Chapter 1779 — A Body Full of Holes

"Seventh Young Master!

" Palace Lord Changfeng stopped in his tracks, and the World-Crossing Golden Ship came to a halt as well.

Palace Lord Changfeng drew a long breath. The Dao fruit within the little tree crown atop his head began to blossom with light, and the Great Dao within the Dao fruit came back to life, its patterns spreading like the convolutions of a brain.

The situation was now extremely adverse to him. His roots were locked to the World-Crossing Golden Ship, and to exchange blows with Shen Mu while dragging this golden ship was plainly a great inconvenience.

In any clash with the Seventh Young Master, the slightest carelessness could prove fatal - let alone when he had a ship of such monstrous size in tow!

More crucial still, this World-Crossing Golden Ship had never been something anyone could command, yet the very first time Shen Mu went to the Miluo Palace, he had made off with it. If, amid the fight, the ship should make a move under the Seventh Young Master's control, he would truly be lost beyond all redemption! Shen Mu's expression was indifferent as he said, "Palace Lord Changfeng, carry a message for me to the Third and Fourth Young Masters.

" At these words, Palace Lord Changfeng felt a chill that went to the bone.

When Palace Lord Chuge died before the assembled crowd of the Miluo Palace, what he had said was precisely that the Seventh Young Master bade him carry a message; then, in front of everyone, his skull had burst open, his Dao fruit had split apart, and he had met a violent death!

Now Shen Mu was again asking him to carry a message to the two young masters, and he could already see his own end! The supreme art of war is to attack the enemy's plans; the supreme of all arts is to attack the heart.

Shen Mu's attack upon the heart was more formidable than any divine power!

Yet Palace Lord Changfeng was resolute as well.

He at once sensed the roots he had left in the Great Tribulation of Annihilation of the Sixteenth Era, stirred his roots, and forcibly dragged his own body toward the Sixteenth Era!

The true body of a tree is not its trunk, its crown, or its branches, but its roots. His roots had not fully descended, and now countless roots strained together, actually towing him out of the starry sky back into the past!

His strength was fearsome, and the path he cultivated was exceedingly singular, his Dao and body united as one, his abilities outstanding and free from the mundane. When his roots exerted their strength, even a phantom of the River of Chaos appeared amid the stars, its waves churning and surging!

The World-Crossing Golden Ship was dragged along by him as well, sailing toward the River of Chaos of the Sixteenth Era! He knew that with his Dao heart shaken, he could hardly hope to win a head-on contest against Shen Mu, and so he chose directly to abandon his descent.

Descending into the Seventeenth Era was extremely difficult, requiring blood sacrifice and enough energy to be offered up to the Great Tribulation of Annihilation of the Sixteenth Era; but to abandon the descent and return to the Sixteenth Era was far simpler for him.

In the Great Tribulation of Annihilation of the Sixteenth Era, the one thing never lacking was energy.

Moreover, his roots still lay in the Jade Capital City that floated upon the River of Chaos; he had only to drag his body back by force, and the energy of the River of Chaos would come surging without end to complete the exchange! His body sank down into the River of Chaos of the Sixteenth Era, and billowing chaos qi at once overflowed from the void, surging with terrifying might.

The power of one who had attained the Dao was truly too great, and the energy it transformed into was truly immense. As he made his exchange, it was as though the River of Chaos had burst its dikes - chaos qi flooded out with sky-covering force, drowning one star system after another and crushing the stars of those systems until they could be crushed no further! At just that moment, Shen Mu's opening move was the ax technique of Taiyi; the Dao of Taiyi transformed into a divine ax and slashed toward the void!

At the sight of this ax technique, despair rose unbidden in Palace Lord Changfeng's heart.

The mighty ones of the Sixteenth Era, whether or not they had attained the Dao, had all witnessed that scene of Taiyi felling the World Tree! As the first stowaway, Taiyi's very first deed upon entering the Seventeenth Era had been to swing up his great ax, cut down the World Tree - the medium that all stowaways were compelled to rely on - and set it afire, burning it to ashes, severing the road of survival for everyone! And now the divine power Shen Mu wielded was unmistakably Taiyi felling the tree!

It was this very technique that had shattered the Dao hearts of who knew how many mighty ones!

What was even more terrifying was that from ancient times to the present, nearly all who had attained the Dao cultivated a Dao tree, and the Dao tree imitated the World Tree; a move that could fell the World Tree could naturally also fell the Dao tree of one who had attained the Dao! Palace Lord Changfeng himself had attained the Dao as a divine tree.

His Dao tree had long been refined into one with his very body - his body was the Dao, the Dao flower bloomed upon his body, and the Dao tree bore fruit from his body. The suppression Shen Mu's move brought down upon him could well be imagined!

The speed of his exchange was swift, but swift as it was, it could not outrun Shen Mu's divine ax!

"Seventh Young Master, if you give me no road to live, then I will give you none either!

" Knowing that he could not escape his doom, Palace Lord Changfeng bellowed in grief and fury: "Come back to the past with me! " Suddenly, from within the phantom of the River of Chaos in the void, countless roots shot out, dancing with a swish, swish, swish as they snaked toward Shen Mu!

He knew that this tribulation was inescapable, and so, instead of dodging or evading, he drove his own Dao techniques to the utmost. Countless roots coiled around Shen Mu, locked him fast, and dragged him together toward the River of Chaos of the Sixteenth Era.

His roots were born of the Great Dao, the embodiment of his own Dao; every root represented his attainments and could be called a branch of his Great Dao - tough, resilient, and holding supreme might within!

He had not cultivated merely one Dao.

Over the long ages, he had passed through three Great Tribulations of Annihilation, and the tribulations had not been able to grind him away; instead his roots had taken hold within the chaos, drawing up its power, making his physical body incomparably stable and his Dao arts ever more mature.

Whirr, whirr!

His two Dao fruits flew out from the tree crown atop his head, and the Dao might stored within them erupted in full.

Imprints of the Great Dao were projected, shining down upon one after another of the dancing roots! With this strike he could bind Shen Mu fast, and Shen Mu would absolutely be unable to break free!

In this moment, both drove their own Dao arts and divine powers to the uttermost limit. Shen Mu's Taiyi divine ax hewed through both of Palace Lord Changfeng's legs, while the roots that Palace Lord Changfeng sent flying out of the River of Chaos pierced straight through Shen Mu's Hongmeng body, boring through his frame and drawing out blossom after blossom of blood!

Swish, swish, swish! Countless roots wrapped around Shen Mu and strained with all their might to drag him into the River of Chaos! In his battle with Palace Lord Chuge, Shen Mu's body had suffered damage, wounded by Palace Lord Chuge.

Palace Lord Changfeng's roots broke in at precisely the sites of those Dao wounds and drilled into his body; otherwise, given the hardness of Shen Mu's Hongmeng body, it would have been no easy feat to breach it.