Chapter 1736 — The Marquis's Young Lord Chances Upon the Divine Palace Envoy

Because of the Ten Celestial Venerables this eruption was not fierce, yet in these last few hundred years it has brought a change in kind! If the seventeenth age were allowed to endure, Enlightened would grow ever more numerous in the future, glorious and flourishing, and need not fall short of Miluo Palace. " Lingguan laughed aloud, and Xu Shenghua watched him and said no more.

Lingguan's laughter sank away, and he stepped toward him, strange stirrings of the Great Dao sounding within his body, saying faintly: "Xu Shenghua, the seventeenth age shall never see another Miluo Palace.

Formation, abiding, decay, and emptiness, this universe will soon evolve through its stage of formation and enter abiding. When your Enlightened grow ever more numerous and the Ultimate Void can hardly bear them, it will enter decay, and at last all will come to emptiness! " Xu Shenghua set down the iron bucket and said faintly: "Whether entrusting to the void, attaining through the Dao Realm, or any other way of attainment, all borrow the Dao from without. True attainment is attainment within.

" His aura spread forth, a surging torrent hidden within stillness, lending gravity to the face of the Lord of the Lingguan Palace.

Just now when he looked at Xu Shenghua he had seen nothing remarkable, yet with Xu Shenghua's breath released he felt a shock! Within Xu Shenghua there seemed hidden a universe entire, and as the man's aura burst forth the many Great Daos within him seemed to revive at the same instant, leaving him unsure of Xu Shenghua's battle power! "The Great Dao needs no entrusting, why crave a Dao tree?

" Xu Shenghua walked toward him, displaying his divine treasuries, and there his treasuries were joined as one, Lingtai, Five Luminaries, Seven Stars, Heavenly Man, Life and Death, and Heavenly River among them, yet already linked through so their bounds were hard to tell. Of these, the Lingtai and two other treasuries had evolved into the Yuan Realm continent of the mortal world, the Five Luminaries and Seven Stars into Xuandu, Life and Death into Youdu, and the Heavenly River linked these three realms.

And above his treasuries there were no Heavenly Palaces or Heavenly Court, but a continent of the Ancestral Court!

Therein the Heavenly Gate, the Jade Terrace and Jade Lake, the Heavenly Sea, the God-Slaying Platform, the Nine Prisons Platform, the Four Polar Heavens, and other realms had become sacred lands, yet there was no realm of the Jade Capital City!

In its place stood the five great veins, the veins of Taiji, Taisu, Taishi, Taichu, and Taiyi, their Dao light and rosy vapors steaming into seas of cloud, their Dao resonance long and magnificent beyond measure! The five great veins were like the five great channels of the Ancestral Court, and the Heavenly River was the passage joining the three realms to the Ancestral Court and the Four Polar Heavens!

Between the five great veins a World Tree towered aloft, and the rosy light of the five great veins gathered into the World Tree!

At the sight of this World Tree the face of Lingguan's clone changed greatly. The World Tree, the Tree of the Immutable.

The Dao trees of the Enlightened may all be called world trees, yet they are wrought in imitation of the Great Dao and must be entrusted to the void!

Yet within Xu Shenghua there was also a World Tree!

This World Tree was Xu Shenghua's Dao tree!

More than that, he saw the void within Xu Shenghua, a thirty-threefold void!

This void was the void brought by the Dao Realm, not the void of the universe, a void formed by the Great Daos within Xu Shenghua comprehended to the thirty-third heaven of the Dao Realm!

Once Xu Shenghua cultivated to the thirty-sixth heaven of the Dao Realm, his body would hold a thirty-sixfold void, the World Tree would mature, and then it would bear Dao flowers and bear Dao fruit!

More terrible still, Xu Shenghua had wholly cast off the sway of the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court over the Dao arts and divine powers of this universe!

He cultivated no Heavenly Palace at all, much less a Jade Capital City!

Lingguan could bear it no longer and urged the might of his Dao fruit to its utmost!

Xu Shenghua's power passed his expectation, for he had thought to kill this man with ease, yet now it seemed here was a monster in seclusion, and he must use his full strength!

He could see Xu Shenghua was stalling to refine the energy in that bucket of Dao dew, but he too was stalling, for he was fastest and his other two clones were slower and still on the road.

Yet now Xu Shenghua was ready to strike, forcing him to move early to meet him!

The might of his Dao fruit erupted, Dao patterns spreading from the Dao fruit to form a thirty-sixfold celestial domain, layer upon layer spreading outward.

This battle he must win!

"The Dao arts and divine powers of Miluo Palace are the peak you shall never surpass, the nightmare you shall never reach!

" His body suddenly swelled joint by joint, for this journey was of utmost import, so he wielded his mightiest ancient-god flesh.

And he had brought a Dao fruit, enough to supply what this body lacked in Dao Realm attainment!

His other clones might die, but this flesh must not die, for he must fulfill the charge of the Third Young Master and Fourth Young Master of Miluo Palace! He strode and charged, and even the Great Black Mountain, formed from the stump of the World Tree, trembled and split beneath his feet, his whole strength urged to its limit, his Dao attainment bursting forth from the power of the Dao fruit!

Xu Shenghua halted abruptly, standing in an easy stance upon a mountaintop, watching Lingguan charge toward him, that ancient god like a giant sundering heaven and earth, and before he arrived the pressure fell like the overturning of heaven and earth! "Cult Master Shen, the Seventh Young Master of whom you speak, once said I am the crowning synthesis of the Jingping Reform.

" Xu Shenghua shifted his stance, sinking slightly, marshalling his Great Daos with a roar!

"On many of his views I do not agree, but these words I have never refuted.

Because!

" His magic power turned, strength surging through his feet, and he charged head-on to meet Lingguan's mightiest blow: "I am indeed the crowning synthesis of the Jingping Reform, nay, I have gone further than the Jingping Reform!

"