Everyone turned to Yan and Yu again. Since Lin Yue could not awaken, these two would have to take up the battle flag!
"We're going back. We'll bring victory home and let everyone in the Nine Heavens know we've won!"
Yu spoke. This was victory in the decisive battle, and it might even bring a ceasefire. The twilight of the Foreign Realm's kings was no small matter! Besides, Lin Yue had sent the Immortal Kings fleeing for their lives. They might not dare return.
"Some of us will stay behind to watch over our king!"
"I'll stay!"
"I'll stay!"
"I'll stay too!"
Countless people called out.
Chapter 86: The Heavenly Abyss
It was around the time the battle in Great Red Heaven drew to a close.
The imperial city at the Nine Heavens Border Pass.
Vast and boundless, imposing and solemn, it faintly radiated an endlessly majestic presence. This was a newly built Divine City. The previous border cities had been swallowed by the Foreign Realm's armies one after another.
Sadly, the scene inside and outside the Divine City stood in stark contrast to that grandeur. White bones lay piled like mountains. Some belonged to the Foreign Realm, but far more belonged to cultivators of the Nine Heavens. Their bones were heaped together like a jumble of remains on a desolate wasteland.
This was not disrespect. The cultivators themselves had asked for it. In their final moments, they had hoped to burn away the last of their strength to reinforce the gates of the Imperial Pass!
How tragic, how lamentable!
Although Great Red Heaven was the main battlefield of this war, that did not mean the Foreign Realm had left this place alone. The Nine Heavens had retreated again and again before building yet another imperial city. They had no idea how long this one would hold.
Many old men patrolled in broken, weathered armor draped over their withered bodies. Occasionally, a grown man appeared among them, but such men were few and far between. Many were even missing parts of their bodies. Their faces were expressionless, like walking corpses.
Yet sometimes, when they saw another patrol, ripples stirred in their lifeless eyes, eyes already on the verge of death. Some even shed tears in secret.
They had seen vibrant life in those other patrols. In any other age, that would have been a good thing, but in this age, it was the last thing these old men wanted to see. It even left them too ashamed to show their faces.
For anyone who looked closely would realize that those lively patrols consisted entirely of children thirteen or fourteen years old, some perhaps even younger.
Since the battle in Great Red Heaven began, the Nine Heavens had mobilized every soldier they could. Ten thousand years of bloody fighting had brought no resolution. Reinforcements had rushed to Great Red Heaven, wave after wave, while those here could only retreat step by step. Now, even these children had been made to defend the city. Such was the brutality of the war.
Recently, however, the veterans defending the city had noticed something strange. A long time had passed since the Foreign Realm's last attack. Why had the enemy broken its usual pattern and stayed away for so long?
They had actually welcomed a brief spell of peace. Could it be that the Immortal Domain's army had won a great victory on the main battlefield?
What they did not know was that the Foreign Realm had withdrawn because a new king had risen powerfully in the Nine Heavens, slaughtering its kings until their courage failed.
After the Immortal King Luo Mo and the female immortal of the Immortal Domain had perished together, five Immortal Kings had been slaughtered as the war in Great Red Heaven neared its end. Of those remaining, some had been blasted away, while others had fled. Once word spread among the Foreign Realm's upper ranks, even the armies that had invaded Boundless Heaven withdrew from the Nine Heavens overnight.
The Nine Heavens harbored a truly great terror! The twilight of kings!
But the people here paid little attention to this, for in their eyes, something far more important was happening.
"Alas... have you heard? The Nine Heavens have fallen completely. The flames of war burned through the boundary wall from Great Red Heaven, and the Foreign Realm's army invaded Boundless Heaven directly. This place will probably be destroyed again soon. Our comrades from the Immortal Domain are already withdrawing. They're going home. They're abandoning us!"
Several elderly city officials huddled together by the Divine City's gates. One looked at an old friend beside him and spoke.
"How could they? We're the closest of allies! We've shared close ties throughout the ages. They wouldn't leave us to our fate!"
