r18novel Page 424
Page 424
Empress Murong's mind was now completely cold. This once mighty ruler thought that after Xu Xiao's death, her southward advance would be unimpeded, sweeping across the world without any further obstacles.
Even though Li Chang'an defeated the Northern Mang army twice, she never imagined that Li Chang'an was capable of annihilating the entire Northern Mang army and causing them to suffer a complete defeat.
Even when the miracles of immortals descending to earth and the rise of the Tuoba clan were manifested, she believed that the world was under her control, just as she had defeated countless opponents in her journey to conquer the Northern Barbarians, and Li Chang'an would become one of them.
What Li Chang'an will have to endure is regret, remorse, despair, and terror—all things reserved for his defeated subordinates.
But now, all these emotions fall on her. For the first time, the once invincible Empress Murong experiences what despair is, and decades of accumulated strength are lost in a single day.
After this battle, her prestige will be ruined, her foundation will be unstable, and the Northern Barbarians will not have more than 100,000 soldiers capable of fighting. Such a vast grassland is bound to be engulfed in flames of war.
It's over...it's all over...
In the midst of battle, Nangong Pushe watched as Tuoba Pusa turned to ashes. Of her four people she was determined to kill, only Xie Guanying and Wang Xianzhi remained.
Two have already died; Han Diaosi and Tuoba Pusa were both killed by Li Chang'an.
"Tuoba Bodhisattva is dead, you have lost."
Opposite Minister Nangong was another woman, a young woman named Yang, whom Yuan Qingshan had specially invited to the Princess Tomb. Ever since Da Nian left Luoyang, this woman had been in charge of the Princess Tomb.
Princess Tomb is the tomb of the beloved youngest daughter of the Qin Emperor, hence the name Princess Tomb. It is also the most mysterious sect in Northern Mang, having had little contact with the outside world for eight hundred years.
The Great Idea Luo Yang was the Empress of the Qin Emperor, and the Little Idea Yang was a concubine of the Qin Emperor. Both of them were ancient monsters who had lived for eight hundred years. The spirit Dan Ying, enshrined in the Princess Tomb, was a ghost that had been dead for eight hundred years.
Eight hundred years ago, Luoyang was provoked by Xiao Niantou and killed the fox woman and her unborn child. After the child died, it was refined by a sorcerer into a ghostly infant, which has devoured the hearts and livers of countless masters over the past eight hundred years to maintain its form and soul.
Xiao Nian looked up at the sky. The Heavenly Gate had become much quieter. Occasionally, an immortal would try to descend to the mortal realm, but Deng Tai'a would kill them all with a single sword stroke.
"These immortals are really useless. They seem high and mighty, but they are all useless embroidered buns. It's one thing that they were slaughtered by Li Chang'an, the Celestial Longevity Master, but they can even kill Deng Tai'a at will."
She then realized that these mysterious celestial beings were actually much weaker than Da Nianhua Luoyang.
"Since that's the case, then I'll leave. That would be giving Yuan Qingshan enough face."
With a flick of her red sleeve, Xiao Niansi deflected Nangong Pushe's sword energy with a burst of true energy, and her body flew into the air. The Northern Mang army had already begun to collapse, so there was no need for her to stay any longer.
However, the Minister of Works on the other side, Nangong, clearly had no intention of letting her go. Using Li Chang'an's method to practice her swordsmanship, her swordsmanship improved greatly once again, and she decided to test her skills on this little girl.
"Old monster, stay here!"
Nangong Pushe spun the Spring Thunder Blade in his hand at lightning speed, its blade flashing coldly as it reached Xiao Niantou's eyes. Seventeen, stop!
Stab it!
Xiao Nian felt the powerful aura of the strike and dared not be careless. He blocked the strike head-on with his sleeves billowing!
Although Hongxiu was cut in half, she escaped unharmed. Xiao Nian was astonished, never expecting that this woman, whose beauty was so striking that it was impossible to tell if she was male or female, would possess such formidable martial arts skills.
However, just as she breathed a sigh of relief, a three-foot-three-inch embroidered winter knife suddenly appeared a foot away from her!
"Eighteen stops!"
With a shout, Nangong Pushe unleashed a blade of light several feet long from his Xiudong Blade, which fell between her brows in the blink of an eye. The power and speed of the blade were so great that the old monster of the Great Celestial Phenomenon had no time to react.
