Chapter 216

Yan Shu could only sigh, pressing Brother Qian Chen's shoulder: "Hurry! We're out of time!"

Outside the imperial pavilion, the last glimmer of sunset faded; beyond the Liyuan on the Qujiang River, painted pleasure boats had reached their peak of bustle, and Chang'an's bustling prosperity was about to reach its zenith.

At this moment, the Xiao Xie Xuan Emperor had boarded a pleasure boat, stepping onto the white jade platform to strike the Mo Jie drum himself, sharing joy with the people; the celebrations along both banks reached their climax. When the boats reached Furong Garden, the Emperor would lead his ministers and concubines through the connecting palace corridor back to Xingqing Palace, where the grand Li Qianqiu Banquet would officially begin!

If we still cannot persuade Li Gui before then, the assassination attempt will be utterly impossible.

Outside the window was the most splendid moment of the High Tang—imperfect perhaps, yet enough to bewitch the soul…

At this moment, a speck of spiritual light darted in from outside the pavilion, landing on Brother Qian Chen's shoulder—it was the tiny Ear Dao God. The little creature crouched by Brother Qian Chen's ear, chattering incessantly; only then did Brother Qian Chen's face break into a faint smile.

"Has the main body of the Hell Transformation Map been completed?" Brother Qian Chen exhaled in relief. "It seems Wang Wei's fame as the Triple Master of Poetry, Painting, and Chan is no empty boast… Good, I know you've earned your share! Keep helping Wu Wu Daoxuan finish the Hell Transformation!" The Ear Dao God dissolved into a streak of spiritual light and vanished…

But Brother Qian Chen's expression grew increasingly grave.

He pulled out his last Jingshen Incense, turning back to ask: "Lord Zhong, do you still recall the elixir I mentioned—one made with the Emperor as sovereign, the officials as ministers, the people of Chang'an as auxiliaries, and the sages of the hundred schools as envoys…?"

Zhong Kui drew a sharp breath: "The Celestial Emperor's Dragon Elixir?"

Master Sima Master Sima Chengzhen panicked: "That elixir isn't made in a day—we don't have time!"

Brother Qian Chen smiled: "No matter. Time stretches endlessly in dreams. If not for the Zhang Tian Shi's reminder, I didn't even realize I could actually forge it!"

'And… I needn't fear the Demon Lord of Yu Jiuyou coming to seize it!'

Brother Qian Chen kept that sentence locked within his heart.

He lit the Jingshen Incense, leaned back on a low couch, propped his head with his right arm, closed his eyes, and slowly sank into dream. Zhong Kui, Master Sima Master Sima Chengzhen, and the others stared in shock—even Yan Shu, who knew Brother Qian Chen best, was stunned.

Li Gui and the others were utterly baffled, wondering what Brother Qian Chen intended to do at this critical moment?

……………

In Chang'an, smoke choked the skies, and fires blazed everywhere!

The towering vermilion city gates stood wide open; waves of barbarian-mounted wolf cavalry surged into the city like a stampeding herd, hooves thundering, shaking every neighborhood along the streets; from Zhu Que Avenue onward, twelve imperial roads churned with clouds of dust.

The clashing of blades and spears, the boastful laughter of barbarian soldiers and Han generals—shrill and piercing.

Wails and cries echoed from every corner of Chang'an, wherever the demonic barbarian troops marched.

"By order of the Holy Martial Emperor: No sheathing of blades for five days after entering Chang'an!" Tian Tian Ganzhen galloped furiously along Zhu Que Avenue, roaring with mad laughter.

Wherever he passed, soldiers from Hebei roared in frenzy; whether barbarian or Han, they slaughtered anyone they saw.

Tian Tian Ganzhen rode his horse and slashed a knife through the skull of an old white-haired man hiding in a roadside drainage ditch.

Nearby barbarians laughed, drawing bows and firing wildly at civilians leaping in panic into the Guangtong Canal; these barbarian troops were elite border warriors, each with formidable martial cultivation—their powerful bows and sharp arrows pierced deep underwater, and soon the canal churned with waves of blood.

Several corpses floated to the surface!

Along the canal's banks, more people leapt in, fleeing the demonic troops that howled like beasts.

A woman, barely twenty, still youthful in her features, clambered onto the rooftop of her home, desperately fleeing the demonic soldiers leering and lunging toward her.

