Chapter 1717 — Death to the Oathbreaker

The Beast Realm lay at the back of the myriad heavens and the ten thousand worlds; its territory was vast beyond measure, one might say it occupied nigh on half the cosmos - so boundless a dominion was the Beast Realm's demesne. Yet within the Beast Realm there had never been a Nether Capital.

But in the very moment that Tiny Tu Bo performed his ritual, the Beast Realm at last obtained a Nether Capital.

It was very small - pitifully small - but it was enough.

When this pocket Nether Capital came into being, Tiny Tu Bo felt it forge a bond with a presence vast and profound.

So towering was this existence, so overwhelming his power, that Tiny Tu Bo blinked, then swished the ox-tail behind his backside.

Zhu Hongyu, the daughter of Long Qilin, looked at that tail with great curiosity, and quietly reached out to stroke it.

"Maha!

" Tiny Tu Bo said to her, with utter gravity.

"Yes, Uncle.

. .

" Zhu Hongyu withdrew, aggrieved, and stood to one side. Just then, the little Nether Capital abruptly began to expand, swelling with lightning speed, bursting through the constraints of the Divine Sense Cage; in a single instant it spread to cover half the Origin Realm! The Nether Capital of the Beast Realm overlapped the Beast Realm itself, and among the primeval behemoths of that realm there were not a few existences of boundless might, no whit inferior to the strong of the Emperor's Throne; yet when the Beast Realm's Nether Capital appeared, they felt only a faint peculiarity - and whence that peculiarity came, they knew not.

In the Heavenly Palace of the Beast Realm, Celestial Venerable Long Xiao also sensed a strange undulation sweeping over him, unsettling his primordial spirit; yet in the next breath all was quiet again, and he could not but wonder. "What has happened?

" He was, after all, far more cautious than most.

Slight as the ripple had been, it had stirred the very Great Dao of Heaven and Earth in the Beast Realm, and one as mighty as he was exquisitely sensitive to any disturbance in the Dao. His divine sense was incomparably powerful, and forthwith he released it to probe the void for a hundred million li in every direction, searching from the first layer of the void all the way to the thirty-fifth; still he could find nothing amiss.

"The Great Dao of Heaven and Earth in the Beast Realm seems to have grown suddenly more numerous - but where have the added Daos gone? " The thought had barely entered his mind when, all at once, before his nine heads and eighteen eyes, everything plunged into darkness!

Celestial Venerable Long Xiao went rigid, standing frozen in the boundless dark.

Dread stole into his heart, for in this instant he had lost all contact with his physical body!

He could no longer sense where his body was!

What now stood in the darkness was his primordial spirit; his physical body, fierce and boundless in might, had actually been severed from his primordial spirit without his knowing - and he had not even noticed when the severing happened!

The eyes of his primordial spirit were like eighteen enormous suns, streaming forth inexhaustible light and heat to scatter the darkness around him.

His divine powers knew no limit; were he to gouge out the eyes of his physical body and suspend them in the cosmos, they would be true suns. His primordial spirit, though it could not compare with his body, yet housed a divine sense of terrifying strength - were that spirit to compose itself in meditation, the creation of stars would be a mere trifle!

And yet this darkness was monstrously uncanny: it drank in the holy light blazing from his eyes, so that his gaze could illumine nothing at all!

"Tu Bo!

" Celestial Venerable Long Xiao shuddered with dread, suddenly recalling the natural enemy of the Creators.

As a Primeval God-King, Long Xiao had been worshipped by the Creators to serve as the special bane of the Ancient Gods; whether Heaven-Duke and Earth-Mother, the Heaven-Yin Emperor and Empress, or the Four Ancient God-Emperors - all were suppressed by him.

There was but a single Ancient God he could not suppress - and by whom he was himself suppressed!

Tu Bo!

Only Tu Bo, who commanded death, could part his soul from his flesh and sink him into the Nether Capital without his ever knowing! And yet.

.

.

"The Beast Realm has no Nether Capital; Tu Bo cannot descend!

" Long Xiao's eyes bulged wide, his nine heads peering warily into the darkness all around, his heart shaking with dread: "And besides, Tu Bo is already dead!

" In the darkness before him, butterfly-shaped patterns suddenly spread outward to either side, ceaselessly shifting, growing larger and larger.

Then, at the center of the patterns, a vertical eyelid slowly opened.

Celestial Venerable Long Xiao's heart hammered wildly.

The innate suppression of a nemesis set his very soul trembling; he could not summon the slightest thought of resistance, and could only stare blankly at that vertical eye. At that moment, further butterfly patterns surged out of the darkness - a pair of eyes, set below the vertical one.

Those eyes opened, and within them karmic fire blazed, as though the souls of countless beings, countless gods and demons, writhed and struggled and shrieked in a sea of karmic flames.

The endless demonic thoughts and sundry distractions of all those beings instantly threw Long Xiao's divine sense into utter chaos, so that he could not gather himself. Before him the three eyes opened one after another, and a youth's face emerged from the darkness.

"Celestial Venerable Mu?

" Long Xiao faltered.

The face was almost exactly Shen Mu's, yet younger - and, strangest of all, this Shen Mu's crown bore a pair of long horns bent in nine turns and eighteen folds, with molten rock from beneath the myriad heavens and ten thousand worlds streaming down along those horns like a great river.

Hum, hum, hum. A vast noise boomed forth, and from the darkness six colossal wheels of samsara emerged, turning each in a different direction. "No - it is Celestial Venerable Mu's own elder brother!

" When the Compact of Little Tu Bo had been signed, Shen Mu had told Long Xiao that Little Tu Bo was his elder brother born of the same womb, vicious by nature, and that even he himself feared this brother by three parts.

Long Xiao had taken it for a jest at the time; later, when he saw the Tiny Tu Bo who lived inside Long Qilin's ear, he took the so-called Little Tu Bo for no more than that little bean.

It had never occurred to him that Shen Mu truly possessed an elder brother who looked almost exactly like him!

Yet strange to say, Shen Mu appeared many years older than this brother. From all sides came the thin murmur of the Nether Capital's demonic tongue - it sounded like the voice of that Tiny Tu Bo at Long Qilin's side, chanting something.

Shen Fengqing said not a word, listening in silence; only when the voice had finished reciting the Compact of Little Tu Bo did he speak: "Long Xiao, you have violated the compact twice. Today is the day for you to fulfill it.

Have you anything to say?

" Long Xiao crushed the terror in his breast and laughed aloud: "I am the foremost of the Primeval God-Kings; from antiquity I have suppressed the ancient gods of all the heavens, and now I am moreover the lord of the Beast Realm, Celestial Venerable of the Heavenly Court!

You little whelp, whose fuzz has not even grown full - you would take my life?

" He forced his primordial spirit into motion, marshaled his divine sense, and attempted to attack Shen Fengqing, even as he madly tried to sense his physical body! His physical body was of overwhelming might - when it had been cast into Guixu and suppressed all those years ago, he had still contrived to drag it out again.

If only he could sense his body, this Little Tu Bo would surely be no match for him! The magma upon the twin horns above Shen Fengqing's head flowed ever faster, and slowly he reached out a hand to grasp at him.