Chapter 1538 — The Vast Tribulation Presses Down the Great River

On the river's surface, vast and dim with chaos, the Ten Heavenly Venerables — the Lady of Heaven Qiang among them — had actually felled a Dao Tree apiece and were crossing the river with the trees for boats!

The Dao Trees in Jade Capital City were the Dao Trees of Dao-attainers who had weathered the great tribulation of destruction, yet now the Ten Heavenly Venerables had cut them down and made ferries of them.

Even Shen Mu could not help but admire their imagination and their audacity; yet as the strongest of the present cosmos, each of the Ten Heavenly Venerables had his own bearing and ambition, and often did things others found inconceivable. The Divine Emperor Langxuan, for instance, had seized by force the Dao Fruit of a prehistorical Dao-attainer — a bearing far from ordinary.

That the Ten Heavenly Venerables should do such a thing was only to be expected.

Shen Mu gazed far into the distance and saw Dao Trees appearing and vanishing in the chaotic qi; now and again enormous bones rose slowly from the River of Chaos, striving to drag the Ten Heavenly Venerables, standing on their Dao Trees as they crossed, down into the water.

The Ten Heavenly Venerables each employed their own means and beat back one powerhouse after another. This River of Chaos was far more perilous than Shen Mu had imagined; even the Ten Heavenly Venerables were in dire straits upon it.

It had been two years since the Ten Heavenly Venerables entered Jade Capital City; two years had brought them to this place, and the perils of the road could well be imagined — yet in those two years their cultivation and strength had advanced by leaps and bounds, plainly because they had won immense benefits within Jade Capital City.

Shen Mu had needed only a month or so to reach this place, chiefly because the Ten Heavenly Venerables had scouted the road ahead and cleared away its perils, which was why he could come so swiftly.

And as the forerunners, the Ten Heavenly Venerables had met far more perils here than he. They had given more and reaped more; that their strength should rise was only natural.

Shen Mu pondered a moment, then took out the Taiyi Staff and tossed it up. The staff fell into the river and grew longer and longer, only ceasing to change when it reached some three zhang in length.

Now the staff was like a little boat, its prow tilted up.

He stepped out and landed on the prow of that little boat, and the boat sailed forward.

This little boat was far faster than the Dao Trees beneath the Ten Heavenly Venerables' feet; after all, it was a treasure Taiyi had refined from the World Tree, mightier even than those Dao Trees.

Shen Mu stood at the prow, gazing ahead, and saw in the chaotic qi towering figures, shadowy and indistinct, rising slowly from the river to block the boat.

That shadow questioned him from within the chaotic qi, in the Dao tongue, and the question was most strange.

It asked why Shen Mu blocked its landing on the shore.

Shen Mu laid his hand upon the sword hilt and answered, likewise in the Dao tongue, telling the shadow that this cosmos did not belong to them, and that their coming would make this cosmos collapse and be destroyed in an instant.

Suddenly the shadow surged, and a huge head thrust out of the chaotic qi — a head like a mountain range, parting the chaotic qi and appearing before the little boat!

Shen Mu looked up at that skull, all that remained of the head, irregular beside a human head, its cranium studded with many sharp bone spurs.

Enviably, this being's whole frame was Dao bone, his skeleton as though cast by the Great Dao itself, exceedingly powerful — which was why he had neither died nor perished in the tribulation of destruction! The path he cultivated was plainly another path, somewhat like the path the Divine Emperor Langxuan had spoken of — that of branding the ultimate void with one's own fleshly body!

The Divine Emperor Langxuan had not yet achieved this step, yet this being already had!

The white-bone head opened its great mouth and roared furiously at Shen Mu; by the sense of its words, it was berating him for selfishness — for sitting by while the people of their cosmos died, for refusing to take in refugees such as them.

It claimed the high ground, using the deaths of the multitudes of its cosmos to rebuke Shen Mu and slay his Dao heart.

Words held no power to attack, but joined to the Dao tongue, they truly killed the man by slaying his heart.

Shen Mu drew his sword, and in the instant it left the sheath the blade light severed the neck of that white-bone head, brilliant sword light piercing layer upon layer of chaotic qi!

"Did we invite you here to be our lords? Once you land you will enslave us, make us toil, and live in comfort yourselves, until the cosmos is destroyed — then you will abandon us and run to the next cosmos.

" Shen Mu's gaze was strange; he raised his foot and stamped down hard, driving that withered skeleton sinking into the River of Chaos, while the Dao tongue in his mouth rumbled and shook, pitting Dao tongue against Dao tongue: "You are no different from the Ten Heavenly Venerables — worse, you do more evil!

You are not even the equal of the Ten Heavenly Venerables!

" The skull fell, dropping into the long River of Chaos; at once the headless body swam over, embraced its own skull, and set it back upon its neck.

Shen Mu returned his sword to its sheath, cast a glance at the long River of Chaos, and the little boat sailed on, while the withered skeleton swam in the river, following close behind the boat. Shen Mu raised an eyebrow, and his divine treasury domain spread out.

His palm gripped the sword hilt tightly, gathering force for the strike. In the River of Chaos the white-bone deity swam, its huge shadow appearing beneath the little boat, swimming along with it.

At the same time, huge shadows appeared all around the boat — some were Dao Trees in the chaos, some were souls lodged in fragments of Daluo Heaven.

Shen Mu sneered coldly and drove the Mystic Body Three-Core Art to its utmost.

His palm grew steadier and steadier, the power of the Tribulation Sword in his hand more and more contained; behind him the World Tree towered, rooted in the Ancestral Court, yet at the same time drawing up the chaotic qi of the long River of Chaos below!

Boom— The long River of Chaos burst apart; two great hands thrust out of the water, one to the left and one to the right, seized the two sides of the little boat, and dragged it down into the chaos!

Zheng!

The sword rang out; incomparably brilliant sword light flashed past, and severed fingers flew up one after another.

Shen Mu danced his sword, the tip nodding, holding the hilt reversed as though bowing in salute; the ten fingers burst apart with cracks, turning to chaos!

Behind the little boat the surface of the long River of Chaos exploded, and a huge white-bone body shot up into the sky, heavy Dao tongue issuing from its mouth as though chanting, about to unleash a heaven-shaking divine ability! But in the very instant the white-bone deity opened its mouth, the Tribulation Sword Shen Mu held reversed stabbed backward like lightning, and the blazing sword light plunged into the white-bone deity's mouth!

The back of the white-bone deity's skull burst open; Shen Mu lifted his sword, and the white-bone deity's head was cut in two with a single stroke!

The white bones fell into the water, the long River of Chaos seethed, and a Dao Tree lifted the little boat up to float above the river; baleful winds blew in gusts, and souls lodged in fragments of Daluo Heaven came shrieking out of the river, pouncing upon the little boat!

Dao Fruits too flew up from the river, and as they spun, Dao patterns interwove and Dao chains interlaced, locking the little boat fast!