Chapter 1582 — The Emperor First Tests His Edge

Lord Xiao looked down upon Lord Kai from on high. In the early years of Longhan, Shen Mu and Lord Kai had been enfeoffed by him as Lord Mu and Lord Shen; both had blazed briefly, then swiftly vanished.

Only Shen Mu, the Lord Mu, showed his face now and again in the history of Longhan, taking part in one great event after another.

Lord Shen, by contrast, vanished without a trace, never to appear again — until a human youth named Shen Ye rose from the ruins of the Supreme Emperor Era and founded Lord Kai's Heavenly Court. Only then did Lord Shen once more come before Lord Xiao's eyes.

In a mere twenty thousand years, Lord Kai had leaped up to become a fearsome adversary, forcing the Ten Heavenly Venerables to take action and wipe out the Era of Lord Kai.

Afterward Lord Kai sank into silence and hid himself in the Carefree Land, yet the Ten Heavenly Venerables still sent men ceaselessly to seek its whereabouts — because they knew that this man would surely rise again.

Every one of the Nine Heavenly Venerables of Longhan was no empty name; each had achieved greatly, deeds that shook heaven and earth.

"Shen Ye, have you attained the Dao?" Lord Xiao's fleshly body shrank, his expression grave.

Lord Kai did not answer.

Nor did he need to.

The aura that flowed from his body was the aura of pure sword dao, without a trace of impurity, giving one a sense of incomparable sharpness held in reserve.

Standing there, he was like a Great Luo Heaven of sword dao, supreme and indestructible, and at the same time he was like a scabbard, hiding its edge within his body.

When the edge does not emerge, no man is harmed.

When the edge emerges, it is vast as an ocean, sweeping all before it!

This was attaining the Dao — becoming the Dao!

To attain the Dao is not the same as to gain the Dao. Gaining the Dao means receiving the Dao; one's cultivation has depths, one's attainment has heights.

But attaining the Dao is becoming the Dao, and between the two lies a gulf as wide as heaven and earth.

Lord Xiao's face grew graver still, and even tinged with envy: in only forty thousand years, Lord Kai had attained the Dao!

Such a tiny human had spent merely forty thousand years to cultivate to the highest realm, while an existence like himself, born the mightiest of the ancient gods, had found attaining the Dao a hundredfold more arduous!

"In the old days of your era you propounded the acquired Dao, and held that the acquired Dao could stand as the equal of the innate Dao. When those words came out, the Heavenly Court deemed them absurd; even Lord Hao, Lord Hong and the rest of the Ten Heavenly Venerables judged it the greatest joke under heaven."

Lord Xiao swiftly suppressed the envy in his heart and shrank his body until he was about the height of Lord Kai. The two stood upon the God-Slaying Platform, yet behind Lord Xiao blazed a dazzling radiance.

The thirty-six heavenly palaces and forty treasure halls of his Heavenly Court flamed brightly, shrouding a vast extent, while his primordial spirit stood above the Lingxiao Treasure Hall; his fleshly body was immense, covering the whole Heavenly Court, his imperial might dominating all under heaven!

"At the time I too thought you a mere capering clown; but later I changed my view of you. Your sword dao is like a chapter of splendor — from the opening of the cosmos to this day, few under heaven can match it."

Lord Xiao could not refrain from praise. "With nothing but a single heavenly palace you cultivated the sword dao, opened up the sword dao, and in a scant twenty thousand years stood equal to the Ten Heavenly Venerables. More than once I have thought how wise I was: in the early years of Longhan I enfeoffed nine Heavenly Venerables, and every one of them achieved something extraordinary. Such discernment as mine — who among the wise rulers of the world could surpass it?"

Lord Kai was unmoved.

Lord Xiao went on: "Later you propounded the cultivation system of the Dao Realm, and my appreciation of you only grew. The Dao Realm cultivation system solved not only the problem of attaining the Dao through the acquired Dao, but the problem of attaining the Dao through the innate Dao as well."

He could not help clapping his hands in admiration, saying from the heart: "Shen Ye, Lord Yu's greatest merit was opening the road of cultivation and solving the problem of going from nothing to something. But he died too early; as to how the Dao is attained, he offered only the notion of borrowing the Heavenly Court and attaining the Dao through force, to be completed by later generations. To this day that road has only just been made passable. Yet you proposed another road — the road of the Dao Realm — and your merit is scarcely inferior to Lord Yu's."

He displayed all the bearing of a celestial emperor of an age — gracious, magnificent — and said: "Shen Ye, I must admit, you have astonished me. But if you would block my attainment of the Dao, then I have no choice but to bury you. Do you know what your greatest weakness is?"

Lord Kai still stood quietly, not saying a word.

Lord Xiao said: "It is that you followed Lord Mu here. The greatest asset of one who has attained the Dao is in truth the realm of Great Luo Heaven; your sword dao is imprinted upon Great Luo Heaven, and within Great Luo Heaven lies your inexhaustible power. But you attained the Dao in the present age, not in the past. And the age we stand in is a past age — an age in which you have not yet been born."

He smiled slightly, gazing around at the desert of yellow sand, and said unhurriedly: "This is forty thousand years ago. In this cosmos there is as yet no Great Luo Heaven of yours. This is the relic of the Supreme Emperor Era. You have cast aside your greatest advantage and come here, to face me — an existence who attained the Dao through force. A truly foolish move!"

In the distance, Shen Mu frowned slightly. In one thing Lord Xiao was not wrong: Lord Kai had only just attained the Dao, and he had returned to the past, and in the past there was no Great Luo Heaven of sword dao.

Without the Great Luo Heaven of sword dao, was Lord Kai truly a match for Lord Xiao?

Lord Kai stood with his hands behind his back, mockery written all over his eyes.

Lord Xiao struck!

The instant he struck, heaven collapsed and earth split. The blow was aimed at Lord Kai, yet the aura Lord Xiao gave off nearly reduced the whole desert and its heavens to the Taichu qi of a chaotic state!

Countless grains of sand were pulverized into the finest particles, and the particles in turn annihilated, returning to the chaotic state.

The numberless dry bones in the desert tumbled in the Taichu qi; even the divine bones perished one after another, turning into Taichu qi!

The full might of Lord Xiao's strike burst forth. The stars in the heavens had already been battered to pieces, and now one ruined star after another exploded and was annihilated!

The whole shattered world of the heavens seemed to return to a chaos without form, without substance, without body — reenacting the primordial wilderness, that age before heaven opened, before earth was divided, before the great Dao took shape!

Shen Mu saw the danger. Lord Xiao had unleashed the power of one who attained the Dao through force, and wherever that might passed, even Shen Mu was gravely threatened. He acted at once, raising the Taiyi Cane and driving it down hard.

Weng —

The Taiyi Cane's power erupted, surging out in every direction from him as its center, warding off the might contained in Lord Xiao's divine ability.

Lord Ling stood at his side, and at once the two felt themselves buffeted by storm and rain, like a lone leaf-boat amid raging waves, tossed wherever the current willed, heaved violently up and down, left and right!

Shock beyond measure filled their hearts, and their faces were grim.