Chapter 75: Three Steles as One, the Era of Great Strife
Tianjing City.
Before the Heavenly Stele Pavilion.
On the once-prosperous plaza, shattered jade tiles lay scattered with broken banners and charred corpses.
In the distance, palace walls had collapsed, smoke and dust still lingered, yet the towering Heavenly Stele Pavilion remained standing. Its dark stone stele gleamed with a cold metallic luster in the twilight, indifferent to the devastation beneath it.
Upon the platform atop the pavilion, a man stood with his hands behind his back. His snow-white Dao robe was spotless, and the wide sleeves embroidered with silver star patterns swayed gently in the evening wind.
This man was none other than Xuan Tianjun, who had vanished during the battle of the Six Saints against the Monarch!
Before him stood six figures, arranged in six directions. Their forms were shrouded in mist, faces unseen, their presence merging with heaven and earth itself.
One of them spoke in a deep, detached voice:
"Begin."
Xuan Tianjun gave a slight nod. His hands formed seals as he chanted ancient incantations. In an instant, a radiant divine light descended from the void, cascading like the Milky Way, piercing straight into the pavilion's summit.
Another figure sneered coldly:
"The human Dao fortune of the entire Xuan Ying Continent has been monopolized by Ji Wuque for tens of thousands of years. It must end."
As the divine light enveloped, the three separate Heavenly, Earthly, and Human steles trembled. The golden seal script engraved upon them writhed like living creatures, intertwining and merging.
Boom—!
A thunderous roar shook heaven and earth. The three steles became one!
Another figure clapped and laughed heartily:
"Good, good, good! Now that the three steles are one, human Dao fortune once again blesses the sects and clans. When the Upper Realm reopens, the Lower Realm will not be left powerless!"
Another gave a cold snort:
"Ji Wuque deserves death! The fortune that should have blessed the entire human race was intercepted by him. At this rate, how can a single Great Zhou resist those from the Upper Realm in the future?"
One figure laughed bitterly, voice dripping with hatred:
"Perhaps Ji Wuque was an agent sent down by the Upper Realm all along!"
Xuan Tianjun's gaze was indifferent as he looked down upon the shattered imperial city and spoke slowly: "Now that the three steles are one, in twenty years they shall open. The Heavenly Stele shall no longer judge by individuals, but by sects and clans. According to rank, they shall share the human Dao fortune, with a cycle every hundred years."
He paused, his voice like piercing ice: "The future will be an era of great strife, where sects and clans rise!"
The last figure laughed wildly, his voice shaking the heavens: "A sharp blade is forged through grinding! The glory of a general is built upon countless bones! If Great Zhou insists on equality for all, how can the true chosen of destiny ever rise in this age?"
The six figures gradually faded into the twilight mist. Only the divine radiance atop the Heavenly Stele Pavilion remained, illuminating a land about to be drenched in blood.
A new era was about to arrive!
…
Qingyang City, Drunken Immortal Tavern.
The teacup in Ji Lingxiu's hand shattered with a crack, tea splashing onto the hem of her skirt, yet she did not notice.
In the inn's main hall, the storyteller struck his wooden block, his trembling voice reciting the latest report:
"The Great Zhou Supreme Emperor Ji Wuque has fallen! Emperor Chengping was assassinated! Princess Jin Xiu is missing!"
The entire inn erupted like a cauldron.
"What?!" a cultivator slammed the table, "Great Zhou… has perished just like that?!"
"Absurd, utterly absurd!"
"The news comes from the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion—beyond doubt!"
"Impossible!" an old white-haired scholar staggered back, "That was the Great Zhou Immortal Dynasty, which had suppressed the Xuan Ying Continent for ten thousand years!"
Ji Lingxiu gripped the edge of the table tightly, her knuckles turning pale.
Her ears rang, the storyteller's following words stabbing into her heart like blades:
"The Lingtian Army has betrayed Great Zhou, and Fu Yunlan has founded his own sect!"
"The Six Pillar Armies each support different princes, all claiming to be the rightful heir of Great Zhou! The six great fiefdoms rise together!"
"The Heavenly Secrets Pavilion has changed hands. The former pavilion master is missing without a trace. The new pavilion master is none other than Great Zhou's national preceptor, Xuan Tianjun!"
Each piece of news struck her like a heavy hammer, leaving her dizzy and reeling.
Outside, the sunlight was still bright, and street vendors still called out candied hawthorns for sale, yet her world had already turned upside down.
"Young lady? Your tea…" the inn servant asked anxiously, stepping closer.
Ji Lingxiu suddenly rose. The jade pendant at her waist struck the table's edge with a sharp chime.
She rushed upstairs, shut the door, and collapsed to the ground.
In the bronze mirror of her dressing case reflected a pale face. The once-supreme Princess Jin Xiu could no longer even muster tears.
Suddenly, the playful voices of children drifted in through the window:
"You be the emperor, I'll be the general!"
"No way! There are six emperors now, but only one general!"
Their innocent laughter was like salt cruelly rubbed into an open wound.
Ji Lingxiu buried her face in her hands. She suddenly recalled what her father had told her in her previous life before she left the palace: "Lingxiu, if you see a new moon hanging above the palace eaves… never look back."
So it was never a new moon.
It was the dying embers of a falling dynasty.
She, the illustrious Princess Jin Xiu, had overnight become a homeless wanderer.
When she finally calmed, a soft cough came from behind.
Unnoticed, Ling Zhanshu had already entered the room quietly and even poured her a cup of tea with care.
Ji Lingxiu stared at the tea on the table. A withered leaf floated within the cup, resembling her own drifting state. She suddenly laughed, the sound tinged with cold self-mockery.
"So that's how it is…"
Her fingers lightly traced the rim of the cup. At last, she understood Fu Yunlan's so-called assassination attempts—the bungling assassins, the endless waves of killers sent after her.
After all, if Fu Yunlan had truly wanted her dead, with his peak Heavenly Human cultivation, he only needed to act personally that day.
"He never cared whether I lived or died."
Her voice was quiet, but sharp as a dagger, piercing the silence.
Behind her, Ling Zhanshu lifted her gaze slightly. Her eyes, usually cold as frost, now revealed a trace of rare bewilderment.
Leaning by the door with her sword in her arms, her black clothes melted into the shadows.
Ji Lingxiu murmured on, "The once-esteemed Princess Jin Xiu is now merely a princess of a fallen dynasty, not even worth being used."
She lifted her head and gazed into the night outside the window.
What Fu Yunlan wanted was never her life, but an attitude—an attitude that forced her to accept reality.
Great Zhou was gone. As a princess of the fallen court, she was not even qualified to be a chess piece.
Those assassinations were nothing more than a game of cat and mouse, reminders that her life and death were no longer her own.
Was this… his final trace of gentleness toward his former fiancée?
But you should not have killed him!
Hatred suddenly flickered in Ji Lingxiu's eyes.
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