The Eighteen Stops Blade Qi pierced through Xiao Niantou's body, carving a huge chasm more than ten feet long in the ground. Dust billowed up, and Xiao Niantou's body, split in two, fell to the ground only when the chasm cracked open.
Even with their eyes several feet apart, she still looked incredulous. She never expected that Minister Nangong could unleash such a powerful killing move.
Princess Tomb, a hundred miles away.
Xu Fengnian, along with Luo Yang, Tantai Pingjing, and a red-clad ghost, stood at the entrance of the Princess's Tomb.
During this period, he successfully plundered Gao Shulu's celestial body, killed Li Dangxin of Liangchan Temple, and seized the Buddhist fortune. Everything was proceeding according to Tantai Ping's plan.
Xu Fengnian also broke through to the level of a terrestrial immortal. His past memories have gradually returned. The ghostly infant behind him is the child he lost in the womb during his lifetime as the Emperor of Qin.
The demon has two faces and six arms, and is born with the appearance of two people holding a pipa (a traditional Chinese stringed instrument). One face has the sorrowful look of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, and the other has the joyful look of Maitreya Buddha. It wears a bright red robe and is terrifying to behold.
Looking south, Luo Yang suddenly felt a chill in his heart, "Consort Yang is dead."
They had just retrieved the ghost baby from the Princess's Tomb and were planning to head south to the battlefield of Beilaoguan.
Xu Fengnian's hair was disheveled, a scarlet dot appeared between his brows, and his face was cold and gloomy, completely unlike his former frivolous and dissolute self.
His many past lives were far more powerful than this one. Those memories and emotions easily suppressed the shallow experiences of this life, leaving no trace.
"Zhang Fuyao and Yuan Qingshan have both gone to the battlefield. No matter who survives, I can seize their destiny!"
One is a Confucian sage from the Central Plains, and the other is a Daoist sage from the Northern Wilderness. Both are people with great fortune. With the strength of Xu Fengnian and his two companions, they can work together to kill one of them.
Luo Yang watched Xu Fengnian's departing figure and followed him with mixed feelings. She originally planned to wait for Xu Fengnian to regain his memories so that she could kill him and take revenge.
However, once Xu Fengnian truly regained his memories of his past life, she couldn't bring herself to kill him. Without the fox spirit between them, Luo Yang realized that she didn't want to kill him at all.
After all, eight hundred years ago, the Qin Emperor ordered Luoyang to commit suicide, but in fact, he gave her the elixir of immortality, which he had begged for half his life to obtain.
She glanced at Tantai Pingjing again; in this life, he still had other women by his side.
Forget it, I'm too tired to keep trying. I'll just accept it.
Luo Yang sighed deeply, then leaped into the air and followed behind the two.
A hundred miles from the battlefield of Tang Mang, there is a hilltop.
Xie Guanying sat cross-legged, his hands constantly calculating, wincing in pain.
"Hiss... That Li Chang'an who can absorb people's luck is my nemesis!"
Xie Guanying's desire for fortune far surpasses that of others, as he was willing to kill his wife to seize it. Before Li Chang'an appeared, he and Tantai Pingjing were at the pinnacle of this world in terms of accumulating fortune.
Xie Guanying's lifelong dream was to accumulate a great deal of good fortune, unify the world, and establish a great dynasty.
Now, his grand dream is beginning to take shape.
But what is painful and heartbreaking is that his dream is about to be realized by Li Chang'an.
"The Celestial Longevity Realm is terrifying! Not only can I not defeat it, but I can't escape it either. What should I do?"
“But Li Chang’an has absorbed so much fortune. If I can kill him, even if I only get 30 or 40% of his fortune, I, Xie Guanying, will be invincible. That would be much more profitable than killing that mother dragon back then.”
It's a real dilemma: you want good fortune, but you can't win; you can't win, but you're unwilling to give up.
What Xie Guanying didn't know was that not only did he miss Li Chang'an, but Li Chang'an also missed him.
He has accumulated a lot of good fortune over the years, and killing him would help Minister Nangong avenge himself. Therefore, Xie Guanying had long been on Li Chang'an's kill list.
On the vast battlefield stretching for over ten miles, the sounds of fighting, war drums, screams, and shouts echoed through the sky. The blood-stained battle lines rapidly advanced northward, and most of the battle lines had become a one-sided massacre by the Tang army.
