Chapter 1412 — Venerable Hong Shackled

Venerable Hong looked at him with a smile; the two stood very close, only a few paces apart.

"I do not wish Lord Heaven to die.

Lord Heaven counts as a fellow traveler on my Dao. " Shen Mu lowered his brows and his eyes, and said in a hoarse voice, "Lord Heaven noticed me when I was still very weak. He favored me, and sheltered me for many years.

I have always taken him for an elder. I still remember how happy he was in my Shen Continent, together with Tu Bo and Emperor Chi. " Venerable Hong swept his whisk and said with a smile, "Venerable Mu, you are too full of sentiment.

Such feelings ill become a Heavenly Venerable. When Lord Heaven dies, he will have thrown off the shackles of the Heavenly Dao and be wholly free. You ought to rejoice for him, rather than bare killing intent at me. " Shen Mu's face was stricken with grief.

"I do not want him to become Venerable Hong through and through. A Lord Heaven who has become Venerable Hong is no longer Lord Heaven.

Hong, you are no longer Lord Heaven; you no longer uphold the will of the Heavenly Dao. You are only one of the Ten Venerables - a scrambling, sniveling thing no different from Hao, Zu, Lang and their kind. " Venerable Hong smiled. "Do you not think that becoming what I am now is better for Lord Heaven?

You are directing killing intent at a Heavenly Venerable, Venerable Mu. You should know the consequences of doing so. " Shen Mu raised his head; the vertical eye between his brows slowly opened, and he nodded lightly. "To direct killing intent at a Heavenly Venerable is, of course, exceedingly perilous.

I have known that since long ago.

But you and I are very close, and such a short distance is all but nonexistent to a being well versed in the Martial Dao.

In the Martial Dao, ten paces, one kill - and the distance between us is less than ten paces.

" Venerable Hong laughed.

"When Zhuo Cha, the Great Emperor of the Martial Dao, rises in fury to kill, the closer the distance, the stronger his attack becomes.

Even a being of deeper cultivation and higher mastery of the Dao arts and divine arts than his own, once he closes to such a distance, will be slain by him. For a time you studied under the Great Emperor of the Martial Dao, and you have learned his skills as well.

But have you ever considered.

. . " He stood upon the sea, very close to Shen Mu, yet bearing the grandeur of a Great Emperor of the Martial Dao - mountain-firm, abyss-deep.

"In those years, that Kaihuang was able to rise at all was by my support.

" The Martial Dao aura upon Venerable Hong grew thicker and thicker; his Martial Dao primal spirit, his Martial Dao will, were even more intense than Shen Mu's.

"The whole Kaihuang Era endured for twenty thousand years only under my protection!

" From Venerable Hong's plump, fat body came an appalling aura - a presence that struck terror, a presence that brought despair.

In the Kaihuang Era, the Ten Venerables had not cared in the least for the Kaihuang Heavenly Court; after all, the Kaihuang Kingdom had never, from first to last, occupied the Origin World, had never ruled the myriad heavens and worlds, and had never posed a mortal threat to the Heavenly Court. The Kaihuang Kingdom was merely a tiny state of the lower realms, propped up by Lord Heaven.

The greatest achievement of the Kaihuang Era lay in the Post-Heaven Daos.

They created three hundred and sixty kinds of Post-Heaven Dao, and had they been given time, they could have raised those Post-Heaven Daos to stand alongside the Pre-Heaven Daos, or even to surpass them.

The Martial Dao was one of them. Kaihuang's Sword Dao was another. And Lord Heaven, the true patron of the Kaihuang Kingdom, was surely privy to every fruit of that era's civilization.

"At such a short distance, you can do nothing.

" Venerable Hong's face shone with glory; his aura grew ever more despairing.

He gave the impression of another Great Emperor of the Martial Dao, another Zhuo Cha - and the oppression he radiated was even heavier than Zhuo Cha's Martial Dao.

There was also a terrible Sword Dao will upon him, no less intense than Kaihuang's.

"Venerable Mu, retreat while the road is still passable.

" Venerable Hong smiled.

"The strongest divine constitution in this world is not the bloodline of the Heavenly Emperor, but mine - the Duling Body.

You have seen Di Yiyue, and you have seen the Ancestral God King.

Did their spirit bodies stir your envy?

And Lord Heaven, once he leaps free of the Heavenly Dao's shackles, will be stronger than any of them. " His confidence was like the blazing sun in the heavens - fierce, unmatched, unanswerable.

Shen Mu drew a long breath; the vital essence within him surged like the River of Heaven, giving off a mighty roar of waves splitting the shore. Venerable Hong arched an eyebrow slightly and said mildly, "Must you batter your head bloody before you will turn back?

" Hummm - Shen Mu's Divine Treasury domain unfurled, spinning madly; a Heavenly Court leapt forth, nineteen Heavenly Palaces shining each upon the other.

Within his Divine Treasury domain, the Sword Dao domain and the Consciousness domain spread out, overlapping with it.

Shen Mu took one step forward.

Venerable Hong could not help but grow angry. That Shen Mu should insist on striking at such close range roused in him the wrath of Heaven.

When Heaven is wroth, corpses lie for ten thousand li and blood floats the oars.

Shen Mu's Primal Embryo Divine Treasury domain spread out, and in that instant Venerable Hong felt the assault of the Consciousness domain - that was Tai Di's Supreme Consciousness Domain, and Shen Mu had learned the better part of it. This domain could suppress an opponent's consciousness, freezing the opponent's thoughts so as to conjure the illusion that time itself had stopped.

Tai Di's Supreme Consciousness Domain could plunge even a Heavenly Venerable into that illusion of frozen time. Though Shen Mu could not refine it to Tai Di's level, the sheer abundance of his consciousness had already reached the level of an Imperial Throne.

At the same moment his sword domain erupted. The Sword Dao domain and the twentieth sword form complemented each other; as the domain spread, a broken sword already lay in his hand, and in a single turn of an eye the broken sword was whole again. This was Kaihuang's Thirty-Three Heavens of the Sword Dao, and in his hands, paired with the sword domain, it broke all that stood before it.

And his Primal Embryo Divine Treasury domain was his true domain.

All the cultivation he possessed had gone into forging the Divine Treasury domain; whether the sword domain or the Supreme Consciousness Domain, both were but parts of the Divine Treasury domain. More than that, within his Divine Treasury domain one could find the deities and sages of the heavens - Lord Heaven Shen Mu, Lord Heaven Tu Bo, Lord Heaven Earth Mother.

In that same instant, every aperture of his flesh erupted with appalling power; the deities and sages of the heavens presided within the hundred apertures of his body, and nearly two thousand brands of ancient gods raised his fleshly body to its utter limit. Within his own domain he was an invincible existence, the sovereign of the cosmos.

Shen Mu struck without hesitation; all the great Daos were unified within his domain, and the nineteen Heavenly Palaces gathered all their power, converging it into this single blow. At that moment, upon the waters of the Jade Pool, the sovereigns of the myriad heavens and worlds sensed the vast power within Shen Mu's body, and turned their gazes this way one and all, their faces showing shock and bewilderment.