Chapter 1766 — Who Tempers Your Advance in Your Stead

That was the battle of Ancient God Taishi and Ancient God Taiji, long continued. Their combat made strange and gorgeous visions bloom beyond the sky, born of their divine powers; by day they showed little, but by night they blazed resplendent.

Divine powers spread like paintings across the night sky of the Yuan Realm, flaring forth and fading away.

In the west, sun after sun had vanished, turned to sunset glow sinking behind the mountains, staining the western sky scarlet. The night was faintly cool.

Ling Yuxiu heard a long howl borne through the dark night, carrying a singular mood, now lingering and winding, now like a long sword piercing the vault, now like water beneath a small bridge, now like armored horses and clashing spears, slaughter on the field, conjuring a vast and magnificent vision.

Ling Yuxiu gazed afar and saw where the howl came from a vast Da Luotian tilting down, emerging from the thirty-sixfold void, its firmament split and tottering as it sank toward the Yuan Realm. With a hum, the Dao light of that Da Luotian blazed suddenly thick, scattering the night of the Yuan Realm till it shone bright as day; that was the Dao light of the Innate One Qi!

The howl still came, grown stirring and ringing, like a song of a saber cleaving heaven and earth as it galloped across the battlefield, venting its rage against oppression!

"Can it be Lord Shang and Taichu?

Taichu did not retreat with Heavenly Emperor Haotian, but was held back by Lord Shang?

" Ling Yuxiu's heart stirred; in Lord Shang's howl she heard battle will and killing intent, and a longing to guard all living beings, yet it seemed he could never raise that will and intent to the utmost. Suddenly Shen Mu's voice came from the room behind her.

"My lady, pray summon Heaven-Venerable Yue and Grandpa Tu. " Joy seized Ling Yuxiu's heart, and she hastened back into the room; with a glance she saw Shen Mu had waked she knew not when and was struggling to sit up.

Ling Yuxiu at once stirred the Three Primes divine sense to inform Heaven-Venerable Yue and Zaifu, while she stepped forward to help Shen Mu up and seat him firm.

"Gently, it hurts.

.

.

" Shen Mu drew a hissing breath. "These nails must be Xu Shenghua's work; every one sinks into flesh and marrow.

" Sweat beaded his brow, and at last seated he panted heavily.

Heaven-Venerable Yue's wounds were unhealed, and Zaifu too bore Dao wounds all over and had been kept for treatment; hearing the summons they hurried over, only to find Shen Mu seated there asleep, layer upon layer of dream worlds unfolding.

The two entered the room and stepped straight into his dream, yet Shen Mu's dream seemed no dream, but a true world.

When they entered Shen Mu's dream, they beheld the eve of a universe's ruin; in that dream universe the Ultimate Void was crushed ever smaller by Dao-achievers, and gusts of cold and silent wind blew from the Ultimate Void, and wherever they passed, through the domains of Dao-achievers and heavens upon heavens, the people suffered calamity upon calamity, sunk in fire and water.

Even gods and demons often fell into the fivefold decline, and oft in meditation a cold wind would pierce their orifices and melt bone, flesh, and primordial spirit all away, dying without knowing why.

That universe was full of ruin, yet flourished to an extreme, mighty beyond all before, its strong ones beyond counting and its Dao-achievers many, in stark contrast to the decay!

To lighten the universe's burden and prolong its life, the Dao-achievers deliberately sowed strife, setting the beings of heaven after heaven to slaughter and assail one another, till the great heavens, even the Ancestral Court where stood the World Tree, reeked of smoke and miasma. Just then Heaven-Venerable Yue and Heavenly Blade Zaifu fixed their eyes upon a youth bearing a long saber on his back, who was rummaging through piles of corpses, drinking bloody water and eating rotted flesh from the dead.

Yet the fivefold decline had invaded the great heavens, and any god or demon who died soon rotted and stank, yet this youth forced down his nausea to eat the stinking carrion.

When the youth had regained his strength, he took up slaughter anew, striking at the gods who ruled the heavens, honing his saber and honing his Dao heart. Like a mad demon he slew from one heaven to the next, and gods and demons beyond counting fell beneath his blade. He was savage beyond measure, armed with an invincible faith, like the cruelest beast and the craftiest hunter, slaughtering at will to raise his Dao realm.

"Is that Lord Shang? " Heaven-Venerable Yue asked doubtfully.

Then they seldom saw Lord Shang's gentle side; he sat by a stream before a ruined hamlet admiring a small flower, while children sang and danced about him and set a garland upon his head, and contentment lit his plain face. Then Lord Shang walked the road of slaughter again, challenging higher gods and drawing his saber on stronger foes.

That day he at last became one of the mightiest beings of that universe and launched his assault upon the lofty Dao-achievers! In the moment a Dao-achiever died by his hand, he at last achieved the Dao through the Dao of killing.

But his aim was not to achieve the Dao; it was to slay those Dao-achievers who had stowed across, to slay those high beings who manipulated that universe! Slaughter was not his purpose; what he truly wished was to guard the common people of that universe!

Now he had such power at last! He donned the garland the children had given him and gazed at his own Da Luotian, looking down in joy upon the universe below, and the plain smile froze upon his face.

The first native Dao-achiever of the Sixteenth Age, and also its last, his achievement crushed that universe utterly and crushed the Ultimate Void.

The Great Annihilation came in that instant, and the whole universe sank into collapse and ruin, and countless common beings died miserably in its first wave.

He who most wished to save that universe and save its common beings became the last straw that broke it, the butcher who slaughtered clean those he had meant to protect!

In the moment the apocalypse of universal ruin erupted, Lord Shang went mad; caring nothing for how to survive the apocalypse, he struck madly at those Dao-achievers amid the cataclysm!

Heaven-Venerable Yue and Zaifu stared at this scene, until at last, with the ruin of that dream universe, the dream vanished. Shen Mu panted.

"Heaven-Venerable Yue, Grandpa Tu, can you wake the ultimate killing intent in Lord Shang's heart?

" Zaifu strode out and bade the soldiers fetch a hundred hundred-measure war drums and set them upright; he tore off his robe to bare his mighty thews and gripped two great mallets.

Heaven-Venerable Yue sat behind the great array of drums and restrung her zither; its notes drifted forth to answer the howl in the night, neither tight nor slack, neither hurried nor slow.

Thump!

The drums sounded as Zaifu swung his mallets, striking in the instant the zither and the howl broke off, deep and mighty.