Chapter 1777 — The Legacy Scroll of the Blade Sutra

Within Miluo Palace every heart was shaken.

Hall Master Chuge stood among the top ten of the seventy-two halls, and his attainment of the Dao was of the most ancient.

Of the three hall masters Miluo Palace had sent this time, his strength was the greatest; among the three he was the head, the one who presided over the great design of Miluo Palace's descent.

Who could have thought that before he had even fully descended, he would already be slain by the Seventh Young Master! In the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court there was not a sound; gaze after gaze fell upon Third Young Master Lingxiao, and no one dared speak. The hall masters of Miluo Palace were the finest of the Dao-achievers of the bygone cosmos, and Hall Master Chuge was outstanding even among them; though he was not fit to become a young master, his powers were extraordinary.

His death in the Seventeenth Epoch robbed every heart of its confidence.

Miluo Palace had already lost three hall masters.

The Primal Sage of Pixiang Hall, charged with spreading the Dharma, had rendered immense service: he had propagated the Jade Capital City's cultivation system, planted in the Seventeenth Epoch the Jade Capital Trap and the Lingxiao Trap, led the Great Emperor and Taichu astray, and so misled even the Heavenly Venerable Yu, founder of the cultivation system. The Jade Capital Trap and the Lingxiao Trap gave Miluo Palace the chance to seize control of the Seventeenth Epoch's highest powers.

The Primal Sage of Pixiang Hall died by the hand of the Ten Heavenly Venerables.

The Spirit Sage of Lingguan Hall, bearing a heavy charge, descended into the Seventeenth Epoch and, fearless of death for the sake of Miluo Palace's descent, presided over the battle of the Great Black Mountain stowaways, and in the end died on Great Black Mountain, slain by Xushenghua and Seventh Young Master Shen Mu.

Yet under his direction the stowaways of Great Black Mountain had at last been able to slip through into the Seventeenth Epoch, paving the way for Miluo Palace's descent. The Chu Sage of Chuge Hall presided over the battle of descent; after entering the Seventeenth Epoch he joined hands with Hall Master Huanxi and Hall Master Changfeng to drive the blood sacrifice, bringing down the young masters of Miluo Palace and the other Dao-achievers.

The Primal Sage and the Spirit Sage had died, but their goals were accomplished; only the Chu Sage, before he had fully come into the Seventeenth Epoch, was killed by the Seventh Young Master!

Third Young Master Lingxiao stepped forward and silently examined the wound Shen Mu's strike had dealt Hall Master Chuge. Shen Mu had meant Hall Master Chuge to carry a message back to Miluo Palace; no words were needed, for the wound itself was the finest of speeches.

The Third Young Master had crossed blades with Shen Mu before; Shen Mu had used a red rope knot to seal part of his power and consciousness within Lingxiao Hall, and it was only recently that he had undone that knot.

He knew Shen Mu's strength of seven years ago like the palm of his own hand.

Seven years had passed since then.

And in Hall Master Chuge's wound he saw the terrifying progress Shen Mu had made in those scant seven years! Shen Mu had not only mastered the Miluo Palace principles hidden in the dao wound he himself had left upon Shen Mu, but had built upon them and brought forth the new, fusing them with the divine arts and dao methods of the Tiandu Blasphemer, and the advance was terrifying!

Shen Mu's understanding and comprehension of Miluo Palace's dao methods had already drawn near the level of a young master; his attainment might even be said to surpass that of the great majority of hall masters!

More crucially still, in him the Blasphemer's dao methods and those of Miluo Palace had begun to merge, and Third Young Master Lingxiao could see that Shen Mu's road to attaining the Dao had reached its critical hour.

Shen Mu's Chaos Hall was complete!

Moreover, his primordial spirit had already entered the Chaos Hall; on the road of the Dao-achiever he was a single step away! To become a young master of Miluo Palace was not so simple as attaining the Dao; one had to have terrifying achievements, to reach the utmost in some domain, an utmost no one else could attain, an utmost beyond even the master of Miluo Palace.

Such a one's Dao would condense into a main hall that upheld Miluo Palace. So it was with First Young Master Taishang, so with Second Young Master Wuji, and so with every other young master.

The seven great main halls of Miluo Palace, Taishang, Wuji, Lingxiao, Zixiao, Wuzong, Zhanji, and Chaos, each stood for an achievement the master of Miluo Palace could not attain. And Shen Mu was no longer far from such an achievement.

Third Young Master Lingxiao examined every wound on Hall Master Chuge with the utmost care; the best way to defeat an opponent was to know him as thoroughly as possible, to know everything about him.

That was what he was doing now.

Though Shen Mu's present strength was not yet worth a glance before him, he remained cautious, remained earnest. "Fellow Daoist Chu is dead, yet his three dao fruits and one dao flower remain.

" Third Young Master Lingxiao raised his palm, and the Chu Sage's three dao fruits and one dao flower flew to him and hung suspended above his palm. The Young Master Lingxiao's face was as still as an ancient well.

"Though your body is dead and your soul scattered, fellow Daoist, your consciousness and your Dao remain. You need only reach the Seventeenth Epoch and find a fitting body and primordial spirit, and you may be reborn by borrowing body and soul.

" The other hall masters' faces darkened.

Without flesh, without soul, reborn by borrowing life through the consciousness in his dao fruits and dao flower, would he still be the Chu Sage of old? Yet matters had come to this, and they could hardly say more.

"Hao of the Seventeenth Epoch is already on his way.

When he reaches the skies above the destruction kalpa of the Sixteenth Epoch, the Fourth Young Master will go to meet him and give him a zither string.

" The Third Young Master's face was calm.

"The struggle with Old Seven has only just begun; there is no need for any of you to worry. Old Seven means to block Miluo Palace alone and keep it from descending; he is fated to be crushed until his head runs with blood. If Miluo Palace cannot descend into the Seventeenth Epoch, that is the one true road to death!

" At his last words, every face grew grave.

Though Miluo Palace was unshakably firm, it had lingered all this while within the great kalpa of destruction, and sooner or later it would collapse and crumble because of it!

If they did not enter the Seventeenth Epoch, they, the Dao-achievers, would likely all be ground away within the great kalpa of destruction. After all, not everyone was a young master of Miluo Palace, with the means and the strength to evade the great kalpa or to withstand it head-on!

Shen Mu suppressed his injuries. Hall Master Chuge had still been formidable; his final blow had wounded Shen Mu as well, leaving him no small number of dao wounds. Yet these wounds were not enough to kill him; they would only cause him some trouble.

He would have to parse the divine arts and dao methods lingering in those dao wounds, break them one by one, and only then heal himself.

Before him, Hall Master Chuge's two legs still stood steadily upon the ground.

Hall Master Chuge had been struck back by Shen Mu into the destruction kalpa of the Sixteenth Epoch, yet these two legs had remained behind. Shen Mu suppressed his injuries, stepped forward, and put away Hall Master Chuge's legs.

He had no such habit; the one with that habit was Xing'an. "Hall Master Chuge was, after all, an ancient Dao-achiever, and there is something extraordinary about his flesh.

I want to ask Xing'an to do something for me, to break open Taiyi's coffin and free Taiyi.