Chapter 1550 — Beauty Has Grown Old

"What on earth is this tree?

It can even withstand the erosion of the kalpa of destruction!

" The nine Heavenly Venerables all had flickering eyes as they looked toward Shen Mu on the little boat, each making his own guesses. They did not know there was a World Tree in the world.

Long before they were born, Taiyi had cut down the World Tree, set fire to it, and left only the Great Black Mountain. They had now been inside Jade Capital City for three years, unaware that the World Tree had revived and now grew on the Great Black Mountain, and still less did they know that Shen Mu had cut down the newly grown World Tree and transplanted it into his own Primal Embryo Divine Treasury. Now there were two World Trees in the world, one on the Great Black Mountain and one in Shen Mu's divine treasury.

By entering the ancestral court of Jade Capital, they had gained much, but they had also missed much.

On the little boat, Qiang Tianfei and Shen Mu were on guard against each other.

One had profound cultivation, the other relied on his sharp sword and deep mastery of the sword Dao, and in such a small place, coming to blows could only end in mutual destruction. Qiang Tianfei stared at Shen Mu, trying to use divine-sense visualization to repair her aging body and her heavenly palaces and courts, but the effect was minuscule. Even her divine sense was caught in the destruction, so how could divine-sense visualization help?

Shen Mu, however, was as before. His flesh remained vigorous, his primordial spirit had not declined in the slightest, and his Great Dao showed no sign of disintegrating.

Not only that, as time went on his cultivation advanced at a visible pace, deepening Qiang Tianfei's dread.

Shen Mu would occasionally reveal the World Tree inside his Primal Embryo Divine Treasury, like a male peacock displaying its tail, bringing it out to show off at every chance. Qiang Tianfei itched with hatred, but she knew Shen Mu was fishing.

He was using the World Tree to lure her, to make her keep following him until her body aged to the point where she could no longer fight him. Then his hidden blade would be drawn, and he would kill her.

"He is not only luring me. He is also luring the other Heavenly Venerables.

" Qiang Tianfei knew perfectly well that Shen Mu was ambitious, that he wanted to use his World Tree as bait to keep all ten Heavenly Venerables hooked, using the kalpa of destruction of the prehistoric universe to make every one of them decrepit and feeble. Once their combat power fell below his, Shen Mu would wipe out all ten Heavenly Venerables at one stroke. He wanted to achieve a feat no one could accomplish in ordinary times.

The ten Heavenly Venerables were all clever people, and they could naturally see the intent behind Shen Mu's actions, but no one retreated.

Hao Tianzun did not retreat, and Xiao Tianzun did not either.

The World Tree was a great temptation, and the ancestral court Jade Capital was an even greater one. With Shen Mu and Qiang Tianfei leading the way, this was their only chance to enter that ancient city and explore the mysteries of Jade Capital.

To give up this chance was to give up their future.

If Shen Mu or Qiang Tianfei reached the deepest part of Jade Capital, grasped its secret, and cultivated the true Heavenly Court realm, then they would have no hope of turning the tables.

Even if they might die on the road, they had to keep walking it. They hung steadily behind Shen Mu's little boat and crossed the sixth long river of chaos, then the seventh.

The uncanny things on the river's surface grew fewer, no longer as dense as before. But Shen Mu suddenly grew alert.

He urged the Mystic Body Three-Elixir Art, trying to convert more primordial qi into Taiji primordial qi, while staring cautiously at the river.

Qiang Tianfei's heart tightened. She looked around, but the river was vast and murky with chaos; wherever her gaze reached, there was only chaos qi, and she could not see what lay within.

Shen Mu, however, was far more cautious.

He no longer steered the boat in a straight line, but wound across the river as though avoiding something in the chaos. Qiang Tianfei's sight was not as powerful as his.

In a low voice she asked, "Mu Tianzun, what do you see? " Shen Mu said quietly, "There is someone in the chaos.

" Qiang Tianfei's heart turned cold. "Who?

" "A living person. I meant to avoid him, but he is always ahead.

.

.

" Shen Mu had barely spoken when a cold, desolate wind blew out of the long river of chaos.

It rose in the river, churning the long river like boiling water.

Qiang Tianfei's face changed drastically. "Mu Tianzun!

" Shen Mu gritted his teeth and drove the boat forward at full speed, no longer avoiding the person ahead.

Behind the boat, that cold, desolate wind was extraordinarily fast, and everything it passed turned to nothingness, even the chaos qi drifting up from the river's surface.

Shen Mu drove the boat forward in silence. Qiang Tianfei was less than a zhang behind him, and her hair was already stretched by the wind into impossible length and impossible width.

Every strand was infinitely wide, infinitely long, yet infinitely thin. This was the ultimate void! "Mu Tianzun, faster!

" Cold sweat broke out on Qiang Tianfei's forehead as she urged, "If we do not go faster, we will both turn to nothingness!

" Shen Mu clenched his teeth, surged with all his cultivation, and charged ahead.

Suddenly the boat seemed to strike into something.

In an instant all fell silent.

There was no long river of chaos below, no pursuing wind of cold desolation behind, and no pervasive chaos qi around. The boat drifted on an utterly serene blue lake, but not on the water; it moved quietly above the surface. Qiang Tianfei was stunned for a moment, then greedily breathed the air. This place was like a pure land within the chaos field, unpolluted and unassailed by the great kalpa of destruction.

Shen Mu, however, became even more frantic and raced forward. It was then that Qiang Tianfei saw a great tree standing above the quiet lake, with lush branches and dense leaves.

It was a Dao Tree, and a few Dao Fruits hung sparsely among its boughs. An emperor-like figure sat beneath it, a scroll in one hand, his eyes fixed on the scroll, while the other hand plucked at the strings of a zither.

The book was probably a zither score, and the piece seemed difficult to play, for he had to read the music as he played.

"There is a powerful being in the chaos, one who has survived the great kalpa of destruction! " Qiang Tianfei's eyes twitched without cease, and she secretly bemoaned her plight.

Judging by the Dao Tree of this emperor beneath the tree, he was an invincible powerhouse, using the Dao Tree to guard himself and form a pure land, a pure land not assailed by the great kalpa of destruction. Such a mighty existence that even the cold, desolate wind could not blow here!

Why had he not gone ashore?

What was he waiting for?

Had Shen Mu been steering the boat on a winding course all this time just to avoid this emperor? The little boat rushed past the Dao Tree. The intermittent zither music beneath the tree stopped abruptly.

Qiang Tianfei's heart tightened, and she turned to look at the emperor under the tree.

At that moment, the woman in the battered Dao Fruit on Qiang Tianfei's shoulder opened her mouth and uttered Dao language of unknowable meaning, saying a few words to the emperor beneath the tree.

The emperor showed surprise, looked at Shen Mu and Qiang Tianfei, nodded to them with a smile, and said two sentences in Dao language back to the woman in the Dao Fruit.

The woman in the Dao Fruit inclined her body slightly, and the little boat continued on. Qiang Tianfei was uneasy.

Only after the boat had left the Dao Tree's sphere did she hurriedly ask the woman in the Dao Fruit what she had said to that person. The woman did not answer.