The Emperor smiled when he heard this, and then he turned and walked down the gate tower. While the commander of the Yulin Royal Guards and the bodyguards captain followed quickly, an escort servant handed over the armor and official sword. It seemed that he was going out to battle.
Master Huang Yang was a little startled. Then he followed His Majesty through the stone path and down the gate tower. “Where are you going, Your Majesty?” he asked.
With the help of the escort servant, the Emperor wore the heavy armor. Then he said without turning around, “There will be turmoil in the Eastern Wilderness. I’m going to lead troops to suppress it.”
Master Huang Yang had studied Buddha dharma for years but knew little about strategy in the secular world. Therefore, he still did not understand what His Majesty meant. He wondered why there would be another war after one had just recently ended.
A Yulin Royal Guard brought a horse and handed the reins to Master Huang Yang.
While sitting on horseback, the Emperor looked at him and said, “If you are worried about my safety, you can come with me.”
Master Huang Yang took over the reins, but still did not understand what the Emperor meant.
The Emperor reached his right hand to his face and confirmed that the armor was in place. “From this moment on,” he said, “the Tang Empire is faced with the threat of the West-Hill Divine Palace coalition army. So my decision is to attack first.”
Master Huang Yang was shocked upon hearing his words, “Your Majesty, do you want to declare war on Haotian?”
It had been one thousand years since the establishment of the Tang Empire; it had engaged in countless wars against many other countries. However, even during that period ridden with wars, it had not engaged in any confrontation with the West-Hill Divine Palace.
Both of them knew where the limit was.
The West-Hill Divine Palace did not want to confront the most powerful country in the world, while the Tang Empire refused to oppose the whole world, since the vast majority of Tang people were believers of Haotian.
The Emperor said calmly, “The Headmaster has declared war on Haotian.”
At this moment, General Han Qing rushed out from the gate tower. He gripped the Emperor’s reins and said with a trembling voice, “Your Majesty, let me go…There has been some change in the Golden Palace. Please stay and command Helan City.”
The Emperor said, “Though Chanyu from the Golden Palace has ambitions, he dares not to face me. The so-called change is something that will happen in the future. His cavalries cannot reach Helan City in ten days. At that time, my troops will certainly have returned.”
Deathly stillness reigned the Wilderness. For a long time after the disappearance of the black carriage, no one dared to speak, and one could only hear the breathing of hundreds of thousands people and the low neighing of the horses.
Light and night, Golden dragon and god’s soldiers, were finally ended by a sword on earth and turned into a sky full of sparks, falling on the Wilderness. Then as the cloud gathered, the wind rose, the rain fell, and the smoke was dispersed, the blue sky reappeared.
These scenes were beyond the wildest imagination and all the experience of mankind. The sense of shock, terror and awe lingered in the heart of hundreds of thousands of people for a long time.
The more powerful the person was, the easier he roused. In the imperial carriage, in the camp of the West-Hill Divine Palace coalition army, a tall figure slowly stood up behind layers of gauze curtains. He averted his eyes from the Desolate Man’s tribe in the north to the military of Tang in the west.
The Hierarch Lord of the West-Hill Divine Palace held his scepter and quietly looked at those cavalries of the Tang Empire. They looked as shocked as the allied forces, but also prideful.
The Heavens were divided by the sword, god’s soldiers were killed, and the golden dragon was finally slaughtered. The Headmaster showed a supreme, almost miraculous power today. He was the head of the Academy, as well as the spiritual pillar of the Tang Empire, so there was no wonder why the Tang people would be so proud.
However, in the eyes of the West-Hill Divine Palace and hundreds of millions of Haotian’s believers, what the Headmaster had done was an unforgivable blasphemy to the will of Haotian.
Light was supposed to defeat darkness. But the Headmaster headed to the light and rescued the Daughter of Yama. As a result, all the sacrifices made by various countries in the world became useless.
The Tang Empire was proud of the Headmaster. As such, they had to bear the cost of such pride.
The low and stern voice of the Hierarch Lord of the Divine Hall reverberated throughout the Wilderness.
The West-Hill Divine Palace coalition army gradually awakened. Their gazes at the Tang military in the west became increasingly conflicted, filled with alertness, aversion, and anger. In the end, all of those emotions became hatred which filled their eyes.
Then the smoke and dust started to rise, with hooves of horses thundering. The coalition army gradually changed the battle formation to a new one, obviously against the Tang military in the west.
The Wilderness boasted half of the Northeast Cavalries and one third of the Northern Military, the largest number of soldiers sent by the Tang Empire over recent years. Added to their recognized high combat effectiveness, these Tang soldiers were enough to sweep across small countries like Song and Qi.
However, this was a holy war launched by the West-Hill Divine Palace. The countries from the Central Plains dispatched the best troops, cultivators and martial warriors, four times as many as the ones in the Tang military. So it was really possible for them to win the war.
After the dust gradually fell, the Wilderness under the clear blue sky was covered by the dark cavalries. The West-Hill Divine Palace coalition army was thus divided into two camps, making the atmosphere extremely tense.
The coalition army’s original rival, the Desolate Man’s tribe, was of little importance at the time.
As a shrill whistle suddenly rang, the war began.
The West-Hill Divine Palace coalition army, which assumed absolute superiority, routed the right defense of the Northeast Border Military of the Tang Empire and besieged Tang cavalries on the Wilderness, at the cost of more than 30,000 lives.
