Chapter 253 The Wedding Procession Sets Off

On a low hill a few dozen miles outside the capital, Yan Chu and his companion watched the procession approaching slowly in the distance, resembling a long dragon.

Outside the capital, various civil and military officials, along with protocol officers, escorted the procession to the Du Pavilion ten miles away before stopping.

Yan Chu did not wish to participate in those complicated ceremonies, so he waited ahead with Luo Jin, only joining the procession once it arrived.

Princess Yunshu's wedding procession was magnificent.

She was the biological daughter of the current Your Majesty, ranking third among the three princesses and sixth among all the Emperor's children.

Originally, the woman designated for the marriage alliance was merely a daughter of the imperial clan.

However, the Khan of Beiman threatened that it must be the Great Jin Dynasty Emperor's own daughter, a beauty from the beauties ranking list, who must be married over, or he would not withdraw his million-strong army from the border.

With no other choice, after deliberations with the court officials, it was ultimately decided to send Princess Yunshu herself to be married off.

Her wedding procession was divided into two groups.

One group was the Northern Mang contingent, led by General, the son of the Right Worthy King of Northern Mang, accompanied by over a dozen Northern Mang experts, including six Supreme Grandmasters; the rest, with the exception of one Grandmaster named Wugula, were all Great Grandmasters.

Besides these people, the person sitting in a luxurious carriage within the Northern Mang contingent was the strongest individual in this diplomatic mission; even General was respectful when facing that carriage.

According to Luo Jin, the person inside the carriage was the Third High Priest of the Longevity Cult of Northern Mang.

As a grassland Empire, Northern Mang worshiped the eternal heaven.

The Longevity Cult was the state religion of Northern Mang and held a transcendent status there; the cult had three priests, each responsible for the Northern Mang's Heaven Sacrifice, Fire Sacrifice, and War Sacrifice.

These three priests were all Celestial Being Experts.

In Northern Mang, the Khan was merely the wielder of royal power, while spiritual belief was controlled by the Longevity Cult.

After Yan Chu and Luo Jin arrived, that Third High Priest did not even show his face from the carriage, and only General gave them a lukewarm greeting.

This was a true reflection of the current relationship between Northern Mang and the Great Jin Dynasty.

The national power of Northern Mang was currently flourishing, with a million grassland wolf cavalry constantly threatening to swallow the Great Jin Dynasty whole; in recent years, the Great Jin Dynasty had repeatedly suffered defeats in border wars, losing face and territory, which was why General, a mere Mountain Shaking Realm practitioner, dared to be disrespectful to the two Celestial Being Experts, Yan Chu and Luo Jin.

Yan Chu glanced at him and ignored him thereafter.

He hoped this person would not recklessly cross him; otherwise, let alone being merely the son of the Right Worthy King, even if he were the Khan's son, Yan Chu would still hack him to pieces.

The other group was the Great Jin Dynasty wedding procession led by Luo Jin and Yan Chu.

In addition to the two of them, the group included ten Supreme Grandmasters, all imperial guards tasked with the heavy responsibility of protecting members of the royal family.

"Senior Luo, Great Hero Yan!"

The leader among the ten was named Cui Yiting, a commander of the imperial guards who had been raised by the imperial court since childhood; his loyalty to the royal family went without saying, and the others were the same.

Although Luo Jin looked young and beautiful, as delicate and lovely as a girl of sixteen, she certainly could not be very young; she had to be at least over a hundred years old.

After all, not everyone could be like Yan Chu.

In fact, during the few days Luo Jin had spent with him, she had been constantly hinting and probing to find out how he achieved his Breakthrough to the Heavenly Human Realm.

According to the normal path, most Celestial Being Experts needed to enter a blessed land to make a Breakthrough, and it would not take just a day or two; yet Yan Chu had only been out of public sight for half a month, and upon reappearing, he was already a Celestial Being Expert.

It was impossible not to be curious about such an exaggerated speed.

This might also be because the Empress Dowager had instructed her to investigate.

However, Yan Chu just laughed it off, and she did not continue to press the matter; the top priority was still to maintain a good relationship with Yan Chu, so it was not appropriate to pry into the secrets behind him.

