Chapter 1612: Fire Heavenly Lord’s Memorial Arch
“So it’s the newly promoted Azure Dragon Heavenly Lord.”
Fire Heavenly Lord glanced at East Emperor Azure Dragon, who was striding over. East Emperor Azure Dragon was clearly in high spirits, looking around curiously at everything in the Southern Heaven.
“Azure Dragon Heavenly Lord, you were originally the East Emperor, governing the Eastern Extreme Heaven. Now that you’ve become a Heavenly Lord, the Eastern Extreme Heaven will be handed directly to the control of Heavenly Emperor Hao.”
Fire Heavenly Lord said flatly, “Now, you have nothing—only the empty title of Heavenly Lord. Do you think it was worth it?”
East Emperor Azure Dragon laughed heartily. “I have my life now, and that alone makes it worth it. The Eastern Extreme Heaven, the Eastern Extreme Sacred Land—I hand them over to His Majesty. As long as His Majesty trusts me, I won’t die. I once allied with Pastoral Heavenly Lord, but he was truly incompetent and still lost. For the sake of my life, this was the only path I could take.”
Fire Heavenly Lord showed a look of disappointment, shaking his head. “With allies like you ancient gods, it’s no wonder Pastoral Heavenly Lord lost. You didn’t help much; you only held him back. Without you ancient gods, Pastoral Heavenly Lord might not have lost.”
East Emperor Azure Dragon smiled. “And without Fire Heavenly Lord, Pastoral Heavenly Lord might not have lost either.”
Their eyes met, both revealing expressions of disgust.
Just then, a procession approached, beating drums and gongs while carrying a coffin. Inside the coffin sat a sixty-year-old man, dressed in red and green, looking cheerful. He clasped his hands repeatedly to the crowd, thanking them continuously.
The procession stopped in front of Fire Heavenly Lord and East Emperor Azure Dragon when they blocked the way.
East Emperor Azure Dragon lifted the old man from the coffin, weighed him in his hands, sniffed him, and then set him back down.
The old man, seeing his extraordinary appearance and hearing his booming voice, called out loudly, “Great god, please dine!”
East Emperor Azure Dragon shook his head. “You’re too thin and too old. Fire Heavenly Lord, what do you think of the age forty proposal? You humans marry at around ten, have children at twenty, and by forty you’re already holding grandchildren. At that age, the flavor is just right—perfect to offer to the demigods and ancient gods.”
Fire Heavenly Lord stared at him expressionlessly.
East Emperor Azure Dragon, massive in stature, crouched down to look at the procession and laughed. “Fire Heavenly Lord won’t speak, so you all speak. Tell me, is what I said reasonable?”
The people quickly set down the coffin and knelt, saying in unison, “The master speaks sense! Then let it be decided!”
East Emperor Azure Dragon glanced at Fire Heavenly Lord and suddenly laughed. “Forty is still a bit too early. How about thirty? What do you all think?”
The people all said, “The master speaks sense. Then let it be decided.”
East Emperor Azure Dragon glanced at Fire Heavenly Lord again and said with a grin, “By thirty, a mortal’s qi and blood begin to decline. How about twenty? You humans can marry and have children before twenty, and once you have offspring, you can willingly offer yourselves to the ancient gods and demigods.”
The people hesitated. The old man in the coffin said shakily, “Great god, master, twenty is too young. We beg you to grant a few more years—let them raise their children first before offering themselves to you, is that acceptable?”
East Emperor laughed. “Do you have the right to choose? No. Do you have the strength to resist? No. Since you have neither strength nor power, then it is decided.”
Below, the young people wailed bitterly, as if mourning the dead.
“I’ll fight you to the death!”
The old man crawled out of the coffin and charged at East Emperor, throwing punches and kicks, but he was so weak it wasn’t even an itch.
East Emperor Azure Dragon paid him no mind. A cold gleam flashed from the dragon scales on his foot, and the old man instantly turned to ash.
Seeing this, the young pallbearers silently rose, turned, and left without a single word about avenging the old man.
“They accepted it so quickly?”
East Emperor Azure Dragon was surprised and laughed. “Fire Heavenly Lord, you’ll have to teach me. If your methods of enslaving the Southern Heaven spread to all the myriad worlds, why would His Majesty still worry about Pastoral Heavenly Lord? In the future, no one would ever rebel!”
