Chapter 1284 — The Art of Returning to the Origin

Heavenly Venerable Hao's breath was withered and failing, and he lay motionless at the center of a net woven from countless silk threads.

Above his body drifted a mysterious heaven and earth, small, no more than a zhang or two across. In it stood a Dao tree, and the Dao tree bore Dao flowers and Dao fruit, and Heavenly Venerable Hao's spirit essence was imprisoned within it, struggling without cease, yet never able to break free.

That was the Daluo Heaven of Divine Consciousness.

The Daluo Heaven of Divine Consciousness was not the true Daluo Heaven of Divine Consciousness; the true one lay in the Ultimate Void. This Daluo Heaven of Divine Consciousness was merely a divine ability the Grand Emperor had conjured out of his own spirit consciousness.

Heavenly Venerable Hao's wounds were too grave. Besides having his spirit essence sealed, he had been forced to cast the whole of his cultivation out of his body, and to borrow his own inner demons to heal himself.

He was indeed a man of surpassing cunning. Had there been no clever men such as the woodcutter sage, no one could have broken his seals and prohibitions and found his true hiding place.

Yet though he still lay in a coma, the crowd faced him as though facing a mortal foe, daring not the slightest slackness.

Every one of them could sense that though Heavenly Venerable Hao's breath was withered, within his body a pure and refined energy was slowly gathering!

Heavenly Venerable Hao's cultivation method was too wondrous; even now he was reborning himself, and once reborn he would surely be stronger, and more terrifying still!

His battle with the Grand Emperor had won him great benefits as well!

Heavenly Lord Xi said hoarsely, "The inner demon Mu Tianzuns who came in . . . all died here. . . ."

They looked ahead, and saw that from each silk thread hung a great cocoon, and in every cocoon hung an inner demon Mu Tianzun, upside down.

Many inner demons had forced their way in here, yet not one had managed to kill Heavenly Venerable Hao. Instead they had become his nourishment!

A long while passed, and still no one moved.

Suddenly, a booming laugh rang out. Yan Yunxi's donkey, the Great Demon King Lü Zheng, laughed boomingly: "Heavenly Venerable Hao is right there, lying right there, unconscious, and not a one of you dares to raise a hand! Heh. You Emperor Throne realm beings are no more than this! Brother Sanduo, let us go!"

The donkey kicked out his hooves, throwing Yan Yunxi off his back, then with a shake of his body his flesh swelled joint by joint and he became a monstrous demon with a donkey's face and a human body, hideous of flesh, crying aloud, "Brother Sanduo, let us take down Heavenly Venerable Hao together and shame them all to death! Little Black Cat, will you come too?"

Stirred to boiling blood by his words, the Black Tiger God suddenly reared up on his hind legs and looked at Niu Sanduo.

Niu Sanduo rose to his feet and transformed into a demon god with an ox's head and a human body, and laughed: "Such an opportunity comes but rarely; of course I must claim this great merit!"

The three of them charged forward. Suddenly the threads stirred, weaving and crisscrossing, leaving no room to dodge and no room to evade; they could only fight head-on.

Niu Sanduo and Lü Zheng both cried out that something was amiss. When their divine abilities or divine weapons touched those threads, they felt the might of their abilities vastly diminished, and the power within their weapons drawn away by the threads.

Stranger still, once a divine weapon stuck to a thread, it could not be flung off.

Before long their divine weapons were wrapped all over with threads and could not be pulled free; even on their bodies threads swiftly took hold, and little by little they lost their agility.

The Black Tiger God cried, "I am well versed in the arts of calculation, and can wield a teleportation divine ability. Come to my side!"

Struggling and dragging the threads, Niu Sanduo and Lü Zheng came to his side. The Black Tiger God stirred his teleportation ability, a flash of light passed, and the three vanished.

Yet the threads in the air swam about and pursued them at flying speed, as though they knew where the three had teleported.

The Black Tiger God brought Niu Sanduo and Lü Zheng out above Heavenly Venerable Hao. No sooner had their forms appeared than they fell into the net.

Thread after thread swiftly bound them tight and hung them upside down, heads below and feet above.

Those threads even pierced their skin and rooted themselves in their bodies, drawing out the energy within them.

The three were seized with dread; the threads had even threaded into their divine treasuries, into their heavenly palaces, veiling divine treasury and heavenly palace alike in layer upon layer of thin gauze!

Even their spirit essences were veiled in gauze!

Niu Sanduo was about to call for help when Lü Zheng's cries of rescue came ringing out, braying without cease.

Niu Sanduo and the Black Tiger God were both ashamed and mortified, thinking, "From now on, no matter how grandly this donkey talks, we must never listen to him again . . ."

Lü Zheng was still howling for his life, yet at the entrance Yan Yunxi, the Martial Heavenly Master and the woodcutter sage and the rest all wore grave faces, and none stepped forward to rescue him.

"Even if I went in, I could not overcome those threads. Once they stick to your body and enter your divine treasury and heavenly palace, there is no shaking them off."

The Martial Heavenly Master Zhuo Cha said in a heavy voice, "These Dao-pattern threads are supremely soft; once they cling to you, you cannot fling them off. Woodcutter, I reckon Heavenly Lord Xi and the Vermilion Emperor can offer no solution either. Do you have any means?"

Hearing this, the Vermilion Emperor Qi Xiayu said, "Would heavenly fire serve?"

The woodcutter sage laughed, "The Vermilion Emperor may give it a try."

The Vermilion Emperor Qi Xiayu turned over his palm, carefully drew out a wisp of heavenly fire, and cast it among the threads. In no time that crystal of heavenly fire was wrapped up tight as a little rice dumpling, and hung up together with the inner demon Mu Tianzun, Lü Zheng, Niu Sanduo and the rest.

Qi Xiayu stared wide-eyed and said no more.

Heavenly Lord Xi said politely, "Brother Wen, you have always had a plan. You had best think of a way."

The woodcutter sage shook his head. "I cannot break Heavenly Venerable Hao's arrangements either."

At these words Heavenly Lord Xi smiled and made ready to kill; if he could not kill Heavenly Venerable Hao, then he would help Heavenly Venerable Hao finish off these people who had come to do away with him. That too would be a great merit!

"But . . ."

The woodcutter sage's tone turned, and Heavenly Lord Xi hastily suppressed his killing intent. The woodcutter sage went on: "I cannot break Heavenly Venerable Hao's arrangements, but I can borrow his arrangements to break his arrangements."

Everyone was baffled.

The woodcutter sage said, "The reason Heavenly Venerable Hao must form thirty-five layers of Dao cocoons is that his flesh is in ruins. His spirit essence is sealed inside the Daluo Heaven of Divine Consciousness, his flesh cannot command such colossal dharma power, and his dharma power is itself in ruins, his Great Dao patterns scattered and broken."

Everyone listened quietly. But the woodcutter paused, carefully weighing his words, and the crowd waited with anxious hearts. Only then did he continue: "Therefore the simplest way to break his arrangements is to send the Great Dao cocoons he expelled from his body back into his body!"

The crowd was greatly shaken, every one of them struck dumb. The Silkworm Maiden sighed, "Woodcutter Heavenly Master, is there any man in this world you cannot kill?"

"Yes!"