Chapter 1566 — The Path to Attaining the Dao

Granny Zhu, the Silent Artisan, and the rest stood on the deck and stared at one another — and there, also aboard, thousands of ancient behemoths were staring at one another in just the same way. "Where did Shen'er come by a ship like this?

" They looked all about, and only then discovered that this golden ship was far vaster than anything they had seen: to stand outside it and to stand upon it were two entirely different worlds.

Golden halls stood one after another along its length, each branded with strange runes that turned and flowed without cease. The ancient behemoths dared only stand where they were on the deck, not daring to wander; the others, bolder by far, went poking about in every direction, searching for some way off the ship.

"What is inside these golden halls?

" The Blind Elder examined in fine detail the doorway of one absurdly vast golden hall. "This door is unlocked," he said.

"Let me see whether I can open it.

" After a moment the hall's doors swung apart, and a rush of qi poured out from within. They covered nose and mouth, and waited until the qi had dispersed before stepping warily into the hall.

What met their eyes was a vast and glorious world of the heavens — a world with sun and moon and stars, a world of countless cities, and through those cities went white-boned skeletons, hurrying busily to and fro.

Hundreds of millions of white-boned skeletons walked the streets; in the city a woman opened her robe and suckled a child, merchants plied their trade, a white skeleton haggled with a shopkeeper, and not a few labored over empty ground beyond the walls.

They stared dumbstruck at the sight. "These white bones — what are they? " Scarcely had Hua Xuanxiu spoken when the whole heavenly world collapsed; in an instant countless white bones dissolved into the qi of chaos, bodies came apart, cities caved in, and sun, moon, and stars shrank inward upon themselves!

Boom! A tremor ran through the golden hall, and within it nothing remained but a haze of chaotic qi. They stared dumbly at the sight, and for a long while could not speak.

Just then a figure came walking from no one knew where, treading through the boundless qi of chaos, which rose past his knees.

It was a phantom, like history's afterglow, a silhouette burned into this place.

He walked through the ruined world and looked about him in bewilderment; nowhere around him could he find his kin, his old friends, the living things he had sheltered. He opened his mouth and howled into the chaos like a wounded old wolf, calling out — and no one answered him. Granny Zhu, the Blind Elder, and the others watched that figure, and a nameless grief rose in their hearts, and they could not hold back their tears.

The figure worked his arts within the chaos, unleashing strange divine powers, as though he were cleaving heaven from earth and setting the cosmos in motion once more, and as though he were tracing time backwards, restoring to life all that had passed away.

His powers left them gasping in wonder, skill and subtlety pushed to their utmost; slowly the qi of chaos began to change, slowly the stars appeared, the sun rose, the moon climbed westward.

City after city rose from the ground, and skeleton after skeleton stood up out of the chaos.

What manner of power was this, that could warp the heavens and weave the earth? It showed them Dao-mysteries without end, showed them the divine art of raising the dead, showed them the wisdom amassed by a civilization at the final stage of its universe.

And yet all of it collapsed once more, ruined in a single breath.

After a long while, the Blind Elder and the others withdrew from the hall and closed its doors behind them. "Who was that man?

" Granny Zhu murmured, "When he cried out, it felt as though one's heart were being torn in two. It was as though, as though.

. .

" "As though Shen'er in the time of the Jingping Calamity — alone, with no one to turn to. " The Blind Elder said quietly, "Back then, after the Lame Elder carried Shen'er out of the Jingping Calamity on his back, he told me these things.

In saving Shen'er, the Lame Elder was always the quickest; it was always he who saved him. .

.

" Their hearts lay heavy.

In the Jingping Calamity all the pressure had fallen upon Shen Mu alone, and when he struggled every way he knew, when he found that no matter how he fought he could not save Jingping, he too must have been like that phantom in the chaos: in agony, alone, helpless. They left this golden hall and walked on to the next.

At the edge of the Hundred Thousand Sacred Mountains, Shen Mu sought out Xu Shenghua and Lan Yutian, who were mending the cracked Black Mountain.

Shen Mu told them of what had befallen him in Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court, and spoke of the Seventy-Two Treasure Halls, the Lingxiao Trap, and the Zixiao Trap.

He did not wish to distract the two of them, and so he said little of the matter of Taiyi.

The two listened, rapt. Xu Shenghua thought for a moment, then said, "The Seventy-Two Treasure Halls have been carved up among the seven Heavenly Venerables.

That is to say, the seven Venerables now command the greatest resources; they hold most of the halls in their grip, and apart from them no one can attain the Dao through the Heavenly Palace system.

" Lan Yutian shook his head. "Not long ago Jiang Baigui and Emperor Yanfeng came here, and Jiang Baigui showed me his Seventy-Two Treasure Halls and Thirty-Six Heavenly Palaces. It moved me deeply.

Even without the Seventy-Two Treasure Halls of Jade Capital City, one can still attain the Dao.

Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court is not the only road to walk. " "As things stand, there are four roads to attaining the Dao. One is Jiang Baigui's — the acquired way.

One is the road you and Lord Shen tread, Lan Yutian — attaining the Dao through the Five Tai.

One is the Dao-realm road of Venerable Shen Kaihuang — attaining the Dao through the Dao-realm. And one is the traditional road of the Heavenly Palace — attaining the Dao through force, borrowing strength from Jade Capital City.

" Xu Shenghua mused, "Of these roads, the simplest is attaining the Dao through force, borrowing strength from Jade Capital City. The deepest in cultivation is attaining the Dao through the Dao-realm.

The hardest is the acquired way.

The broadest and most profound is attaining the Dao through the Five Tai.

These past years, as I mended Black Mountain, I have been thinking of my own road to the Dao, and I have gained something from it. I want to walk a road unlike any of yours — a fifth road. " Shen Mu asked, "And what have you gained, Brother Xu? " Xu Shenghua said, "I want to walk the road of attaining the Dao through the primordial spirit.

I have been thinking: the World Tree is like the primordial spirit of this universe, and the universe is, as it were, the World Tree's body. Perhaps only by attaining the Dao through the primordial spirit can one escape extinction. Only, I have not yet thought it through clearly. " Shen Mu's eyes lit up, and he smiled.

"You truly have ideas, Brother Xu. It may well work. " "But now I no longer wish to walk that road. " Xu Shenghua said gravely, "Venerable Hao and Venerable Xiao have thrown in their lot with the Dao-achievers of prehistory. Once they attain the Dao through force, the pressure on you will surely be immense.

If I too took the road of attaining the Dao through force, I could possess great power in a short time, and when the decisive battle with Venerable Hao and Venerable Xiao comes, I could lend a hand. . . " "What pressure do I have? " Shen Mu laughed heartily. "Ten Heavenly Venerables have already become seven, and in the coming war between Venerable Hao and Venerable Xiao, a few more Venerables will die!

Once I rescue Venerable Ling as well, this battle is ours to win!