Another old man exclaimed. Clearly, he could hardly accept it. He had no idea where his old friend had heard such shocking news.
"You were recovering from your injuries before. Several kings of the Immortal Domain summoned some of our realm's leaders. The news spread long ago. Still, I heard they'll help us establish a great formation, one that can even stop the Foreign Realm's Immortal Kings. That's the only good news."
"Hmph, don't be naive. If that were really so, why didn't they set it up while our realm's kings were still here? Why wait until now? And I hear they're going to close the passage between our realms to keep the darkness from contaminating the Immortal Domain. Some are even plundering heaven-defying sacred medicines and Ancient Seeds from the other ancient worlds of our Nine Heavens right now. Whatever they can't carry away, they mark with the names of the Immortal Domain's Immortal Kings so they can collect it later. They're treating our Nine Heavens like their own backyard! Our two realms are supposed to stand as equals!"
Someone spoke with bitter resentment. Some people from the Immortal Domain had gone far too far. They had never joined the fighting, instead using the pretext of supervising the war to plunder the Nine Heavens' ancient artifacts, treasures, and heaven-defying Ancient Seeds. Their lofty arrogance made others want to trample them underfoot. They hardly resembled enlightened True Immortals at all, but rather a pack of scavengers looting amid the flames.
"The most frightening thing is that closing the realm gate will affect the younger generations' cultivation. Our realm's Dao laws have already been shattered. For now, the Immortal Domain's Great Dao still connects to our realm, but if they truly close it, I fear... and our kings... alas...!"
"Ah! How can they do this? We're... we're allies!"
"Heh! Allies!"
Everything dissolved into grief, anger, and helplessness.
"I heard that when Senior Jin Shuo, the Jin family's ancestor, the Xu family's ancestor, and several other leaders learned of this, they knelt outside those Immortal Domain kings' camps for a very long time. They begged them bitterly to take pity on our Nine Heavens, but no one paid them any heed!"
At this, sorrow welled in the old man's heart, and tears streamed down his face!
"Ah...! I miss our kings! If our kings were here, why would we have to suffer this? Kings! Why did you abandon us? Sob...!"
The old man broke down weeping. His voice carried boundless desolation throughout the Divine City of the Imperial Pass and beyond.
Those who knew the reason also began shedding tears in secret. When had the people of the Nine Heavens ever knelt before others?
Apart from those traitors who clung to life and feared death, never in all the ages. The Nine Heavens' elders, martyrs, and heroes had charged bravely forward even against the Foreign Realm's armies. Even in death, they had never knelt.
Yet today, for the sake of their descendants' cultivation, the elders of the Nine Heavens had actually knelt before the people of the Immortal Domain. Such humiliation filled them with resentment, but also helplessness.
When kings did not appear, humiliation followed.
In the final years of the Immortal Ancient calendar.
A brief and exceedingly strange peace emerged.
The kings of the Immortal Domain seized this opportunity to descend outside the Nine Heavens' Imperial Pass. Under countless gazes filled with grief, anger, joy, pain, conflict, and even helplessness, they joined forces to establish a great formation.
Then the kings departed. From beginning to end, they never once looked at the cultivators of the Nine Heavens.
The great formation lay hidden in the sky, like an abyss severing heaven from earth. If Immortals or other supreme beings of the Foreign Realm approached, they would be drawn into this terrifying Heavenly Abyss. The higher a being's cultivation, the more violently the Heavenly Abyss reacted. None who were pulled into it were ever seen returning.
After repeated attempts, the Foreign Realm no longer dared send Immortals or other supreme beings across the boundary.
In the final years of the Immortal Ancient calendar, the kings of the Immortal Domain closed the passage between the two realms. Apart from some people of the Immortal Domain who had been tainted by darkness and others who harbored ulterior motives, no one remained. The beings of the Nine Heavens and the Immortal Domain no longer traveled between their realms. From then on, the Immortal Domain gradually became a legend.
At first, after the Immortal Domain closed its gates, the cultivators of the Nine Heavens noticed nothing wrong. But as time passed, they slowly discovered that the runes of their divine abilities were becoming harder and harder to condense. Even some heaven-defying divine abilities and ancient arts had greatly diminished in power.
