Chapter 1544 — A Wound That Will Never Heal

The two sword spheres seemed to exert a wondrous pull upon each other within the taiji diagram, drawing one another along as they revolved around him! As the two sword spheres rotated, the dragon-vein line of the taiji diagram emerged.

It was a supreme sword qi that gathered the Dao of yin and yang and transformed it into the Dao of taiji, indestructible, and with a hiss it sliced through the Dao tree beneath his feet!

Fire Heavenly Venerable's heart lurched again; rising step by step, he climbed to the top of the Dao tree, dodging that terrifying taiji sword Dao.

For the moment he could not see through the depths of this move, so he could only evade it — yet his pair of fiery eyes were closely observing the mysteries of the sword, seeking a way to break it.

Though two of his fingers had been severed, though his Dao tree had been cut down, he remained utterly composed; even Shen Mu's swordsmanship, formidable as it was, did not throw him into the slightest panic.

On the little boat, Shen Mu stamped down hard, and the boat at once surged forward, roaring into ring after ring of flame.

Qiang Tianfei shrieked and raged, "Mu Tianzun, have you gone mad? " Those rings of flame were Fire Heavenly Venerable's great divine art of the Dao realm.

To pass through them was indeed the shortest path to close in and strike at him — but it was also the most perilous path of all. Fire Heavenly Venerable was not only the strongest being under heaven in the mastery of Dao fire, but also one of the strongest in magic power.

He had devoured and refined nearly all of the Southern Emperor's cultivation and Dao, and the magic power he possessed was supremely overbearing; moreover, as one of the Seven Heavenly Venerables of Longhan, his foundations were unfathomably deep. That Shen Mu should attempt to pass straight through his twenty-four Dao-realm great divine arts was nothing less than gambling with his own life!

Perhaps this was the greatest difference between the Supreme Emperor and Shen Mu.

In the Primordial Era, though the Supreme Emperor was invincible in the world, he seldom staked his life. That was, to be sure, because his station was too high and his rivals too few, but it was also a matter of his nature.

When the Primordial Era ended and the Creators declined, in the bitter war between the ancient gods of the Blood-Rust Belt and the Creators, the Supreme Emperor did not stake his life either; when the situation turned against them, he simply drifted away, leaving the clans of the Creators to die.

Looking back over the million years from Longhan to the present, he had rarely risked his life — which was why the three Heavenly Venerables Yun, Yue, and Ling had been able to destroy his true body and trap him to death in the supreme divine-sense domain of the Land of the Great Void, and why his primordial spirit had been sealed away by Heavenly Venerable Ling within the Immutable Divine Art.

He had never, in the truest sense, staked his life.

But now Qiang Tianfei and Shen Mu were in the same boat, and that left her no choice but to stake hers.

Qiang Tianfei drove her two baleful god-blades at ring after ring of flame, cleaving open Fire Heavenly Venerable's twenty-four heavens of the Dao realm; the blazing firelight scorched the blood-red God-Slaying Mystic Blades until the air reeked of burning. Fire Heavenly Venerable's magic power was too strong, making the might of his Dao fire terrifyingly fierce.

By the time the twenty-fourth flame wheel was split open, Qiang Tianfei's arms had gone numb from the shock, and both her hands were scorched black as charcoal by the heat conducted through the God-Slaying Mystic Blades. "This brat Mu Tianzun is far too fond of gambling with his life.

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" Before Qiang Tianfei could even draw a breath of relief, the booming resonance of the Dao's voice shook the air: Fire Heavenly Venerable stood at the tip of the Dao tree, heavenly palaces emerging one after another behind his head, and within those palaces treasure halls blazed with light! Qiang Tianfei sighed in dismay, and envy rose unbidden in her heart.

They had been in Jade Capital City for more than two years now; the ten Heavenly Venerables studied the treasure halls of Jade Capital City, seeking loftier principles with which to steady their heavenly-court realms.

Yet Qiang Tianfei's gains had not been great; in two years she had comprehended only twenty and a half treasure halls, while the treasure halls Fire Heavenly Venerable revealed now numbered as many as thirty-four!

He had, in effect, one treasure hall to each heavenly palace, raising his cultivation to yet another terrifying height!

The Fire Heavenly Venerable of today was already very near to the heavenly court, that supreme realm. If he advanced one step further, then perhaps even the Supreme Emperor in his prime would fall slightly short of him.

"Fire Heavenly Venerable's natural endowment is too high; no matter what, he must be gravely wounded!

" Even as Qiang Tianfei thought this, Fire Heavenly Venerable struck without hesitation, using his supreme magic power to freeze the revolving taiji diagram outright and shatter that ceaselessly turning taiji sword diagram to pieces!

He did not act on brute force alone: seeing that Shen Mu's Dao of taiji had not reached perfection, he struck straight at its strongest point, beginning to break it apart from that dragon-vein line.

From this alone one could see the keenness of his eye, and one could not but admire it.

The taiji evolution collapsed; the Tribulation Sword flew out with a howl, and the next moment it was in the hand of Shen Mu, who had passed through the twenty-four layers of Dao fire, and he thrust it forth.

This sword met Fire Heavenly Venerable's palm as it broke through the taiji evolution.

In that palm Fire Heavenly Venerable poured out every art he possessed; the Dao of fire surged and filled the air, and between his five fingers the Dao fire turned like wheels, howling as it spun, the great Dao in all its glory!

His fingerprints were like worlds unto themselves; his palm lines, like the earth and its green mountains. This was his strongest strike; even after breaking through the taiji evolution, its might still surged to the heavens.

But when Shen Mu's sword pierced his palm, his swordsmanship turned exquisitely fine, the sword light within Fire Heavenly Venerable's hand growing infinitely slender, severing Dao chains, breaking Dao patterns, dissolving runes — and in an instant Fire Heavenly Venerable's palm was reduced to white bone!

Fire Heavenly Venerable was greatly alarmed.

He hurriedly withdrew his hand, only to see that sword light come coiling up along his wrist.

Hiss, hiss, hiss, hiss — the sword light spiraled around his arm, climbing with incredible speed, and by the time it reached his shoulder, not a scrap of flesh or blood remained upon the whole limb! More terrifying still, his great Dao was severed outright, turning into pure energy and ceasing to exist!

The thirtieth heaven of the Dao realm — Breaking Tribulation!

Seeing that things had turned bad, Fire Heavenly Venerable's eyes blazed with fire, and two fire dragons flew from them, crossing in a slashing strike!

Shen Mu turned his sword to cut down the fire dragons, while Qiang Tianfei's two God-Slaying Mystic Blades struck Fire Heavenly Venerable's other arm; the arm at once withered, and in moments all the qi and blood within it was drained away by the Mystic Blades. Fire Heavenly Venerable said not a word; raising his left arm, now nothing but white bone, he used his hand as a blade and cut down, hacking off his own right arm rather than let the God-Slaying Mystic Blades drain away all his qi and blood.