Chapter 1400 — The Prison Shackles the Dao Heart

Shen Mu arrived at the second terrace of the Nine Hells Terrace, where the sensation of the great Dao being shackled by the prison grew even stronger, and the vital qi of his cultivation within him turned impossibly sluggish, all but impossible to circulate. Countless pores of his body seemed sealed shut, so that the qi inside him could no longer flow in or out.

Nor was that all: the stabbing pain grew sharper still, as though numberless invisible needles were being driven into his flesh.

And stranger yet, his primordial spirit, his consciousness, and his vital qi alike could all feel the sting of those needles.

"If this place is a realm as well, what does this realm do?

A pity my eldest senior brother is not here. .

. " He was somewhat puzzled.

In the Heavenly Court there was a Heavenly Prison, and the Heavenly Prison was used to confine the Heavenly Court's most heinous criminals; in years past, when Emperor Yunluo Wei Suifeng was taken captive, he had been imprisoned in the Heavenly Prison.

If Wei Suifeng were here, perhaps he could have recounted what he suffered there, and given Shen Mu something to go by. "If the Nine Hells Terrace is a realm, then between which two of the seven realms of the Heavenly Palace should it be placed?

Lower than the Jade Terrace realm, or higher? " He sensed carefully, seeking the Dao realm hidden within the Nine Hells Terrace, but apart from the pain he could perceive no principle of any Dao realm at all.

He leapt down to the third terrace of the Nine Hells Terrace, and there he saw many twisted corpses.

They were giants, Creators surely, who must have fallen into such agony that their very bones had warped; Shen Mu even saw a Creator whose skull had deformed, and the man must have been so wracked with pain in life that his face contorted. Shen Mu's cultivation and strength would have made him a hegemon ruling his own domain even in the ancient era; the third terrace he could still endure, and so he thought nothing of it and walked on. He leapt to the fourth terrace of the Heavenly Prison, and still he felt no improvement to his own Dao; only that stabbing pain had reached his primordial spirit, and the agony of the primordial spirit made his heavenly palaces begin to warp one after another.

"Interesting. .

. " He went deeper, arriving at the fifth terrace. Here the great Dao was shackled, and none of his Dao arts or divine abilities could be summoned at all.

"But the Daos of the Great Beginning, the Great Origin, the Great Simplicity, and the Supreme Ultimate can still be used.

So long as those four great Daos are available, this place cannot hold me. " He came to the sixth terrace.

His primordial spirit was now shackled, sealed by a powerful seal within its respective heavenly palaces; Shen Mu's mind grew dim, and he felt all manner of chaotic thoughts surging up in his heart. "This place can disturb the Dao heart, like the demonic path and demonic nature of Youdu.

" He came to the seventh terrace. Here his consciousness too seemed about to be locked away, his thoughts about to cease; Shen Mu reined in his thinking and gathered it in the Ancestral Court of the Primordial Fetus Divine Treasury, relying on the power stored in the five great ore veins to guard his consciousness.

At the eighth terrace, his vital qi fell utterly silent; he could sense no breath of the great Dao within his body, and it seemed even his blood was stiffening, leaving only an incomparably intense pain.

The eighth terrace of the Heavenly Prison was strewn with corpses, twisted beyond any recognition of their former shapes. He saw ancient gods as well. Long Xiao had not lied to him: many ancient gods had been cast here, and in the end they could not even crawl out, dying of pain in this dreadful Heavenly Prison.

Shen Mu's mind roared as though a billion inner demons were clamoring and brawling, making it hard for him to maintain his usual Dao heart. His eyes were blood-red, and everything he looked at appeared twisted; the whole world was warping, sky and earth and his own self, all of it twisted out of shape.

"This is bad, the Heavenly Prison is shackling my Dao heart!

If my Dao heart collapses, I fear I will be like these corpses here, able only to wail, never able to leave!

" He hurriedly shut his eyes. The prison's shackling of the great Dao was more terrifying and more vicious than he had imagined.

The vertical eye at the center of his brows opened, and when he looked around again, that sense of the whole world warping vanished at once.

"Heavenly Venerable Mu, you have come to a sinister place. " The Great Origin's voice came from his divine treasury.

The Great Origin in the Egg had spent these days quietly refining the Great Origin primal stone, seldom emerging, and Shen Mu's arrival here had finally roused him. "This place is like an incomparably perilous region within the Ancestral Court; it is not somewhere you can come.

There is still time to retreat now.

" The Great Origin in the Egg surveyed the surroundings through the vertical eye at Shen Mu's brow, and his heart lurched.

He said gravely, "There are several places in the Ancestral Court that even I cannot probe, and this is one of them.

Beyond this, I sense several other places as well, and one of them is your Great Black Wood. " Shen Mu was slightly taken aback.

"Then, Brother Dao, which level do you sense?

" "The lowest level. " Shen Mu came to the edge of the eighth terrace and craned his head to peer down. The Great Origin in the Egg shouted hastily, "Whatever you do, do not look! " But by then Shen Mu had already seen the ninth terrace of the Heavenly Prison: there was only a stretch of white radiance, like a well reflecting moonlight.

The water in the well was utterly still, mirroring Shen Mu's face.

The ninth level of the Heavenly Prison was not large, only two zhang square.

Shen Mu laughed.

"There is nothing here at all. What is there to make such a fuss over?

" The Great Origin in the Egg sighed.

"You are already on the ninth terrace.

" Shen Mu was stunned.

Only then did he realize that he was not looking down at the ninth terrace, but looking up at the sky!

At this moment he was already standing upon the ninth terrace of the Nine Hells Terrace of the Heavenly Prison, gazing up at a sky like the mouth of a well!

He himself did not know when he had descended.

"You are finished.

Your Dao heart has been shackled.

" The Great Origin in the Egg sighed. "Heavenly Venerable Mu, with the Dao heart shackled, the divine abilities shackled, the great Dao shackled, the vital qi shackled, and the strength of your fleshly body shackled as well, you now have nothing left but the consciousness hidden in the Ancestral Court of your divine treasury. " Shen Mu's primordial spirit was dull, his vital qi congealed, the Dao runes in his heavenly palaces had ceased to change, the stars of the heavens in his divine treasury, the imprints of the ancient gods of the heavens in the hundred orifices of his body, everything, all of it, was shackled!

In the vertical eye at his brow, the two qi of yin and yang still circulated, but Shen Mu could not summon the power of that vertical eye at all now. He was now utterly and completely a mortal man, without a single divine ability.

"Brother Dao of the Great Origin, what do we do now? " Cold sweat rolled down his forehead.

The Great Origin in the Egg said icily, "The you of before would never have asked me what to do!

You always had some clever scheme to get through a crisis, and now you have begun to run out of ideas and ask me, has your Dao heart vanished entirely?