Chapter 40: Heaven is Dead!

Having secured the various martial techniques and secret manuals from the chest, Li Changan utilized his defying comprehension to forge a new martial discipline, one tailored for every soul within the rebel army to practice.

The technique was christened the Great Peace Body-Forging Divine Arts!

In the eyes of the established martial sects and grandmasters of the world, this technique would undoubtedly appear utterly devoid of substance, crude and simplistic beyond measure.

Yet even for those rebel fighters completely devoid of natural talent, a few months of unyielding daily practice would drastically elevate their physical constitutions and combat readiness.

Those blessed with superior faculties might even coalesce their inner breath, stepping firmly into the realm of true martial artists!

By drastically lowering both the cost and the threshold of martial cultivation, the Great Peace Body-Forging Divine Arts possessed its singular uniqueness, embodying the very goal for which Li Changan had endlessly strived!

It was a pity that while each manual left behind by the Azure Firmament Pavilion was pure essence, their numbers were few, leaving him with the frustrating sensation of a pleasure cut short.

With his current achievements, securing a permanent reincarnation mark was an absolute certainty.

After all, legends held that the court of the Demon Qing had amassed countless martial secrets from the Central Plains centuries ago; if those treasures could be seized, Li Changan would undoubtedly reap a staggering fortune from this reincarnation.

—Any manual capable of enhancing a reincarnator's combat prowess was unquestionably worth a thousand pieces of gold back in the primal world!

—Any cultivation pathway capable of rewriting or supplementing a reincarnator's evolution was enough to cause a sensation throughout the Human Alliance in the primal world.

This was the primary reason behind Li Changan's untiring pursuit of martial techniques.

With his defying comprehension combined with a vast treasury of manuals, the resulting chain reaction would be unimaginable!

Regrettably, the Demon Qing court's control over martial arts was of a severity rarely seen in the world; aside from breaking one's back as their beast of burden to exchange for meager rewards, it was harder than ascending to the heavens for an ordinary martial artist to break through the blockade of forbidden texts.

Consequently, Li Changan chose a far more radical path.

Hiding it away and refusing to give it up, were they?

Ravaging the people of the Central Plains and snapping the spines of its martial artists, were they?

Fine, then he would damn well take it by force!

Now, having practiced the Great Peace Body-Forging Divine Arts, the combat efficacy of the rebel army had multiplied almost exponentially.

The Demon Qing court believed that by cornering the rebels near the Sanhuang River and relying on the flood-inducing dragon, they could dissolve the rebellion without wasting a single soldier.

Little did they know that through Li Changan's efforts, in a mere matter of months, the spiritual resolve and martial discipline of the rebel army had risen by a tremendous margin!

Upon the issuance of his command, the rebel army, now expanded to nearly ten thousand men, vanished silently into the riverbanks, advancing toward the nearest Qingpu County.

……

Aboard the city walls of Qingpu County.

Gazing at the torrential downpour from a leaden sky that showed no sign of relenting, the Magistrate of Qingpu stroked his beard with smug satisfaction and inquired, "How stands the water accumulation in the river channels?"

Hearing his query, the three low-ranking officials kneeling not far away instantly assumed expressions of servile flattery, smiling as they replied, "Reporting to Your Honor, after these past days of torrential rain, the river waters have long since inverted; we await only the dragon's passage to turn the entirety of Sanhuang County into a desolate mudflat!"

Beside him, another official, unwilling to be outdone, fawned, "Your Honor is indeed wise, martial, and exceptionally brilliant; in this manner, we shall make the rebels find no road to heaven and no door into the earth, all without expending a single soldier!"

The two of them caught themselves up in a flurry of praise.

The Magistrate stroked his beard several times in delight, clearly quite proud of his own stratagem.

Only the final official bore a somewhat peculiar expression, appearing as though he wished to speak but found it difficult to find utterance.

Seeing this, the Magistrate, seated at the head, knitted his brows and demanded, "Why do you hesitate? Has something else occurred?"

Called upon, the final official wavered for a moment before answering, "Reporting to Your Honor, I have heard rumors that the rebel army seems to be mobilizing its forces lately, saying... saying..."

The Magistrate snorted coldly, striking his gavel down as he barked, "Saying what? Out with it!"

Seeing him poised to exact punishment, the official could no longer evade; closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, he spoke the truth of the information he had gathered: "The rebels say they are gathering their forces to slaughter the dragon!"

Upon hearing this reply, the Magistrate's expression froze for a moment, then he suddenly burst into a roaring laughter, "Have these clodhoppers been fed some bewitching potion? To think they want to slaughter a dragon? To say nothing else, the river's surface is so torrential, is it a place where any man can stand?"

Seeing him laugh so heartily, the several officials present all joined in the merriment.

Evidently, everyone present regarded this news as a monumental joke, giving it no serious thought whatsoever.

In truth, it was exactly so.

Setting aside the fact that the dragon was an ancient malevolent spirit capable of summoning wind and rain, just considering the rushing waters of the flood season, how could any mortal find a foothold?

As the group laughed uproariously, a dull, heavy thud suddenly echoed from beyond the wall, as though some object weighing thousands of catties had plummeted to the ground.

The Magistrate of Qingpu was violently startled, the laughter instantly vanishing from his face as he, along with a flock of soldiers who had heard the commotion, rushed to the top of the wall.

—There, upon the battlements lashed by the pouring rain, something seemed to be slowly rolling!

Because the day was so dark and overcast, even though everyone strained their eyes to the utmost, they could not discern what it was that rolled.

Just as everyone was filled with perplexity, whether by sheer coincidence, a bolt of lightning suddenly ripped through the heavens, briefly illuminating the gloomy sky!

Within that fleeting glare, the silhouette of a dragon's head flashed and vanished.

A soldier with sharp eyes clearly perceived the rolling object and was instantly terrified into collapsing onto his backside, stammering out, "A head... a dragon's head?!"

A dragon's head?

Because the lightning flashed too briefly, most of the soldiers had only seen a hazy silhouette.

Only now, hearing the rising tide of gasps around them, did they realize exactly what lay before them!

Instantly, an uproar erupted along the entire wall of Qingpu County, every soldier's face etched with a terror akin to seeing a ghost in broad daylight!

A dragon!

Why would a creature that existed only in the legends of gods and demons suddenly appear upon the city wall?

And with only a bloody head remaining!

While the soldiers were gripped by panic, uncertain of what went wrong, a slender figure clad in a black robe appeared imperceptibly upon the wall at some unknown moment.

The black-robed figure held a long blade that still dripped with dragon blood; viewed from afar, he seemed like a phantom, a specter, and even a distant glance was enough to feel the piercing killing intent radiating from his being.

Li Changan's voice carried a few traces of bone-chilling cold as he spoke softly, "The Azure Heaven is dead, the Yellow Heaven shall rise; the cycle turns in the year of Jiazi, and all under heaven shall prosper!"

Boom!

Lightning flashed and thunder roared, as if the world itself were tearing asunder.

The cries of slaughter mingled with the rain and blood, staining red this dark night destined for a tempest of blood and wind.

……