Some began to lose their ability to sense the Dao laws. They always felt as though something like a sheet of paper stood between them and the Great Dao, and that sheet was actually growing thicker and thicker.
Some of the upper ranks began to grow anxious. If things truly were as they imagined, it would be a devastating blow to the Nine Heavens.
Their cultivation methods had already been infiltrated, and now the Dao laws were damaged and their power was declining. How would they face the Foreign Realm in the future?
They would not be deceived by the Heavenly Abyss established by the Immortal Domain as the lower-ranking cultivators were. They also clearly understood those kings' hidden intentions.
They were treating the Nine Heavens as the final line of defense, planting something like a time bomb here. If that bomb exploded one day, the Nine Heavens would still be the ones to suffer. How would they deal with it then? Only strength of their own was the truth.
But at this moment, they had no other choice. This was already the best possible outcome. Without the Heavenly Abyss, once the Immortal Domain's realm gate closed, they would have almost no power to resist the Foreign Realm's armies in their current state.
Chapter 87: The Whole World Celebrates
At the center of an old, ancient city, there were few buildings, but countless teleportation gates stood there, like an enormous divine altar.
This was a cluster of teleportation formations leading to Great Red Heaven's border. Many gates had been placed here as one of the routes for sending aid to Great Red Heaven.
At first, the great families still had warships that crossed the void. But as the war dragged on for years, they no longer had the means or resources to build them. They could mostly only send reinforcements to the battlefield through teleportation formations. In recent years, there had been almost no soldiers left to send. Some formations had gone unused for so long that their patterns were nearly crumbling.
Still, despite their great age and ten thousand years of disuse, they could barely be activated.
Today, these nearly decrepit gates suddenly began trembling. The teleportation patterns inscribed around them by mighty cultivators flickered, then slowly erupted with brilliant divine light. Clearly, someone was activating the gates.
Nothing like this had happened in ten thousand years. The veterans guarding the gates snatched up their weapons, jolted from their near-death stupor, their faces filled with fear. These teleportation formations had almost always sent people out, never brought them back. Now they had lit up without anyone being sent through. Clearly, someone was coming from Great Red Heaven. How could they remain calm? It might even be the Foreign Realm coming through the teleportation formations.
Under the veterans' shocked gazes, figures emerged one after another from the teleportation formations. Their breathing grew rapid. If they discovered anything wrong, they would immediately trigger the hidden measures and blow up these ancient formations. They would perish along with them, but this time, they could not allow any mishap.
As the first figure was about to step out of the divine light, their hearts rose into their throats. They even held their breath. First, a tattered battle flag appeared, followed by a blond young man.
Yan, a mature and capable leader, was the first to return, waving the battle flag in his hand.
"It's our realm's battle flag, a very ancient battle flag!"
"These are cultivators of the Nine Heavens."
"They are, aren't they?"
The veterans were still stunned, unable to react immediately.
Do not laugh if I lie drunk upon the battlefield; since ancient times, how many who marched to war have returned?
After Yan stepped out of the teleportation gate, Yu emerged as well. Then group after group followed. More and more cultivators walked out of this expanse of formations. Though the Nine Heavens lay shattered, its mountains and rivers remained, giving their hearts a little solace.
The moment Yan and Yu stepped out of the teleportation formation, their brows furrowed. Then the remaining battered soldiers of the Nine Heavens noticed the problem too. The Dao laws of the Nine Heavens had already been damaged, but now they were even fainter, as though obscured by a hazy sheet of paper.
Back in Great Red Heaven, the Dao laws left behind by the kings had overwhelmed everything, making this impossible to sense. Around Lin Yue in particular, it had been like cultivating in the Immortal Domain.
Now, the instant they stepped into this place, they detected the problem. They did not know what had happened, or why the Great Dao of the Nine Heavens had become so indistinct.
"Are you... warriors of our realm?"
An old soldier gripped his battle halberd tightly and asked! These people were simply too powerful.
