Chapter 1294 — A Pair of Invalids

After Celestial Venerable Hao bowed down, he truly felt his nine almost shattered heavenly palaces begin to mend, and mend swiftly, filling him with both alarm and delight. A dao wound of this order he had long found nearly impossible to refine away and nearly impossible to heal himself; never had he imagined it would prove so simple a matter for the Goddess of Taisu!

Before long, his nine heavenly palaces would be restored. "The Dao of Taisu is exceedingly profound and mysterious.

If I could lay hands on it.

.

. " His thoughts began to stir, and the Goddess of Taisu seemed to see straight through them. She smiled faintly and said, "Your nine heavenly palaces I can restore for you. Your other heavenly palaces will not be so easy. You destroyed those yourself; their dao foundations no longer exist, and to force them back for you would cost me my own cultivation.

Since you have chosen to cultivate on your own, I will not press you.

" Celestial Venerable Hao thanked her. The Goddess of Taisu said, "The Taisu mineral veins in the Ancestral Court have fallen into the hands of Celestial Venerable Gong.

I cannot overcome her, and I need my worthy nephew's help as well. " Something stirred in Celestial Venerable Hao's heart, and he felt a little more at ease with the Goddess of Taisu.

"Aunt, you saved my life.

Leave the Taisu mineral veins to me; I will find a way.

" It was plain that the Goddess of Taisu wanted something from him, and that was why she treated him so well; the two of them working together would profit them both.

Moreover, the Goddess of Taisu's cultivation was not especially strong, at most on the level of the Four Emperors of the ancient gods, and could be dealt with.

It was only that each restoration required Celestial Venerable Hao to kowtow to her, and this irked him more than a little. The Goddess of Taisu said, "With those words from my worthy nephew, I am reassured.

" Before long, Celestial Venerable Hao's nine heavenly palaces were restored to their former state, and the dao wound had vanished into thin air. Yet his primordial spirit remained trapped inside the Great Emperor's Daluo Heaven of divine power and divine sense, unable to escape.

The Goddess of Taisu said apologetically, "The Great Emperor's abilities are too high; for now I cannot unravel his divine power.

Once my worthy nephew has cultivated twenty or thirty heavenly palaces of his own, I expect he will be able to undo the seal upon his primordial spirit. " Cold sweat broke out on Celestial Venerable Hao's brow.

He had abruptly grasped a matter of the utmost importance: his primordial spirit! His primordial spirit was trapped inside the Great Emperor's Daluo Heaven of divine sense.

Without his primordial spirit, he could not drive his own cultivation method to refine, as swiftly as he needed, the other heavenly palaces that had been destroyed and wiped away.

The primordial spirit is the hub of any cultivation method; vital qi flows from the seven great divine treasuries and the seven realms of the heavenly palaces, and it must pass through the primordial spirit before one's cultivation can grow day by day. Without his primordial spirit, his cultivation method was no more than a heap of loose sand.

What was more, he had abolished twenty-six heavenly palaces, and abolished them utterly, not sealed them into dao cocoons. Had they been sealed into dao cocoons, he could still have used the Guixu divine power to refine the cocoons and return to his former peak, and that would not have taken long; four or five months at most and he would have been back at his height. But his twenty-six heavenly palaces had been completely destroyed, and he would have to cultivate them all over again from the very beginning.

Without his primordial spirit, he could not cultivate anew at all.

The Goddess of Taisu watched him and said nothing.

After a moment, Celestial Venerable Hao knelt and bowed once more: "I beg you, Aunt, restore my other heavenly palaces!

" A faint smile surfaced on the Goddess of Taisu's face.

"However heaven-reaching your methods once were, you too must fall into my grasp, and you cannot escape. " This time, when the Land of No Sorrow attacked the Heavenly Court's main camp, it finally beat the gongs and withdrew the moment the Heavenly Court's reinforcements arrived.

The Land of No Sorrow and the Creators had not seized the chance to plunder territory; they had merely taken advantage of the chaos wrought by Shen Mu and Celestial Venerable Hao, and of the wavering hearts among the Heavenly Court's gods and devils, to launch a single assault and reap heads. Now that the Heavenly Court's reinforcements had come, they must naturally pull back. The Land of No Sorrow had won a great victory this time, and cheers rang out everywhere; yet the Woodcutter Sage at once ordered his forces to contract, preparing to fall back and hold the Void Bridge.

The experts among the Land of No Sorrow and the Creators had read the situation as well: falling back to the Void Bridge was a choice forced by circumstance, and an inevitable outcome besides.

The battle between Celestial Venerable Hao and the Great Emperor had wrecked the Collapsing Void, shrinking the distance between the Taixu entrance and the Taixu lands by countless times. Before, the Heavenly Court's reinforcements had needed at least a year to travel from the Taixu entrance to the Taixu lands; now, not even a single day was required.

Under such circumstances, there was simply no fight to be had between the Land of No Sorrow and the Heavenly Court! The Taixu lands could not possibly be held!

If they prepared now to fall back to the Void Bridge, much needless loss could be avoided in the future. Besides, the Taixu lands were now overrun everywhere with heart demons and corpse walkers, which would also slow the Heavenly Court's advance. Even if the Heavenly Court took the Taixu lands, it would make little use of them, and would have to guard against the assaults of heart demons.

And if they contracted their own forces, they would face far fewer heart demons.

In the Heavenly Court's main camp, the reinforcements arrived.

Celestial Venerable Huo and Celestial Venerable Xu, forcing their sick bodies onward, encouraged the three armies.

The Heavenly Court army that had come to their aid was the force originally garrisoning the Void Passage, and it brought with it the divine artifact of the Eastern Emperor and the divine artifact of the Southern Emperor. Celestial Venerable Hao too returned to the Heavenly Court's main camp, causing a great stir. Commanders from every quarter of the Heavenly Court came forward to pay their respects; Celestial Venerable Huo and Celestial Venerable Xu held a grand feast to welcome him back and wash the dust from his journey, and the generals offered blessings to cleanse him of his ill fortune.

Celestial Venerable Hao looked sickly and listless; his injuries were plainly grave and still unhealed.

Just then, a divine general suddenly came bearing word, bursting into the feast: "Celestial Venerable Mu has arrived! " A dead silence fell over the feast. Even Celestial Venerable Xu and Celestial Venerable Huo said not a word.

Every gaze in the hall turned in an instant to Celestial Venerable Hao. His breath came thin and unsteady, violent coughs shaking him from time to time, and he looked as though he might drop dead at any moment. Gasping twice for air, short of breath, he said, "Celestial Venerable Mu is one of the five founding elders of the Heavenly Alliance.

How can we leave him standing outside?

Invite him in at once.

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. " Outside the banquet, the vertical eye at the center of Shen Mu's brow was open, and he waited quietly. The Taishi in the Egg at his brow complained, "Fellow Daoist, are you not afraid Celestial Venerable Hao will turn on you on the spot and kill you? You humiliated him so brutally and stripped him of all authority; he hates you to the bone!