155: Chapter 155 The Xie Zhi Pleads for Protection of All Demons, The Azure Lotus Emperor's Bones Pity Their Kin

As the pressure dissipated, the surrounding frozen space resumed its flow.

The bright red dragon-patterned wedding robe snapped loudly in the gale once again.

Ye Xiu drifted down slowly from mid-air, stepping back onto the white jade ruins of Little Jade Capital.

"Huu—"

The State Preceptor of Yankang and the Grand Elder of Taixu felt as if they had been granted amnesty; both men panted heavily, their clothes soaked through with cold sweat.

Even though they had already opened their Bitter Seas and condensed their Pseudo-Emperor Bones, they still felt as insignificant as a speck of dust in the presence of a true Immortal Stage Four Half-Saint.

Beside them, Little Tathagata Yuan Ding, who had just undergone the baptism of the Azure Emperor Scripture and been reborn, was slowly standing up from the ground.

The single horn atop his head, flowing with azure Dao patterns, radiated the ancient and vast aura of a Yao Venerable.

That "Azure Lotus Emperor Bone," which could be called impervious to all Laws, made him look like a peerless Yao God who had stepped out from the primordial ages.

Yuan Ding looked down at his hands, feeling the vast, boundless life essence and pure Demonic Qi within the azure Bitter Sea inside his body.

This was no longer the hypocritical power of Karma from the Buddhist sect that required one to suppress their own nature;

Instead, it was the supreme Dao that belonged entirely to him, and to the Yao Race!

In the face of this power, the Buddhist Dharma of the Great Leiyin Temple, which had once seemed unattainable to him, was simply as crude as the tricks of a village rustic.

However, just as Yuan Ding was immersed in this powerful strength of rebirth.

The Azure Lotus Emperor Bone within his body, which had fused with the Profound Truth of the Azure Emperor Scripture, suddenly emitted a strange humming sound.

"Hum, hum, hum…"

This humming was not due to the expansion of power, but a palpitation originating from the depths of his Bloodline.

An ultimate resonance that spanned thousands of mountains and rivers, connecting with the same Bloodline in countless corners of the Major Thousand Worlds!

Yuan Ding's vertical pupils, which had already transformed into a dark gold, suddenly looked toward the boundless depths of The Great Ruins.

He then looked toward the Yankang Kingdom, and toward the even more distant Hundred Thousand Mountains.

Under the perception of the Azure Lotus Emperor Bone, he seemed to hear countless shrill cries of misery.

Those were the cries of the low-level Yao Beasts deep in The Great Ruins, used as touchstones by human Cultivators and wantonly slaughtered to have their cores extracted;

Those were the sobs of the Half-Yao in the bustling cities of the Yankang Kingdom, shackled and used as beasts of burden, or even served on dining tables as bloody food;

Those were the mournful cries of the ancient remnants in the Hundred Thousand Mountains, who could only hide like rats in dark, sunless caves, trembling in fear to avoid the "Yao-Extermination Lightning Tribulation" of the Heavenly Court above...

For millions of years, how cruel the Laws of this Major Thousand Worlds have been!

The prestigious human sects claimed to be orthodox, viewing the Yao Race as beasts that drank blood and ate raw meat, or as Materials for Artifact Refining in cultivation;

The false gods in the heavens were high and mighty, viewing the Yao Race as filth; whenever a great Yao defied the heavens to take human form, they would descend a world-destroying Lightning Tribulation, blasting them until their Divine Soul was annihilated.

In this world, being a Yao was an original sin! Born only with the fate of being enslaved and slaughtered!

The former Yuan Ding, to escape this fate, did not hesitate to renounce his Yao status.

He forcibly shaved his head to enter the Buddhist sect, attempting to find a glimmer of protection in the lie of "equality for all living things."

But what he received in return was only more hypocritical exploitation by the false Buddhas of the Great Leiyin Temple, and their final, ruthless expulsion!

But now, it was different.

He possessed the Azure Emperor Scripture! He possessed the purest, most supreme Yao Race Emperor Legacy in this world!

He was the Divine Beast Xiezhi, born with the ability to distinguish right from wrong and judge truth from falsehood; now, he had also grown this Azure Lotus Emperor Bone that pitied his own kind.

The suffering of the myriad Yao in this world had turned into tangible Karma fire, madly scorching his Divine Soul!

"Thump!"

In the astonished gazes of the State Preceptor of Yankang and the Grand Elder of Taixu, this Little Tathagata, who had just been boundless in his arrogance and intent on attacking the Great Leiyin Temple, suddenly dropped to his knees before Ye Xiu with a heavy thud, like a golden mountain collapsing and a jade pillar toppling!

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Yuan Ding did not hesitate in the slightest, slamming his high-held head heavily against the hard white jade ruins.

He kowtowed three times, each strike causing the surrounding earth to rumble faintly.

"What kind of madness is this?"

Ye Xiu frowned slightly, a trace of confusion flashing in his gold and silver heterochromatic eyes as he looked down at the Divine Beast exuding pure Demonic Qi.

"The grace of the Sect Leader's teaching is something this Disciple could not repay even if he were shattered into pieces!"

Yuan Ding raised his head; his rugged face, which looked as if it had been carved by knives and axes, was now covered in murky tears of grief and indignation.

In his dark gold vertical pupils burned a raging fire named "Redemption."

