Chapter 1780 — A Thread from Olden Times

By the time the radiance bursting from Tai Yi's coffin had dispersed, the starry sky was strewn with severed root-tendrils, writhing like great serpents cut in two. Palace Lord Changfeng was exceedingly hard to kill; even in such a state, his root-tendrils kept squirming, striving to gather themselves back together.

Yet the moment two tendrils touched, they triggered the Dao-wound left behind by the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin.

The lingering might of that divine art erupted and riddled the tendrils with a thousand holes. Seeing this, Shen Mu let out a breath of relief.

Yet the instant he relaxed, pain seared through every part of his body.

He had been wounded ever since his battle with Palace Lord Chuge, and the right decision would have been to rest awhile, to recover to his peak before dealing with Palace Lord Changfeng. But time was pressing; if Palace Lord Changfeng and Palace Lord Huanxi should join forces, he would be no match for the two of them.

Moreover, neither palace lord had fully descended.

Once they did, and should they then entrust themselves to the void, whether Shen Mu could face either of them one on one was still unknown. So he could only come to battle wounded.

Fortunately he had frightened Palace Lord Huanxi away on the road; had that palace lord come to join Changfeng, this battle would likely have ended in crushing defeat. "Tai Yi surely won't hate me, will he?

" Shen Mu suppressed his wounds.

The Dao-wounds Palace Lord Changfeng had left were not troublesome, but those inflicted by the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin were far more vexing, hard to heal in a short time. He came before Tai Yi's coffin.

The ripples of the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin had subsided, and though this divine coffin had been tossed about twice, it remained wholly unharmed, solid beyond compare - truly a coffin of the finest timber. Shen Mu stroked the coffin lightly, then dragged it with effort toward the World-Crossing Golden Ship.

"Tai Yi is so strong - a mere Dao-Burying Divine Coffin could never harm him.

" Full of confidence in Tai Yi, Shen Mu said in a hoarse voice, "Sworn Brother, come out quickly.

I'm spent.

" From somewhere aboard the World-Crossing Golden Ship came Lan Yutian's voice: "Brother, wait a little longer.

" Shen Mu could not drag Tai Yi's coffin aboard, so he had to stop and rest.

After a while, Lan Yutian still did not appear.

"Sworn Brother, are you not coming out yet?

" Doubt stirred in his heart.

"Wait a little longer for me - I think I'm about to find my way out! " Shen Mu waited a while more, until he grew impatient, and thought, "Can it be that Lan Yutian has gotten himself lost again? " Lan Yutian's sensitivity to the Dao was extraordinarily high; he was a man born close to the Dao. But he had one fault: a habitual inability to find his way.

In the past he had wandered lost into the Western Lands and idled about with Xu Shenghua for a spell; after leaving Xu Shenghua he had drifted, lost again, beyond the Great Void, and in a muddle had taken in a whole crowd of disciples. Luckily he had met Shen Mu, who had gathered him back. The golden halls within the World-Crossing Golden Ship were vast in number.

Shen Mu had once, in order to seek out where Kaihuang was, made vast and complicated calculations to determine the number of those golden halls, arriving at an appalling figure.

Shen Fengqing had then used the methods of Youdu to divide into myriads of incarnations and search through every one of those halls.

Had Lan Yutian not been hopeless with directions, he might have found a way out.

Unfortunately, he was. He had borrowed the golden ship's peculiar nature to preserve himself and to trap Palace Lord Changfeng, never imagining that he would lose himself in the process.

"I'm afraid Sworn Brother could grope about for tens of thousands of years and never find his way out. I can't count on him.

" Shen Mu spent the last of his strength dragging Tai Yi's coffin aboard, then lay on the deck gasping, utterly exhausted. He closed his eyes and slowly sank into a dream. Countless tiny Shen Mus burrowed in and out of the wounds on his body, exchanging maha-maha and jigu-jigu, studying the scars of the Dao-wounds, deducing the divine arts and principles of the Dao concealed within them.

Before long, a deeper layer of dream unfurled, and many more tiny Shen Mus emerged, axes and chisels in hand. Unlike the others, these tiny Shen Mus were of flesh and blood, transmuted, unmistakably, from Shen Mu's Great Dao and his Hongmeng primal qi.

Each Shen Mu was like the most diligent worker bee or ant, swarming about Shen Mu's wounds, hammering and chipping, using his own Dao arts and divine powers to refine and erase the Dao-wounds.

The other tiny Shen Mus eyed these new companions with curiosity and asked one after another, "Maha maha?

" "Guji guji? " Those new-formed companions wore solemn faces and paid them little heed, only snapping back when their patience ran out: "Aba, aba!

" The other tiny Shen Mus widened their eyes, looking as though they understood perfectly, when in truth they had understood nothing at all.

There were still other tiny Shen Mus dressed as alchemists, some carrying medicine chests, some with herb baskets on their backs, some holding pill furnaces in their palms, diligently patching and mending the wounds where the Dao-harm was being refined away. Those tiny Shen Mus swarmed up again to ask their questions, only to be poisoned by the alchemist Shen Mus, foaming at the mouth and twitching one after another.

The other Shen Mus pointed at them and roared with laughter, gloating: "Aba! " When Shen Mu was about to wake from the great dream, the tiny Shen Mus hurried one by one to burrow into his brain and vanished in succession.

Shen Mu stretched his limbs.

He felt refreshed from the sleep, and the Dao-wounds on his body had vanished.

He rose and examined Tai Yi's coffin once more, only to find that Lan Yutian still had not emerged from the golden hall.

"Sworn Brother really has gotten himself lost, it seems.

" During the time he had dreamed and healed, the World-Crossing Golden Ship had traveled for more than ten days, drifting toward the Ancestral Court, and was already quite close to it.

Shen Mu frowned slightly.

The golden ship moved according to his will, away from the Yuan Realm and toward the Ancestral Court. In his sleep, the world of his dreams was strange and magnificent, and his thoughts, unchecked, galloped and wandered at will; the ship had therefore chosen the direction of his deepest yearning. "I wonder whether those root-tendrils of Palace Lord Changfeng's will become a hidden danger.

" A measure of unease stirred in his heart.

He should have stayed, and once his wounds healed, wiped out every last root-tendril of Palace Lord Changfeng, to ensure there would be no future trouble. But the golden ship had already come this far; hurrying back would be too late.

Truly, as the ship's course showed, his worry over the Ancestral Court weighed heavier in his heart. "Palace Lord Changfeng's root-tendrils were gravely wounded by the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin.

Every tendril bears the Dao-wound it left behind, and he lacks my insight and vision; he cannot erase those wounds. The problem should not be great.

" Shen Mu was still somewhat weak. Twice he had clashed head-on with beings at the palace lord level, draining much of his cultivation, and cultivation was not something a dream could restore.

He rested a while, then stirred his mind, and one by one the golden halls aboard the ship vanished of themselves. They vanished slowly, for Shen Mu left Lan Yutian ample time to run from one hall to the next.