Chapter 1783 — When Schemes Are Exhausted, the Blade Appears

In the Heavenly Court, palace after palace came thundering down, and again and again prehistoric powerhouses who had slipped in by stealth had their upper halves slide away from them, dying unnatural deaths.

The collapse of the Heavenly Court was all the more appalling for its scale; before that single lute string of the Fourth Young Master, every arrangement of the Five Elders of Fengshu was well-nigh useless.

One string, one note, and he had cut the Heavenly Court cleanly in two, had even slain Feng Hualian, chief of the Five Elders — such ability had never been heard of.

Many other prehistoric powerhouses in the Heavenly Court escaped by luck, untouched by the Fourth Young Master's string, yet the shock of that string instantly snuffed out every grand ambition in them and shattered their dao hearts. Cold sweat sprang from the brows of the four Elders of Fengshu; their own dao hearts too trembled on the verge of collapse.

They had reckoned that, holding the initiative, they could surely block the descent of Miluo Palace.

In times past, Miluo Palace had merely commanded the general momentum, and with the Master of Miluo Palace present to suppress one cosmic era after another, they had been content to lie dormant. Now the momentum was theirs; the young masters of Miluo Palace were mere placeholders, seekers of empty reputation, and in true ability hardly their superiors.

Hence their notion of barring Miluo Palace from dominating Mount Ba in the Seventeenth Era. Yet once blows were truly exchanged, they learned how vast the gulf between them and the young masters of Miluo Palace really was.

Emperor Haotian rose to his feet, suddenly stepped forward, and said grimly, "Four Elders of Fengshu, will you not yet submit?

If I pluck the string again, I will turn the countless years of your bitter cultivation into nothing. " Shen Mu knitted his brows slightly.

He had long foreseen that Emperor Haotian's dao heart would crumble and break apart; he had only not expected it to look like this, so utterly wretched.

In the battle of the Yuan Realm, when Yun Tianzun slew the Second Young Master's incarnation, he had also broken his dao heart, leaving a flaw within it.

In the counteroffensive at Jingping, Shen Mu had held him in check, held him until Jiang Baigui pacified Xuandu and came to reinforce, held him until his tide had turned for good.

Since then, Emperor Haotian's dao heart had decayed completely.

Shen Mu had known a like situation.

After Emperor Haotian seized Youdu, his own dao heart too had collapsed utterly, and he had wished to go up to the Heavenly Court bearing thorns upon his back, to kneel and sue for surrender.

The difference was that at that time Yuchenzi brought word of the Dao Ancestor and the Great Brahma Heavenly King Buddha, brought a glimmer of hope.

Jingping's present situation had been turned around precisely by that one insignificant hope, defeating a Heavenly Court that had seemed impossible to defeat. And Emperor Haotian had hope as well, hope that came from the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court, yet he had failed to revive his dao heart and carry himself further.

This was because Shen Mu and Emperor Haotian had different ends.

Shen Mu sought to realize his own ideals and aspirations, to win the right to live, the right to equality, to make the gods serve man, to carry forward the principle that the daily use of the common people is itself the Way of the sages.

Once he had fallen into utter despair, every hope drew him nearer to his ideals and aspirations, and so his dao heart grew ever stronger. Emperor Haotian sought his own lust for power, and his dao heart was built upon that lust for power.

Even with the support of the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court, his dao heart could never return to what it had been; the Jade Capital City would hold him in a death grip, become his sovereign, and he would be nothing but a puppet on strings.

He was drifting ever farther from the monopoly of power.

"Four Elders of Fengshu, kneel to me, kneel to me! " Emperor Haotian's gaze fell upon the four elders, and he said grimly, "Your strength — I will command it!

I order you to pass down the word at once: seize the Seventh Young Master Shen Mu, and wipe out the bandits of Jingping!

" The four Elders of Fengshu hesitated.

They glanced at one another, then looked in silence at Feng Hualian's corpse upon the altar, irresolute. Feng Hualian's blood flowed from the body and dyed the altar red; yet the blood sacrifice in the Ancestral Court went on, devouring vital essence, unhurriedly carrying out its exchange of energy.

One by one, the four Elders of Fengshu rose to their feet in silence, and Emperor Haotian smiled.

Yue Tianzun's heart tightened, and she loosened the strap that bound her lute to her body. The Hall Master of Joy at her side saw this and smiled faintly: "Little sister, your elder sister would so love to hear your lute.

" On her dao tree a dao fruit suddenly floated up and spun, and with a single hum, Yue Tianzun saw the Hall Master of Joy everywhere, in every direction.

It was the Way of Space pushed to its utmost.

Shen Mu had once told her that the Hall Master of Joy likewise cultivated the Zaiji Void, but that her Zaiji Void manifested differently; and now it seemed he had been right.

The Hall Master of Joy's Way of Space took the outer aspect, entrusting the ultimate void to attain the Dao, the great Way entrusted without.

When she unleashed her Way of Space, the surrounding space folded into countless layers, and there were countless Hall Masters of Joy.

In battle she could attack from countless directions.

And her dao tree — every single leaf of it could be called an incarnation of the Hall Master of Joy; when her divine power was unleashed, countless incarnations of the Hall Master of Joy attacked at once, winning by sheer numbers while making it impossible to tell the true body from the false. Yue Tianzun laid her lute across her knees, and her slender jade fingers plucked softly.

The lute note sounded.

"If elder sister wishes to hear it, little sister will make a poor showing," she said. The Hall Master of Joy gave a soft exclamation.

In the instant the lute note sounded, Yue Tianzun in her eyes began to change.

She had folded space into countless layers, so that she seemed to have countless selves, and could see every aspect of her opponent — even the opponent's five viscera and six bowels, the structure of her divine treasury, the structure of her primordial spirit, the structure of her great Way — all perfectly clear.

Such was the Way of Space raised to its utmost. Yet when she looked at Yue Tianzun from her vantage, what she saw was Yue Tianzun's front; from whatever angle she looked, she saw Yue Tianzun's front, and no other aspect whatsoever.

This was the inner aspect of the Zaiji Void, the outward sign displayed when the Way of Space is entrusted within.

Though she and Yue Tianzun both cultivated the Way of Space, they had walked two utterly different roads to the Dao; even the widely traveled Hall Master of Joy could not help but marvel. Beside Yue Tianzun, Shen Mu's brows lifted slightly.

Yue Tianzun's Zaiji Void was in some measure similar to his own divine treasury domain, which surprised him.

But he did not dwell on it: Shen Mu's techniques and divine powers had all been cast into the Wendao Academy of Jingping for any to study, and Yue Tianzun had most likely studied them and gained something thereby. The two women faced off.

Yue Tianzun wore a smile, and lightly plucked the strings; the notes came in twos and threes, forming no tune, scattered and sparse, yet the Hall Master of Joy felt a faint ache from her wound.