The Quest for Immortality - Chapter 1130 (Patreon)

Chapter 1130: Desolate Heaven Shall Rise

The Great Wilds.

Night fell, and the desert wind cut like knives.

At the passes where days burned and nights bit to the bone, within a frontier camp—

Yang Jishan of the Dao Soldier Bureau’s Yang clan was conferring by lamplight with his clansman Yang Jiyong, the two of them discussing military affairs inside their tent.

For nearly a century, the Southern Wilds had known little peace.

A few clans rioted year-round. Blades never rested.

Across the great provinces of the Great Wilds, dragon-blooded lords and marquises carved up their own fiefdoms, undermining one another with open strife and hidden schemes.

The Dao Court could only suppress and stabilize.

For nearly ten thousand years, the Great Wilds had been where the Dao Court most often sent troops.

Especially the Yang clan—nearly every generation served a term in the Wilds, blood-soaked against the marauding tribes.

This night, as the brothers weighed today’s barbarian movements, Yang Jishan’s brow slowly furrowed, as if something weighed on his mind.

Yang Jiyong asked, “Big Brother, what is it?”

After a moment’s thought, Yang Jishan said, “In daylight—did you notice anything strange in the sky?”

“Strange?”

Yang Jishan nodded. “Seemed like a streak of fire—red along the horizon…”

Yang Jiyong shook his head. “I didn’t see anything unusual…”

Yang Jishan inclined his head. “Perhaps I’m overthinking it.”

Maybe the scorching heat and restless fire qi of late, the frequent stirrings among the tribes, had worn him thin enough to hallucinate, he told himself silently.

Yang Jiyong added, “Brother, this frontier of searing days and freezing nights grinds people down. We’ll likely have to endure another ten or twenty years here just to scrape together some merit. Rest more—don’t wear your body out.”

Yang Jishan nodded. “You too. Work hard—form your core early.”

Yang Jiyong grinned.

They planned until midnight, then, drowsy, took a pull of burning liquor to warm themselves, put the maps and manuals aside, pulled up their blankets, and slept in their clothes.

Yang Jiyong slept like a log and snored besides.

Yang Jishan, uneasy at heart and further jostled by the snoring at his side, drifted in and out.

Half-dreaming, half-awake, a sudden chill surged up his spine.

Years of life-and-death on campaign snapped him instantly awake. All drowsiness vanished.

The night wind was still cutting cold.

Clad in armor, he stepped out of the tent. When he looked up, he saw only heavy night swallowing the moon.

The Great Wilds’ mountain chains crouched like black beasts, rolling to the horizon. The world was vast and empty.

It was very quiet.

Yang Jishan exhaled in relief.

But a breath later, his brows knit again.

“Too quiet…”

At this hour, in these Three Thousand Wild Mountains, there were always insects and birds murmuring, demons howling. The night should not have been this deep.

When something is abnormal, demons are afoot.

But around him all was empty, pitch-dark—nothing at all…

Yang Jishan hurried back into the tent, and with a kick to Yang Jiyong’s thigh said, “Something’s off. Come with me.”

Roused from a dead sleep, Yang Jiyong jolted upright. Seeing it was Yang Jishan, he swallowed his temper, slapped his cheeks awake, gathered his wits, and followed him out, asking, puzzled,

“Brother, what happened?”

Yang Jishan’s voice was low. “Something’s wrong—but it’s hard to say what…”

Yang Jiyong’s expression turned grave as well.

They climbed the pass’s wall. Beyond the gate lay a single sheet of black.

In the darkness, they could see nothing.

They dared not relax.

Just then a hard night gust blew through, lifting grass, wood, and sand—and brushed across a shadow in the dark, a smear like a moving piece of night.

The same moment, it flickered inside their pupils.

“Demon beast?” Yang Jiyong froze. “Melded with the night—it looks like… a Ghost-Night Wolf?”

Yang Jishan’s gaze sank. “Not a Ghost-Night Wolf. It’s—”

Yang Jiyong’s pupils trembled. “Ghost-Night Wolf troopers!”

The Ghost-Night Wolf was a barbarian demon beast that crouched by day and hunted by night, hide and aura one with darkness, stalking prey like a specter.

Barbarian cultivators of the Great Wilds hunted them and stripped their hides to make war-gear for night raids.

Thus the phantasmal “Ghost-Night Wolf Troops.”

They had once been among the royal court’s most insidious barbarian arms.

