Chapter 1269 — The Shattering of the Void

At that very moment, Bai Yuqiong saw another heavenly palace suddenly spring forth behind Hao Heavenly Venerable!

Before he had held twenty-eight heavenly palaces, and now their number had swelled to twenty-nine!

Nor was that all, for the palaces of the Divine Artifact Imperial Heavenly Venerable had also gained one, likewise reaching twenty-nine!

Although Shen Mu had long foreseen such an outcome, he had not expected the Divine Artifact Imperial Heavenly Venerable to gain one as well, which could only mean that Hao Heavenly Venerable commanded two kinds of Great Heavenly Court technique! For the other Heavenly Venerables to comprehend even one had already cost them grievous time and labor, yet he had comprehended two, one for himself and one for his Divine Artifact Imperial Heavenly Venerable!

"For Kaihuang to lose at his hands was no injustice.

For Tai Di to lose was no injustice either.

" With the appearance of this palace, Tai Di at once felt the pressure.

An additional palace might seem a mere increase in number, but for a cultivation technique the advancement was immense.

To cultivate an Imperial Throne technique was already hard, impossible unless one was a practitioner of surpassing talent, yet to cultivate two or three Imperial Throne techniques was harder still, well-nigh ten or dozens of times harder than a single one! And to fuse two or three Imperial Throne techniques raised the difficulty far higher again.

Cultivation was one thing, fusion quite another, and the difficulties of the two could not be spoken of in the same breath.

To fuse eighteen Imperial Throne techniques was to form a Great Heavenly Court technique, and Shen Mu had already come to the very edge of such a technique.

Once arrived at that stage, to fuse even one more Imperial Throne technique became several or even dozens of times harder than before!

It was an exponential ascent, and after fusing more than twenty Imperial Throne techniques, the hardest part was in truth no longer finding a new Imperial Throne technique, but discovering how the new technique could be woven into the whole.

The Ten Heavenly Venerables of the Heavenly Court had each spent hundreds of thousands of years, exhausting boundless spirit and wisdom, to walk to their present step. The toil and sweat they had paid was beyond what others could imagine.

That was also why they would not accept reform.

To accept reform meant that all the bitter effort they had once expended would be cast to the winds, that they must begin anew and deduce and evolve their Great Heavenly Court techniques all over again.

Suddenly Bai Yuqiong saw yet another heavenly palace leap out behind Hao Heavenly Venerable and the Divine Artifact Imperial Heavenly Venerable, so that the courts of Hao Heavenly Venerable and the Divine Artifact Imperial Heavenly Venerable now each numbered fully thirty palaces!

The composition of these two courts was not identical, for apart from the kinds of palaces not wholly matching, their arrangements also differed.

Hao Heavenly Venerable's court took the Innate Heavenly Palace as its sovereign, with the other palaces subordinate to it, forming one great courtly system in which the innate primordial qi marshaled all the rest. The court of the Divine Artifact Imperial Heavenly Venerable took the Guixu Heavenly Palace as its sovereign, yet the other palaces did not so much cling to Guixu as Guixu enslaved and devoured the strength of the other palaces!

"Hao Heavenly Venerable is truly blessed by heaven.

" Bai Yuqiong could not help but sigh in admiration, for in all the present world only Hao Heavenly Venerable could have achieved this step, and none of the other Heavenly Venerables possessed his endowment.

Only he bore in his veins the blood of Celestial Emperor Taichu and Lady Yuanmu, while the Innate Heavenly Palace and the Guixu Heavenly Palace were so singular that they could suppress and marshal all other palaces.

"This, I fear, is why his cultivation and foundation stand above the other Heavenly Venerables.

" She had only just formed this thought when another heavenly palace leapt forth behind the brows of Hao Heavenly Venerable and the Divine Artifact Imperial Heavenly Venerable, and Tai Di fell wholly onto the defensive!

Against their joint assault he had at first been able to suppress Hao Heavenly Venerable entirely, and when Hao Heavenly Venerable arrayed twenty-nine palaces into a court he could only stand as an equal.

Now that thirty palaces had appeared, he sank into suppression.

Yet he was Tai Di after all, and even facing such disadvantage he could still hold on.

"Hao Heavenly Venerable, let me show you the thirty-sixth heaven of the path of divine consciousness! The Divine Consciousness Grand Luo Heaven!

" Tai Di's divine consciousness erupted anew, and when the Divine Consciousness Grand Luo Heaven appeared, from the light strings thousands of miles away came an ineffably wondrous music of zithers, as Dao tones were struck and turned surpassingly beautiful.

All those within the light strings fell silent, lost in that enchanting melody.

And gazing outward through the strings, they saw the Divine Consciousness Grand Luo Heaven as a supreme domain wrought of pure Great Dao, cast throughout as if of jade, like a Jade Capital formed of the Dao itself.

Within the Grand Luo Heaven stood a treasure tree condensed from the great Dao of divine consciousness, dazzling in radiance, bearing Dao flowers upon its boughs, the blossoms opening to set fruit. Shen Mu's primordial spirit gazed from afar, and he saw that in Tai Di's Divine Consciousness Grand Luo Heaven the treasure tree was complete and the Dao flowers had bloomed, but the Dao fruit had not yet ripened.

"Tai Di's grand Luo Dao fruit of divine consciousness remains unformed because in his cultivation he borrowed the sacrificial power of other Creators?

" Thinking of this, Shen Mu could not help but feel a lingering fear.

Long ago, after Kaihuang had cleft and slain Ming Fangyu, the Eleventh Heavenly Venerable who was Tai Di's other identity, Shen Mu, Lang Wan, and Shu Jun had courted death by seeking to capture Tai Di's divine consciousness to refine it.

They divided that consciousness into three portions, each taking one.

Lang Wan used her portion to strengthen her consciousness, Shu Jun used his to strengthen his flesh, while Shen Mu left his own portion untouched.

In truth he had always wished to use that portion of Tai Di's consciousness to raise his own cultivation and strength, yet he had faintly sensed that to do so would leave hidden peril.

Now it seemed Tai Di's consciousness was a draught of poison, strengthening oneself at first, yet certain in the later stages to bar one forever from the highest realm of the Dao!

"When Tai Di's consciousness struck at us from the Grand Luo Heaven and yet could not prevail against us, was he deliberately planting poison?

" Shen Mu shivered, yet he also saw how mighty was the Dao-realm road Kaihuang walked, for Tai Di had failed to perfect that road and could结 no Dao fruit, but should Kaihuang continue in cultivation he would surely refine a Sword Path Grand Luo Heaven and结 a sword Dao fruit!

Hao Heavenly Venerable remained unhurried, and even as Tai Di displayed the Divine Consciousness Grand Luo Heaven, another palace was added to his court, his cultivation and power climbing once more!

Soon his palaces numbered fully thirty-three, in no way inferior to Tai Di's Divine Consciousness Grand Luo Heaven! What was more, the Divine Artifact Imperial Heavenly Venerable also reached thirty-three palaces!

So mighty was the battle power of these three giants that even the world of the Grand Void could not bear it.