Chapter 1417 — The Banners Change Atop the City Wall

On the second tier of the Heavenly Court, the Dao Ancestor and the Great Brahma Heaven King Buddha each rose to their feet, yet Heavenly Venerable Hao, Heavenly Consort Qiang, and the rest remained seated, unmoving; only Heavenly Venerable Hong knitted his brows slightly, flicked a glance at Kaihuang, and then looked at Shen Mu.

In the seat of honor Shen Mu sat as steady as a mountain and said with a cold laugh, "Shen Ye, in those years you took the alias Shen Kai and roamed Longhan with me; you and I were favored by His Majesty the Heavenly Emperor and enfeoffed as Heavenly Venerables, and together with the seven Heavenly Venerables who founded the seven realms of the Divine Treasury, we were known as the Nine Heavenly Venerables of Longhan. At the grand gathering of the Jade Pool, I received from Heavenly Venerable Yu the transmission of the god-making art; I thrashed Heavenly Venerable Huo, blew Heavenly Venerable Hao apart, established my Dao through divine ability, founded the Heaven Alliance, and laid down the great design by which postnatal beings and demigods should overcome the innate ancient gods!"

He rose to his feet and swept his sleeve; the sleeve struck the air and burst into a roar like towering seas, and he said coldly, "I am honored as leader of the Heaven Alliance, and the honor is my due. What virtue, what ability have you to stand ranked with me? Where is your cultivation? Where is your virtue? With neither Dao nor virtue, with what face do you rank beside me and share the title of Heavenly Venerable? You are a watered-down Heavenly Venerable, no more; only because you fought me to a standstill, by chance and coincidence, were you enfeoffed as Heavenly Venerable Shen!"

The moment those words left his mouth, several Heavenly Venerables present could no longer sit still.

Shen Mu was cursing Kaihuang Shen Ye to his face, but in truth he was lashing every one of them.

Shen Mu had transmitted the god-making art, letting common mortals attain longevity — lifespans as long as heaven and earth, the equal of the ancient gods.

In an age when the way of divine ability was still newly founded, he had established his Dao through divine ability; with insight a million years ahead of his time, he let the world behold the might and the myriad transformations of divine ability, let the people see that the weak could master divine ability and overcome beings throned high above them.

And he had founded the Heaven Alliance, setting the shape of the world for the next million years.

That he was called Heavenly Venerable Mu was no more than his due.

Yet beside him, the Ten Heavenly Venerables of the present day all seemed to pale and lose their luster. Especially those seven — Heavenly Venerable Xu, the Ancestral God King, Langxuan, Gong, Qiang, Hong, and Yan — not one of them possessed a single achievement worth showing.

In contribution, only Heavenly Venerable Hao could be named alongside Shen Mu; but the Heaven Alliance had not been founded by Heavenly Venerable Hao — it was only in Shen Mu's absence that Hao had stolen the Alliance's authority and made himself its head.

Yet even Heavenly Venerable Hao and Heavenly Venerable Huo looked deeply ill at ease now; both had indeed been savagely beaten by Shen Mu, and Heavenly Venerable Hao in particular had lain abed on a sickbed for a thousand years.

As for Kaihuang Shen Ye, he too was left somewhat uncomfortable by the words.

In the early years of Longhan, when he had been enfeoffed as a Heavenly Venerable together with Shen Mu, there had indeed been a great deal of water in it; there was the distinct suspicion that the Heavenly Emperor had granted him the title of Heavenly Venerable Shen as a favor to Shen Mu's face.

One might say he had crept into the ranks of the Nine Heavenly Venerables of Longhan.

"Heavenly Venerable Mu, I too am one of the five founding elders of the Heaven Alliance."

Kaihuang halted his steps and said with a cold laugh, "Quite apart from anything else, being one of the founding five elders is enough to seat me among the Heavenly Venerables. But I am more than that. I founded the Dao Realm, making up for the deficiencies of the Heavenly Palace realms — establishing the Dao in the postnatal! The Dao Realm I founded, joined to the Heavenly Palace realms, lets the thirty-six heavens of the Great Dao be imprinted upon the ultimate void: so long as the universe endures, I endure!"

His palm pressed the sword hilt; he drew the blade with a fierce wrench of his arm, sword-light brimming to the heavens.

Shhhk —

The radiance of the Carefree Sword filled the Heavenly Court. Before the Southern Heavenly Gate there rose thirty-five heavens, from the Taihuang Pingtian Sword and the Taiming Qitian Sword to the Sword Domain of the Shangqing Realm and on to the Sword Domain of the Yuqing Realm, laid bare before every god and sage in attendance!

Thirty-five heavens of sword domain — the sword way, and nothing but the sword way — yet it displayed a might in no way inferior to the thirty-five layers of the Heavenly Palace. From the lowest heaven upward the aura of the sword way grew ever denser, until at the Yuqing Realm domain the sword way had almost turned to substance, so that all who cultivated sword arts, sword techniques, or the sword way felt themselves gazing up at a peak too high to climb, seized with the urge to bow down in worship!

The instant those thirty-five heavens of the Dao Realm appeared, the divine weapons of everyone present began to ring of their own accord, clinking and chiming and giving off wave upon wave of divine might, as though those weapons trembled before the summit of the sword way, shuddered, and bowed down to the sword domain!

This was a phenomenon such as even the Ten Heavenly Venerables had never produced!

Behind Kaihuang, the thirty-five heavens of the Dao Realm blazed brighter and brighter, ever more soul-shaking; his words were swords, aimed at the heart of the Dao — at the heart of the Dao of every god and sage!

Even the Heavenly Venerables could feel a keen blade leveled straight at the weak point in their hearts of Dao.

Kaihuang said calmly, "The Dao Realm I founded is not the same as what the so-called Ten Heavenly Venerables possess. My Dao Realm is not merely the founding of a new method of cultivation, making up the deficiency of the Heavenly Palace's cultivation system; it is likewise a road by which the postnatal overcomes the innate!"

"Such shameless boasting!"

The nine Heavenly Venerables frowned, and before any of them could speak, Shen Mu had already slapped the armrest of his throne and shouted sternly, "Heavenly Venerable Shen, you boast too wildly! To dare claim that you have made up the deficiencies of the Heavenly Palace's cultivation system — it is nothing but you blowing your own trumpet and gilding your own face! And as for postnatal overcoming innate, that is a boast without bound or limit, contemptible beyond words!"

Kaihuang laughed heartily, leveled his sword at Shen Mu, and spoke with words that shook the heart, vast and magnificent: "Heavenly Venerable Mu, the people of this world cultivate only innate methods; they do not cultivate postnatal divine abilities or the postnatal Great Dao. It is simply that they have not seen the principle that the postnatal overcomes the innate! Once my sword way is complete, I can imprint the sword way upon the Great Luo Heaven, upon the ultimate void: so long as the universe endures, I endure! By this path alone, may I not sit among the Heavenly Venerables?"