Chapter 2349: The Champion Marquis, Huo Qubing!
Wang Chong and Li Xuantu glanced at each other and deeply frowned.
This area appeared to be like a complex of buildings, but in reality, it was all part of a massive ritual tool. Beneath the veneer of normality were tens of thousands of formations and inscriptions.
Someone who could leave such a long and deep furrow within the Celestial Palace had to at least be at the Subtle realm.
“It seems like it’s the work of those people who entered the Celestial Palace before, but these marks… Were they ambushed by Heaven?”
Li Xuantu lowered his head and pondered.
“It’s hard to say. After all, this is the heart of the Celestial Palace, and everything they knew was a lie.”
There was a flash of pity in Wang Chong’s eyes.
They two of them had seen many bloodstains on the paving stones, blackened and dried by the passage of time. Regardless of what had happened here, it was clear that these people were long dead.
Wang Chong and Li Xuantu raised their vigilance and continued to follow the trail of battle scars. About ten seconds later, the two of them found something new.
Several thousand feet away from the barrier, they saw an armored figure on the ground, someone who appeared to be a general. There was a black stain of blood originating from his mouth and his expression was twisted in pain. His hands were covering his chest and his body was curled up as he looked up in pain at the sky. But his body was cold, and he had clearly been dead for some time.
The extremely long passage of time had turned this general’s body into a mummy, just like the other ancient people on the Heaven-Reaching Path.
“It’s a general of the Han Dynasty. He was in immense pain before his death, and he received a fatal wound at his heart! He was ambushed!”
Li Xuantu bent down and glanced around.
The sharp tip of the sword protruded from between the general’s hands. He had clearly been attacked from behind, pierced through the heart.
“Bastard! This had to be the doing of the Celestial God Organization!” Little Nightmare suddenly said.
“There’s no other possibility. Heaven used the legends of the Celestial Court and the Celestial Domain to lure these people inside, and then he struck here, sweeping them all up in one fell swoop,” Li Xuantu sternly said.
Li Xuantu wasn’t at all surprised by their deaths. After all, how could someone who would sacrifice an entire city care about a few lives? But even now, he still did not have an answer to that riddle.
Why had Heaven lured so many people in here?
Wang Chong examined the general’s corpse. For some reason, Wang Chong felt that something wasn’t right, that the situation wasn’t as simple as Li Xuantu said.
They found more and more traces of battle as they ventured farther, with even more bodies on the ground. Some of them were even beheaded or dismembered, their body parts scattered across the ground in a horrifying spectacle.
All of them had been in incredible pain before their deaths. The surrounding mood grew heavier and heavier.
A few moments later, as they reached the deepest part of the square, Wang Chong, Li Xuantu, and Little Nightmare were all left dumbfounded.
There were piles of corpses fallen on the ground, all of them wearing armor. Many of them were generals, but not all of them. There were also corpses dressed as alchemists or martial artists, and there were even fallen banners all over the place.
But this was not what truly shocked Wang Chong’s group.
Whether it was the generals, alchemists, or martial artists, they had all been fighting each other. General versus general, alchemist versus alchemist, alchemist versus general… all of them were using all their strength to battle each other.
All of their expressions were twisted in immense pain.
This entire time, Wang Chong’s group had believed that this group had been ambushed by Heaven and the Celestial God Organization, but to their consternation, they had all died at each other’s hands.
There were no particular factions. Each person attacked anyone around them that they could attack.
This was a frenzied slaughter, and in the end, no one had survived.
Even though Wang Chong had been baptized through battle and seen countless cruel sights, this hellish battlefield still struck him as extremely gruesome.
Even after more than one thousand years, they could still see that frenzied and insane battle.
“Their minds became confused, and they were unable to differentiate between friend and foe. Heaven controlled them and had them kill each other!”
Li Xuantu sighed with pity and compassion in his eyes.
It would have been understandable if they had divided into their own camps, but general had gone against general, alchemist against alchemist, martial artist against martial artist, none showing any mercy. Even though it seemed difficult to believe, the two of them were no stranger to this situation.
Outside, the millions of people in the capital were being influenced by the power of the Celestial Palace.
While these people seemed to have killed each other, in reality, Heaven had killed them.
Wang Chong looked at these bodies with pity and began to carefully search through them. About seventy feet away from the pile of corpses, the three of them spotted a unique figure.
A man was seated cross-legged on the ground, his hair unbound and disheveled, his helmet held in his hand. His eyes were focused on the crowd of fighting people, his expression stricken with sorrow and misery. His armor was in tatters, scarred by slashes from swords and sabers. It was clear that he had been ambushed before his death.