Luo Jin nodded slightly and said calmly:

"Commander Cui, let us set off now!"

The necessary ceremonies had all been completed over the past few days, and now they were just waiting for Yan Chu to arrive.

The procession was hauling dozens of carriages filled with various precious resources, all of which were Princess Yunshu's dowry; many of these resources were enough to make even a Supreme Grandmaster covet them.

...

Of course, for the entire Great Jin Dynasty, this dowry was not even a drop in the bucket; the most precious item among them was Princess Yunshu herself, or rather, her status.

As a princess of a nation, she was being married off for a peace alliance.

Such a thing was extremely humiliating for the imperial court, and it was inevitable that it would arouse resentment in some people, who might try to interfere with the wedding procession.

She was the key to the peace talks between the Great Jin Dynasty and Northern Mang, and absolutely nothing could go wrong.

Upon receiving the order, Cui Yiting cupped his hands, nodded, and said:

"Yes!"

He waved at the procession behind him and shouted:

"Depart!"

"Yes!!!"

Everyone in the procession shouted in unison, then began to set off, embarking on the journey to Northern Mang.

Central Province was tens of thousands of miles away from Northern Mang, and even though these horses were demonic horses containing the blood of exotic beasts, it would still take nearly a month of travel to reach the capital of Northern Mang.

The escort team included many Fifth Realm and Sixth Realm Martial Artists; in ordinary counties, they would all be powerful local figures, but in this procession, they were merely coachmen and servants.

Yan Chu sat alone in a luxurious carriage pulled by four demonic horses; this was practically a mobile luxury room where one could sit, lie down, jump, or sleep without any effort.

This was the privilege of a Celestial Being Expert, enjoying the best treatment wherever they went.

This carriage was no less impressive than Princess Yunshu's.

After entering the procession, Luo Jin slipped into Princess Yunshu's carriage to whisper with her.

Yan Chu sat quietly cross-legged inside the carriage.

He had cultivated his Heaven-Changing Earth-Striking Great Art to the third level, Controlling Reincarnation.

With his current Mental Energy, if he continued to advance to the final Shattering Vajra Realm, his Primordial Spirit would likely ascend in broad daylight, detaching from his Physical Body and breaking through to leave this Realm.

Yan Chu naturally would not do such a thing.

In the legends of this world, there were rumors of shattering the Void Realm; for example, the Great Ancestor of the Great Jin Dynasty, one hundred and thirty years after the founding of the Great Jin Dynasty, when the national power was at its peak, suddenly disappeared, and it was rumored by the royal family that he had already shattered the Void Realm and departed.

However, there was no evidence to prove this, so the Jianghu held a skeptical attitude toward it.

The most representative case, and one clearly recorded as having shattered the Void Realm, was the third-generation Celestial Master of Dragon Tiger Mountain.

Ancient records stated that at the moment of his shattering, the Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown occurred, and auspicious clouds descended from the sky, shrouding Dragon Tiger Mountain for hundreds of miles, not dispersing for seven days; the Celestial Master, on the Golden Summit of Dragon Tiger Mountain, transformed into a rainbow and ascended to immortality before the eyes of countless Jianghu people.

The Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown was the correct path to shattering the Void Realm.

Yan Chu would never abandon his Physical Body; the path chosen by Basiba must have had problems, and perhaps after the Primordial Spirit shattered, it would be torn apart by spatial turbulence.

At this moment, Yan Chu's Mental Energy shrouded the entire procession.

Even with two Celestial Being Experts present, the activity here could not be hidden from his investigation, and it would not be detected by Luo Jin or the Third High Priest of the Longevity Cult at all.

Inside the Longevity Cult priest's carriage, General knelt before a middle-aged man dressed in a black robe and said respectfully:

"Third High Priest, that young Celestial Being Expert is Blade Demon Yan Chu, who has stirred up endless storms in the Jin Dynasty Jianghu recently."

"It is rumored that he is only twenty years old this year, yet he has already achieved the Heavenly Human Realm, and is hailed as a peerless Prodigy not seen in a thousand years!"