Chapter 1266 — The Rising Star Surpasses His Predecessors

The Innate Heavenly Palace was unquestionably a great heavenly palace surpassing even the Spirit Consciousness Heavenly Palace, and the Reincarnation Heavenly Palace besides; and the benefits it would bring Shen Mu would likewise exceed those of any other heavenly palace. Should this palace be fully refined, the enhancement to Shen Mu's cultivation and strength would be beyond all reckoning!

Yet the zither string of the Dao soon ceased its playing, and gazing along that string, Shen Mu saw the lotus continent beneath Tai Di's feet split asunder, shattered into finest powder!

Tai Di had at last broken entirely free! By his own strength alone, Tai Di could scarcely have undone the restrictions left by Heavenly Venerable Ling and Heavenly Venerable Yun; but the purpose of Tai Di's first strike had been to borrow the power of Heavenly Venerable Hao and the Divine Artifact Heavenly Venerable to shatter the cage that imprisoned him!

Though he broke the restrictions by borrowed force, he was gravely wounded by Heavenly Venerable Hao in turn, blood at the corners of his mouth.

"Hahahaha! " Tai Di laughed with unrestrained joy, broken root tendrils trailing from his legs, and cried in a harsh voice: "Out at last, out at last!

What shit of a Heavenly Venerable Yun, Heavenly Venerable Ling — you schemed against me, did you not, and yet did you not both die at my hands?

And I — I have come back to life!

" The thick root tendrils upon his legs had snapped; these tendrils were the roots of the sacred objects of the various Creator clans — spirit roots the Creators had found in the Ancestral Court and raised into sacred objects through countless ages of sacrifice. Some sacred objects grew into sacrificial gods; others kept their original form. In the battle to destroy Tai Di, the Creators of the Great Void had all but exhausted their sacred objects, using them all to lay traps, and only thus had they broken through Tai Di's physical body, giving Heavenly Venerable Yun and Heavenly Venerable Ling their opening.

But now, the sacred objects that had bound Tai Di's flesh were dead as well. Tai Di's wounds healed with astonishing speed, until no wound remained.

His spirit consciousness was mighty; under its visualization, even a severed head could be conjured back with ease.

For a being such as he, his vital gate was neither his soul, nor his primordial spirit, nor his flesh — his vital gate was his spirit consciousness; so long as his spirit consciousness did not perish, he could not truly die. And he had already lodged his spirit consciousness in the Ultimate Void, which cut off all possibility of his death.

The strongest fleshly body in all history, as the Creators called it, was at last free to unleash its full power!

Tai Di laughed aloud, and his incomparably dreadful spirit consciousness burst forth.

His spirit consciousness was unmatched in all the world; even before he had fully escaped, it had been able to sway an entire divine city, and even such an Emperor Throne existence as Shang Pingyin.

True, Shang Pingyin had been so easily controlled only because of the flaw in his Dao heart, yet to command an Emperor Throne so lightly was still an inconceivable power. Yet Tai Di's spirit consciousness was not merely a matter of controlling others — it was visualization!

"Heavenly Venerable Hao, let me show you what visualization truly means!

" Tai Di's long hair twisted into knots, many strands tangled together, thick and dense, his bearing wild.

In that moment, not only did Heavenly Venerable Hao sense the fluctuations of the Dao hidden within his spirit consciousness — even Shen Mu and the others, far away, felt that Tai Di's spirit consciousness was transforming into the Dao! Spirit consciousness transforming into the Dao was a realm Shen Mu had never touched!

Tai Di did not truly turn his spirit consciousness into the Great Dao; rather, he borrowed the nature of spirit consciousness to visualize the Great Dao of heaven and earth! This already belonged to the level of creating the Dao in the void!

"Tai Di's arts indeed spring from the same source as those of Heavenly Emperor Taichu — both are derivations of the Taichu Dao!

The Innate One Qi and the Dao of spirit consciousness both belong to the Taichu Dao!

" Amid the light strings, Shen Mu was in a state of extraordinary excitement, listening to the zither music rung forth by the fluctuations of the divine abilities, when he suddenly said: "Heavenly Master Bai, can we draw closer still? Many of the Dao rhythms are too faint to catch. " Bai Yuqiong hesitated, then shook her head: "Any closer, and I fear we would exceed what this lantern can bear.

When that happens, I will not be able to protect you either.

" Lan Yutian pleaded: "Elder sister, just a little closer?

" Bai Yuqiong looked at the two of them, and her heart softened.

Biting her pearly teeth, she said: "Very well, a little closer then. But not too close, or I will not have time to escape either.

" Shen Mu glanced at Lan Yutian, and a trace of sorrow rose in his heart: "I am, I suppose, a pearl gone yellow with age — I can no longer pass myself off as young. Heavenly Venerable Yu, though, can keep at it; this time Bai Yuqiong agreed to move the light strings only for his sake.

. .

" As a youth who had walked out of Yincan Village and studied under the Pill Master, he had once been devastatingly charming to young girls — but that was all in the past.

Now people took Heavenly Venerable Mu for a sinister, cunning schemer, deep and calculating; even if he put on a cute expression, the girls no longer believed it. Bai Yuqiong moved the lantern, and the light strings moved forward with it.

To the two of them she said: "Brother Lan, though I am a disciple of Master Yue, all I have learned are the arts Master Yue possessed several hundred thousand years ago. Master Yue founded the Dao of Space; there is no place in all the world she cannot reach — but I cannot. I long to take her as my master again, yet I have many misgivings.

.

.

" Lan Yutian blinked his big eyes and asked curiously: "What misgivings? " Bai Yuqiong glanced back at Shen Mu, and said nothing. But Shen Mu understood: Bai Yuqiong feared that the friendship between Heavenly Venerable Yue and the South Emperor Vermilion Bird would make her awaken once more, rousing the South Emperor's soul within her.

Bai Yuqiong had her own selfish concerns and her own considerations; she could not be blamed for that.

Bai Yuqiong sensed that the lantern was nearing its limit, and the zither music had grown much clearer; she stopped at once and said: "We can go no further.

. .

I have always been cautious by nature — how is it that upon meeting you two brothers, I dare take such perilous risks?

" She did not know whether to laugh or cry. Even as Shen Mu watched from afar the battle between Tai Di and Heavenly Venerable Hao and the Divine Artifact Heavenly Venerable, and listened to the Dao rhythms carried in the zither music, he measured them against his own insights and gains, and his understanding of the Innate One Qi deepened further.

Tai Di's spirit consciousness transformed into the Dao; at a single stir of his spirit consciousness, the Great Dao was born.

Nor was that all — his Great Dao spread through his whole body, raising his flesh to a most terrifying state; even Heavenly Venerable Hao, controlling the Divine Artifact Heavenly Venerable, could not withstand the force of the Great Dao bursting forth when faced with his steel fists! Boom— A dreadful wave of force rolled out, shaking the light strings; and at the heart of the battle, in Tai Di's every movement the Great Dao was whole and heaven-born, and the Divine Artifact Heavenly Venerable fell back again and again under his oppression.