Chapter 1455 — Dancing Butterflies, Charmed by Fragrance; the Fragrance Speaks Not

The blood-hued baleful aura of the God-Slaying Platform was refined by Shen Mu, Zaifu, and the other three, and stored within their bodies; their cultivation and strength waxed ever greater, and their comprehension of the realm that was the God-Slaying Platform grew ever deeper.

Their attainments in the Saber Dao rose with the tide as well.

The Dao the God-Slaying Platform contained was not the Saber Dao but the Dao of Baleful Aura within the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth, and it held besides a tempering of the Dao heart.

To refine the baleful aura and wrest away the might of the Blood-Bale God-Slaying Sabers could only raise their cultivation and deepen their insight into the Dao of Baleful Aura; it could not raise their attainments in the Saber Dao.

That they had advanced so mightily in the Saber Dao was in truth owing to the advancement of their Dao hearts, and to the saber arts and saber Dao they had comprehended for themselves in the course of contending against the baleful god-sabers.

Among the five, every one but Shen Mu was wanting in the tempering of the Dao heart; in ordinary times they could never have entered the God-Slaying Platform — the trial of the Dao heart alone was more than they could endure, and they could not have withstood the Platform's slaying. But Shen Mu's Dao heart was overbearing enough; in Surging River Enlightenment the essence, qi, and spirit of the five were refined into one, and with the Saber Dao they branded the twenty-fifth layer of the void — and it was under the lead of Shen Mu's Dao heart that the Dao hearts of Zaifu, Zhe Huali, and the rest were forcibly raised up.

That Zaifu and the others could stand upon the God-Slaying Platform was likewise owed to Surging River Enlightenment and to branding the Saber Dao into the twenty-fifth heaven. Had Shen Mu stood there alone, he too could not have gained a foothold; the might of the two Blood-Bale God-Slaying Sabers was simply too great.

His Dao heart might bear it, but his fleshly body and primordial spirit could not be kept whole, and his Great Dao would be severed as well.

Standing alone upon the platform, he would only be slain again and again, and could comprehend nothing. His Dao heart was strong, but his attainments in the Saber Dao were still somewhat weak; in Surging River Enlightenment, that he could brand the Saber Dao into the twenty-fifth heaven rested upon the joined strength of the other four ancestors of the Saber Dao, not his own merit alone.

Only with the five joining hands could they reach such a height, and only so did they have the wherewithal to contend with the God-Slaying Platform.

And now, that their Saber Dao was branded into the twenty-seventh layer of the void was likewise owed to the five joining hands, borrowing the Platform's might and gathering the wisdom of all five to lift the Dao of the Saber to the height of the twenty-seventh heaven. They needed the five of them joined to summon forth the power of the Saber Dao's twenty-seventh heaven.

Five cobblers together still could not match one Kaihuang.

Kaihuang, by his own strength alone, had deduced the Sword Dao to the thirty-fifth heaven and branded it into the thirty-fifth layer of the void, far beyond them in might.

Yet their Saber Dao was still advancing, on the verge of breaking through to the twenty-eighth heaven, to brand the Saber Dao into the twenty-eighth layer of the void.

Only, the further they pressed, the harder it became; to rise to the twenty-eighth heaven would not be easy.

The might of the two Blood-Bale God-Slaying Sabers on the Platform was still exceedingly overbearing, and the threat they posed still immense; Zaifu and the others still had to spend every ounce of their strength to withstand the two god-sabers, and even so they were wounded without cease.

Happily, the divine-treasury domain of Shen Mu held the Immutable Divine Ability, which could always restore them to the peak of their powers before the God-Slaying Platform could wrest away all their blood and qi.

And in the divine city far away, the alchemist tended Fang Ziyan's body with care, drawing the baleful aura out of her, and took her to one treasured place after another in the Ancestral Court to gather medicinal ingredients, meaning to refine spirit pills and wondrous medicines to cure her eye affliction.

With this handsome alchemist at her side, Fang Ziyan felt the days fly like an arrow; and when they returned with the herbs gathered, she saw that beside the Great Spirit-Energy Relocation Bridge were gathered Rain Masters, Water Gods, River Gods, and Dragon Kings from all the heavens, thousands upon thousands of deities working great waters to cool the Great Spirit-Energy Relocation Bridge. In these days the Daoist sects of the Heavenly Court had again shifted the bearings of the tower ships and great vessels that dragged the Heavenly Court along, and the Heavenly Court had migrated once more, its speed vastly increased.

One thought it would not be long before the Heavenly Court migrated wholly into the Ancestral Court; the Heavenly River would then change course again, restoring the grandeur of the Ancestral Court of the primeval age.

When the alchemist had finished refining the spirit pill and applied the medicine to Fang Ziyan, he said softly, "My lady need only rest a day or two and she will be wholly healed. This one has been away from Jingping for some while now, and must be going back.

" Fang Ziyan, loath to part with him, took his hand and said, "Though the court has conferred on me the title of lady, my late husband passed away long ago. If you, sir, would not disdain me—" Without any change in his countenance, the alchemist drew his hand free and said, "My lady, in my early years I incurred too many debts of romance; now I wish only to practice medicine wherever I wander, to make good the debts of those years.

My lady is kind, but I can hardly receive it.

" Fang Ziyan was left forlorn and bereft, and let him go far away.

Two days more passed, and the Dao wounds in Fang Ziyan's eyes had vanished utterly; she opened her eyes and looked about her in listless spirit, feeling that all the splendid rivers and mountains of the Ancestral Court had lost their color.

Then her gaze fell suddenly upon the God-Slaying Platform, and her fair face changed color: the baleful aura of that platform was now far less potent than before, its scale shrunk by nearly half!

"Wretched!

Willing was I, and heartless was he — I gave myself up to flowers and moonlight with that alchemist, and forgot the true business!

" Cold sweat sprang out upon her brow.

Far away she saw that the Saber Dao upon the God-Slaying Platform was like the vault of heaven, branded into the thirtieth layer of the void, clamped down layer upon layer, holding the two Blood-Bale God-Sabers fast within and striving to capture and refine them!

And though those two god-sabers could yet break open the Saber Dao's thirtieth heaven, they no longer possessed their former fearsome might, and could no longer threaten the five upon the platform.

The Saber Dao's thirtieth heaven was peerless in power; the five of them standing upon the platform, whenever they joined forces to execute the Combined Battle Art, unleashed a might that flooded the heavens, beating those two god-sabers so that they could not run wild. "If they are left to go on, I fear they will devour and refine those two god-sabers, and turn them into saber qi within their own bodies!

" Fang Ziyan rose straightaway on the wind and sped to the Great Spirit-Energy Relocation Bridge.

And upon the God-Slaying Platform, Shen Mu had already grasped the Great Dao contained in it thoroughly, and was remaking a God-Slaying Platform of his own.