They had returned from bloody battles amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Even the aura they inadvertently released made the veterans tremble. Not only were there supreme cultivators at the peak of the Human Dao Domain, there were even several undying beings, who had all but disappeared from this part of the Nine Heavens in recent years. In particular, the blond young man and woman leading them formed domains with the casual release of their auras, making him, a great cultivator of the Escape One Realm, afraid to examine them recklessly.
At the old man's question, everyone looked at those beside them, at their shattered armor and worn clothing, then smiled.
"The war is over. We've won. We've come home!"
"We've won?"
"Yes, we've won."
"Did we really win this war that has lasted through endless ages?"
"Ah...!"
"Nine Heavens! Our Nine Heavens have won! Hahaha...!"
Once they confirmed that Yan's words were true, that the Nine Heavens had truly won, the old men who had remained behind could no longer contain themselves. They tossed their weapons into the air, cheering and celebrating.
From that moment, starting in this ancient city, the cultivators of the Nine Heavens cheered all along their way. They headed toward the Imperial Pass to carry the news of victory there, to let the old people and children still holding on know that their perseverance had been worthwhile. The Nine Heavens had won.
The procession stretched like a long dragon, battle flags fluttering in the wind and drums shaking the heavens. Yan and Yu did not stop them. This was a great victory, and all the Nine Heavens had to hear of it.
"Who is beating the drums?"
"What happened?"
People elsewhere saw this enormous gathering of cultivators suddenly appear, bearing invincible vigor and battle momentum, and grew tense.
"Young brother, what happened?"
An old man watched a young man run past him, constantly shouting that they had won. Bewildered, he thought the young man had gone mad.
"Senior, we've won! The Nine Heavens have won! The heroes have returned! Hurry, hurry! Tell everyone! Spread the news of victory!"
Only then did the old man look toward the long procession in the distance. Ancient battle flags stood proudly in the wind, and war drums approached with thunderous roars.
The next instant, the old man who had been at death's door ran as swiftly as if his feet could fly, roaring as he rushed into the distance. Such scenes unfolded one after another.
In the Divine City of the Imperial Pass, everyone already knew that the army was returning victorious. A group of old men with maimed bodies led a band of child soldiers to the gates, watching the sky-piercing battle momentum approach from afar.
The children's eyes likewise blazed with fighting spirit. They were no flowers raised in a greenhouse. They had witnessed the most brutal battlefields of Immortal Ancient's final years, yet their eyes still shone. This was hope. The old men had told them that heroes were returning victorious and brought them here to behold them.
Generals died in a hundred battles; warriors returned after ten years.
The battle in Great Red Heaven had lasted far more than ten years or a hundred. How many generations had this war of tens of thousands of years spanned? How many heroes had it buried? It had shattered one great realm into the Nine Heavens, and now only Boundless Heaven and a few smaller worlds remained.
Today, the Nine Heavens had won. From the beginning of Immortal Ancient until now, who knew how long the Nine Heavens had waited for this moment?
The old men wore battered old armor, their eyes brimming with hot tears. They held bowls filled with strong liquor.
This was tradition. At the first opportunity, they offered the returning soldiers the strongest liquor of their homeland, just as they had when the soldiers first departed. They had been away too long, campaigning for ten thousand years, and people feared they might have forgotten home. Besides, this was the wine of victory, a drink to celebrate their triumph.
Yan and Yu walked at the very front, leading the returning warriors and receiving the cheers of all their compatriots who had hurried over.
"Brave warrior, please!"
An old man raised a large bowl and offered it to Yan.
"Our king of the Nine Heavens should have been the first to drink this bowl. But our king has not returned, and I...!"
Looking at the strong liquor in the bowl before him, Yan instinctively thought of Lin Yue and spoke.
The returning soldiers could not help thinking of their king either, and instantly fell silent.
Yes! Their king should have been the first to drink this bowl!
"Brave warrior, don't let it trouble you. We have an even larger bowl waiting for our king's return!"
The old man spoke with complete earnestness!
Before you continue