But after the Great Wilds’ royal court fell and its power was crushed, such “wolf troopers” were banned by the Dao Soldier Bureau—no power in the Wilds was permitted to raise them again.

Yet now, at the pass guarding the Wilds, wolf troopers were raiding by night…

Face like water, Yang Jishan ordered Yang Jiyong to rouse the Dao soldiers, form ranks, and man the defenses.

At the same time, he took up a horn-sinew bow. Drawing it to a full moon, his eyes like hawks, he hunted for ghosts in a night where nothing could be seen.

A wind passed. The shadow wavered.

Yang Jishan’s eyes flashed. His arrow flew. With a thunderous force, it howled through the dark and nailed one barbarian to the earth.

Blood spread in the night. Metal reek drifted. Something unseen stirred.

He had slain one wolf trooper with a single arrow, yet there was no joy on Yang Jishan’s face.

He knew this attack would not be so simple.

“Light the Bright-Lamp Array.”

After a brief thought, he gave the order.

By night, you did not light open flames in the Wilds.

Set at the southernmost edge of the Nine Provinces, the Wilds’ nights were deeper, ink-thick—and they were the playground of demon beasts.

Beasts hated fire yet were easily drawn to it.

Especially at the passes that guarded the Wilds.

If you lit flames, nearby beasts would go mad and crash against the gates.

But tonight was different—desperate times, desperate measures.

Light swept along the battlements. A vast Bright-Lamp Array gathered radiance that knifed into the sky.

A single ribbon of brilliant fire rose from low to high and shot toward the heavens.

Bit by bit, the surrounding dark brightened.

As the light flared, the scene below the pass slowly came into view before Yang Jishan and Yang Jiyong.

In an instant, their pupils dilated. A killing chill flooded their limbs. Their hearts sank like boulders into a deep abyss.

Beyond the gate, hidden by the night, was a dense mass of towering, savage barbarian troopers in beast-plate, faces twisted with ferocity.

Within the array’s reach, they stretched farther than the eye could count.

A barbarian host.

What shook the brothers even more: within that army, besides common troopers and a handful of Ghost-Night Wolf troopers, there were many Great Wilds arms the Dao Soldier Bureau had listed as “taboo.”

Among them—even the near-extinct “Beast Cavalry.”

Bloodthirsty barbarian body-refiners with iron bodies, mounted on demon beasts thought impossible to tame—formed into Beast Cavalry—reaping lives and smashing lines, unstoppable on the field.

The Beast Cavalry of the Great Wilds’ royal court had once been the terror of the age.

The Dao Court was forced to send the Longxiang Imperial Guard, who slaughtered for a century to wipe them out.

Yet after millennia, the Beast Cavalry had been raised again.

And not just common Beast Cavalry…

The Bright-Lamp Array’s glow flickered past.

Most riders sat wolves, but some dragon-armored barbarians bestrode tigers the size of small hills, eyes baleful and fangs bared.

Tigers were a step below dragons.

But tiger was demon beast while dragon was divine beast; for tiger to stand shoulder to shoulder with dragon spoke to terrifying power.

And that was only ordinary tigers.

In the lore of the Great Wilds, there were Four Divine Beasts.

“White Tiger” was one. Some tiger demons bore traces of White Tiger’s blood—a divine-beast variant.

Such demon beasts were called “exotic beasts.”

“Tiger-rider beast troopers” were near the royal court’s strongest Beast Cavalry.

Those who could subdue a tiger and ride it without exception bore the Great Wilds’ dragon vein—dragon-blooded lords and marquises, or scions of the royal clan.

Only “dragon” blood could suppress “tiger.”

Thus the Great Wilds’ tiger cavalry were called the “Royal Troops.”

Staring at those mountain-like tiger demons with a “王” sigil blazoned on their foreheads, and at the royal “giants” three or four men tall upon their backs—

Yang Jishan turned pale as paper. At last he understood.

“The Great Wilds… has rebelled…”

This was not a local disturbance, but outright insurrection.

Tonight was not a “raid,” but a full “assault.”

Yang Jishan’s heart quivered.

Rebellion in the Great Wilds had been considered—but only as a worst-case hypothetical.

No one imagined it would truly happen.

And that it would happen now.

He drew a long breath and forced his voice level.

“Light the beacons. Warn the neighboring passes…”

“Send to the Dao Soldier Bureau—report the Great Wilds’ rebellion. Request central Dao Soldiers to punish the traitors and suppress the Wilds.”

