Chapter 1369 — Youdu Longs for Death

Tu Bo turned and looked at him, seeming not to understand his meaning. The twin horns on his head were like rivers of magma, gleaming with fire.

Facing the gaze of that towering being, Shen Mu felt not the slightest fluster. He smiled and said, "Since we are allies, there are certain things one ought not to keep hidden from an ally, surely? Heavenly Venerable Mu has his means of breaking free of his shackles. As lord of Youdu, a being who stands shoulder to shoulder with Heavenly Venerable Mu, Tu Bo cannot be without means of his own?"

Tu Bo's primordial spirit was silent a moment, then said, "You think I ought to have means of protecting myself?"

Shen Mu laughed. "It is not what I think, but what you ought to have. If you did not, that is what would astonish me."

Tu Bo fell silent again, then said, "I do."

Shen Mu's spirits lifted. His eyes blazed as he watched Tu Bo, waiting for him to go on.

But Tu Bo fell silent once more, and did not go on.

His curiosity roused, Shen Mu ventured, "And what is Tu Bo's means?"

Only then did Tu Bo continue. "Like Heavenly Venerable Mu, I use the means of escaping the bonds of the great Dao of Youdu."

Shen Mu waited a while, but Tu Bo did not go on, and he burst out in fury, "You... this god — why do you talk like a gourd with its mouth sawed shut, tipping out one seed at a time? Tu Bo, have you spent so long with Heavenly Venerable You that you have gone mute as well?"

Tu Bo glanced at him and said slowly, "You are truly impatient. I get along very well with the Benevolent Saint King; we often sit together drinking tea and chatting."

Shen Mu could not picture it.

Two saw-mouthed gourds chatting together, each spitting out one word at a time — how could such a conversation ever keep going?

"Come with me."

Tu Bo's primordial spirit walked into that palace complex. His curiosity stirred again, and Shen Mu hurried after him. Within the palace, the Alchemist was still tending to Heavenly Venerable You. Heavenly Venerable Yue saw them and hastily followed, saying in a low voice, "Heavenly Venerable You's injuries are most troublesome... Where are you going?"

Shen Mu explained in a whisper, and Heavenly Venerable Yue's curiosity was roused as well. "Tu Bo's divine powers are vast," she said. "His means must be terrifying beyond measure."

The two followed Tu Bo to the edge of a magma pool within the palace. Tu Bo's primordial spirit stepped into the pool, and the two followed him in.

The magma was not hot. It did not seem like magma at all, but rather some strange liquid.

Doubt stirred in Shen Mu's heart. A divinity like Tu Bo was exceedingly strange: he had no body in the traditional sense. His frame was composed of countless dead worlds, without a trace of vitality.

To those who possessed fleshly bodies, such a life form was hard to comprehend — and yet Tu Bo did exist.

In truth, it was the same with Heavenly Venerable Mu.

Heavenly Venerable Mu's body was made of countless suns and rays of light, and he too had no body in the traditional sense.

Of the ancient gods born of the Dao, these two were the strangest. The other ancient gods born of the Dao, such as Lady Tianyin and the Empress and her sisters, all possessed fleshly bodies; and Shen Mu had studied the bodies of Lady Tianyin and the Empress and her sisters deeply and thoroughly.

They crossed the endless magma and came into Tu Bo's interior. The space suddenly opened out. Though it was still endless darkness within, points of light could be seen here and there — only there were far too many of them.

Shen Mu opened the vertical eye at his brow and looked. What he saw struck him as bizarre.

Those lights were living beings beyond count, beings wrapped in karmic fire, so numerous that they exceeded the stars in the heavens by who knew how many times over.

Each place where those lights shone was a world — worlds beyond counting. The myriad heavens and worlds of the Yuan Realm were already exceedingly many, yet compared with the worlds he now beheld they were but a single hair from nine oxen.

Stranger still, the karmic fire of the living beings in these worlds was unstable: thread after thread of karmic fire rose from them and flew off into the darkness.

In the darkness these fires gathered together, forming torrents of karmic fire.

The torrents of karmic fire were like a spider's web. In the darkness three or five of them merged, merging again and again, until at the center of Tu Bo's body they gathered completely.

There the karmic fire was dense and thick beyond measure; even Shen Mu's eyesight could not pierce it.

The karmic fire there was shaped like an enormous ball of flame, and also like a round egg formed of karmic fire.

An egg of karmic fire, gestating life.

Heavenly Venerable Yue surveyed the space within Tu Bo's body, and when her gaze fell upon the place where the karmic fire gathered, she could not help uttering a soft cry of surprise.

Tu Bo said, "Fellow Daoist Yue, have you seen it?"

Heavenly Venerable Yue looked doubtful. "I have seen something of it. You draw upon the karmic fire of all living beings and are gestating something. But I see no sign of any life within that egg of karmic fire."

Shen Mu was looking that way as well. His present eyesight could not pierce the egg of karmic fire, far inferior to Heavenly Venerable Yue's, but he too could see that something was amiss.

Tu Bo gathered the karmic fire of all living beings. The living erred too greatly, and karmic fire burned their souls; so Tu Bo took their transgressions upon himself, that the karmic fire might not burn the souls of the living but burn within his own body instead.

And this was the strange thing: Tu Bo's body was Youdu itself, yet at this moment Tu Bo's true body was nothing but an outer shell — hollow within.

That is to say, all that remained of Tu Bo was the outer continent serving as his skin; the true body within had vanished without a trace, leaving only this mass of karmic fire — this egg.

"I have no true body."

Tu Bo said, "I am using the karmic fire of all living beings to forge a true body for myself, so that in days to come I may cast off the station of an ancient god and become an independent life. The great Dao of Youdu made me, and it also bound me. Youdu gave me boundless power, and it bound me here, unable to know joy or anger, sorrow or gladness, love or hate or deep feeling. I cannot smell fragrance, cannot taste delicacies, have no sense of touch, no sense of pain; I cannot even feel kinship, friendship, or love. And yet..."

He was silent a moment, then said, "I once felt them."

Something stirred in Shen Mu's heart. He said softly, "A Chou."

"Yes. A Chou."

Tu Bo went on. "A Chou has lived through what I have never lived through; A Chou has his own joys and angers, sorrows and gladness, loves and hates, passions and grievances. Beside him, I am not a life at all. I am merely a vessel of the great Dao of Youdu. It was A Chou who fought his way up to the celestial court, not I. I envy him. I long for a death."

Shen Mu and Heavenly Venerable Yue were shaken to the core, staring at him in disbelief.

A faint smile appeared on Tu Bo's wooden face. "You did not mishear. I envy A Chou, I long for a death, I long to become A Chou. This forging of a true body from karmic fire — I prepared it for A Chou. I am waiting for A Chou's daughter to kill me, waiting for the moment after she kills me, when I become A Chou. And then..."

His ugly face was filled with a tender smile. "We will be a family again. I will be a father, and she will be my daughter."

Heavenly Venerable Yue fell silent.

Shen Mu could not hold back. "Will Heavenly Venerable Xu acknowledge you as her father? Tu Bo, you are gambling with your own life."