Chapter 1570 — Forging the Original Intent into a Sword

"Heavenly Consort Qiang is dead?

And she died at your hands? " Kaihuang's heart lurched; he turned to Shen Mu in astonishment, and only after a long moment did he speak. "Since you forged the Calamity Sword, your strength has advanced enormously.

But however keen the blade, the one who wields it must not let his cultivation lag behind. Lean too heavily on a sharp weapon, and you lose the drive to press forward. " Shen Mu produced the God-Slaying Platform.

"My cultivation has never lagged. In fact, I am stronger now than ever before.

I can already stand on the same stage as a Heavenly Venerable!

Kaihuang, at my age, what was your cultivation?

There is no need to worry about me.

" Kaihuang thought it over.

At Shen Mu's age he had been a petty deity, nowhere near Shen Mu's present achievements. It must be that he held the boy to too high a standard, and so he feared his fall.

On the God-Slaying Platform, the two divine sabers had recovered much of their power, though not yet to their peak. The two blood-fiend sabers coiled and tangled upon the platform, their might terrifying: slaying primal spirits, slaying flesh, slaying Dao hearts!

"These two sabers seem weaker than before.

Less than they were in the Battle of Xuandu. " Kaihuang studied them, doubtful. "As things stand, their power is too shallow.

I fear they cannot help me attain the Dao. I am too strong; the God-Slaying Platform can put no real pressure on me.

" Shen Mu raised a brow. The two sabers on the platform were frightful beyond measure. Not yet at their height, perhaps, but touch them and you die, brush them and you perish, and Kaihuang still thought their power too shallow! "A saber is wielded by a man.

Leave the God-Slaying Mystic Sabers empty, with no one to drive them, and of course their power is too shallow for you.

" Shen Mu's eyes flickered.

"And what you want is not pressure, but insight into the Dao heart and the Dao realm within the slaying platform.

How would it be if I took command of these two sabers and lent you a hand?

What do you say? " Kaihuang's sword-like brows lifted slightly, and he smiled.

"Very well. Though I do worry your skill is unequal to commanding those two sabers.

" Shen Mu twisted his waist, rolled his neck, worked his limbs loose, and laughed.

"In the Battle of Xuandu, how many Heavenly Venerables did I cut down with a divine saber in my hand? Back then I did not command the God-Slaying Mystic Sabers.

Now the sabers are in my grip, and it is you I worry about.

After all, you are old, and I am still in my prime. " Kaihuang laughed.

"What old and young is there among gods and devils? Heavenly Venerable Mu jests.

" "Heavenly Venerable Shen is too kind. " Shen Mu raised a hand in invitation.

"In that case, shall Heavenly Venerable Shen step onto the platform?

" Kaihuang's left hand closed upon the scabbard of the Wuyou Sword, and he climbed the platform at an unhurried pace. Shen Mu's body rose into the air, over the God-Slaying Platform, floating between the two God-Slaying Mystic Sabers.

The two sabers were like two long dragons of blood-fiend, roaring as they circled him.

He narrowed his eyes and lifted his palm.

The blood-fiend dragons swam past his palm, rank upon rank of reversed scales scraping his skin, rough and keen.

His palm bled, and yet the two malevolent blood dragons seemed utterly docile.

These past days he had refined the God-Slaying Platform, and in refining the platform the two God-Slaying Mystic Sabers had been refined along with it; he wielded the divine sabers as easily as his own two hands. Below, Kaihuang withstood the sabers' killing aura and climbed the platform step by step.

Around him lay what seemed layer upon layer of an invisible sword domain; the saber-light of the platform flickered, and wherever it trespassed upon his domain there came the clang of sword-light against saber-gleam. To Shen Mu, the God-Slaying Platform had only thirty steps.

To Kaihuang, it had thirty-five.

Such was the platform's strangeness: the deeper a man's cultivation of the Dao realm, the more steps the platform possessed, and the more terrible the divine sabers upon it!

At last Kaihuang set down his thirty-fifth step, and stood upon the God-Slaying Platform. In those years Shen Mu, Zaifu, and the other masters of the saber way had ascended together, and they had loosed their own sabers and their ultimate arts early on.

But Kaihuang, mounting all thirty-five tiers of the God-Slaying Platform, had still not drawn his sword.

Whoosh. The dragon heads of the two God-Slaying Mystic Sabers paused an instant, then stooped and dove.

Shen Mu's gaze fell upon Kaihuang, searching out his flaw, letting the two sabers attack of their own accord.

On the platform Kaihuang strolled as though in a garden, drawing his sword and letting it fall at will, driving the two God-Slaying Mystic Sabers back again and again. His sword way was too strong; to use the platform as a whetstone for it was proving difficult, for the God-Slaying Mystic Sabers could scarcely wound him.

And his Dao heart was too strong as well. Against a Dao heart so mighty, a platform that slew Dao hearts and ground them sharp was useless.

One who had grown to his level found it truly hard to take another step. This, too, was why he had wished to mount the God-Slaying Platform in the Battle of Xuandu.

He was too strong; to attain the Dao he needed some vast ordeal. Heavenly Consort Qiang was a Heavenly Venerable; she had held the God-Slaying Platform and the God-Slaying Mystic Sabers, and could rouse his latent power and potential and help him achieve the Dao.

But now the God-Slaying Mystic Sabers had lost much of their might, and could no longer make him feel any pressure at all. Suddenly the sky-covering waves of blood-red saber-light vanished into nothing; the two divine sabers soared upward, and Kaihuang could not help looking up.

Above him was blue sky, without a single cloud, clear through and through, so that one could almost see the stars beyond the heavens.

Kaihuang narrowed his eyes. He saw Shen Mu spinning skyward with the two sabers, farther and farther from the platform, until Shen Mu was as small as an ant.

Kaihuang lifted his head and looked at Shen Mu across the void; Shen Mu was still receding, and only when he had come beyond the heavens of Wuyou Township did he halt.

Kaihuang raised his brow. With a shing he thrust the Wuyou Sword into its scabbard, shook his right hand, flexed his fingers, then took the hilt and held his power in readiness.

And beyond the heavens, Shen Mu gripped the blood-fiend God-Slaying Saber and shook it with all his strength; the two sabers merged into one.

The blade was blood-red through and through, a dragon's head for its hilt, a dragon's fins for its edge, a dragon's bones for its spine, and it bore the matchless killing aura bred of slaying the Heavenly Lord!

Shen Mu gripped the saber, crouched, gathered his power, and suddenly grinned. The next instant he took a step.

In that moment a meteor seemed to burst into the sky above Wuyou Township.

The meteor broke through the firmament and entered the township's air, dim at first, then brighter and brighter as it fell. That radiance was blood-red, dyeing all Wuyou Township crimson, until at the last it was like a vast ocean of blood.

At the same time the whole God-Slaying Platform blazed with light; every natural Dao-pattern lit up, and abruptly the blood-light surged upward like a tide, madly, endlessly! Saber-light and blood-light fused into one.

Kaihuang looked up and could no longer tell which was saber-light and which was blood-light.

Sudden as a thought, a saber scar appeared on Kaihuang's face; before the God-Slaying Mystic Saber had even arrived, a wound had already opened on his cheek. And from that wound the blood flowed upward into the sky; the qi and blood within his body stirred and poured ceaselessly toward the cut!