This man clearly had impressive status. His armor was much more grandiose and exquisite than the others’, but it had not been able to save him.
At his side, they saw that several words had been carved into the ground.
‘A trap, a trap! It was all a scheme…’
It seemed that he had used all his strength to write these words, and they still radiated anger and sorrow.
Wang Chong couldn’t help but deeply sigh at these words.
“It seems that he was the only sober one amongst these people.”
This person had clearly been able to tell that something was wrong, but all he could do was watch as his subordinates killed each other.
This sort of sorrow and deep sense of helplessness were even more painful than dying unaware.
“Haaah…”
Wang Chong sighed one more time before walking past the general with Li Xuantu. As he passed, Wang Chong reached out and closed the general’s eyes.
……
Not long after leaving that chaotic battlefield, they came upon something new.
This was the body of a giant bird that seemed like a mixture of peacock and phoenix.
It was two hundred feet tall with a wingspan of three hundred feet. Wang Chong’s group stood at its feet, even one of its claws standing taller than them.
This bird’s body was cold and had clearly been dead for ages.
“What is this?”
Li Xuantu stopped in front of this giant bird corpse, his face in shock.
“I don’t know, but it truly is bizarre.”
Wang Chong also frowned.
They had seen the bodies of people who had accidentally wandered into this place, but the body of this giant bird undoubtedly stood out.
They quickly spotted something else.
“There’s another body over there.”
A corpse was standing on the other side of the bird’s corpse.
This man wore white clothes and appeared extremely young, in his twenties, very close to Wang Chong. But unlike the other corpses, this young man’s body showed no sign of pain. On the contrary, he was smiling and seemed to be brimming with energy and confidence.
This sort of smile could be described as…
Proud!
It was like nothing in the world could defeat him or bind him.
In front of them, a line of words had been carved several inches deep into the ground.
‘Han Great General of the Flying Cavalry and the Champion Marquis, Huo Qubing, executed the Green Bird at this place!’
Bang!
The energetic and vigorous words made Wang Chong and Li Xuantu tremble in shock.
The Flying Cavalry Great General?
The Champion Marquis?
Huo Qubing!
Wang Chong found it hard to remain composed.
‘Champion Marquis Huo Qubing’ was a name that would always have a thunderous reputation, regardless of dynasty, a name that would leave anyone shaken.
At a young age, he was made a Marquis and given authority over the entire army. There was no more renowned existence than him.
If the ambitious and expansionist Emperor Wu of Han were regarded as the Sage Emperor while the illustrious Wei Qing was considered Crown Prince’s Junior Guardian Wang Zhongsi, then Huo Qubing would have been Wang Chong, the Wang Chong who had defeated all the other countries and united the world under the rule of the Great Tang.
The Great Han had been a time of countless general stars, and Huo Qubing had undoubtedly been the most dazzling of all the stars under Emperor Wu’s command.
His light had even penetrated through spacetime to cast countless capable and renowned generals of other dynasties into the shadow. A thousand years into the past and a thousand years into the future, it would be difficult for someone to outshine him.
More importantly, he had been made commander of the army at the age of only nineteen. He was very similar to Wang Chong in many aspects.
At this moment, Wang Chong recalled that peculiarity he had felt on the Heaven-Reaching Path.
‘On decree of Emperor Wu of the Great Han, General of the Adjunct Guard Zuo Qing accompanied Great General Huo to the Kunlun paradise, coming here in search of the Queen Mother of the West and the green bird!’
The line of words he had seen on that wall appeared in his mind.
Great General Huo… So that General of the Adjunct Guard had been referring to Huo Qubing in his message. Wang Chong had just been too hurried and those words written too ambiguously for Wang Chong to make the connection.
But if this young man was Huo Qubing, the general they had just passed had probably been that Zuo Qing.
“But, how could it be…” Li Xuantu’s shocked voice rang out. “The historical records said that in the sixth year of the Yuanshou Era of Emperor Wu, he was ordered to pacify the Xiongnu one last time, but he died at an early age of an illness. This is a matter of public record. How could he have died here?”
Li Xuantu was stunned. When he was young, the first lesson his father had given him was about this dazzling Flying Cavalry Great General of the Han Empire.
In fact, all of the Princes had to take this first lesson. From this, one could see the considerable weight that Huo Qubing’s name had.
Li Xuantu had never imagined that this talented Great General, the Champion Marquis, had not died from illness as the historical record claimed.