However, the Hierarch of the West-Hill Divine Palace and the royal families and generals of countries like Yan, Jin, Song, and Qi all knew that the coalition army had to pay a heavy price of casualties befalling more than half of their numbers in order to destroy the whole Tang military.
But they still had to do so.
Because the Tang Empire had already betrayed Haotian and the Headmaster scared all of them. In order to dispel this fear, they must firmly stand on the side of Haotian and seize the opportunity.
Just at that moment, the hooves of horses thundered.
Countless cavalries in black armor came from the east with frightful presence. They rushed to the Wilderness like a black torrent, smashing the formation of the coalition army.
Here was the world-renowned Armored Cavalry of the Tang Empire.
Under the fluttering army flag, was the Emperor.
The black horse carriage sped through the Wilderness.
The Wilderness was not desolate in late spring. The ground was covered with dense grass. The color of green stretched out to the horizon like a green blanket dotted with tiny white flowers.
Those tiny white flowers were flocks of sheep; but among the grass, there were the real white flowers partly hidden and partly visible.
The spring wind blew. The Big Black Horse kept running excitedly with its head shaking constantly, trampling on the grass and kicking up black mud and petals. When some petals floated to its big nostrils, it was so happy it neighed wildly.
Thinking about the sublime being in the carriage, it was of course afraid of doing so. It suppressed the excitement of its close shave with death and panted heavily, looking as if it was laughing goofily.
Ning Que took a cup of tea and handed it to the Headmaster. “Teacher, have a cup of tea, please,” said he.
At the moment, he was extremely happy. If he could reveal all his happiness, clear dimples would appear on his smiling face like flowers. However, he thought that it would be a disrespect to his teacher, so he suppressed the emotion until his lips trembled, making himself look very silly.
Sangsang sat by the window, clutching her sleeves nervously. She looked at the Headmaster who occupied the soft couch rudely after getting on the carriage, and smiled a silly smile.
The Headmaster held up the hot tea cup and took a sip. Then he looked at them and asked, “Why are you smiling so goofily?”
Ning Que giggled and said frankly, “I really don’t know what to do at this time except for smiling goofily.”
Sangsang nodded and giggled.
The Headmaster poured the light condensed by the head of the Giant Golden Dragon into her. As a result, the cold aura in her body suddenly disappeared, leaving only a few threads, which no longer posed a threat to her.
What was more amazing was that she could clearly feel a new life aura in her body. It was alive and a little bit complicated, not that pure like the Haotian Divine Light or Yama’s Imprint.
That aura was all-encompassing. There were flowers, grass, fish, birds, wind, frost, dew, and rain. In it, she felt the beauty of saussurea in the Liuhu Lake, the heat from the steamed bun restaurant, and the grease of the booth which sold the hot and sour sliced noodle soup.
The aura included everything in the world, so it naturally had many impurities, even filthy things. However, it was due to them that the aura could be so alive.
Because this was reality.
Though Sangsang did not know what the Headmaster had done to her, she vaguely knew that the key was not the Divine Light that had been poured into her body. It was the lively life aura that could heal her.
The illness that no one could heal was healed by the Headmaster without difficulty. During their endless escape for hundreds of thousands of miles, they had experienced countless difficulties and hardships and encountered the punishment of Haotian in despair. However, everything was better as soon as the Headmaster appeared.
Over the past two years and on this day, Ning Que and Sangsang experienced violent ups and downs on their emotions and endless bouts of shock. At this moment, as Ning Que had said, they did not know what to do except for laughing goofily.
After a period of time, he gradually calmed down and became more sober. Thinking about what had happened before, he frowned slightly and said with worries, “Teacher, the West-Hill Divine Palace will not let this go.”
The Headmaster handed the cup to him and said, “What does that have to do with me? Pour me another cup of tea.”
Ning Que poured the hot tea into the cup with a wry smile and passed it over. He thought to himself that to his teacher, the anger of the West-Hill Divine Palace was naturally of less importance than a cup of tea, but the Tang Empire would definitely be affected.
“Teacher, aren’t you worried about Haotian bringing his wrath upon Chang’an?”
“Will Haotian be so lame?”
“What about the West-Hill Divine Palace?”
“If His Majesty were not His Majesty and is still studying at the Academy mountain’s back, he would have been your Sixth Brother. Since he is now in the Wilderness, what do you think I need to worry about?”
“But it is dangerous after all. Teacher… why don’t you take action?”
“Would I be so lame?”
Hearing the extremely random and irresponsible answer, Ning Que opened his mouth in astonishment and did not know how to reply. Previously, if someone dared to mention himself in the same breath with Haotian, he would think that the person was definitely mad… However, after witnessing today’s godly war, he knew that his teacher was not out of his mind.
He said after thinking for a moment, “Heaven is heartless, but you are different.”
“Are those on the Wilderness human beings?” asked the Headmaster.
Ning Que nodded.
The Headmaster pointed at himself and asked, “Am I also a human being?”
Thinking about the tall figure that wielded a sword to kill the dragon high above the sky, Ning Que hesitated for a long time before he finally answered, “You should be… maybe… still regarded as a human?”
The Headmaster was furious at his words. He rebuked as his beard fluttered wildly, “Maybe? I am a human! Am I a thing if I’m not a human?”
Ning Que said with a forced smile, “You are right. But what does it have to do with what we are talking about?”
“Since I am a human,” the Headmaster said, “how could I kill all humans in the world? This is really quite meaningless. I will never waste my time on it.”
Ning Que asked earnestly, “Then what do you think is interesting?”
The Headmaster said leisurely, “It is a great joy to fight against Haotian. This is something truly interesting.”