"Disciple Yuan Ding dares to plead with the Sect Leader!"

Yuan Ding dug his hands deep into the white jade slab, roaring hoarsely:

"After obtaining this Azure Emperor Scripture and cultivating this Azure Lotus Emperor Bone, I finally realized the tragedy of my Yao Race!"

"For millions of years, the Yao Cultivators of the world have been slaughtered like beasts by humans and erased as demons by false gods! They are born in darkness and die in pools of blood, never seeing the light of day for a single moment!"

"This Disciple implores the Sect Leader to show mercy! Have pity on the myriad Yao of the world!"

Yuan Ding slammed his head down again, his voice like a cuckoo crying blood, tragic and resolute:

"I beg the Sect Leader to carve out a Pure Land for my Yao Race! This Disciple is willing to give up revenge against the Great Leiyin Temple and disperse the Emperor Bone cultivation I have just achieved. I only ask that in this world of shepherding gods, you leave a place where my millions of Yao kin, who have nowhere else to go... can stand and catch their breath!"

Xiezhi pleads! The Emperor Bone gives birth to sorrow!

Yuan Ding's plea, every word dripping with blood, moved even the State Preceptor of Yankang standing nearby.

The State Preceptor had once reformed the Laws for the sake of Mortals, so he naturally understood this grand ambition of sacrificing one's life for the sake of the common people.

He just hadn't expected that a great Yao, viewed by the world as cruel and tyrannical, would possess such a compassionate heart.

However, in the face of Yuan Ding's moving plea, Ye Xiu's reaction was completely unexpected to everyone.

"A Pure Land?"

Ye Xiu was not touched at all; instead, as if he had heard an extremely funny joke, he looked up and let out a cold, extremely arrogant, and piercing laugh!

"Hahahaha! Simply foolish!"

Ye Xiu suddenly reined in his laughter, his eyes becoming colder than ten-thousand-year black ice in an instant.

He kicked Yuan Ding on the shoulder, sending him stumbling back several steps.

"I gave you the invincible Azure Emperor Scripture, I gave you the Azure Lotus Emperor Bone. And you, damn it, are kneeling here, begging me to give you a 'Pure Land'?!"

Ye Xiu pointed at Yuan Ding's nose, scolding him sternly like a furious deity:

"What is a Pure Land? Is it letting you hide in some desolate mountain gully like penned pigs? Reading scriptures every day, pretending this world is beautiful. Then waiting for the false gods in the heavens to have a bad day and descend a lightning bolt to wipe you out entirely?!"

"Has that set of slavish thinking taught to you by the Great Leiyin Temple still not been washed out of your blockhead?!"

Yuan Ding, kicked to the ground, stared blankly at the furious Ye Xiu, momentarily at a loss:

"Sect Leader... that is not what this Disciple meant, this Disciple only wanted to..."

"If you want to protect them, then stand the hell up! Clench your fists, show your fangs!"

Ye Xiu cut him off abruptly, his bright red wedding robe snapping in the wind.

His voice was like a great bell, resounding throughout the entire Little Jade Capital:

"In my, Ye Xiu's, dictionary, there has never been such a thing as a 'Pure Land'! Here, there is only war, only slaughter, only a throne paved with mountains of corpses and seas of blood!"

Ye Xiu reached out, pointing with extreme dominance toward the west, toward the south, toward every corner of this Major Thousand Worlds:

"You sympathize with that oppressed Yao Race, don't you? Fine! This Sect Leader will grant your wish!"

"This Sect Leader will not give you some ethereal Pure Land; this Sect Leader will give you a—[Yao Court]!"

As soon as these words were spoken, Yuan Ding shook violently, his eyes widening in disbelief.

Yao Court? That was the supreme orthodoxy that legend said only an supreme Yao Emperor who had unified all the Yao of the world would dare to establish!

"Go and level the Great Leiyin Temple for me! That holy mountain of false Buddhas will hereafter be the dojo for you, this Divine Beast Xiezhi!"

Divine light exploded in Ye Xiu's gold and silver heterochromatic eyes, his tone conveying the absolute Law and dominance of a Half-Saint powerhouse:

"This Sect Leader permits you to spread the first three volumes of the Azure Emperor Scripture throughout The Great Ruins and across the world! Any Yao Cultivator in the world, whether it is a bird or beast, or an ancient great Yao—as long as it dares to bare its fangs at the heavens, as long as it is willing to open a Bitter Sea within its body, recruit them all into the Yao Court for me!"

"If the prestigious sects dare to kill your kin, take the Yao troops who have cultivated the Shrouding the Heavens Method and wipe out their entire sects!"

"If the false gods in the heavens dare to descend Lightning Tribulations to strike your kin, then kill your way up to the Nine Heavens for me, tear the divine bones of those false gods off, and use them as weapons for your Yao troops!"

Ye Xiu looked down from above at the Little Tathagata, whose blood was surging with madness, and a terrifyingly arrogant arc curled at the corner of his mouth:

"Yuan Ding, remember this."

"True protection is not alms begged for while kneeling on the ground, but achieved through absolute violence. Kill until no one in the world dares to touch a single hair on your people!"

"From this day forth, all the myriad Yao of this world shall be incorporated under the banner of my Heavenly Demon Sect!"

"You shall be the first Lord of the Yao Court under my command!"