Upon hearing ‘reduce your sentence,’ the dozens of chickens flapped their wings and started clucking loudly, their eyes shining with unbounded hope. In fact, they nearly went mad. They immediately started fighting each other in the hopes of being first in line to get this opportunity. Feathers flew everywhere.

Xu Qing frowned slightly.

The chickens quickly went quiet. It didn’t matter what cultivation base they had before becoming chickens, they knew the situation they were in. They were dealing with four Smoldering Gods, and given that, they could guess how important Xu Qing was. As a result, they didn’t dare to do anything out of line. Though they still felt deep grief and indignation, they also wanted to stay alive, so they had no choice but to be submissive.

After the chickens settled down, Xu Qing started pointing at individual chickens. Of the group of over a hundred, he selected thirty.

“Which of you is fastest?” he asked.

One of the chickens jumped up, clucking longingly.

Xu Qing nodded and took out the jade slip the Heir Apparent had given him that let him control the chickens. He quickly performed an incantation gesture and pointed out, causing a stream of white light to shoot from the jade slip to the chicken.

The chicken shivered and began to change shape. However, it didn’t turn into a cultivator. Instead, it just grew larger until it was a 30-meter-tall chicken. Its cultivation base also recovered, and soon second-stage Void Returning fluctuations were rolling out. Also present was some of Crimson Mother’s power. This person… was none other than a godherald from the Red Moon Cathedral.

Xu Qing’s eyes gleamed. But then he thought back to how Fifth Sister had been taking care of these chickens, and he realized it wasn’t very surprising. He quickly hopped up onto the huge chicken’s back.

“The rest of you follow,” he said to the other chickens, waving a hand to unseal them. “Let’s go!”

The second-stage Void Returning chicken didn’t dare to resist. Fifth Sister’s warding spells ensured that if he even fought back in the smallest way, he would be plagued with pain worse than death. With a nod, he flew into the air. The other chickens flew up and followed. And thus, a whole flock of chickens zipped along through the gray sandstorm toward the border of the desert.

A few hours later, they reached their destination. From a distance it was possible to see a host of crude huts built by cultivators on the border. There were close to ten thousand cultivators camped here, all under the command of Patriarch Inkrule.

The cultivators looked suspiciously at the chickens, but Patriarch Inkrule was the first to rush out. He recognized those chickens, and as soon as he caught sight of Xu Qing, his heart started pounding.

It’s the young lord!

As a worker at the Green Spirit Pharmacy, he knew exactly who Xu Qing was. He had watched the Heir Apparent giving him advice, and knew that Xu Qing was actually the owner of the medicine shop. And he also knew that the Heir Apparent and Xu Qing had a Master

/apprentice relationship.

Therefore, he didn’t hesitate to call, “Greetings, Young Lord!”

As Patriarch Inkrule hovered in midair, he clasped hands and bowed.

Xu Qing nodded and returned the greeting. “Well met, Senior.”

Although Patriarch Inkrule had a menial job at the Green Spirit Pharmacy, Xu Qing knew that his respectful attitude was only because of the Heir Apparent. What was more, the fact that Patriarch Inkrule wasn’t a chicken seemed to indicate the Heir Apparent had a good reason for sparing him.

Xu Qing’s respectful salute caused Patriarch Inkrule to sigh inwardly. In the Green Spirit Pharmacy, he didn’t mind being heaped with shame. But out here in front of so many people, most of whom were his subordinates, he still expected to be treated with respect. As a result, he found himself liking this Xu Qing a bit more.

“Young Lord, sir, might I ask why you’ve come?”

“The Heir Apparent sent me here to receive some cultivators from the Moonrebel Congregation.” Xu Qing looked past the gray wind into the red world outside. Everything looked like it was stained with blood. Some distance away were some dark spots in the sky, moving in his direction at top speed.

Before long, those dark spots turned into flying ships. They were the forces of the fourth vice-bishop, still fleeing from the pursuit of the Red Moon Cathedral. There were about a thousand ships, and they were all in bad shape. The cultivators aboard them looked much weaker than they had half a month before. Their exhaustion exacerbated their wounds, and all of them were feeling spent in spirit and body. The sky behind them was bright red.

The leader of the group, the fourth vice-bishop, looked pale, and his wounds were particularly serious. His Void Returning subordinates all seemed to be struggling to cling to life.

Behind Fourth Vice-Bishop was a middle-aged man in first-stage Void Returning. Taking out a medicinal pill bottle, he said, “Fourth Vice-Bishop, this is our last cursequelling lozenge. Although Grandmaster Pill Nine is giving his pills away for free, there’s no way he can meet the demand. There just aren’t enough pills to go around. In the end, I’m just not on the same level as Grandmaster Pill Nine. Even though he gave me the formula, I just can’t successfully concoct the pill.”

Hearing that, Fourth Vice-Bishop looked at the medicinal pill and said, “You’ve done all you can, Saintlowe. Split the last pill up amongst yourselves. I’m fine for now.”

That first-stage expert was none other than Grandmaster Saintlowe. Upon hearing Fourth Vice-Bishop’s words, Saintlowe bowed his head.

