Chapter 1254 — The Lord of the Netherworld Descends

Shen Mu laughed aloud, flicked a finger, and a divine art of the Heaven Yin Realm shot into Yin Jiuzun's headless body.

At once the black sand of souls came boiling out of Yin Jiuzun's neck; his soul had been transmuted straight into that black soul-sand by Shen Mu's Heaven Yin divine art.

In the beginning, when he had learned the Profound Art of Transformation from Lady Tianyin, he had comprehended from it all manner of vicious and venomous divine arts, utterly unlike her own.

Now he was merely testing the blade.

Shen Mu reached out to seize the little bell hanging at Yin Jiuzun's neck. He had long since sensed that another enemy lurked in the shadows, and had never dared to strike with his full strength; had that enemy joined hands with Yu Wufei, he would surely have been no match, and the two of them would have cut him down.

Now Yin Jiuzun, bent on claiming the whole credit for himself, had even killed Yu Wufei, and that had handed Shen Mu his chance.

Yin Jiuzun might be the son of the Yin Son of Heaven; he might be a grandmaster of the Lingxiao Realm; he might possess a marvel like the Reincarnation Bell; but at such close range, he was certain to die in a single blow! That was the chance he seized!

In a head-on clash he had a chance of victory, but too small a one; the Reincarnation Bell was fearsomely powerful, and there was no telling what other might it held.

Yin Jiuzun had time and again driven the Reincarnation Bell to blast his soul.

He seemed steady and composed, but in truth he trusted too much in the Yin Son of Heaven's divine weapon; had he not carried that treasure of the Yin Son of Heaven's enlightenment, he would surely have beaten Shen Mu to a pulp, crushed his soul and shattered his primordial spirit, before ever closing in. As the son of the Yin Son of Heaven and the great crown prince of the Dark Capital, he had of course received the Yin Son of Heaven's painstaking instruction; in cultivation and strength, in Dao arts and divine powers, he far surpassed Hu Mengdie and Yu Wufei. In a head-on clash Shen Mu's odds were poor, but strike from close at hand, and Shen Mu was wholly certain of taking his life!

So it could be said that the Yin Son of Heaven's Reincarnation Bell was what cost him his life. In the instant before Shen Mu's fingers closed on the Reincarnation Bell, the little bell suddenly floated up. It was barely larger than a finger, yet the next moment it swelled to five or six zhang across, its mouth turned toward Shen Mu.

A chill of dread ran through Shen Mu, and he fled backward at once.

A tremendous clang rang out by his ear, and his robes flew apart like paper butterflies. Then his skin burst, and the skin of his whole body was stripped away like paper butterflies too!

Nor was that all; his flesh and muscle turned to flying ash in an instant, leaving only his bones! "The Yin Son of Heaven!

" Shen Mu's mind roared.

Only his skeleton remained, still hurtling backward, and with a boom his form left the Nether Capital of the Great Void and appeared in the Great Void itself, before the mighty pass of the Heavenly Court.

The one controlling the Reincarnation Bell was certainly not Yin Jiuzun; formidable as he was, he had not the strength to shatter Shen Mu with a single blow.

The Reincarnation Bell was the treasure of the Yin Son of Heaven's enlightenment; he would never rest easy letting Yin Jiuzun come out to kill Shen Mu, and must have split off a portion of his spirit to control the bell.

Nor had he expected Shen Mu to break free of the Reincarnation Bell's demonic sound of reincarnation, so that his own son was slain by a single blow from Shen Mu.

Had it been merely the death of the body, that would have been one thing; the Yin Son of Heaven's Dark Capital Heavenly Gate could restore a body, and he would not have stooped to personally wield the Reincarnation Bell to kill Shen Mu.

But Shen Mu was ruthless and vicious: he had used the Dao arts and divine powers of the Heaven Yin Realm to refine Yin Jiuzun's very soul into flying ash.

That truly roused the Yin Son of Heaven's wrath, and he would spare nothing to strike with his own hand!

Flesh and blood grew anew, and Shen Mu's body recovered with astonishing speed; more than that, even his robes mended themselves.

Yet no sooner had he appeared before the Heavenly Court's divine city than a world-shaking toll of the bell rang out: Yin Jiuzun's headless body, bearing the Reincarnation Bell, had come out from the Nether Capital of the Great Void into the Great Void itself, hunting him down. Shen Mu bellowed, and the Spirit Consciousness Heavenly Palace leaped from the back of his head, the supreme spirit consciousness domain unfolding, but the next moment the bell tolled, and his spirit consciousness domain was annihilated outright; even the Spirit Consciousness Heavenly Palace ceased to be!

"The Divine Treasury Domain—" Shen Mu's mana erupted, and the Divine Treasury Domain bloomed with a hum. But there stood the headless Yin Jiuzun, both hands raising the Reincarnation Bell high, its mouth turned toward Shen Mu.

Around that Emperor Throne treasure countless brilliant runes emerged; runes of the Nether Capital, of Heaven Yin, of Creation whirled madly, shifting and evolving without cease!

A vast and boundless might gave off waves that struck the heart with dread and despair, circling the bell's wall; and more than that, from within the great bell overflowed waves yet more terrible, making space itself shudder like the veins of a butterfly's wing.

Clang— The bell tolled, and within the Divine Treasury Domain the Four Pole Heavens burst asunder, the Mystic Capital was destroyed, the Nether Capital crumbled, the Primordial Tree snapped, the myriad stars were extinguished, and the Ancestral Court shattered like glass.

Shen Mu's heavenly palaces flew apart in broken brick and shattered tile, and the primordial spirits within those palaces were annihilated outright! Such was the power of an Emperor Throne treasure, truly terrifying!

Shen Mu frantically marshaled his mana and drove the Immutable Divine Art, but the next moment the Reincarnation Bell's might reached him directly, and his robes once more became flying ash; skin and flesh alike were dissolved away!

This blow, which the Yin Son of Heaven had unleashed through his own son's body, was terrible beyond measure: even Shen Mu's bones flew up and were annihilated in the savage impact, and the entire Primal Embryo Divine Treasury Domain was destroyed by a single toll of the Yin Son of Heaven's bell!

The bell's sound took a long while to subside.

On the walls of the Heavenly Court's divine city not far off, countless heavenly gods and demons and soldiers of Beiluo Shimen toppled down; despite the guardian formations, they were shaken into grievous injury, unable to rise, spitting divine blood.

The waves raised by the bell also settled of themselves, when suddenly, with a pattering sound, an eyeball dropped out of the air and rolled and bounced a few times on the ground. Then, all at once, the eyeball sprouted thin little legs and took off running.

"Still not dead? " The Yin Son of Heaven's voice came from within the bell, filled with boundless fury.

Yin Jiuzun's headless body soared up, raising the great bell high, and made straight for the swiftly fleeing eyeball. The eyeball hopped and bounded at great speed, and as it ran it grew taller and taller; soon it had grown a body, a head, four limbs, and the eyeball came to rest at the center of that person's brow.

In that brief moment Shen Mu had even restored his clothes to their former state, without the slightest change.

Yin Jiuzun arrived in a flying leap, raised the great bell high, and brought its mouth down to cover Shen Mu, meaning to trap him inside where he would have no way to flee.

Suddenly Shen Mu took up a brush and painted, painted a door, then opened it and stepped through, vanishing from beneath the bell.