Chapter 1356 — Terror in the Night

Shen Mu and the Alchemist listened to the music of the zither and, before they knew it, fell somewhat entranced; but in the next moment they came back to their senses.

With the zither's music for company, Shen Mu served as the Alchemist's helper, kindling the furnace fire and governing its heat, while the Alchemist cast the spirit medicines he had long since prepared into the pill furnace.

In the great hall the melody moved the heart, the heavenly fire blazed high, and the round, plump great furnace spun upon the flames.

Beneath the flames, Shen Mu held the heavenly fire in his palm, driving the furnace and mastering its heat.

As the second man under all heaven to "cultivate to completion" the Medicine Dao Heavenly Palace, his attainments in the medical dao could be said to be second only to the Alchemist's. Of course, his Medicine Dao Heavenly Palace had been "planted" in him by the Alchemist with spirit pills, and his attainments in the medical dao were far from matching the Alchemist's.

The Alchemist stepped out, his great sleeves streaming, striding like a shooting star beneath the wavering light of the heavenly fire, while the wondrous secrets of pill refinement shifted through endless transformations in his two hands.

His Primordial Spirit emerged and settled above the pill furnace: the Medicine King Primordial Spirit, exalted on high, in a wide-sleeved robe of blue-black, standing upon the God-Slaying Platform, his frame towering, two strands of baleful qi coiling and writhing about him like dragons! The Medicine King Primordial Spirit's ten fingers danced, primordial qi turning into dao patterns that crossed and wove; the marvel of his pill refinement left one gasping in admiration.

Before long, five kinds of spirit pill were refined; the Alchemist shook his great sleeve and put away the pill furnace.

Shen Mu's five fingers clenched hard, and the heavenly fire vanished.

The Alchemist raised a hand, and the screen shielding Heavenly Venerable Yue flew up; the screen landed to one side, revealing Heavenly Venerable Yue as she played the zither.

Shen Mu and the Alchemist exchanged a glance, then came to her side, one to the left, one to the right.

The Alchemist took out the first spirit pill; the pill flew up, a surge of primordial qi rushed to the heavens from the crown of Shen Mu's head, and behind his head the Medicine Dao Heavenly Palace appeared. His Medicine King Primordial Spirit surfaced within the heavenly palace, likewise in wide robes and great sleeves, with the immortal air of a daoist sage.

Both Medicine King Primordial Spirits struck at once, rousing the medicinal power of that spirit pill; this time too it was the Alchemist who led, dissolving the medicinal power, and Shen Mu who assisted, chiefly out of fear that the Alchemist's cultivation might prove insufficient, ready at any moment to take over.

For though the Alchemist had already stood firm at the God-Slaying Platform realm, in the sheer depth and vigor of his primordial qi cultivation he was still far beneath Shen Mu. The dao patterns within the spirit pill flew out like a vast, magnificent poem, flying toward Heavenly Venerable Yue, and the pill gave off wondrous dao sounds that answered the zither's music.

The pill's dao patterns came to the crown of Heavenly Venerable Yue's head and touched the dao wound left by the Ancestral God King; at once the might of the Heavenly Dao burst forth and the majesty of heaven rolled abroad, yet in the very next instant the dao patterns within the spirit pill filled themselves into the Heavenly Dao's dao patterns!

At the touch of the spirit pill's dao patterns, the Heavenly Dao dao patterns within the wound the Ancestral God King had made were like blood meeting snake venom: swiftly congealing, clotting, rotting!

At the sight Shen Mu could not help but break out in a cold shudder, his scalp going numb, even his bones trembling! This sort of spirit pill was no spirit pill at all but a poison to take life, one that could even dissolve away the cultivation another had toiled so bitterly to build; it was a virulent poison of dao-dissolution!

"Rest easy.

This spirit pill strikes only the dao wound the Ancestral God King left behind.

" The Alchemist's voice came in the nick of time, dispelling his terror.

Shen Mu steadied himself.

Just then the Alchemist took out two more spirit pills; they flew up, one coming to the spot behind Heavenly Venerable Yue's heart where the dao wound left by Heavenly Venerable Hao lay, the other coming to her face, where lay the dao wound left by Heavenly Venerable Huo. Again one or two surges of primordial qi rushed up from Shen Mu's crown, turning into two heavenly palaces, one the Innate Heavenly Palace and the other the Creation Heavenly Palace.

With the Creation Heavenly Palace he remade Heavenly Venerable Yue's features and restored her former looks, while the Innate Heavenly Palace was prepared because Heavenly Venerable Hao's Way of Returning to the Void and the Innate One Qi were simply too strong: should the Alchemist's spirit pill fail to work as hoped, he would have a fallback ready.

The medicinal power of the Alchemist's two spirit pills took effect, and Shen Mu's body shook; he manifested three heads and six arms, watching intently every shift of every dao pattern. And at this moment the Alchemist took out yet another spirit pill, to heal the dao wound caused by Heavenly Venerable Xiao!

Shen Mu frowned and said in a low voice, "Grandpa Alchemist, Heavenly Venerable Yue is not thick-skinned and tough-fleshed like me.

Do we truly have to alarm every Heavenly Venerable at once?

" The Alchemist roused the medicinal power of that pill and said in a low, deep voice, "If the other Heavenly Venerables are alerted, then it certainly cannot be hidden from Heavenly Venerable Xiao either.

Rather than wait for him to strike first, we may as well alarm them all. " Shen Mu's frown deepened.

His body shook, and one heavenly palace after another surfaced behind him, forming a whole heavenly court, divine light blazing.

His Primordial Spirit split into eighteen, each standing within one of the heavenly palaces, closely watching the changes in the dao patterns of Heavenly Venerable Yue's wound.

That spirit pill had already begun to erode Heavenly Venerable Xiao's dao patterns; the first dao pattern shattered.

Shen Mu's eye twitched.

In the instant that dao pattern broke, he sensed that something in the Yuan Realm was awakening!

Like an unimaginably frightful demon opening its eyes in the dark of night!

Heavenly Venerable Xiao had been alerted!

Then the Alchemist took out a fifth spirit pill. The veins at Shen Mu's temples writhed, yet he endured it and did not disturb him, letting him give himself wholly to healing Heavenly Venerable Yue.

Heavenly Venerable Yue's zither music remained leisurely and slow, an idle plucking of the strings, a slow setting down of the chess piece; as Shen Mu and the Alchemist healed her, the dao wounds on her body struck back and caused her still greater pain, but her fingers remained steady, and every finger that plucked the strings was full of strength!

Then the daoists dwelling in the Dao Sect and the people of the city at the foot of the mountain suddenly beheld a wondrous sight. They saw the whole peach grove blooming with light of every hue, light that seemed to float above the grove; and in the grove, one string of light after another quivered with the zither's music, hundreds of light strings ringing in harmony with the notes, so that the ten-thousand-li peach grove in the dark night seemed a dancing field of notation bathed in radiance! Stranger still, with every note that leaped the peach grove seemed to leap from one space into another, and in the black night sky another world appeared, joined to the peach grove!