Chapter 1544 — A Wound That Will Never Heal

Shen Mu, too, was afraid of falling out with her completely. The two of them were now aboard the same little boat, and that boat was far too small to maneuver in; if Qiang Tianfei made up her mind to drag him into the water with her, he could not avoid it — he would surely end up in the river.

And when that happened, no one could save him!

"Your Majesty's reproof is just; I was rash.

" Shen Mu admitted his fault with complete readiness, sincerity in every word: "At a time of such peril, you and I must make common cause and stand together against the nine great Heavenly Venerables. As for what comes later, we shall speak of it later!

" He thrust out his sword to meet the divine senses of the three great Heavenly Venerables, sword light flashing, cutting off the divine-sense assaults of Dawn Heavenly Venerable, Langxuan Divine Emperor, and Palace Heavenly Venerable!

Divine sense is hard to sever, but his swordsmanship was exquisitely subtle; wherever his sword light passed, chaos was split open, and layer upon layer of lotus-shaped void emerged, rupturing the divine senses of the three great Heavenly Venerables so that they could no longer link with the divine sense already invading Qiang Tianfei's mind. Blossom after blossom of sword light unfurled in the void, petals spiraling outward from the buds, tier upon tier, so that the divine senses of the three great Heavenly Venerables could only dance around those petals, unable for the moment to break through his sword light.

This was the manifestation in the sword Dao of that great entry-into-the-Dao divine art, Taisu Suddenly Splits the Chaos Bud! Qiang Tianfei seized the moment and at once used her Great Luo Heaven of divine sense to grind away and refine the divine senses of the three great Heavenly Venerables; at the same time, Shen Mu stamped his foot, and the little boat shot away.

By the time the three great Heavenly Venerables broke free of the void his sword light had conjured, the little boat was no longer where it had been.

Their divine senses swept in all directions, caught the ripples the boat left upon the river's surface, and came in close pursuit.

"Mu Tianzun, that wretch — when it comes to apologies he is incomparably brisk, and he owns his faults with such alacrity that it is hard to summon any hatred for him.

" Having escaped her predicament, Qiang Tianfei could not help but sigh inwardly: "That scoundrel must have practiced it many times over.

If apologizing were a way into the Dao, he would be on the verge of attaining the Dao by now!

" The little boat raced on, and suddenly firelight surged.

Qiang Tianfei's heart skipped; she saw the blazing firelight twist the chaos qi on the river's surface, curling it into a vast oval wheel.

Fire Heavenly Venerable's figure appeared to the right of the boat, standing atop a Dao tree within that wheel of flame. As the three of them came face to face, astonishment showed on the faces of both Fire Heavenly Venerable and Qiang Tianfei.

Only Shen Mu's expression was unchanged; the Tribulation Sword in his hand roared from its sheath, and he charged at Fire Heavenly Venerable.

"So that is it — Mu Tianzun's eyes can surely see through chaos and discern that Fire Heavenly Venerable is here.

" Qiang Tianfei immediately guessed that Shen Mu could see through chaos and had deliberately steered the boat near Fire Heavenly Venerable. Fire Heavenly Venerable and Mu Tianzun had never gotten along; the two were as incompatible as fire and water.

Whenever Fire Heavenly Venerable had the chance, he tried to do away with Shen Mu, and now Shen Mu's chance to strike back had come.

"This fellow is rotten through and through; he means to borrow my strength and wipe out Fire Heavenly Venerable in one stroke!

" Yet for Qiang Tianfei, this was also a rare chance to grievously wound Fire Heavenly Venerable!

Opportunity is fleeting, and those who would accomplish great things must seize every fleeting opportunity!

At the very moment Shen Mu's sword struck, her divine sense erupted and hurtled toward Fire Heavenly Venerable!

Her divine sense set out later yet arrived first, crashing into Fire Heavenly Venerable's brow before Shen Mu's sword light could reach him! Fire Heavenly Venerable's reactions were nothing if not swift: the rings of flame around him at once spun forward, and within those flame wheels one heaven after another revolved and bloomed, briefly checking Qiang Tianfei's divine sense and delaying its assault upon his brain.

His rings of flame collapsed one after another beneath the impact of her divine sense.

At the same time, Fire Heavenly Venerable retreated, new flame wheels spinning and swelling behind his head and pouring with a roar past his body toward the front.

But Shen Mu's sword light passed straight through Qiang Tianfei's divine sense, its incomparably keen radiance piercing ring after ring of flame!

Fire Heavenly Venerable gave a cold snort. His cultivation in Dao fire had already reached the twenty-fourth heaven of the Dao realm; nothing escaped its transformation, nothing escaped its burning.

Even without the Ancestral Ground of Dao Fire, he was still the supreme master of Dao fire!

Even if Shen Mu had obtained a Dao-achiever's Dao-soldier, he remained confident he could melt it down! Shen Mu's Tribulation Sword pierced through twenty heavens of flame wheels in a single instant, the divine sword burned red by the Dao fire; the next moment it ran through the Dao fire of the twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third Dao wheels in succession.

Astonishment showed on Fire Heavenly Venerable's face, and when the tip of that divine sword, burned until it burst with dazzling light, passed through the twenty-fourth flame wheel and came to his brow, the astonishment had still not left his face. "A Dao-soldier can actually withstand my World-Burning Sacred Fire?

" He raised his palm and pinched the sword tip between two fingers, trying to snap the divine sword in two.

But when he wrenched at it with all his strength, he found the sword's hardness beyond all imagining; burned to such a degree, it showed not the slightest inclination to soften!

Under fierce fire and searing heat, any divine weapon, even if it did not melt, would be burned soft — yet Shen Mu's sword showed no sign of softening at all.

He did not know that this sword was no Dao-achiever's Dao-soldier, but had been forged by Shen Mu from the supreme treasures of prehistoric Heavenly Venerable-level beings, melted down and refined.

And the great furnace that had smelted this sword was none other than the Ancestral Ground of Dao Fire!

This sword had been forged in the ninth heaven of the Ancestral Ground of Dao Fire, and forged so thoroughly that in the end even the Ancestral Ground of Dao Fire could not melt it, could not soften it!

Shen Mu twisted his blade, and two fingers of Fire Heavenly Venerable's right hand flew off, crumbling to powder in the hissing sword light.

Fire Heavenly Venerable reeled from the pain as the sword tip moved again; the yin and yang qi coiled like dragons, and the sword light merged with them, tracing a great circle around him!

Fire Heavenly Venerable's heart lurched.

Within that great circle countless streams of sword light came cascading down, ringing and clanging as they gathered from the outer rim toward the center, soon covering more than half the circle — and still spreading inward toward him at its heart! More than that, a strange transformation took place within this taiji diagram still in the making: the sword light itself divided into the two paths of yin and yang, a sphere of pure white sword light appearing within the black, and a sphere of pure black sword light appearing within the white.