Fire Heavenly Lord sneered. “I am preserving the human race. Humanity is weak and no match for the demigods and ancient gods. Only this way can humans survive. For a million years since the Dragon Han Era, only the people of my Southern Heaven have lived in abundance, without fear of extinction.”
“Isn’t the Yan Kang Era also thriving?”
East Emperor Azure Dragon shrugged dismissively and laughed. “Haven’t humans in other worlds also avoided extinction?”
Fire Heavenly Lord said coldly, “The humans of the Yuan World endured the Dragon Han Calamity, the Chi Ming Calamity, the Supreme Emperor Calamity, the Kai Huang Calamity, and the Yan Kang Calamity. Which time did they not come close to extinction? Each time, they only survived through countless agonies. But my Southern Heaven…”
“You mentioned five calamities, and it seems you had a hand in every single one. Each time, you struck the hardest.”
East Emperor Azure Dragon saw he was about to retort and waved his hand, laughing. “I’m not here to argue with you about this. Fire Heavenly Lord, you’ve offended His Majesty.”
Fire Heavenly Lord burst out laughing and glanced at him. “So, Heavenly Emperor Hao sent you here to die?”
East Emperor Azure Dragon smiled leisurely. “Southern Emperor Vermilion Bird was killed by Fire Heavenly Lord in her own sacred land. Far from the Eastern Extreme Heaven, how could I possibly be a match for Fire Heavenly Lord? Fortunately, Fire Heavenly Lord has weaknesses, so His Majesty also sent help.”
As he spoke, the Netherworld Emperor stepped out from the shadows and bowed. “Yin Chaojin pays respects to Fire Heavenly Lord.”
Fire Heavenly Lord saw him and burst into loud laughter.
“Yin Chaojin? Netherworld Heavenly Lord?”
His laughter subsided, and his eyes were full of mockery. “You dare to come? Is Heavenly Emperor Hao also sending Dragon Xiao Heavenly Lord? You newly promoted Heavenly Lords are all a bunch of trash!”
The Netherworld Emperor smiled. “Fire Heavenly Lord, your attainments in the soul are too shallow, leaving a huge flaw. That’s why His Majesty ordered me to come and harvest Brother Fire’s soul.”
Fire Heavenly Lord snorted coldly, his chest heaving with emotion as he spoke passionately, “You conspired with Heavenly Lord Hao to kill my elder brother, Imperial Heavenly Lord. I have thought of avenging him every moment. Today, I can finally fulfill that wish!”
The Netherworld Emperor shook his head. “I had to kill Imperial Heavenly Lord, but I only killed him. As for Brother Fire, the human Heavenly Lords you’ve killed are far too many: Cloud Heavenly Lord, Moon Heavenly Lord, Ming Huang, Kai Huang, Pastoral Heavenly Lord, Netherworld Heavenly Lord, Ling Heavenly Lord—you regarded them all as enemies and wished to cut them into a thousand pieces. The human elites who died by your hand are a hundred times more than those who died by mine! Does Brother Fire still want to avenge them?”
Fire Heavenly Lord’s face turned cold. “They brought it upon themselves! I have always despised sycophants like you…”
“We are the same kind of people.”
The Netherworld Emperor said flatly, “In fact, I am a hundred times better than you. At the very least, under my rule, the humans in my territory live better than those in your Southern Heaven. Many of my disciples are also human. Heh, even I, whom you have always looked down on, have done better than you. Even the ancient gods you despise, like Southern Emperor, have humans under her command living far better than those in your Southern Heaven.”
Fire Heavenly Lord was furious and was about to strike, when suddenly the sound of trumpets and suonas came. The young pallbearers from the Southern Heaven who had just left were returning.
After returning to their village, they had bid farewell to their wives and children and now came back dressed in red and green.
Not only them, but everyone in the village from twenty to sixty years old had come.
They weren’t sitting in coffins because there were no able-bodied young men left in the village to carry them. So they simply walked over.
The village was filled with weeping.
Yet these people came with smiles on their faces, knelt before the group, and said cheerfully, “Master, please dine!”
The Netherworld Emperor shook his head. “These people can no longer be called human. They are nothing but walking corpses in human form. Fire Heavenly Lord, you’ve taught them well.”
