Chapter Seventy-Six: At Dusk, Stars Fade and the Night Moon Descends

“Mountains and Rivers Seal!”

“You actually brought the Mountains and Rivers Seal!”

“Lu Wanshan, are you trying to perish together with me?”

Sensing that he could no longer command the surrounding power of ice and snow, the Snow Eagle King’s emotions surged once more, with a hint of panic and fury in them!

The Mountains and Rivers Seal was one of the most powerful spirit treasures in this world. Its function was not only to summon the forces of mountain and river, but also to suppress the energies of heaven and earth within its domain.

This power had little effect on warriors below the grandmaster level, but for grandmasters and high-tier demon beasts, who relied chiefly on manipulating the energies of heaven and earth in battle, it was something to be avoided at all costs.

For that reason alone, the Snow Eagle King had never imagined that Lu Wanshan would actually make use of this seal.

“Perish together?”

“Do you still have the qualifications for that now?”

With a faint smile, Lu Wanshan countered, his tone brimming with confidence.

Though the Mountains and Rivers Seal had suppressed them both, leaving him and the Snow Eagle King unable to control the energies of heaven and earth outside, as a grandmaster he still possessed the power of his inner world, which he could draw upon through his body.

The Snow Eagle King, by contrast, was a demon beast that had neither an inner world, and now had completely lost its body as well.

Even the sixth-rank snow lotus it had become could no longer be used, because its origin power had already merged into Murong Yu’s body.

At this point, the Snow Eagle King could at most employ the strength of its soul to wield the bone sword forged from the Sword Intent of the White Emperor.

On that score, Lu Wanshan had not the slightest concern.

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“Lu Wanshan, if you brought out the Mountains and Rivers Seal—”

“Are you not afraid that, once the White Serpent King’s soul is shattered, the seal will restore its own spirit?”

After a moment of silence, the Snow Eagle King asked.

In years past, after the Qin Emperor cleaved a mountain with a single sword strike, perhaps moved by the destructive power he had shown against the mountains and rivers of the world, the Mountains and Rivers Seal appeared and recognized him as its master, granting the Qin Emperor the ability to command mountains and rivers.

As a spirit treasure, however, the Mountains and Rivers Seal possessed its own spirituality, and because of its intimate connection to this world, it could not be taken away at all.

Thus, before the Qin Emperor shattered the void, fearing that it might seek out a new master on its own, he took the soul extracted after slaying the Golden Flood King and refined it into the Mountains and Rivers Seal.

The soul of the refined flood dragon suppressed the seal’s own spirituality.

At the same time, the power of that flood dragon soul also provided protection to the seal’s master.

For this reason, the spirit treasure was carried by emperors of every generation and used as a talisman of personal protection, even becoming one of the tokens of imperial succession.

And the flood dragon soul within the Mountains and Rivers Seal, nourished by the dynasty’s fortune and the faith of the people, gradually grew in strength.

It could not only fully unleash the seal’s power, but also protect its master on its own, withstanding attacks from grandmasters.

In the former Qin, this spirit treasure protected every emperor in turn, and by virtue of its ability to command mountains and rivers and suppress the energies of heaven and earth, it had helped, in conjunction with the Twelve Golden-armored Formation, to slay more than one grandmaster.

For this reason, the imperial court of Great Qin was able to remain dominant, suppressing all the powers under heaven.

Only in the eight hundredth year of Great Qin did the Prime Ancestor appear from nowhere and come into conflict with the imperial court. Enraged and humiliated, the reigning Qin Emperor ordered the Mountains and Rivers Seal to be brought forth, together with the Twelve Golden-armored Formation, to kill the Prime Ancestor.

Yet under the Prime Ancestor’s overwhelmingly unmatched strength, not only was the Twelve Golden-armored Formation broken, but the flood dragon soul within the Mountains and Rivers Seal was also transcended and transformed by him.

Thus the seal’s original spirituality recovered, and it went forth on its own to find a new master.

And so the imperial court of Great Qin lost the Mountains and Rivers Seal.

Its loss meant not only a reduction in military strength for the Great Qin court, but also the loss of a powerful aid in resisting natural disasters.

