Chapter 1230 — Your Uncle Is Going to Beat Your Father

"The greater momentum?"

Shen Mu smiled scornfully, shook his head, and walked on. "Taichu, a million years ago you could say that to Heavenly Venerable Yu. Several hundred thousand years ago you could say that to Heavenly Venerable Yun. A dozen-odd years ago you could say that to me as well. But now you cannot say it."

He looked ahead. The mountains and rivers of the Yuan World were magnificent.

All living beings swarmed in their multitudes; across the great heavens, men came and went for profit.

"I borrow momentum now, to nurture a greater momentum. You seem to hold the greater momentum today, but it is hard to say what you will hold tomorrow."

"Your momentum is great, but it can be whittled down; mine is small, but it can grow!"

"This duel has only just begun!"

In the Western Lands, the Shangcang Divine Sect.

Shen Mu arrived, and met Xu Shenghua again. When the two came face to face, Xu Shenghua was teasing a little girl of three or four. Shen Mu looked, and looked again, his expression turning odd. "Xu Shenghua, a man cold as ice, actually has a child?"

The girl was surely the child of Xu Shenghua and Jing Yan: she had Xu Shenghua's thin lips and straight, proud nose bridge, and Jing Yan's brows and eyes and delicate air.

Shen Mu stepped forward and said with a smile, "Brother Xu, you live an easy life indeed, serving your wife and teaching your daughter here. What is the little one's name?"

Xu Shenghua lifted the girl and set her on his shoulder. The little girl said in a crisp, clear voice, "My name is Xu Mengqing. Uncle, are you that great demon king called Shen Mu?"

Shen Mu was startled, then laughed. "This little girl has no small courage, to speak aloud what is in your old father's heart."

Xu Shenghua roared with laughter.

Shen Mu warned him, "Mind she does not piss down your neck."

Xu Shenghua set the girl down. "You must not call him the great demon king; call him Heavenly Venerable Mu. Your Uncle Shen is formidable, and no weaker than your father."

Shen Mu said, sullen, "I have only just come back from beating Dao Lord Lin Xuan."

Xu Shenghua, straightening the little girl's collar, did not even raise his head. "I have beaten him too, and more than once. I have also gone to beat your brother, the Xuanliao Demon Ape. He is the Tathagata now, entering the Dao through dreams every day, roaming the myriad heavens and worlds; his strength is formidable as well."

Shen Mu said, "He is my brother. It would not be fitting for me to beat him."

"I have beaten Immortal Wang too."

Xu Shenghua thought for a moment. "The Lesser Yujing has less foundation than the Great Tingming Temple and the Daoist Gate, but these years Immortal Wang has been a master of scheming; he ran about Jingping seeking instruction everywhere, and actually comprehended a fearsome cultivation art. Formidable indeed."

Shen Mu said with feeling, "I come back so rarely, and yet you have all grown old and become famed elders."

Xu Shenghua rose and shot him a glance. "Are you trying to say that because I have not thrashed you all for so long, you have grown swollen with conceit?"

Shen Mu nodded, all smiles, and drew out the flying dagger he had obtained from the Ancestral Court, giving it to little Xu Mengqing. Gently he said, "Your uncle is going to thrash your father. Go play over there a while, and come back later."

Xu Mengqing ran off grinning with the flying dagger, then turned her head and called, "My father will beat you to death!"

Xu Shenghua waved a hand. "In truth, among those of my generation in the Yuan World, I am not invincible. I have crossed hands with Xing'an. His progress is swift, and he is near to catching up with me."

Shen Mu laughed. "Xing'an occupies a divine artifact, Heavenly Venerable Yu, within which lie hidden the Dao runes of the Ancient Gods. His cultivation speed must be terrifying indeed."

Xu Shenghua stood with his feet in a loose, careless stance and said mildly, "Yet his path is wrong, and so he still lost to me. And I have seen the true Heavenly Venerable Yu."

Shen Mu raised his eyebrows and said, a little guiltily, "You defeated him?"

Xu Shenghua said, "He keeps company with the younger generation, with Jiang Yunjian, and he is Jiang Yunjian's master. But his realm is very strange, and the realm he has taught Jiang Yunjian is very strange as well."

His brows knitted deeply.

It was the first time Shen Mu had ever seen Xu Shenghua knit his brows.

This fellow wore no expression at all, ever; whether startled or wild with joy, it was always the same face.

Even Shen Mu had seen him laugh only two or three times; as for a frown, that had never once happened.

Yet Heavenly Venerable Yu, Lan Yutian, had made him frown.

"His realm is past my understanding now."

Xu Shenghua let out a breath of turbid air. "I went looking for him. His realms begin with the Spirit Embryo realm, and next the Star River realm."

Shen Mu nodded. He had known of it when Heavenly Venerable Yu opened his Spirit Embryo and Star River; but after that came the outbreak of the Jingping Calamity, and Shen Mu had sent him to Youdu, so of his later realms he was not so well informed.

"The third is the Heavenly River realm, the fourth the Four Poles Heaven realm."

Xu Shenghua's expression grew stranger still. "The fifth realm is the Yuandu realm, the sixth the Youdu realm, the seventh the Guixu realm. After these seven realms there is no so-called Divine Realm—and yet he is mightier by far than any god."

Shen Mu was dazed for a moment, then praised him. "These seven realms are wonderfully akin to my own! Only, his path runs from the outside inward, while mine runs from the inside outward."

Xu Shenghua shot him a glance. "You and I are well acquainted. There is no need to gild your own face."

Shen Mu's body trembled slightly, and he unfurled the divine treasury of his Primal Embryo. At once golden light blazed throughout the Shangcang Divine Sect; a divine treasury spread over a thousand li, and at its center stood the Ancestral Court, the divine tree, and beneath the tree Shen Mu's Spirit Embryo, a hundred zhang tall.

Above was the Heavenly Court; above it Xuandu, below it Tianyin, Youdu, Yuandu, and beneath all, Guixu; the Heavenly River coiled through, linking the many worlds.

The gods of every world sat enthroned, and the sound of the Dao rumbled.

Xu Shenghua was astonished. He walked to and fro within that divine treasury, examining everywhere, the astonishment in his eyes growing ever thicker.

"Your two realms are indeed exact reversals of one another!"

Xu Shenghua's face did not change; only his eyes betrayed extreme astonishment. He said, "Lan Yutian first established the Spirit Embryo, then the Star River and Xuandu, then the Heavenly River; through the Heavenly River he established the Four Poles Heaven, and through the Four Poles Heaven he established Yuandu, Youdu and Guixu. When I met him not long ago, he was studying an eighth realm."

Shen Mu's eyes flickered. "His eighth realm is the Ancestral Court."

Xu Shenghua said, "He calls it a great realm; if it can be opened up, it will surpass even the Heavenly Palace and the Heavenly Court. He is still deducing it, and has not settled it. But come to think of it, Sect Master Shen, you first established the Ancestral Court, and only then the other Xuandu, Youdu and Yuandu. It looks as though you follow the order of heaven and earth, yet to cultivate it is incomparably difficult."

Shen Mu thought it over. It was indeed so; Lin Xuan had said the same.

"Lan Yutian established the other realms first, from the outside inward, and the difficulty falls greatly."

Xu Shenghua said, "If these two cultivation systems are both to be handed down, then yours will surely be the first to go extinct, while Lan Yutian's transmission can endure for ten thousand generations!"

Shen Mu opened his mouth, and at last a single word came out of it: "Yes."