“Send word to the Yang clan—let the elders make early preparations…”

Having fired off his orders, Yang Jishan drew his spear and looked back at Yang Jiyong, his expression half-complicated, half-helpless.

“Our time to make our names has come.”

Facing the sea of barbarian bodies that could crush hope, Yang Jiyong laughed.

“Brother—watch me butcher these rebels, win merit and renown, and walk straight into the Dao Soldier Bureau’s inner cabinet.”

Yang Jishan gave a bitter smile. After a moment’s silence he sighed softly.

“Don’t die…”

Yang Jiyong gathered his smile, his face growing solemn. “You too, Brother… live. You must live…”

…

Then, in the night, a tiger’s roar split mountains.

The barbarian host surged like a flood toward the pass.

At the forefront came the ghostly Ghost-Night Wolf troopers.

They were the perfect knife for surprise breaches.

The pass’s warding array ignited. Vast spiritual power churned like a mill of flesh, grinding the charging barbarians to pulp.

They did not fear death. One fell; another stepped over his body. The rush never ceased until the Dao soldiers’ long spears punched through ribs and hearts atop the wall.

Bodies fell and piled.

Those behind stepped on the dead and kept charging the wall.

By then the wolf troopers melded with night had already scaled the battlements and laid into the Dao Court’s soldiers at close quarters.

A brutal battle for the pass began.

And the Great Wilds’ rebellion formally opened its curtain…

…

South of Lizhou, in a certain third-grade immortal city—

Situ Xiu thrust her sword through the chest of a sect cultivator who was shouting “Heaven is dead!” She ripped the blade free and lopped another rebel’s arm in the same motion.

Her colleagues around her were also cutting down the rebels.

Yet more and more joined the rebellion.

Poor itinerants mixed in.

Evil-path cultivators fanned the flames from the shadows.

The situation was chaos incarnate.

The Dao Court’s offices became the “target of all.”

As a Judicial Officer of the Dao Court, Situ Xiu could only feel helpless.

This city, Shaoshan City, had a corrupt Dao Court office and greedy local clans, colluding to squeeze the itinerants until they bled.

As an officer, she had the heart but not the power to change it.

If not for her birth in the Situ clan and the family’s shelter, even keeping herself clean in such a mire would have been difficult.

She had never imagined the fragile balance would shatter in an instant.

At noon, a dragon’s roar rang from nowhere; it seemed beacon signals had reached them.

Soon after, large-scale clashes erupted.

A small, obscure sect suddenly revolted and struck the Dao Court’s office.

After a brutal struggle, the office fell. Many heads and officers were slaughtered.

The building went up in flames.

Seeing it, desperate itinerants stormed the noble houses to kill and rob.

In a blink, Shaoshan City became a sea of fire.

Situ Xiu wanted to suppress the revolt, but she was powerless. She could only gather with the Situ clan’s juniors and elders, barely protecting their own.

But that too was no long-term plan.

“Young Miss Xiu, back to the clan first. Shaoshan City is beyond saving…”

An elder of the Situ clan said gravely, “If we linger, we’ll draw fire onto ourselves.”

Situ Xiu frowned. “What exactly is happening?”

The elder’s face was heavy. “Judging by the signs—‘traitors’ have raised their banners to defy the Dao Court…”

Situ Xiu was shocked. “Who would dare…”

The elder shook his head. “Treason shakes the world. Whoever sits behind it must be terrifying. Best not get tangled with such a one—or the ‘ruin of clan and extermination of line’ may befall us.”

Situ Xiu nodded. She agreed.

The clan left Shaoshan City. To avoid notice, they traveled light, not even taking carriages.

Only after leaving did they realize—it wasn’t just Shaoshan in chaos. The entire province, even most of Lizhou, was aflame.

Everywhere they went: refugees and bandit-cultivators.

Slaughter without end. Corpses underfoot.

In almost every immortal city, conflict had broken out, great or small.

In some, the Dao Court was toppled, heads and officers killed. Rebel cultivators rallied itinerants, shouting, “The Azure Heavens are dead; Desolate Heaven shall rise!”

Not a few cities sealed their gates and forbade all passage.

The wind howled and rain shook. Everywhere the signs of oncoming “chaos” spread.

And the barbarian host of the Great Wilds still rolled north like a flood, flattening all before it.

Flames of war bled out of the Wilds into Lizhou…

…

The situation worsened by the day.

