Chapter 1612 — Harder Than Scaling the Heavens

Shen Mu strained every faculty to deduce the mysteries of the red rope's knot. The knot was immeasurably more complex than the dao patterns of Miluo Palace. The dao patterns of Miluo Palace employed dao patterns, but the red rope's knot employed dao chains composed of dao patterns.

Dao chains were far more complex than dao patterns, and their transformations were more numerous still, making his deductions doubly arduous.

"If I could master and employ this seal of the Miluo Palace Master, its power would be immeasurably greater than that of the Primordial Finger!"

When Shen Mu had first comprehended the dao patterns of Miluo Palace, he had failed to grasp the transformations within them, and so had awakened only the Primordial Finger. Yet even the Primordial Finger's power far surpassed the divine abilities of the Heavenly Venerates; its might could be called the foremost divine ability below the Dao-Achievers, and it posed a threat even to Dao-Achievers themselves!

If he could comprehend the red rope's knot, then this seal would become another great asset of his.

"If Ling Tianzun would impart to me the mysteries of the dao patterns she has comprehended over these years, perhaps it would be much simpler. A pity..."

He felt some regret. Forty thousand years he had waited, and Ling Tianzun had come at last, yet before he could exchange even a word with her, he had been seized and suppressed by Hao Tianzun.

The red rope's knot was, after all, a mighty seal capable of suppressing the Second Young Master of Miluo Palace. To deduce it in a short time was impossible, and the battle between the Empress and Yuanmu might end at any moment. He had to first make himself able to employ the red rope's knot.

"This is too hard!"

After who knew how long, Shen Mu let out a mournful sigh, lying flat on his back upon a red rope, swinging to and fro, his eyes vacant as he stared upward at the ceaselessly surging great calamity of destruction.

The difficulty of the red rope's knot exceeded his imagination. The dao chains composing the red rope shifted without cease, and within each dao chain were countless dao patterns, and these dao patterns too shifted without cease, with infinite transformations at every moment.

And within those dao patterns were hidden infinite transformations of the great dao's runes. The transformations of the Five Primals' runes alone were enough to consume a lifetime of wisdom to study!

These transformations traced back to the origin of the dao patterns, which was the Primordial Rune. From this single Primordial Rune evolved the Five Primals, as well as the transformations of all the great daos in the world.

But to speak of it was simple; to learn it was harder than hard.

The transformations were infinite. He could scarcely master all the transformations within the dao patterns, let alone the dao chains.

After a moment, Shen Mu sat up, seeming to reignite his confidence. The vertical eye at his brow opened, and with keen interest he continued studying the red rope's knot.

After another unknown stretch of time, his rekindled confidence was ground away once more. Wiping his tears, he murmured, "This is simply impossible to learn..."

He wept a while, rendered utterly despondent by the red rope's knot, looking as though he would leave life and death to fate.

"Man proposes, Heaven disposes!"

He scrambled up again, his eyes bright and piercing: "The Miluo Palace Master is a man, and I am a man too! He created the Primordial Rune, evolved the dao patterns of Miluo Palace, and then created the red rope's knot. He created it from nothing—one can well imagine how difficult that was. I am learning his dao arts, which is immeasurably simpler than his creating them from scratch. Surely I can learn it?"

He rallied his spirits once more and continued his study, attempting to evolve various transformations of dao patterns with his vital essence, striving to form the red rope.

Yet his confidence was once again worn away to nothing.

Shen Mu grew gaunt and haggard, his eye sockets sunken deep, his face grown much thinner, his eyes hollow and empty, murmuring to himself, muttering words that none could make out.

He crouched beside the red rope's knot, the vertical eye at his brow flickering with an eerie light, staring at the sixth red rope. His right hand reached forward, trembling, as though he meant to pull that red rope open.

"Too hard, too hard. It is simply impossible to learn, impossible to comprehend..."

He muttered and mumbled, then said in a low voice, "Heh heh, I need only pull like this, and this difficult problem will be no more... One pull, and everything will be released... Just one pull..."

Then he came to his senses again and hastily slapped his own right hand away: "Hahahaha! Nothing in the world is too difficult for one who is willing to climb. I will certainly solve this problem! I am a Tyrant Body, an unmatched Tyrant Body!"

Day after day passed. Within the body of Her Majesty the Empress, the consciousnesses of the Empress and Yuanmu each comprehended the dao of reincarnation, and immediately began to cultivate it.

Both women were incomparably brilliant. Shen Mu's dao of reincarnation had fused too many dao arts and divine abilities, but the most crucial among them was still the dao of birth and death of Guixu, which gave them their breakthrough.

The two women comprehended and mastered the dao of reincarnation at almost the same moment, and immediately set it in motion. At once a reincarnation spacetime appeared in their minds, spinning like a wheel!

Their thoughts immediately plunged into reincarnation!

When they awoke, they found themselves fallen into the womb of a pregnant woman, transformed into two infants in the womb, awaiting birth.

Yuanmu at once seized the umbilical cord with her tiny hands and wrapped it several times around the Empress's neck.

The Empress struggled, but could not break free—Yuanmu had tied her a dead knot.

After the waiting for birth was over, the Empress had already ceased to breathe. Yuanmu, upon being born, did not cry but instead giggled without end.

Time flowed on within reincarnation. Soon little Yuanmu grew to six or seven years old, lovely as ice and snow, doted on by all her family—except that she alone was never allowed to look in a mirror.

One day, a servant grew careless, and little Yuanmu found a mirror. Standing before it to adorn herself, she suddenly saw the black mole at her brow in the mirror turn red.

"Vile wretch!" the reflection in the mirror cried out at her.

Little Yuanmu shrieked. At once the reincarnation divine ability activated again, sweeping her into the mirror.

The bright mirror clattered to the ground and rolled twice.

Within the mirror, a great wheel of light spun. The two women tore at each other, struggled, and soon plummeted down.

When the two awoke, they had become two fledglings in a bird's nest, crying for food, beaks open wide as they waited for the mother bird to feed them.

The two fledglings at once recognized each other and fell to fighting in the nest, until the mother bird pecked them twice and they finally settled down.

The next time the mother bird came to feed them, the Empress, relying on her stronger body, snatched the food from the mother's beak and left Yuanmu not a morsel. When Yuanmu tried to snatch it, she was kicked aside by the Empress's talons.

Before many days passed, the fledgling that Yuanmu had become grew too weak from hunger, and the overjoyed Empress pushed her out of the nest. She fell beneath the tree and died on the spot.

"Chirp chirp chirp chirp!" The Empress stood at the edge of the nest, beaming with delight.

The Empress enjoyed the worms alone in the nest. One day, having just eaten a worm, she suddenly felt an itch at her neck, and then another bird's head grew from her neck!