Fourth Vice-Bishop clasped his shoulder, then looked off toward the desert and the obfuscating gray wind that covered it. Because of the sandstorm, he couldn’t see Xu Qing and cultivators with him. He just saw a big blur. He sighed.

“Grandmaster Pill Nine didn’t respond to any of my messages. I guess it must not be convenient for him to reveal his true identity. I just hope he’s safe….”

Saintlowe nodded, his face a mask of mixed emotions. “Some people are saying that Grandmaster Pill Nine is actually in the desert…. Fourth Vice-Bishop, according to the information from the Moonrebel Congregation, the desert holy land is open to us. And the entry point is just ahead. It’s just that behind us….”

Saintlowe looked over his shoulder. Behind them, heaven and earth seemed thick with fresh blood. As the effect spread, it was just barely possible to see a huge church temple atop a human organ, flying toward them. On their journey, they had been intercepted multiple times by cathedral forces. Each fight had been bitter, and had resulted in a lot of casualties.

They managed to shake their pursuers each time, but every single time, the cathedral forces eventually caught up. That was exactly what was happening right now.

“There’s nothing we can do, really,” Fourth Vice-Bishop said wearily. “To the Red Moon Cathedral, this crackdown actually isn’t very important. After all, Crimson Mother will be here in less than ten months. The more of us that die, the more the cathedral and its adherents will have to make up for the loss.

“The reality is that the Red Moon Cathedral is fractured right now. Many people there are scared, and their factions are definitely not united. Some want to toy with us, some want to leave us alone, some want to crush us. If you’ve been paying attention, you’d notice that this journey of ours has more been a case of them driving us to this spot.”

Fourth Vice-Bishop laughed coldly. “Some factions in the Red Moon Cathedral want us to escape here so that we’ll be alive when Crimson Mother comes. Other factions want to continue the traditions of epochs past, in which the prospective food is given a chance to be active. They claim that fighting brings out the best flavor.

“To us, resisting is a matter of life or death. But to the leaders of the Red Moon Cathedral, it’s more like a game. However, now that the Heir Apparent has shown up, the cathedral factions are all on guard, and are really focusing on cracking down.”

Saintlowe didn’t say anything. He could see the reality of the situation as well. And it wasn’t just him. All the Void Returning cultivators from the various species could come to similar conclusions. But Fourth Vice-Bishop was just saying the words outright.

“Don’t put too much thought into it. Whatever happens at the end of the ten months, at the very least… we get to live in freedom for a time.” Fourth Vice-Bishop took a deep breath and waved his hand, causing all the flying ships to accelerate toward the sandstorm.

But then, the red light behind them glittered as a huge blood-colored hand stretched out, obscuring the sky as it reached toward them.

Fourth Vice-Bishop’s eyes glittered coldly, and his cultivation base surged. Wild colors flashed in heaven and earth as numerous illusory minor worlds appeared around him, which then coalesced into an illusory major world. That was the sight of fourth stage Void Returning! It was only illusory, but it was still shocking as it flew to block the blood-colored hand.

At the same time, the other cultivators aboard the flying ships unleashed countless magical techniques, which bolstered the major world and made it more true and real.

The ten Void Returning experts unleashed the power of their cultivation bases. Their number included first, second, and third-stage experts, and they made the major world even stronger. A massive boom rang out as the two slammed into each other, and then the blood-colored hand collapsed.

Unfortunately, Fourth Vice-Bishop’s illusory major world also collapsed. Blood sprayed out of the mouths of all the cultivators present, causing droplets of blood to rain down like heavenly maids scattering blossoms. However, the blast also propelled them toward the sandstorm.

All of a sudden, a gap opened up in the huge sandstorm that connected the sky to the land in the desert. It was like a massive curtain opening up, revealing a door. Inside that door were Patriarch Inkrule and Xu Qing, along with nearly ten thousand desert cultivators.

Considering that Fourth Vice-Bishop’s forces were just about to enter the sandstorm, the red light behind them flared again. This time, a dozen conglomerations of flesh and blood bearing church temples emerged. Instead of trying to close the distance, they emitted blood-colored light that took the form of a huge face. It was a nonhuman face that was covered in scales. It shot forward with cold eyes, almost as if it planned to enter the desert along with Fourth Vice-Bishop’s fleet.

That was when Xu Qing smacked the huge chicken.

The huge chicken shivered, then cautiously flew out with Xu Qing atop it. Xu Qing ignored Fourth Vice-Bishop and his flying ships, and instead lifted his hand up, palm pointing toward the incoming face.

He had a jade slip in his hand. He crushed it.

Smoldering God fluctuations erupted out, creating a massive vortex in front of him. Rumbling sounds echoed out as lightning bolts danced in the vortex. Then a heaven-shaking, earth-shattering finger stretched out from the vortex. It was surrounded by endless streams of lightning, and was encircled by suns, moons, stars, and heavenly bodies as well as streams of fire. Pulsing with the aura of a Smoldering God, it thrust forward.

From a distance, it was possible to see it crushing forward like a wave smashing into the shore. Pulsing with a fury that could devour mountains and rivers, it closed in on the face.

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