Chapter 1438 — Pummeling the Empress

Faced with the sky-filling flood of chaotic qi rolling down upon her, the Empress hastily drew back, yet Shen Mu's One-Qi Primordial Dao Roam divine art was blindingly swift and was upon her in a breath! She fell back again, and behind her a standing abyss suddenly split open.

She slipped into the abyss, the abyss closed, and her form vanished in an instant. In the next moment the might of the One-Qi Primordial crushed forward, grinding and rolling over the Guixu Great Abyss hidden deep in space.

Lurking within her Guixu art, the Empress was caught off guard and watched in horror as Shen Mu's single blow actually shattered Guixu and surged toward her. "Since there is no dodging it, then I will meet it head on! I refuse to believe your God-Slaying Platform cultivation can stand against my ancient god mana!

" The Empress raised her hand to block force with force, her whole body's mana erupting utterly.

At the first collision she felt her own mana and her own Great Dao begin to be assimilated the moment they met that divine art, turning into the Dao of Taichu and swelling the blow's power! Startled at heart, she quickly withdrew her palm and plucked a hairpin from her coiffure. That hairpin was forged of Guixu Abyss Iron.

She poured mana into it and sent it flying from her hand! Hiss!

The hairpin rode the wind and split the waves, cleaving Shen Mu's blow apart and driving straight for Shen Mu himself.

Its speed was extreme, yet even the Abyss Iron was ground away without pause within his blow, dissolving into chaotic qi.

By the time it reached Shen Mu the Abyss Iron had been worn down to a mere iron needle, which flashed through his brow and pierced into his brain. Boom! A great crash rang out as that needle exploded inside Shen Mu's head, becoming a Guixu Great Abyss that in an instant swallowed and refined his skull.

Shen Mu's headless body swayed but did not fall.

Then his neck shook and three heads grew out, while four more arms drilled from beneath his shoulders: three heads and six arms. Just then the power of the One-Qi Primordial Dao Roam was spent, and the Empress walked out from the chaotic qi, her robes in tatters, her white skin exposed and her lovely body half hidden, half revealed.

Her face was dark with rage and murderous intent as she strode toward Shen Mu and sneered, "Mu Heavenly Venerable, that great divine art must have exhausted your cultivation? How much mana do you have left?

" Divine light shot heavenward from Shen Mu's crown and became a vast Heavenly Court, and his three heads laughed as one, "I have mana to spare. My lady, behold!

" The Empress's pupils shrank. She saw that within the palaces of the Heavenly Court, Shen Mu's primordial spirits were actually leaving the God-Slaying Platform, each stepping forth to cross into the next realm.

What she could not fathom was how Shen Mu could in so short a time cross the Jade Pool to enter the realm of the God-Slaying Platform, and how he could then directly cross the realm of the God-Slaying Platform to enter the next realm! What baffled her still more was that Shen Mu's next realm was not the Yujing realm at all.

By rights the realm after the God-Slaying Platform for a god should be Yujing City, yet between the God-Slaying Platform and Yujing City his Heavenly Palaces held an enormous Heavenly Prison! In the Heavenly Court the Heavenly Prison is where grave criminals are locked, a place overgrown with thorns from which none who enter can escape.

It holds the most evil death-row prisoners, for whom beheading upon the God-Slaying Platform would be mercy, so they are shut in the Heavenly Prison to endure endless suffering and torment. Within the palace system the Heavenly Prison does not count as a realm at all.

A god's primordial spirit coming here gains not the least increase in cultivation or strength. Since the Longhan era, after the palace system was spread abroad, countless gods and men have tested the Heavenly Prison, and it has shown no use whatever. Yet with Shen Mu, the moment his primordial spirits stepped into the Heavenly Prison, his cultivation and strength began to grow madly!

Plainly the Heavenly Prison had been opened by him into a realm. What she found harder still to grasp was that although Shen Mu possessed nineteen Heavenly Palaces, even if the Heavenly Prison realm were equal to the former Yujing realm, he remained an immeasurably distant span from her. Whether primordial spirit, flesh, or mana, he was far inferior, beyond what any chasm could describe.

And yet Shen Mu's flesh, primordial spirit, and mana were inferior to hers by little. She truly could not understand whence his power came. Still, she could make out some clue upon him.

Other adepts and gods cultivate the seven great divine treasures.

Even the adepts and gods of Jingping cultivate seven divine treasures, only exchanging the Divine Bridge treasure for the more rational Heavenly River treasure that better fits the Great Dao of the universe.

On Shen Mu's body, however, those treasures were nowhere to be found. Though his divine treasure bore the name of the Yuantai divine treasure, it was utterly unlike the Yuantai treasure of other adepts and gods. Shen Mu had only a single divine treasure, and within that treasure there were Xuandu, Youdu, Yuandu, the Four Polar Heavens, the ancient gods of the heavens, vast constellations and brilliant star rivers: the layout of a great universe.

There was even the Guixu Great Abyss!

Most crucial was the Ancestral Court. At the center of his Yuantai divine treasure stood an Ancestral Court. More terrible still, his Ancestral Court actually had a reverse face!

His foundation compared with that of other adepts and gods was heaven against earth!

All the treasures of others put together and set within his Yuantai treasure would be but a drop in the ocean, for Shen Mu's Heavenly Palaces themselves were built upon the Ancestral Court, occupying only a small corner of it.

"Mu Heavenly Venerable is one of our own kind. He has kept his secrets and never spread his own cultivation system through Jingping.

" The Empress gave a cold laugh and thought, "With your mouth you paint yourself so bright and noble, but in truth you are also a self-seeker, only a more refined one.

A hypocrite!

" Yet she did not know that it was not that Shen Mu would not spread his cultivation system.

His system succeeded only because, after digging out his soul and eyes and giving them to Shen Fengqing, he used the Yingjie Sword to forcibly destroy his own Heavenly Palaces and divine treasures into chaos!

Facing peril in which even undying divine consciousness would be utterly destroyed, he seized the chance to open chaos and re-evolve the Yuantai divine treasure, and thereby his soul was reborn. His soul and spirit embryo were as an ancient god within his own body.

To reach his step required immense fortune.

Others could not imitate it. To force his cultivation system meant only death as the one outcome, with absolutely no hope of success.

Opposite to his perilous path is the road Lan Yutian now walks, steadier and easier to travel. So long as Lan Yutian opens his road and spreads it abroad, others need not walk Shen Mu's dangerous road and may still cultivate the Ancestral Court. Though that cultivation road is not as mighty as Shen Mu's, it is still extraordinary.

If one could cultivate it to the utter peak, one would surpass the present Heavenly Venerables. The sole trouble is that it demands extremely high comprehension, and few will be able to cultivate it to the peak.

Shen Mu's cultivation realm rose to the level of the Nine-Prison Platform, and his cultivation swelled anew, leaving the Empress feeling sorely thorned.

Suddenly she relaxed. For at that moment she sensed the breath of Guixu.