He suddenly burst into laughter, pointing at Fire Heavenly Lord as he doubled over, tears streaming from his laughter. “And with all this, you still look down on me, say I have no backbone, call me a bootlicker, say I only know how to grovel before Heavenly Lord Hao! You, you—damn, you’re so hypocritical! Even if I, the Netherworld Emperor, am evil and bad, I’m still a hundred times better than you!”
He jumped up in excitement. “I’m evil, but I’m an upright and honest villain! But you—you’re clearly a whore for anyone, yet you pretend to be so righteous and even build yourself a memorial arch!”
He rolled on the ground laughing, unable to get up. “You’re far worse than me! You look down on me, say I’m unworthy to be a Heavenly Lord, say I rose through flattery, and claim you rose through virtue! But where is your virtue? Compared to you, I’m practically a saint who doesn’t touch worldly affairs!”
Boom—
Suddenly, space twisted violently. Rings of flame spun behind Fire Heavenly Lord’s head, distorting the entire realm!
The stars in this realm spun with the flame rings, and the earth turned into a massive ring, with countless cities, villages, mountains, rivers, and oceans all becoming part of it!
The mask on Fire Heavenly Lord’s face showed shame and anger. The Netherworld Emperor and East Emperor Azure Dragon lost their footing, pulled by the massive flame rings, and flew toward him involuntarily.
Fire Heavenly Lord reached out, grabbed the Netherworld Emperor by the neck, and sneered, “You’re nothing but a dog of Heavenly Emperor Hao. How dare you compare yourself to me?”
The Netherworld Emperor, caught in his grip, kicked his legs wildly and tried to pry his fingers apart with both hands, but couldn’t budge them. His face flushed red as he still chuckled, “Aren’t you a dog too? You lick even better than I do… No, you’re not a dog—dogs at least are loyal, but you…”
Crack.
Fire Heavenly Lord snapped his neck, then a blaze of dao fire burned the Netherworld Emperor to ashes!
East Emperor Azure Dragon stood aside, not daring to approach.
Fire Heavenly Lord brushed the ashes from his hands and looked at him, sneering, “I have always hated ancient gods the most…”
“And yet you grovel before Tai Chu.”
A massive gate rose slowly, and from it surged the waters of the Netherworld Sea, quickly forming a sea in the starry sky.
The Netherworld Heavenly Gate stood on the sea’s surface, and the Netherworld Emperor walked out, laughing. “You hate Tai Chu the most, yet you submitted to him. You hate Heavenly Lord Hao the most, yet you also submitted to him. It’s not hatred you feel—it’s fear! You fear the powerful, so you bow to them! You want to become the powerful! To secure your position, you even killed Cloud Heavenly Lord to earn Heavenly Lord Hao’s trust. Fire, back then, you must have had thoughts of avenging Imperial Heavenly Lord, right? You wanted to gain Heavenly Lord Hao’s trust and then kill him to avenge Imperial Heavenly Lord. I watched you, heh…”
He sat on the threshold, swinging his legs, his face full of mockery. “I watched how you were corrupted by power, how you were consumed by desire, and I felt a thrill, because you soon became just like me! But what I never expected was that you would become even more despicable and darker than I am!”
Fire Heavenly Lord pointed a finger, and the Netherworld Emperor exploded with a pop.
The next moment, the Netherworld Sea stirred, and the Netherworld Emperor walked out of the gate again, laughing. “No one in this world can kill me. Even Pastoral Heavenly Lord tried and failed. Don’t waste your strength. On the contrary, I can kill you.”
A gleam of excitement flashed in his eyes. “Back then, you couldn’t kill Ming Huang, so you recommended me to do it. From that moment, I realized you and Ming Huang shared the same weakness—your souls are too weak! Your cultivation techniques can’t train the soul!”
—Congratulations to the four book friends: Youmeng Hen Nen de Youyou Jiang, Dai Ni Qu Lvxing Yi Nuo, Shen Laoban, and Wei Ruo Qingtian, on their birthdays! Forgot Youyou Jiang’s birthday yesterday, so adding it now…
Also, there’s an event in the Qidian review section called “If I Were You.” You can choose a character from The Legend of the Shepherd God that left a deep impression on you and write a review of about 150 words. There are event rewards, limited to the Qidian review section.