The Mountains and Rivers Seal’s ability to command mountains and rivers was useful not only for opening roads and diverting waterways, but also for redirecting river waters in the face of floods and droughts.

It could even be used to predict and dispel earthquakes.

For that reason, after the seal was lost, the Great Qin court suffered not only a heavy blow to its top-tier strength, but also a dramatic increase in the cost of dealing with earthquakes, floods, and droughts.

In particular, great rivers hung in the north and repeatedly burst their banks, bringing Great Qin enormous losses, and the whole world rapidly descended into the flames of war.

Thus, in less than two hundred years, the Great Qin court, which had once suppressed the world for eight hundred years, collapsed and fragmented.

Only when the Bright Emperor unified the realm did the age of Bright rule begin.

After unifying the world, the Bright Emperor likewise obtained the Mountains and Rivers Seal. Though, harboring the same concern as the Qin Emperor, he refined the soul of a sixth-rank demon beast, the White Serpent King, which he had slain, into the seal.

But unlike the former Qin, the emperors of Great Bright rarely used it to attack enemies, beyond carrying it for their own protection.

To outsiders, the purpose of this was simply to preserve the Mountains and Rivers Seal for as long as possible.

The Snow Eagle King had risen in the era of the former Qin, lived through the chaos at the end of Qin, and had even witnessed the rise, decline, and resurgence of the Great Bright court; it knew these matters with utter clarity.

That was why it asked this question.

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“To extinguish the White Serpent King’s soul—”

“Do you have that ability?”

Lu Wanshan let out a derisive laugh.

The Great Bright court had possessed the Mountains and Rivers Seal for nearly a thousand years, and had also learned from the lessons left by the former Qin. Since they had dared to bring the seal out for use, how could they possibly fear someone responding with the old trick?

In truth, over all these years the Mountains and Rivers Seal had never once been used against an enemy. Aside from absorbing the dynasty’s fortune and the people’s faith to nurture the White Serpent King’s soul, it had been waiting for a successor who had cultivated the Mountains and Rivers Classic.

As a legacy left by the Bright Emperor, the Mountains and Rivers Classic was not merely a powerful cultivation art; its chief purpose was to choose a master for the Mountains and Rivers Seal.

As the first person since the founding of Great Bright to attain grandmaster status through the Mountains and Rivers Classic, Lu Wanshan’s control over the Mountains and Rivers Seal was far beyond that of anyone else.

Indeed, after communicating with the seal’s spirituality, which had long been suppressed, Lu Wanshan went even further and used the Hunyuan Furnace beneath the White Jade Tower to refine the seal’s spirituality and the White Serpent King’s soul into one.

In terms of pure soul power, the Mountains and Rivers Seal could now unleash an attack on the level of the mightiest grandmaster.

With such confidence, how could Lu Wanshan possibly fear damage to the White Serpent King’s soul?

Even if it were completely shattered, the Mountains and Rivers Seal would not depart of its own accord.

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“Indeed, I do not have that ability...”

After another stretch of silence, the Snow Eagle King finally voiced this, somewhat helplessly, after a long while.

Though it did not know that Lu Wanshan had already reforged the Mountains and Rivers Seal, as an old enemy of the White Emperor, the Snow Eagle King understood this much:

As a demon beast, it had still managed to forge a bone sword from a strand of Sword Intent left behind by the White Emperor.

Lu Wanshan, as a descendant of the Bright Emperor, must surely also possess a weapon imbued with the true intent of the Bright Emperor.

In that case, even if it used the power of its soul to unleash the sword intent within the bone sword, it would scarcely injure Lu Wanshan at all.

Thinking of its present predicament, and then of the Heart Fox King’s prolonged failure to return, the Snow Eagle King felt life beginning to stir within Murong Yu’s body, and had already begun to consider negotiating with Lu Wanshan.

But at that very moment, both the Snow Eagle King and Lu Wanshan noticed the same thing:

All at once, the sun had fully set over the region where they stood, and not a single star remained in the sky.

Only a lone moon was slowly descending from above.