Yinghuo showed itself; the calamity of war followed.

Senior cultivators of the Dao Court and across the Nine Provinces saw these omens with their own eyes.

The problem: from high seats, they could see the “portents,” but not the particulars.

The Wilds were remote and Lizhou poor, filled with third- and second-rate provinces—low-ranked, relatively closed off.

Many higher-grade messaging methods simply couldn’t be used.

News from within crawled outward.

For a time, their arms could not reach. They could only plan, arrange early as they could—and worry all the same.

…

Qianxue Province boundary, Great Void Sect.

Inside the Elders’ Residence.

Mr. Xun frowned over a map of the Great Wilds and Lizhou.

He had already sent down overall arrangements, yet one thing still gnawed at him.

“Yinghuo fell in the south. Calamity shows in the Wilds. And the Wilds and Lizhou are one body… Mo Hua’s hometown is in Lizhou. Will he be caught up in this…?”

Mr. Xun still worried for Mo Hua.

After a moment’s hesitation, he could not set it down. He decided to cast for Mo Hua and glimpse his fortune.

He drew on the Great Void Compass, linking it to the Great Void Yin–Yang Lock.

The needle spun, destiny shuddered—

His eyes filled with red light; streaming fire soared; the sun burned white-hot.

And across heaven and earth, a beacon like a dragon…

Mr. Xun slammed a hand atop the compass and dared not divine further.

He felt numb to his fingertips.

A long, long time passed before he could breathe again.

“It shouldn’t… it can’t… impossible, right…”

“He left the sect less than a year ago—counting generously—and he’s already…”

His brows jumped.

Before, he had fretted and regretted not keeping Mo Hua in the Great Void Sect.

Now he was faintly glad—glad they had sent the boy away.

Otherwise, the Great Void Sect…

He sighed at length, a bitterness in his heart.

“Let’s only hope that when this child does some ‘great deed’ one day, he won’t trumpet our Great Void Sect’s name everywhere…”

…

Meanwhile, in Lizhou—

Within a lavish guest room of the Gray Wolf Sect.

Mo Hua stared blankly at the “dragon banner” before him.

He had already blown up the secret chamber.

He had erased every trace of the Ten Thousand Beasts Dragon Pattern.

The altar lay ruined beyond repair.

The instant the banner flared to life, Mo Hua knew he had done another “big thing.”

So in the next heartbeat, he moved to “destroy the corpse and wipe the trail,” blasting the entire chamber to ash—then scattered the ash—severing the cause and effect at the material level.

Only one problem remained: the dragon banner that read, “The Azure Heavens are dead; Desolate Heaven shall rise.”

Mo Hua didn’t know what to do.

Destroy it, and he might profane a “treasure” of the Great Wilds, tug on its karmic threads, and draw their hatred.

Keep it, and it would be like carrying a rebel banner on his person.

What’s more, this banner might well be the very first “rebel flag” to sound the Wilds’ uprising—a thing of “great significance.”

He would become the Dao Court’s “Heaven-Character First-Rank Traitor.”

Mo Hua was already regretting it.

Deeply regretting it.

Cause and effect was a pitfall too cruel by half.

Who would have thought that, following a few threads and peeking at a cause, he’d somehow light the banner of rebellion in the Great Wilds?

Is your rebellion banner really that easy to light?

He was speechless.

The Wilds were all “rice buckets”—so sloppy they couldn’t even hide a rebellion properly?

If they had hidden it even a little better, that unlucky karmic coil wouldn’t have landed on his head.

And he wouldn’t have become, out of thin air, the Dao Court’s “Number One Traitor.”

The more he brooded, the angrier he got. But anger couldn’t solve anything.

He could only accept fate with a sigh and put the Desolate Heaven Dragon Banner away into his storage ring.

“What’s lit is lit. Fine—let it stay…”

After all, the storage ring his master had given him was a treasure that could “isolate cause and effect.” It shouldn’t leak any secrets.

“So long as I don’t talk, no one should know I’m a ‘rebel’…”

He nodded, then couldn’t help muttering in his heart,

“Come to think of it… did Master foresee I’d cause a lot of trouble, so he gave me this storage ring?”

Worthy of being Master…

Mo Hua sighed, emotions mixed.

At this point, he could no longer remain in the Gray Wolf Sect. He had to leave at once.

Only, with the Wilds in revolt and war spreading, the road ahead would not be easy…

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