In despair, she clutched her infant and leapt into the Guangtong Canal…

From afar, Tian Tian Ganzhen shot an arrow straight through the infant in her arms, laughing uproariously—he deliberately avoided killing the woman, wanting to watch her scream in agony as she held her child aloft in the canal.

Blood streamed down her arms, staining the water beside her!

"Aaaah!" The woman shrieked like a madwoman, seeing the barbarian demon soldier standing on the canal's edge above her, thrusting his long spear downward.

She seized a wolf-tooth arrow floating nearby and drove it through her own throat.

Thick black smoke rolled skyward over Chang'an; sparks of fire glowed at the edges of every neighborhood, merging into a crimson glow that stained the heavens. Beneath the setting sun, the sky ran red with blood. The thunderous cries of battle echoed from every quarter; the stench of blood was so thick one might doubt whether this was still the mortal world.

Or perhaps, the Blood Sea of Yu Jiuyou.

Rolling waves of blood-qi surged into the bodies of demonic soldiers like Tian Tian Ganzhen; boundless hatred, terror, rage, grief, heart-wrenching wails, and tidal waves of despair poured forth, merging with the fissure beneath Chang'an that devoured and exhaled torrents of demonic energy.

Their cultivation surged forward!

"Demon, die!" A cultivated scholar charged forward, sword in hand, slaying demonic soldiers in the streets.

But these demons, once merely Foundation Establishment martial cultivators before entering the city, now bore demonic transformations—their teeth sharpened, their bodies forged by demonic energy like cast iron.

In a single flash, he seized the scholar's hundred-paces flying sword.

The sharp blade couldn't even pierce the demon lord's palm; the scholar, whose cultivation was at least at the Tongfa level, unleashed his full potential in fury—yet was slain by the very demon who had once been far beneath him.

Heads rolled in all directions; within moments, over twenty more cultivators who had fought bravely in the neighborhood were killed.

Tian Tian Ganzhen inhaled staggering amounts of demonic energy—every instant, vast quantities of blood-qi were plundered; he slashed wildly, ensuring the surrounding blood-qi grew even richer.

In barely three quarters of an hour, a divine demonic phantom rose behind him, roaring to the heavens.

The War Demon of Catastrophe!

Chang'an's rogue scholars and officials fought desperately against the demonic army, charging forward like falling stars—only to be crushed, their cultivation suppressed by the demonic army's martial aura, then slaughtered by demons whose cultivation was far inferior.

Demons poured forth from the Yu Jiuyou fissure, surrounding Chang'an's temples and monasteries, where deities draped in divine light fought to the death against them.

But for every demon they slew, ten times as many surged from Yu Jiuyou.

Soon, a deity shielding refugees in a temple with divine light was torn apart by demons, his divine aura shattered; the temple's civilians were slaughtered instantly, and amid the rising blood-qi, dozens of demons bathed in blood and demonic energy ascended into even more cruel and terrifying forms.

In Longxing Temple, an old monk raised a Buddha-light; behind him, countless men and women, monks and nuns alike, poured their final spiritual strength into the great Buddha-light formation.

But outside, there were a thousandfold more demons; one by one, the monks' spiritual strength drained, many skulls shattered and died, and the temple's protective Buddha-light grew ever thinner.

The old monk roared to heaven: "Buddha! Open your eyes and see!"

He spat a pale golden blood; the Buddha-light shattered. Still roaring, he was instantly devoured by demons—until his final breath, he dared not look back at the faithful masses who trusted him, only weeping blood in despair.

"Xianyu Jiuxiao Mystic Blade, summon it! Tremendous Heavenly Might, transform into divine thunder!" A Daoist soared skyward, facing the black cloud of demonic energy smothering the city walls and the countless demons darting through it; enduring the agony of ten thousand demons devouring his body, he burned his primordial spirit to summon thunder from the highest heavens.

"Xianyu Jiuxiao Cleansing Demon Lord!"

The old Daoist's eyes cracked open, blood pouring from his shattered corners; he hurled the divine thunder down toward the deepest, most dense demonic energy in the suffering city below—regardless of whether innocent civilians still lingered there!

Just as the divine thunder was about to crash down—

A demonic claw, carrying boundless demonic energy from the Yu Jiuyou fissure, surged from Chang'an into the sky, shattering the thunderous energy forming in the Xianyu Jiuxiao.

The old Daoist closed his eyes in despair, refusing to see further.

