Chapter 1465 — Do Not Decline My Salute

The expression on Lord Yin's face had not yet frozen stiff; he seemed never to have imagined that these five, joining hands, could be so terrifying — and indeed he had not.

Though Shen Mu claimed he had beaten him so badly he pissed his pants in front of the Heavenly Palace's four Great Heavenly Masters and Heavenly Kings, in truth it was Shen Mu who had been beaten to a pulp; had Shen Mu not forced Bai Yuqiong to intervene, he might well have been finished off by Lord Yin. But that was then, and this was now.

Shen Mu's strength had risen beyond all recognition since those days: he had cultivated to the twenty-sixth heaven of the Dao Realm, his cultivation had reached the Nine Hells Terrace, and in the battle in the Taiji Star Domain of the Ancestral Court he had stood firm against the Empress herself without defeat, and had stormed the God-Slaying Terrace of the Ancestral Court and walked out alive!

With Zaifu and the other four joining hands, his Dao Realm was raised to the thirtieth heaven, the Great Dao imprinting thirty layers of void! Having cultivated to such a stage, Shen Mu was brimming with confidence; he even believed that the five of them together could trade a blow or two with a Heavenly Venerable without being annihilated — which was why he had insisted on going to Xuandu.

Lord Yin possessed only four Heavenly Palaces of his own, and only through the power of the Netherworld Gate did he have eight; facing five such ferocious foes, his head was bound to fall to a single blade.

But Lord Yin's greatest strength was neither his magic power nor his cultivation realm, but his Great Dao of Reincarnation, his divine ability of Reincarnation.

Though he had been split in two by a single blade, and even the little Heavenly Court formed by his eight Heavenly Palaces had been cloven apart, the Netherworld Gate behind him burst forth with a strange power, forcibly closing the riven doorway.

As his corpse passed through the Netherworld Gate, a strange sight unfolded: beneath the gate the Nether Sea suddenly surged up, its waters churning, all of it seawater made of the black sand of souls, dark beyond measure.

The Nether Sea heaved and crashed against the gate, and in the instant Lord Yin's corpse passed through, his form vanished; what flew out from behind the gate was a demigod of Black Tortoise blood — dragon head, turtle shell, human body — standing upon the sea. Long ago, when the Woodcutter Sage and his companions had rescued Di Yiyue, Di Yiyue, Lady Tianyin, Tian Shu, King Yama and a host of other masters had besieged Lord Yin; a hundred battles of bitter toil, and still they could never bring him down.

At the time they had slain Lord Yin several times over and shattered his flesh several times, yet he could always restore himself whole through the Netherworld Gate. To pass through the Netherworld Gate was to be reborn once — not only could he change at will between man and woman, he could even change species!

Such was the working of the Dao of Reincarnation. Shocked and furious, Lord Yin raised his head — and another blade-light came falling from the heavens straight at him!

That blade-light clove apart the Netherworld Gate that had just gathered itself together, and came down upon the crown of his new body. "Mu the Heavenly Venerable, you son of a bitch.

. .

" Before he could finish the words, he was split in two by a single stroke; reborn through the Netherworld Gate's reincarnation, he had not yet found his footing when Shen Mu, Zaifu and the other three cut him down together!

The Netherworld Gate boomed and shook, and sank with the Black Tortoise Lord Yin's corpse into the Nether Sea.

The Nether Sea vanished in an instant, then reappeared behind the great army of the Northern Heaven Netherworld Capital; the Netherworld Gate rose slowly once more, and Lord Yin was reborn from behind its doorway.

The little boat careened wildly, plunging into the army of the Northern Heaven Netherworld Capital, smashing through tower ship after tower ship, making straight for the Netherworld Gate.

"The Annals Shine on a Loyal Heart!

" Aboard the boat, Shen Mu and the other four roared, and together they drove the thirtieth heaven of the blade Dao.

When that blade fell, what flew out seemed not blade-light but countless splendid essays, passage after passage of stirring prose written with dragon-and-serpent strokes; the Dao-sound bursting from the blade Dao was not so holy, so solemn, so profound and mysterious as the innate Great Dao.

The Dao-sound bursting from the Dao of the Blade was like a scroll of human history unrolling, and one glorious, towering figure after another rose from that painted scroll of annals, mighty and vigorous.

They blazed with ten thousand rays of light: some took up the brush as a blade, rebuking the injustice of the Dao of Heaven, calling rulers to account for their incompetence, indicting the gods for their faults.

Some acted with their own bodies: when a mountain blocked the road they moved the mountain; when the floods came they cut canals; when a great river barred the way they built bridges and crossed; when the gods sent down calamity they slew the gods! The annals shine on a loyal heart; bearing the weight, grinding ever onward. Scarcely had the Nether Sea, the Netherworld Gate and Lord Yin appeared than the scroll of annals unrolled; the blade-light slew gods and slew hearts, evaporating great swaths of the Nether Sea and smashing the Netherworld Gate to powder.

Lord Yin let out a shrill, wretched scream and vanished without a trace along with the last of the Nether Sea.

By now the little boat was racing, bursting through the Northern Heaven Netherworld Capital's camp and emerging behind it; at the bow the five of them each gripped their hilts and looked about, just in time to see the last wisp of the Nether Sea fade.

"Turn around — he's behind us!

" Shen Mu stamped his foot hard, and the whole swift boat slid sideways across the surface of the Heavenly River; they had passed clean through the Northern Heaven Netherworld Capital's camp, and now the Netherworld gods and demons in that camp were all turning around, while the Nether Sea had already come up behind the Netherworld army.

That battered, ruined Netherworld Gate rose up from the Nether Sea once more, and this time Lord Yin's reincarnation took the form of a woman in a great crimson robe, her loose hair falling to her shoulders, her figure floating before the Netherworld Gate. In a harsh voice she cried: "Shen Mu, Tian Shu, Zhe Huali, Luo Wushuang, Dao Liuzhao — receive my bow!

" The woman Lord Yin bowed low, and Zaifu and the others were about to drive the blade Dao divine ability once more when Shen Mu's expression changed drastically; his cloak flared out to shield the four, and with both hands clasped before him he pushed forward and bowed low as well!

"Yin Zhaojin, receive a bow from me as well!

" BOOM — Behind him appeared a Heaven-and-Earth Mystic Gate, upholding heaven and grounding earth, reaching up to the Xuandu of the Dao of Heaven and down to Youdu — the second heaven of his Dao-entering divine ability!

In the very instant Shen Mu bowed, the twenty-sixth heaven of the divine ability entering the Dao — One Qi Primordial Dao, Roaming Together — was bowed out as well! Across the tens of thousands of gods and demons of the Northern Heaven Netherworld Capital, the two bowed to each other.

At Lord Yin's bow, before her, aboard tower ship after tower ship and within one gorgeous, perilous grand formation after another, god after demon suddenly had their primal spirits split four ways, their souls disintegrating, turning into the black sand of souls. Rolling black sand spewed from their eyes, ears, mouths and noses; souls lodged at the lower abdomen, shattered by the bow, burst out from their nether parts — smoke pouring from all nine orifices.