Chapter 1236 — Heaven's Foremost Grandmaster of the Formation Dao

Shen Mu watched the six "great water drops" fall. In the very instant the drops broke away from the land, the cubes upon their surfaces and within them clanged and shifted, and in a blink they turned into six divine cities that ringed the Ark of the Other Shore!

From water drop to divine city: the postures of the god-devils inside every cube changed at once. The fingers of the left hand, held in a mudra, shifted so that the thumb pressed down upon the middle finger while the other three stood straight and stiff; the right hand clenched into a fist, the thumb pinned beneath the palm.

As the god-devils in the cubes changed posture, the Bulwark Formation changed with them, and in this it differed from the formation art of the formation master He Yiyi.

He Yiyi's formations took stone blocks as their most basic element; the cubic blocks were covered in every kind of fundamental rune, and the runes on a cube could not change. Different blocks were pieced and combined together, and so different fundamental runes combined as well, forming different formations.

The Bulwark Formation's strength lay precisely in this: its most basic elements were the god-devils of the Bulwark Formation itself. Every god-devil could alter its own mudra, its bodily form, even its vital qi imprint, and thus they could alter the very structure of the Bulwark Formation.

To use living god-devils as the basic elements of a formation was far stronger than to use mere cubic blocks!

At the center of each of the six divine cities stood a colossal altar, and from the center of every altar light shot straight out like a pillar, linking the six divine cities, joining them into a single cube!

The light shot from the altars of the six divine cities took the form of chains, as though the Great Dao itself were woven together.

BOOM!

Beams of light came down from the heavens and fell upon the centers of the six divine-city altars, becoming six god-devils of identical appearance, who looked toward Shen Mu and Emperor Shitian Li Youran with fevered excitement. They were Han Tianjun.

He had divided himself into six, and all six were his true body; there was no such thing as a clone or an avatar among them.

Shen Mu stood upon the platform of the Ark of the Other Shore, sweeping his gaze over them one by one. Every Han Tianjun possessed a spirit fetus, a soul, a primordial spirit, a divine treasury, a Heavenly Palace. His body was strange besides: it had flesh and blood, yet his flesh and blood seemed likewise composed of countless tiny cubes, ready at any moment to scatter like sand and reassemble into the form of a body. His primordial spirit, his divine treasury, and his Heavenly Palace too seemed able to change form at any moment, to reassemble themselves.

"This Han Tianjun... his cultivation art is truly monstrous."

Shen Mu was astonished. Han Tianjun was likely the Heavenly Court's grandmaster of formation arts; one might even say he was a being on the verge of attaining the Heavenly Palace through formations, on the verge of cultivating the Emperor Throne by virtue of his mastery of formations!

The Formation Heavenly Palace was one of the acquired Great Dao Heavenly Palaces; the Blind Old Man was a great expert in that line, and even he had only cultivated the Formation Heavenly Palace a short while ago. Yet Han Tianjun had cultivated the Formation Heavenly Palace far earlier than the Blind Old Man! He had merely failed to cultivate the Emperor Throne. Even so, judging by his cultivation, he could not be far from the Emperor Throne realm. His attainments in the way of formations were, by and large, enough to bear him into the Emperor Throne realm. One had to understand that even the Heavenly Court's four Heavenly Masters had not reached the Emperor Throne through formations, but had stepped into that realm on the strength of their own individual wisdom; Han Tianjun might well become the first man to become an emperor through formations.

"Does Han Tianjun not know that every last Great Dao rune of the Bulwark Star Lord was deconstructed by the Dao Ancestor? That his Bulwark Formation holds no secret at all before me?"

Shen Mu's expression turned peculiar. Han Tianjun's formation art was exquisite beyond compare, but Shen Mu had cultivated every kind of formation rune structure belonging to the Bulwark Formation; more than that, he had even broken the Bulwark Formation's Great Dao runes once through! In his eyes, even that vast divine city was no more than this. Han Tianjun's formation art, exquisite as it was, had already been broken clean through; compared with the Blind Old Man's use of formations to enter the Dao, his formations were out of date!

The six Han Tianjuns watched the nearly finished Ark of the Other Shore with smiling eyes, and chuckled: "Today is truly a fine day for me. If I obtain the Ark of the Other Shore, then Taixu and the Sorrowless Land are broken, and that is a heaven-defying merit! Kill Mu Tianzun, and that is another heaven-defying merit! With two such merits, my standing may even surpass the Heavenly Masters and the Heavenly Kings, and make me one of the Heavenly Court's Three Excellencies!"

The six divine cities abruptly shook with a clatter, like a swarm of countless bees, and in an instant the god-devils within the cubes each changed their postures, their mudras, and their rune imprints, and the formation's fundamental structure changed with them!

The bee-swarm formation built of countless cubes was endlessly mutable; five of its swarms surged toward the Ark of the Other Shore, and the last swarmed toward Shen Mu!

Han Tianjun set greater store by Emperor Shitian and the Ark of the Other Shore. In his eyes, Emperor Shitian Li Youran was a master of the peak Lingxiao realm, and moreover the War Heavenly King of the Kaihuang era; Emperor Shitian was powerful, and in battle possessed qualities beyond the ordinary. Shen Mu, after all, was young; despite bearing the title of Mu Tianzun, his cultivation realm was plain for all to see. To send a single divine city against Shen Mu was already thinking highly of him.

Shen Mu looked toward the countless cubic swarms surging in, the god-devils in the cubes each changing posture and mudra, keeping the formation forever in a state of endless transformation. And one of the Han Tianjuns was like the queen bee, ringed about by the swarm, standing with hands clasped behind his back upon a formation platform built of countless cubes, directing the whole.

Whoosh —

The cubic swarms charged onto the Ark of the Other Shore. The rotating, shifting cubes bore those god-devils forward, and wherever they passed, the palaces, the streets, the cities, even the mountains and rivers of the Ark of the Other Shore were ground to powder by the might of the formation! The ferocity of Han Tianjun's formation art was truly rare!

The cubic swarms drew nearer and nearer, closing the ring around Shen Mu. He looked all about him and saw the god-devils within each cube like so many devout sacrificants, methodically altering their mudras, their bodily postures, and their vital qi imprints. They were like worker bees, obeying the direction of Han Tianjun, their queen.

In an instant, the cubic swarms' formation changed several thousand times over: several thousand formation structures, not one of them repeated, dazzling the eye. Never mind breaking the formation; one could not even make out its structure!

And Han Tianjun's abilities did not stop there.

He had entered the Dao through formations, and so in the single turn of contact he could make matching alterations to his formation in response to an enemy's cultivation art and divine powers!

He drew closer and closer to Shen Mu, the smile on his face growing ever thicker. This world-topping merit was about to fall into his hands!

Just then, Shen Mu slowly raised his fist, the five fingers splayed: "Daluo Supreme Divine Sense!"