Chapter 1750 — The Dao-Defier's Divine Ability

The Heavenly Court's main camp.

The Third Young Master and the Fourth Young Master: one controlled the body of Emperor Haotian, the other the body of Taichu. The Third Young Master stood outside Shen Mu's domain; the Fourth Young Master stood within it.

The Third Young Master shifted his feet by slow degrees, studying the mysteries of this domain, searching out Shen Mu's flaws.

In the past universe, though he had crossed paths with the Seventh Young Master Shen Mu many times, his understanding of Shen Mu's divine abilities and dao arts had never run deep. The Seventh Young Master of the Miluo Palace was either digging pits for others or on his way to dig pits for others; he spent very little time in the Miluo Palace.

Now, at last, was a fine chance to observe Shen Mu's dao arts.

By cultivation, Shen Mu did not rank highest in primal qi within the seventeenth-epoch universe. Both Taichu and Emperor Haotian had deeper primal qi than he.

Shen Mu's strength lay in having long since outstripped this age; his vision, his experience, the depths of his knowledge all far surpassed those of Taichu and Emperor Haotian.

He was already not far from the Young Masters; even the Third Young Master did not dare slight him.

Within Shen Mu's domain were also the countless main-force armies of the Heavenly Court, trapped inside with no way out.

Shen Mu's domain was too uncanny; whichever direction they charged, in the end they could only draw nearer to Shen Mu, and so not one of them dared to move.

The Heavenly Court's experts of the Imperial Throne realm especially did not dare take half a step!

How savage and dreadful Shen Mu had been when he killed the incarnation of the Lingguan Hall Master. Should they move, wherever they went they would end up before Shen Mu, delivering themselves straight to him for slaughter!

Besides them there were also the Taiji Ancient Gods and Her Majesty the Empress. The Taiji Ancient Gods likewise perceived the danger and dared not stir.

The Empress found that whenever she turned her head, no matter how wide the turn, Shen Mu was always facing her directly; she clicked her tongue in wonder, and so turned two more circles, and burst out giggling.

— The mind of the Goddess of Guixu was ever unlike other people's.

Shen Mu alone, by his own strength, held in check the Heavenly Court's countless armies of gods and devils, so that none dared cross the line by a single step!

Had the Third and Fourth Young Masters not broken his domain with their own momentum, likely even Celestial Venerable Xu, the Ancestral God King, and the armies of gods and devils of Xuandu and Youdu would have been trapped here with no way out!

Only the Third Young Master could stand within Shen Mu's domain yet step outside it; from this alone one could see how deep his foundations ran.

Shen Mu's Thirty-Three Heavens Divine Treasury domain was beyond all understanding, yet he understood it, and could even transcend it!

This was the first time Shen Mu had met so terrifying a being. Since his cultivation art reached great completion, his Divine Treasury domain had never been broken by anyone; this was the first time!

The Third Young Master did not even seem to be breaking it; rather, it was as if he had seen through every mystery of the domain at a single glance!

The Fourth Young Master did not pace to and fro as the Third Young Master did. He simply stood within Shen Mu's domain, watching Shen Mu's Hall of Chaos.

Shen Mu's domain held thirty-three heavens in all; to outsiders there were thirty-three Shen Mus. Yet the strangest thing was this: where the Fourth Young Master stood, it was as though he had pierced through the thirty-three heavens; in every single domain there stood a Fourth Young Master!

By another fashion, he declared that he had already seen through the Thirty-Three Heavens domain.

The two Young Masters' methods differed, but the depths of both were unfathomable!

Pressure descended upon Shen Mu at once.

He wished to block the Heavenly Court's armies here and buy time for Jingping; now it seemed this task was incomparably hard!

Neither the Third nor the Fourth Young Master had struck directly. Though they had seen through Shen Mu's domain, in the past Shen Mu had not been famed for his Divine Treasury domain.

The Seventh Young Master of the Miluo Palace had achieved the dao through chaos; what he had cultivated was the Hall of Chaos!

Even their teacher, the Master of the Miluo Palace, spoke of Shen Mu with high praise!

They had only borrowed the bodies of Emperor Haotian and Taichu so that they might cross swords with Shen Mu. Controlling another's body was, after all, less convenient than descending in person, and they had also to contend with the Seventh Young Master of the past universe. This was therefore a rare chance to glimpse what dao mysteries and divine abilities the Seventh Young Master's Hall of Chaos truly contained.

If they could discern his dao arts and divine abilities in the Shen Mu of the present, then they could deal with the Seventh Young Master of the future!

The Hall of Chaos floated within Shen Mu's Great Heavenly Court, holding boundless energy, yet that energy was clenched tight within the hall and could not escape.

Shen Mu's Great Heavenly Court likewise followed the system of achieving the dao through power, as Taichu and Emperor Haotian did, cultivating heavenly palaces and treasure halls; yet Shen Mu had not been caught by the Jade Capital trap.

When he fought the phantom images of the Seventy-Two Hall Masters, he had already broken the trap and taken the power of the seventy-two halls into his grasp.

And his accomplishment of the Hall of Chaos was precisely his escape from the Lingxiao trap.

Nor was that all: from Shen Mu the Third and Fourth Young Masters also saw other ways of achieving the dao, the Second Young Master's Guixu dao, and the dao-realm dao.

Beyond these, Shen Mu's World Tree left them somewhat perplexed; this way of achieving the dao must be a system unique to the seventeenth epoch, not yet fully developed.

Add chaos to the count, and no fewer than five paths to the dao could be seen in Shen Mu!

This too was why Shen Mu was so powerful!

Suddenly, the Third Young Master Lingxiao halted his steps!

At that same instant, the Fourth Young Master Zixiao, who had stood there watching all along, moved his feet, striding across layer upon layer of space to stand before Shen Mu!

Shen Mu struck in that same instant as well. He used no other dao-realm divine ability; the moment he made his move it was directly the thirty-third heaven dao-realm divine ability, Breaking the Kalpa!

He established the dao through divine ability; the Breaking-Kalpa Sword was the mightiest divine ability he had ever created, able to break every dao divine ability in existence!

That sword held all the depth of his foundations, and the thirty-third heaven dao realm that Breaking the Kalpa transformed into likewise trapped more than half the Heavenly Court's gods and devils; it even made the Empress and the Taiji Ancient Gods dare not move!

He had accomplished the Hongmeng primal qi, and used Hongmeng runes to re-evolve this divine ability; its power was absolutely far greater than before!

The Fourth Young Master Zixiao came walking toward the Breaking-Kalpa Sword. He raised a hand, pointing a finger at the oncoming sword-light; finger and sword collided in midair with a hissing shriek.

Shen Mu had no sword in his hand; he had transformed Hongmeng primal qi into a purple sword. The Fourth Young Master Zixiao, for his part, evolved his divine ability with his own finger; at a twitch of his fingertip purple qi spread in all directions, likewise Hongmeng primal qi!