Chapter 1157 — The Human Emperor Visits the Heavenly Palace

Jiang Baigui transformed his own vital energy into five hundred thousand gods and demons, while Yue Tingge held the Longshan Formation Diagram in his keeping and drove its many formations to life, waiting for him to come and break them. This diagram had gone unbroken through the several hundred thousand years since the age of Longhan; of every Celestial Master of every generation, there was none who did not know of it. It was by breaking the Longshan Formation Diagram that Yue Tingge had made his name under heaven and become the foremost Celestial Master of the Heavenly Court. He himself now held the Longshan Formation Diagram in hand, and the shifts of its formations dazzled the eye. Lacking wit enough, a man had only to glimpse the transformations bursting forth in a single instant to be left dizzy and disoriented, unable to tell east from west, let alone break a formation. The army of five hundred thousand gods and demons conjured from Jiang Baigui's vital energy drove straight in. His choice differed from Shang Pingyin's of old: Shang Pingyin met formation with formation, steady and sure, whereas Jiang Baigui marched his host directly to the zenith of the Twenty-Eight Heavens. Yue Tingge sighed. He knew the man had grasped the key to the Longshan Formation Diagram in the very first moment. And that key was one he himself had spent many years arriving at. The zenith, that was where the Heaven Sphere lay, and the Heaven Sphere was the Ancient God's Egg of the Lapis Lazuli Azure Heaven Banner. Jiang Baigui drove his superior force in beside the Ancient God's Egg, yet did not attack the Egg; instead he set bright mirror after bright mirror around it, sealing it in. He laid his formations in reverse, and beneath Yue Tingge's dumbstruck gaze he arranged his five hundred thousand troops into ten thousand different formations, more exquisite by far than any formation in the Longshan Formation Diagram. Yue Tingge was struck dumb. The core of the ten thousand formations of the Longshan Formation Diagram was the Ancient God's Egg, and Jiang Baigui, gathering his superior force, had seized the Ancient God's Egg at the very first stroke, laid the Twenty-Eight Heavens formations around it, taken the Egg as his core, turned guest into host, and crowded the Longshan Formation Diagram's Twenty-Eight Heavens formations out. Thus his own diagram replaced the Longshan Formation Diagram, becoming a new Twenty-Eight Heavens Diagram with the Longshan Formation Diagram at its core. Yue Tingge could no longer reverse the Twenty-Eight Heavens; instead Jiang Baigui, guest turned host, reversed them, and in short order broke every last formation in the Longshan Formation Diagram, not one left standing. Yue Tingge sighed, dispersed his vital energy, and said, "You are a prodigy. These formations are the Longshan Wanderer's Grand Diagram, but this treasure is the foremost treasure under heaven, the Lapis Lazuli Azure Heaven Banner. And now you have broken even the Azure Heaven Banner, and with the fewest troops and the lightest losses. Worthy indeed of the foremost Celestial Master of Jingping!" Jiang Baigui likewise withdrew his vital energy and said, "Did you break the diagram by this same method, Celestial Master Yue?" Yue Tingge, proud and stern, clasped his hands behind his back and nodded, then his momentum drained away and he said, dispirited, "No, I did not use that method. After driving into the Heaven Sphere, I drove in wedges, one after another, into the Twenty-Eight Heavens to shackle their changes. I used a million troops, and to break the diagram the losses were enormous..." Then his spirits lifted and he laughed. "You said just now that your senior fellow disciple beats you in every way, and only in wisdom falls a hair short of you. That sounds familiar. Might I ask who this junior fellow disciple of yours is?" Jiang Baigui said, "You have most likely never heard of him, Celestial Master Yue. He is Celestial Venerable Mu." Yue Tingge was taken aback, then roared with laughter. "So it is him! That fellow is cocky as all hell, strutting about as though heaven were first and he second! I have long since taken a dislike to him!" He nodded again and again, his face shining. "That boy beats everyone at everything, and his tongue is enough to half-kill a man with rage! But in wisdom he is no match for us!" Jiang Baigui nodded again and again too, in heartfelt agreement. The two looked at each other and smiled, each feeling he had met his true confidant, and each savoring the pleasure of looking down on Shen Mu with their wisdom, of grinding Shen Mu underfoot. The Heavenly Court. Shen Mu stepped out of the Spirit Energy Transit Bridge, thinking, "I wonder how the fighting goes in the Great Void. Can Kaihuang and Langwan hold off the Heavenly Court's assault?" He felt uneasy. That the creators of Worryfree Land and the Other Shore Void should join hands was something he, the Creator Holy Infant, had brought about single-handedly; and it was his scheming too that had forged soldiers in the Great Void, stirred the blood of Worryfree Land, and rekindled its reforms. If the Heavenly Court mustered a vast host of gods and demons, Worryfree Land and the Other Shore Void truly might not hold. He looked about him and saw that the Heavenly Court had grown much emptier. It had always been boundless, but countless gods and demons had roosted here, crowds thronging everywhere. Now nearly half the Heavenly Court's forces had been drawn away; even the Heavenly Street looked bare, stripped of many of its idlers. "So the Heavenly Court has gathered its superior force and driven into the Great Void, resolved to settle it all in one stroke. It is indeed the way that saves the most time and trouble!" Shen Mu's heart went cold. With such a method, the Ten Celestial Venerables would have to go forth; the Great Void held Kaihuang and Langwan, two existences of Celestial Venerable rank. He only wondered how many of the Ten had been sent. "If Kaihuang can hold, it will settle into a war of attrition, and only then can the Great Void forge its soldiers. If he cannot, they can only retreat and hold the Void Bridge." Shen Mu narrowed his eyes toward Jade Capital City in the distance. For the Ten Celestial Venerables to remove Kaihuang and Langwan without loss, they would have to commit at least six. To win clean and lose least, that was the only way. And the Heavenly Court must keep two Celestial Venerables to guard it, to wield the Celestial Emperor's body, protect the Court, and beware the assault of the Heavenly Duke and the Earth Duke. "I wonder how many Celestial Venerables have gone to the Great Void..." As he pondered, sword qi monstrous and overwhelming burst suddenly from the rear palace of the Heavenly Court. Shen Mu's heart lurched; he looked at once, and saw a blade of sword light shoot skyward from the Celestial Emperor's rear palace, taking the phantom shape of the Thirty-Fourth Heaven Sword Dao, suppressing the whole of the Heavenly Court! The sword light rose, and at once the god-palaces and great halls of the Heavenly Court cracked with thunderous reports, halls splitting open as though carved by a keen blade. Behind Shen Mu came a world-shaking roar too; he whirled to look, and saw the Southern Heavenly Gate of the Heavenly Court sheared clean in two. "Kaihuang Shen Ye has come to the Longhan Heavenly Court to pay his respects to His Majesty the Celestial Emperor!" Kaihuang's voice came from the Celestial Emperor's rear palace in Jade Capital City, ringing like a bell, sounding in the ears of every soul in the Heavenly Court. Uproar swept the Heavenly Court. Though half its forces had gone to the Great Void, no few guards remained: the Left and Right Feather Forest, the Left and Right Divine Might, the Left and Right Divine Strategy, six imperial guard armies of the Heavenly Court, several hundred thousand gods and demons, who rose into the air, formed ranks in mid-sky, and hu