Chapter 1457 — Venerable Deep Pit Leaves Nothing to Chance

Beside the God-Slaying Platform in the Ancestral Court, Shen Mu watched the two blood-fury God-Slaying Sabers shear past above his head, and the peach-wood hairpin in his hand had still not loosed the Unchanging Divine Art. Consort Qiang appeared upon the God-Slaying Platform, her face ashen, two strands of bloody baleful aura coiling about her.

Consort Qiang raised her slender jade hand, and the two blood-fury God-Slaying Sabers, rough with dragon scales, slid slowly across her palm.

Shen Mu looked at her with a smile. "Your Highness.

.

.

" "Shut up! " Consort Qiang said viciously.

"One more word, and I will grind your bones to powder and scatter the ashes, send your primal spirit into the ultimate void, and leave you trapped forever in the Daluo Heaven of Divine Consciousness!

" Shen Mu hastily shut his mouth. Consort Qiang was one of the few Heavenly Venerables who could handle him; she was, after all, the Great Emperor, and her Daluo Heaven of Divine Consciousness stood alone under heaven. Even Venerable Yun's primal spirit had been cast into the Daluo Heaven of Divine Consciousness, to say nothing of Shen Mu.

Even if Shen Mu could use the Unchanging Divine Art to drag her down in mutual ruin, all he would destroy was Consort Qiang; he could not touch the Great Emperor's origin. Consort Qiang stared at the two blood-fury God-Slaying Sabers, the corners of her eyes twitching wildly, and Shen Mu's eyes twitched wildly too, his heart muttering uneasily.

After a moment, Consort Qiang let out a breath of turbid air and murmured, "How am I. .

. how are We to deal with you, Venerable Mu? Out of kindness I lent you the God-Slaying Platform, and you, insatiable, nearly destroyed my supreme treasure!

" Shen Mu said hastily, "Fellow Daoist, you meant no good either. You meant to use this God-Slaying Platform to do away with me, and fearing only that you would be implicated, you never came. Had I died here, you would have pleaded ignorance.

.

. " Consort Qiang glared at him viciously, and Shen Mu shut his mouth. Consort Qiang's breast heaved violently, and after another moment she said something that made Shen Mu's blood run cold: "You and the other four absorbed so much baleful aura from the God-Slaying Platform. How many more must I kill, how many more wars must I make, before I can raise these two sabers to their peak?

" Shen Mu shivered several times.

"From the age of antiquity to this day, the Creators have warred without cease; how many millions of battles, great and small? Especially the war that destroyed the Creators, which wiped out the Creators in the Ancestral Court. The baleful aura from those wars was absorbed by the God-Slaying Platform, and only thus were these two divine sabers nurtured. " Consort Qiang's gaze swept over him, cold and sinister beyond measure.

She said lightly, "Venerable Mu, tell me: how many wars must I stir up before they can be forged? " Shen Mu's eyes flickered.

"The campaign against the Lord of Heaven is at hand. If Your Highness wishes to forge the God-Slaying Mystic Sabers, do not miss this chance.

" Consort Qiang gave a snort, released the two divine sabers, and stood upon the platform with her hands behind her back. "The battle of Xuandu is the battle in which the Lord of Heaven falls. The Lord of Heaven is the Ancestral God King's quarry; the Ancestral God King will do away with him, absorb his power, and become the new Lord of Heaven. If I go, would I not make an enemy of the Ancestral God King?

" Shen Mu looked up at the Consort upon the God-Slaying Platform and ventured, "The Ancestral God King alone cannot yet overcome the Lord of Heaven. And if the Ancestral God King absorbs the Lord of Heaven's power, his cultivation and strength will likely leap by bounds, and he may in one stroke become a being at the full perfection of the Heavenly Court realm. By then, will the Ancestral God King still tolerate other Heavenly Venerables? Whence comes baleful aura? From slaughter. And the place in all the world heaviest with baleful aura is where the Heavenly Palace fell! Even the Heavenly Dao must stir up baleful aura for the Lord of Heaven! " Consort Qiang raised an eyebrow.

"Go on.

" Shen Mu's spirit lifted, and he said gravely, "When the Heavenly Dao stirs baleful aura, it will surely be violent beyond measure. If Your Highness brings the God-Slaying Platform and the two divine sabers, forges them into peerless supreme treasures, and overawes the host of heroes, then advancing you may take the Lord of Heaven's cultivation, and retreating you may preserve yourself. Why not? " Consort Qiang pondered.

Shen Mu's words had indeed moved her.

The battle in which the Lord of Heaven falls would surely be heavy with baleful aura, not a whit inferior to the baleful aura of the Blood-Rust War that destroyed the Creators in years past.

If she wished to restore these two God-Slaying Sabers to their peak, and even to shape them into a perfect state with form and substance, she must go to Xuandu! Her ambition went further still.

She even thought of seizing the moment of the Lord of Heaven's death to drive the two divine sabers into his body and rob him of all his qi and blood! By then the two divine sabers would surely reach perfection, transform into supreme treasures, surpassing what they had been by I know not how many times!

But.

. .

"Venerable Mu, you little wretch, would you give me counsel? " Consort Qiang said with a smile.

"When others give counsel, they dig a pit; when you give counsel, you dig a chasm!

And not one chasm, but a whole string of them!

Fall into your pit, and even if you do not die, you will lose several layers of skin! " She knew this from experience. After the Great Emperor escaped his bonds, he sought out Shen Mu, and fell into the chasm Shen Mu had dug.

Shen Mu promised him Taichu primordial stones to intercept Venerable Hao, and in that battle nearly the Great Emperor's very fleshly body was crippled!

Later, Shen Mu gave him only three-quarters of the Taichu primordial stones. And later still, in the Ancestral Court, Shen Mu gave the Great Emperor counsel again, telling him to use the Void Mother-Beast to lure the Divine Emperor Langxuan into striking, and to ambush Langxuan. As a result, Langxuan was indeed ambushed by him, but the Great Emperor was beaten by four Heavenly Venerables until only his head remained.

The Great Emperor's head went to Shen Mu to take revenge, and Shen Mu forged it into a great seal with the Great Seal of the Four Mines.

Even then, Shen Mu was still giving the Great Emperor counsel, with the look of a warm-hearted man. When Consort Qiang recalled these things, her teeth itched with hatred.

Yet even she had to admit that the counsel Shen Mu gave always looked like good counsel, but in the execution it would always go wrong in a hundred different ways, turning into a foul scheme that was one chasm after another.

Shen Mu protested his innocence: "Your Highness, what was wrong with the counsel I just gave? I was thinking wholly for Your Highness, from Your Highness's standpoint, with no selfishness at all! " Though she was most unwilling to admit it, Consort Qiang had to say that every counsel Shen Mu gave, though foul, was indeed always given from her standpoint, wholly for her sake, with seemingly not a shred of selfishness.

And it was precisely for this reason that she had fallen headlong three times in a row, and nearly could not climb out of the pit. Shen Mu looked at her eagerly, his gaze full of expectation: "Your Highness, imagine you have forged the two supreme treasures and seized all the Lord of Heaven's qi and blood. Among the Ten Heavenly Venerables, who would dare stand against you? Who would dare kick out at you or wrestle arms with you?

What Venerable Xiao, what Kaihuang, are not fit to carry Your Highness's shoes! Venerable Hao could only be Your Highness's dog! " "Enough, enough!