The Tang cavalry, like a raging flood, violently assaulted the riddled riverbanks until they were finally breached, and the floodwaters surged forward without any further obstruction or resistance.
On the ground, Zhuge Liang ordered his troops to carry out an orderly attack, targeting the elite and trump cards of the Northern Barbarians. In the sky, most of the Northern Barbarian masters were killed or wounded, and the rest were frantically fleeing for their lives.
Yuan Qingshan watched his army crumble in despair, his heart filled with utter despair. The once strongest army in the world was gone forever.
"Gentlemen, let's disperse now. Until we meet again."
Under the combined attack of Zhang Fuyao and Li Chungang, Yuan Qingshan failed to kill a single master from the Central Plains, but it was clear that the two could not hold him back either.
After Yuan Qingshan finished speaking, his figure began to blur again. Once he used the One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones technique, he would instantly disappear into the world, and no one would be able to find him.
However, at this moment, Yuan Qingshan suddenly felt a sharp pain in his divine sense, and the three clones that were about to separate quickly reassembled.
Li Chungang scratched his head, looking at Yuan Qingshan, who was forced to retract his clone technique, in surprise. "Hey! Old Monster Yuan can't escape. His clone technique isn't working anymore."
"Hiss... Someone has restricted your splitting of consciousness. You must not try it again, or you might actually develop a mental disorder."
In Taoism, the technique of "One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones" is a secret art of refining Qi into spirit. Not only is the physical body divided into three parts, but the divine consciousness is also divided into three parts.
Ordinary martial artists can barely be considered to have completed the process of refining essence into qi when they reach the Vajra Realm. Those who cultivate the Xuan Tian Xiang and the Land Immortals cultivate true qi and qi, but they may not necessarily be able to transform into spirit.
However, Taoism has the art of refining Qi into spirit, so martial arts that disturb the divine consciousness are very rare secret techniques.
One can imagine how horrified Yuan Qingshan was when his divine consciousness was damaged, which meant that he could not use the One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones technique and could not escape.
Since he mastered this secret technique, he has become immortal in this world, because he can use the One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones technique to escape at any time.
However, Li Chang'an's Tribulation of the Gods had also entered the stage of refining the spirit. When this move was unleashed, it immediately broke the One Qi Transforms into Three Pure Ones.
"Mr. Yuan, are you in such a hurry to leave?"
Yuan Qingshan slowly turned around and found Li Chang'an standing quietly behind him, looking at him with the eyes of a hunter looking at prey that had entered a trap.
Surrounded by three experts, Yuan Qingshan's face immediately tensed up; this was probably the biggest crisis he had ever faced in his life.
"Gentlemen, the Northern Barbarians have been utterly defeated, and there is no one left in the world to stop His Highness the Prince of Tang from conquering the Central Plains. Naturally, I will no longer participate in worldly affairs, so let us take our leave now."
Li Chungang cursed, "You old Taoist priest, can't you beg for mercy? If you can't beat me, just say you're no good."
Yuan Qingshan's face twitched. He had been a reclusive master for decades, always having others worship him, never asking anyone for anything.
However, circumstances are beyond human control. Judging from Li Chang'an's murderous appearance, he might really kill him in one move.
Just as he was choosing his words, he suddenly felt a chill run through his body, and then he heard Li Chang'an's voice.
"There's no need to beg for mercy, it's useless."
As soon as the words fell, Yuan Qingshan felt his whole body turn ice cold and he couldn't move. Suddenly, a hand was placed on his back.
Then, his power and fortune surged wildly into the palm behind him, and his meridians began to solidify. In the blink of an eye, the saint turned into an ice man.
In the last moment before his heart stopped beating, Yuan Qingshan was still thinking, "So the Celestial Immortals are so much stronger than the Earthly Immortals!"
Yuan Qingshan was easily killed by Li Chang'an, which even made Zhang Fuyao's heart skip a beat, because Li Chang'an's luck and strength had far surpassed that of this eight-hundred-year-old monster.
"His Highness the Tang King's methods are superb; this old man is truly amazed."
Li Chang'an's martial prowess has reached the pinnacle of this world, and he has also accumulated a considerable amount of luck, so he forcibly suppressed the urge to absorb the old monster's luck.