His body turned to ash midair, drifting down onto Chang'an's Tianjie Street…

The Tianjie Street crushed the bones of the righteous; Chang'an burned to ashes of brocade!

Every moment, hundreds, even dozens of righteous cultivators who dared resist perished in the boundless demonic energy; the yin and yang deities who guarded the neighborhoods fell like falling stars, and the gates of the neighborhoods they protected swung wide open.

The demonic beasts surged in; instantly, every home spouted blood like boiling springs, every corner echoed with the cries of the wronged.

After Chang'an's righteous backbone was utterly destroyed, ordinary cultivators of Core Formation and Tongfa levels rushed forward one after another to meet their deaths; most despairing of all was that they died heroically yet powerless to protect Chang'an's people—each perished in utter despair.

In the Eastern Market, demonic troops stormed the endless shops; brocades woven from spirit silkworms by skilled embroiderers were trampled under foul leather boots; the Hu women in taverns screamed in terror; Hu and Han merchants, with their servants, wielded magical weapons and tools, resisting fiercely in every corner.

A butcher from Chang'an, his eyes crimson with demonic energy, drove his cleaver through the bellies of dozens of demonic soldiers; the more he fought, the fiercer he became—then suddenly turned and severed the head of a fellow scholar fighting beside him.

The butcher froze, the red glow in his eyes dimming slightly; he sighed to those around him, who showed no surprise: "I can't hold on anymore. Friends, Demon Cultivator Tu Xin Shisan goes first—let's meet again in Chang'an in our next life!"

With that, he slashed his own throat; fearing his corpse might transform and summon demonic fire, he burned his soul and body to ash before death.

Beside him, a gaunt, aged demonic cultivator sighed: "I'm nearly there too."

"Though I cultivate demonry, I have never betrayed Chang'an!"

He charged into the demonic ranks, exploding into countless streams of blood-flame, dragging several demonic soldiers and a demonic Battalion Commander with him.

As the Yu Jiuyou fissure opened and righteous cultivation dwindled to less than one in ten—

Though two or three out of ten demonic cultivators in Chang'an joined An Lushan's demonic army in rampaging through the city, seven or eight out of ten stood up when the righteous backbone shattered, giving everything they had.

Tian Tian Ganzhen narrowly dodged a final desperate strike from a demonic Battalion Commander of the Lulong Army, then shouted: "For these mere grasses, don't you know that after Yu Jiuyou opens, no one in Chang'an can stand against us?"

"Don't you know this is like a mantis trying to stop a cart?"

"For Chang'an! For the Tang!" A demonic cultivator, drenched in yin energy and entwined with vengeful spirits, charged him with his last breath, using the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo Body Exploding Technique, his body drenched in blood.

Tian Tian Ganzhen gritted his teeth: "So foolish—do you even deserve to be called demons?"

In Pingkang Quarter, dancers and courtesans fled in tattered silks; abandoned infants and young girls wailed in abandoned alleys. In Xuanyang Quarter, a little girl in silk robes stood amid dozens of corpses, too terrified to cry, tears glistening in her eyes; she clutched a cloth doll, and at the sound of footsteps outside the door, turned in terror…

…………

In the Liyuan Pavilion, Yan Shu and the others watched the sleeping Brother Qian Chen suddenly clench his fists, grit his teeth, revealing fury barely contained—this moment, his demonic nature surged forth.

All saw a three-headed, eight-armed boy-demon-god, roaring upward, gripping several magical treasures—red silk ribbons, bronze rings, fire-tipped spears—all eight arms raised to heaven.

The Primordial Qi Great Grasp, condensed by elixir energy, held Liu Liu Luogu; facing the torrent of wrathful demonic thoughts radiating from Brother Qian Chen—the fury that sought to destroy all darkness, the fire that would burn Yu Jiuyou to cinders—Liu Liu Luogu finally shattered completely!

"You're the Supreme Supreme Tian Mo!!!"

…………

In the dream, within Primordial Taiji Palace, seated on the imperial throne, Brother Qian Chen clenched his fists tightly; the boundless blood and resentment of Chang'an, drawn to him, gathered countless vengeful spirits and heroic souls, their immense energy churning within Primordial Taiji Palace. Countless faces revealed their most profound, raw emotions.

And that ultimate fury, surging forth, finally coalesced in Brother Qian Chen's eyes as dark red flames.

With boundless wrath as fuel…

The Crimson Lotus Karma Fire bloomed forth!