good person? The feeling of having one's human qi extracted and one's own spiritual emotions worn away bit by bit is hard for the human race to experience. For the Celestials, this is the most terrifying torture because they don't have the protection of the Yuan Spirit Great Dao."

"It was originally going to petrify, but after you gave it that, it regained the power to resist. How could it let us go?"

Cui Dan didn't speak; since he dared to give it, he naturally calculated that this bit of wish power was not enough for the Celestial to break through his Myriad Heavens God-Demon Wheel.

The Celestial turned to look at him and sneered: "Earth-human race! I am also human! Do you think we Celestials have no heart? No humanity? If you knew everything you had done to us, you would only be surprised by our magnanimity and kindness!"

It looked around at everyone and laughed loudly: "How could I be someone who returns kindness with ingratitude?"

"Xu Fu! I would rather die standing than ever be your slave!"

The Celestial drove its bloodline, and its blue-black stone body turned into jade color.

To some extent, the Moon Demon did not tell the truth.

When the Heavenly Emperor created humans in the past, he felt the filth and inferiority of the human race, so he intended to create a clean, noble race. Therefore, when he created the Celestials, he did not use ordinary stones, but the most noble and beautiful 'Jade' in the stone!

"Opening the Qiong Jade Palace and clearing the jade court,

The Emperor carved the Kun Mountains to gather mysterious jade.

Chiseling the star soul into bones and rinsing with moonlight,

Kneading the spring breeze into lungs and adorning with rainbow jade."

The Celestial's singing voice was like jade shattering, filled with mournful and winding tremolo. He stared at his hometown in the sky and sang in a low voice:

"Those Celestials hold jade and grasp beauty,

Their eyes contain clear water without sorrowful ripples.

Stepping on the cloud path and shaking their plain collars,

Orchid and orchid scent their souls without dust or dregs..."

With the singing, his body became increasingly transparent. The bits of human qi and wish power were completely burned, even igniting his soul, but...

The faith of the Celestials was too firm.

The supreme virtue bestowed upon them by the Heavenly Emperor when he created them made their faith forever unshakable, never falling, never filthy, and eternally existing.

When their faith was captured by one Dao Fruit after another, and anchored by one Dao Lord after another who were like gods.

Their divine souls were already tightly attached to the Dao Fruit; they couldn't even scatter their souls.

The Celestials burned their souls, and their characteristic of extreme loyalty and chastity made them powerless to resist the gods.

Or rather, the Celestials had only one way to resist the gods.

That was to return everything to the Heavenly Emperor, using their prayers and everything they had to move the Heavenly Emperor!

But the Heavenly Emperor had passed away. Now, the one who dominates the Great Dao and establishes the heart for Heaven and Earth is the one who hates them most, and doesn't even bother to consider them human—the Supreme One!

Within the Celestial's jade body, like the human race, the five viscera, the sea of consciousness, the dantian, and the eyes...

Nine extremely mysterious and unfathomable places were suddenly opened.

"Are you crazy?"

A reprimand came from Pei Erke's eyes, and the Majesty God King roared: "How dare you open the Divine Treasury?"

Celestials also have Divine Treasuries.

As a creation of the Heavenly Emperor, Empress Wa gave the human race nine kinds of Divine Treasuries in the past, containing endless potential for creation.

How could the Heavenly Emperor not bestow blessings upon his own creations, the 'human race' he loved?

The human race has nine Divine Treasuries: Essence, Qi and Blood, Divine Soul, Wisdom, Longevity, Benevolence, Courage, Integrity, and Creation.

But the Celestials also have the nine Divine Treasuries bestowed by the Heavenly Emperor—Creation, Annihilation, Great Void, Motion and Stillness, Life and Death, True Illusion, Supreme Virtue, Primordial Qi, and Celestial.

They can also be called—the Nine Laws of the Celestials!

The Celestial Divine Treasuries not only contain infinite life potential like the human race, but also have the laws of the Heavenly Dao that the human race can hardly reach, reaching the end of the Great Dao.

Opening all Divine Treasuries for the human race is nothing more than becoming an immortal and undying person!

Only by opening the Creation Divine Treasury does one have a trace of divine ability.

But the Celestial race opening their Divine Treasuries has potential that even the gods can hardly compare to; they are gods among gods, the kings of all gods loved by the Heavenly Emperor.

