Chapter 1605 — Never Bowing His Head

They saw the World Tree dancing behind Shen Mu, while from Shen Mu's body came a strange rhythm, and wave upon wave of chaotic qi spread out from it, forming a great sphere around him.

Suddenly came a great report like the splitting of heaven and earth. The sphere burst open, and in an instant the Five Primals unfolded: from the chaos of Taiyi, to the single breath of Taichu, to the azure void of Taishi, to the formed substance of Taisu, and then to Taiji.

The five states of the cosmos were traversed in the briefest blink, and then measureless space surged forth; countless stars and rivers of stars sped past the Empress, rushing outward!

In a moment the Ancestral Court was born; the various worlds gushed outward, evolving all manner of ancient gods, the great daos of heaven and earth, and the teeming myriads of living beings.

Five great ore veins took their seats within the Ancestral Court, joining it. One after another ancient deity emerged from the stars and constellations of the heavens, each with its own bearing - the Heavenly Duke in Xuandu, the Earth Count in Youdu.

Those ancient gods stood each in its own domain, and as they flew past the Empress and Yuanmu, the two women looked at them and saw that these strange, outlandish gods all bore Shen Mu's face.

Even the Heavenly Duke with white brows, white beard and white eyes, and the Earth Count with ox head, tiger face and ox tail, wore Shen Mu's countenance.

They turned to look back, and saw behind Shen Mu's head countless runes of the great dao linking and combining; the various runes assembled into strange dao markings, like bricks and tiles, like eaves and pillars, like bells and cauldrons, screens and murals, piling layer upon layer, until soon grand and magnificent foundations came surging into being.

Those bricks and tiles flew up with a clatter, forming one resplendent palace after another - pavilions, terraces, towers, long bridges, heaven gates, divine platforms - raising up the divine city of the Jade Capital.

There was also a long branch of the heavenly river, flowing past the Southern Heaven Gate, driving straight in, winding through the heavenly court.

Wherever the heavenly river passed, countless buildings rose from the ground; by the time it had flowed through the Jade Capital, several dozen heavenly palaces had taken shape.

The heavenly river flowed past the Northern Heaven Gate, vast and mighty, linking the heavens and the myriad worlds, and then rushed downward, passing over the Yuan World, entering Youdu and turning into the river of the dead.

This river of the dead flowed beneath the feet of Shen Mu, the Earth Count, into the great rift of Guixu, and on into the Great Abyss of Guixu.

When the river water poured into the abyss, a faint tremor rose from its depths. A lotus blossom rose slowly to meet the water, turning and blooming, and upon the lotus throne of that flower, Shen Mu of Guixu yawned and slowly came awake.

That Shen Mu of Guixu stood up and chanted in a long voice, "How many kalpas in the round of rebirth? One year, one withering, one flourishing."

The Empress and Madame Yuanmu were astonished beyond measure.

This Shen Mu seemed somehow different from the Shen Mu of a moment ago; it was as though the Great Abyss of Guixu had been added to his divine treasury.

Moreover, his heavenly palaces and heavenly court differed from before.

First, the number of his heavenly palaces.

Formerly Shen Mu had only twenty-three heavenly palaces. Later he learned the Purple Empyrean Azure Fall Art from Heavenly Venerable Yun, gaining one more heavenly palace, and then hid himself within Heavenly Venerable Hao's Myriad Dao Heaven Wheel to comprehend two of his cultivation arts, gaining two more, which made twenty-six in all.

And now Shen Mu had gained two more, bringing him to a full twenty-eight!

To possess twenty-eight heavenly palaces at such a young age was truly an anomaly!

Stranger still, Shen Mu's Jade Capital was utterly different from the Jade Capitals of others.

In the heavenly courts of others, every heavenly palace contained a Jade Capital. But in Shen Mu's case it was fifty-eight treasured halls within his heavenly court that made up the Jade Capital, while his other heavenly palaces had no Jade Capital at all!

One might say that all his other heavenly palaces had been raised around the Jade Capital.

"With only one Jade Capital, how will he enter the Jade Capital realm?" The Empress and Madame Yuanmu were greatly perplexed.

Suddenly Shen Mu's primal spirit rose up out of that vast divine treasury, sitting cross-legged in the lotus posture, hovering above his heavenly court, radiating ten thousand beams of light.

Shen Mu got to his feet and quietly retreated backward, until before he knew it he had come to the edge of the lotus.

"Heavenly Venerable Mu, what are you trying to do?" The Empress was the first to realize, and demanded sharply.

Madame Yuanmu was thrown into a panic and cried in a shrill voice, "Don't do anything foolish!"

"A true man in this world would sooner die than submit, sooner break than bend; he takes what he wants by the straight road, and never begs for it by a crooked one!"

Shen Mu leaped, plunging into Guixu, and declared with righteous fervor, "I would sooner die than be coerced by you!"

The two women rushed to the edge of the lotus and reached out to grab him, but how could they catch him now?

They saw Shen Mu fall into the abyss and vanish.

Madame Yuanmu blinked, then suddenly burst out laughing. "A moment ago my little sweetheart had not a scrap of backbone. When did he turn so spirited? Hee hee, how amusing..."

Suddenly she seized control of the Empress's body and likewise leaped, plunging into the Great Abyss of Guixu!

The Empress screamed and tried to clutch at the twin lotus, but it was already too late!