1363 Tian Honglui



The next painting in line, the 11th one was named 'The Players' Descent'.

Alex looked at the painting in a bit of confusion as there wasn't anything in that painting that made him think of players.

The painting was instead just a piece of art with a landscape view of the city, with the sky wide above it. In the sky was where the clouds were marked in lights of bright green and deep gold, surrounded by lightning that seemed to scar the sky itself. 

The wind seemed to blow the clear clouds, while lightning snaked around it scattering through the sky. The golden light shined from nowhere and brightened everything in the vicinity.

The city was colored green and gold, reminding Alex of the cauldron his master had given him so long ago. The lightning seemed normal, not like when one was breaking through or forming pill clouds.

It also only remained in the sky, never falling down.

Alex could feel the awe and shock the painter had felt when he drew this. He had wanted to transfer all that he felt at the time into the painting and he had done so successfully.

The Intent was quite strong with this one and definitely gave a surreal feeling when looking at it. Alex could even feel his fear.

There was no elemental Dao aura from this one, which was a missed opportunity to better enhance the experience, but the Intent alone was enough to make it a masterpiece.

Alex stared at it for a while, and the headmaster finally spoke.

"Ah, the Player's Descent. One of our newest masterpieces," he said. "After over four thousand years, when everyone had stopped expecting masterpieces to exist, one person came and made this."

"A truly talented young painter from the Gold Kingdom, Tian Honglui of the Tian family."

"A young painter? This was made by someone young?" Alex asked.

"Yes, young," the headmaster said. "Although, by your majesty's standard, he might be quite old."

"How old is he?" Alex asked.

"Hmm, about 400 years old I believe," the headmaster said. "He's quite young for a Saint."

"He is," Alex said. As long as he stopped comparing humans from the central continent with these people, he could see how talented these folks were.

Alex looked back at the painting and said, "Explain to me what this is about."

"Right," the headmaster said. "The Players' Descent marks the day of the arrival of the players. The phenomenon that you see here heralded the arrival of those players. The painter was able to capture the exact feeling everyone had felt that day, a sense of awe and wonder, which is why it is in here."

"Oh," Alex said with a surprised look on his face. "It heralded the arrival of the players, you say."

"Indeed," the headmaster said. "This phenomenon appeared one day, and 2 days later we started getting Players. If that wasn't a signal for their arrival, I don't know what is."

Alex got curious and turned back toward the two elders who were equally confused. They shook their heads toward Alex, telling him no such thing had happened to them.

And from what he could remember no one talked about those things back in the Western Continent when he was just starting out too. Then why did such a thing happen here?

Alex fell into thought for a while, wondering about all the things that were different in the Eastern Continent from the other continents. 

The number of players for one was certainly different. They singlehandedly had more players here than anywhere else in the other continent, holding way more than the other continents combined. 

The Eastern Continent was also a way better place for one to grow, so it could be that the senior did something to prepare them for what was going to happen here.

Or maybe the Eastern Continent had somehow interacted with the teleportation formation? Causing some sort of phenomenon to occur before the players arrived.

Alex searched for answers, but it seemed like there weren't any. He shook his head confused and annoyed. "Let's move on," he said.

"Yes," the headmaster said and walked up front.

Alex walked too and before he could even look at the final painting, he could feel an aura that he hadn't felt in a very, very long time.

He looked at the painting as his eyes slowly started widening in shock.

The painting depicted of a single thing, a single giant white line that went from the sky to the ground in a single stroke. A lightning strike.

Just from the shape and size of the lightning, as well as the fear and destruction intent that came from the painting, he could tell that it was neither the Tribulation lightning nor the Pill Cloud lightning. 

The painting he was looking at depicted what was most definitely a Heavenly Judgment lightning.

"Here we have another painting by our friend Tian Honglui. He was so talented that he managed to make not one but two paintings that made it into the Hall of Fame."

"This one is called the 'The Lightning God's Anger'. It depicts a rather weird instance that we are not sure what exactly it was," the headmaster said. "The empty sky suddenly turned dark and cloudy and the lightning bolt dropped from the heaven."

"Where did it drop?" Alex asked the headmaster.

"Hmm? I don't think we know exactly. But it was somewhere in the east of here," the headmaster said. "As you can probably tell from the lightning bolt, the aura of the lightning was so threatening that it scared so many."

"Even this artist himself didn't attempt to draw the lightning from that time for almost 5 years before he eventually couldn't hold himself back," the headmaster said.

  Alex knew what the Heavenly Judgment lightning was as he had seen it happen to Ren Xiao firsthand. The elders knew what it was as well as they had seen it happen to Scarlet firsthand as well.

However, it didn't seem like any of these guys knew what exactly this lightning was. 

"Was there a single lightning strike?" Alex asked.

"No, there were 3," the headmaster said with a surprised look. "How did you know, your majesty?" 

Alex didn't answer. "And the date, when exactly did this happen?" he asked instead.

"The date?" the headmaster turned around and looked at the painting. "It was… ah, right. It was about 2 months after the events of his first painting. It's about that time frame, yeah."

"2 months after the players started coming into the game?" Alex repeated the man's words as a timeline slowly formed in his head.

Less than 2 months after the players had arrived on this continent, something had happened that had caused the Heavenly Judgment to fall, and if he didn't know any better, he would guarantee that the one that was hit by it was none other than the Azure Dragon.

That was to say, until about half a century ago, the Dragon was still alive.

However, that wasn't even what perplexed Alex the most. The thing that made his head hurt was the fact that this event was so incredibly close to when Pearl and his mother were sent to the Western Continent.

That was to say, the Azure Dragon might have been involved in some form in the attack that led to Pearl's mother dying at his hand.