Because in the eyes of the Heavenly Emperor, the gods had all been polluted by the human race.

Only the gods formed by the Celestials opening their Divine Treasuries were the most perfect gods.

But as the Celestial Divine Treasuries manifested, the surrounding space trembled faintly, and the trace of Heavenly Realm power lingering in the surroundings was suddenly enraged.

The remaining Heaven-Condemnation Dao Fruit turned into a trace of purple thunder, about to fall on the Celestial's head and thoroughly exterminate it.

But the Celestial struck back with a piece of jade light, deeply resisting the thunder.

He grabbed the chains on his body, truly grabbing them—the chains that were originally manifestations of laws, Dao rhymes, and mysterious unfathomable things.

Merely the power manifested by the Celestial Divine Treasuries allowed him to touch the Great Dao; this was something the human race wouldn't even dare to think about.

The Great Dao is mysterious and void; how could one touch it with one's hands?

But the Celestials could...

He truly pulled on the chains, alive, pulling them out of his body along with his bloodline, his body, his flesh and blood, and even everything that could be said to compose him.

"Celestial!"

At the moment he struggled to break free from the chains.

He pushed open the door to the Ninth Celestial Divine Treasury. Just as the laws of the Great Dao were about to surge out from the Divine Treasury, an invisible shackle fell.

"True Person!"

The Yuan Spirit Dao Fruit dropped a shackle, truly locking the Celestial Divine Treasury.

At this moment.

One shackle after another fell.

"Creation!"

"Annihilation!"

"Universe!"

"Yin-Yang (Motion and Stillness, True Illusion, Life and Death)!"

"Morality!"

"Primordial!"

"Yuan Spirit!"

A trace of Dao rhyme from the seven supreme Dao Fruits fell, turning into the most solid, cruel, strict, and indifferent nine shackles, locking the door to the Celestial Divine Treasury.

The Celestial looked up at all this, blood and tears welling up in his eyes, and roared toward the sky.

"Supreme Dao Ancestor!"

"Supreme One!"

"How much longer will you imprison us? We are also human!"

The seven supreme Dao Fruits of the Supreme Dao Ancestor were like a natural chasm, like an iron curtain falling, truly cutting off everything.

Even the Primordial Dao Ancestor.

Even all the gods and demons in Pei Erke's eyes, looking at those seven Great Daos that were like abysses, like natural chasms, like heaven's condemnation, cutting off all possibilities and futures for the Celestials, dared not make a sound.

Only the Mysterious Heaven God Emperor let out a sigh, echoing in the darkness.

The Majesty God King said indifferently: "This Celestial ant is quite strange. After the Heavenly Emperor died, the Supreme One became their Heavenly Emperor. In the countless ages of the New Heaven, there actually appeared such an ant that dared to question the Supreme One?"

"Could it be that the Supreme One is truly about to fall out of Harmony with the Dao?"

"Majesty!" Mysterious Heaven said coldly: "Shut up!"

In the distance, Brother Qian Chen sensed a trace of his True Illusion Dao Fruit fall, and suddenly stopped his hands that were mixing mud.

Xu Fu sighed gloomily: "Do you see? To dominate the heavens, besides benevolence, one must also have power. Even the Supreme Dao Ancestor is like this."

"We Immortal Qin are just following the path of our predecessors and walking straight ahead!"

Brother Qian Chen looked at his 'Ascension-Fall' Dao Fruit, which had become complete by a trace, and suddenly realized: "I understand how to complete the Ascension-Fall Dao Fruit!"

"Are the seven supreme Dao Fruits the shackles given to the Celestial race by the Supreme One?"

"But isn't sincere faith also the shackles given to the Celestials by the Heavenly Emperor?"

"It's hard to say who exactly locked them up and what exactly imprisoned them!"

"Getting Lilith up there to be the White Emperor was the right move! I didn't expect that in the myriad realms of the cosmos, besides me, a freak naturally leading to the Path of Ascension-Fall, there would actually be an entire freak race like the Celestials, imprisoned by the joint efforts of two beings in Harmony with the Dao."

"They cannot ascend, nor can they fall."

"Or perhaps, is falling their ascension?"

The first person in the history of the Celestial race to dare to resist and dare to question their faith was naturally the work of Brother Qian Chen's Ascension-Fall Dao Fruit.

But Brother Qian Chen didn't expect that the move he made casually would lead to so many secrets.