Chapter 1599 — The Art of the Turning Wheel

"Don't you worry, Shen Lang," Her Highness the Empress said, all tender affection, in a soft and intimate whisper. "Once I have refined sister to death, you too will die a magnificent death — a meaningful one!"

Shen Mu strained with all his strength, yet could not wrench himself free.

In former days, Shen Mu had feared no divine power of Lady Yuanmu's or of Her Highness the Empress's. But since the two women had fused, their arts and divine powers had become monstrously uncanny, monstrously dreadful; even he could not crack them for the moment.

This divine art held within it the power that annihilates all things and, at the same time, the power that breeds all things. Fused into one, the two forces had become something that kindled Shen Mu's own Dao, until he nearly lost command of it and it blazed up into Dao fire!

Even the Dao of the Five Ultimates that he had realized through his own comprehension was set alight by the Empress!

Worse still, he could not keep his own attainment from turning into Dao fire!

"Yuanmu, I can help you refine the Empress."

His eyes flickering, Shen Mu said, "Do you truly think that burning us to forge this great furnace will guarantee she is refined to death? You are thinking it far too simple. You cannot refine her at all. Her consciousness has fully merged with yours; no treasure in the world can extract her consciousness — except me! In the Way of Creation, your skill is far beneath mine!"

Her Highness the Empress rolled her eyes at him in a deeply womanly manner and giggled. "Little nemesis, even when you are bragging you keep such a solemn face; it truly makes one's heart flutter. Once you are dead, I shall come often to your grave with offerings."

Shen Mu groaned inwardly. This woman was now simply a madwoman; no reasoning could reach her, and no appeal to gain or loss could turn her mind!

"Empress, if you kill me, you will have incurred the enmity of the Hao Tianzun!"

Gong Tianzun, herself wracked with torment, gnashed her teeth: "Do you think the Hao Tianzun will spare you?"

"Spare me?" Her Highness the Empress giggled. "He is my own son — would he kill his own mother for your sake?"

Gong Tianzun's face went pale, and she could not utter a word.

Shen Mu felt his own Dao burning, and cried out in exasperation: "Yuanmu! With the Way of Reincarnation, supplemented by the Way of Creation, I can help you refine the Empress. But if I die, you will never have another chance!"

All at once, Her Highness the Empress's expression changed. "Mu Tianzun," she said icily, "you claim you can refine this Empress to death?"

Shen Mu blinked, and probed cautiously: "Her Highness the Empress?"

"None other!"

Her Highness the Empress gnashed her teeth and sneered. "The little slut, catching this Empress off guard, forcibly pressed down my consciousness, thinking she could hoodwink heaven and cross the sea, refine me into a treasure, and do me to death. She thinks too little of this Empress! I pressed down her consciousness in turn and forced her into slumber — otherwise, you adulterous pair would have seen your scheme succeed! You leagued with the little slut; how could this Empress ever spare you?"

Shen Mu hastily forced a smile: "Your Highness, allying with Yuanmu was never my wish. Allying with Your Highness is the best choice I could ask for. That little slut Yuanmu is fickle and perverse..."

"Shen Lang, what did you say?" Her Highness the Empress's alluring eyes were like silken threads, and she smiled as she spoke.

Shen Mu's face was black as iron. His breast was full of helplessness; he felt only the deepest impotence.

Talking with a madwoman truly left his cunning no room to work.

The seductiveness on Her Highness the Empress's face vanished, and her expression froze over. She said coolly, "The little slut has popped out again — but does this Empress let you have your way? Once I have burned two Heavenly Venerables and forged this peerless treasure, I shall refine the little slut completely to ashes!"

Despair filled Gong Tianzun's heart. She could see that even Shen Mu could do nothing now, without the slightest plan.

Shen Mu had always been wily. Facing every kind of danger, even traps that seemed certain death, he could always produce an unexpected scheme and snatch his life from the jaws of death.

But the Empress now was a lunatic — a lunatic beyond all reason!

Gong Tianzun felt her own Dao burning and ebbing away, and her heart darkened: "I never dreamed that I, who have lived from primordial antiquity to this day, surviving countless tribulations without dying, should die in the end at the hands of a madwoman..."

Suddenly Shen Mu proclaimed in a ringing voice: "Through desires and karmic bonds, beings sink into the three evil paths, wheel through the six realms, and endure every misery! Living beings turn and revolve, spinning ceaselessly within!"

Gong Tianzun was briefly startled; she heard Shen Mu reciting a sutra — a sutra of the Way of Reincarnation. Its doctrine was lofty and profound, unfolding the mysteries of the Way of Reincarnation one by one.

In this world, the Way of Reincarnation had never existed before; it was the Netherworld Sovereign who had hewn it out. But the Netherworld Sovereign, shackled by his natural endowment and insight, though he opened up the Way, never perfected it, and so its fame had never spread.

Yet the sutra of the Way of Reincarnation that Shen Mu chanted was far more profound than the Netherworld Sovereign's. Even Gong Tianzun, hearing its subtleties, could not help but gasp in admiration and nod again and again.

On the other side, Her Highness the Empress listened spellbound. Imperceptibly, the Dao fire on the bodies of Shen Mu and Gong Tianzun gradually died down — clearly Her Highness the Empress, listening, learning, and cultivating at once, had grown remiss in turning their attainment into Dao fire.

Shen Mu continued his recitation. The sutra grew loftier and lofter, obscurer and obscurer: it set forth how within the wheel one is reborn and changes one's fate; how within the wheel one casts away delusion and disaster; how within the wheel one forever keeps the original heart, holds fast to the root, and never suffers invasion by heart demons.

Even Gong Tianzun listened as if drunk, as if entranced, and secretly praised: "Mu Tianzun is truly formidable! This great Way of Reincarnation of his seems to have fused in the Buddhist Mahabrahma's Scripture of Immeasurable Kalpas; it is deeper than the Netherworld Sovereign's Sacred Art of Reincarnation beyond all measure. No wonder that when the Netherworld Sovereign once cast his reincarnation art upon him, he passed out cold on the spot."

Her Highness the Empress listened even more raptly than she. Though the Dao fire on the two of them was still burning, its force had greatly lessened.

The sutra of the Way of Reincarnation that Shen Mu recited happened to speak exactly to Her Highness the Empress's present condition, and that was why it held such power of attraction, making the two of them stop clawing at each other and devote their whole minds to fathoming it.

But Shen Mu, perversely, had deliberately made the sutra obscure and hard to grasp, drawing every shred of their attention to it.

The more profound his chanting grew, the more Her Highness the Empress, without realizing it, loosened the grip of her hands upon the two of them.

Shen Mu's eyes flickered. His mouth did not stop reciting, yet his feet moved silently, and he slipped out from beneath the great furnace.

Seeing this, Gong Tianzun's heart stirred: "Mu Tianzun has truly become a devil at escaping death — even from a certain-death trap like this, he still finds a way!"

She, too, moved her feet without a sound.

In the very instant her foot lifted, Her Highness the Empress's aura suddenly shifted: two auras shot up to the heavens and collided with each other.