Chapter 1784 — Two Sounding in Unison

At the altar now all was chaos: Emperor Haotian hung pinned in midair, the Mistress of the Hall of Joy drove at Yue Tianzun, Yue Tianzun plucked her strings to trouble the Fourth Young Master within the Destruction Calamity of the Sixteenth Era, Shen Mu laid hands upon the Fourth Young Master's lute string, and the four Elders dealt death to all without mercy. The altar split apart, and Emperor Haotian was freed at once from his state as sacrifice, yet before his feet could touch ground he met the Third Elder Cang Yancui and was slapped flat to the earth with a single palm.

At the same instant Shen Mu's fingers fell upon the string, and two fingers stroked heavily forward along it!

The Tiandu Chapter of Opening Heaven!

A shaft of light howled away along the string and vanished into the time and space of the past.

The universe of the Seventeenth Era already bore six billion years of history, and Shen Mu's divine art, following this string that joined past time and space, retraced six billion years in a single instant.

In that brief blink, borne by his art and the Fourth Young Master's string, he saw his power travel back from this moment to the first sealing of the Ancestral Court, pass the battlefield of the Creators and the ancient gods, reverse the flow of years to show him an age when giant beasts crowded the Ancestral Court, witness the rise of the Creators and the birth of one ancient god after another.

In the next instant his art carried his sight to a still more ancient age, when the Five Tai had but just taken form, when Taiyi hewed the World Tree and wildfire swept the plains. Then his art bore his sight through the Creation Calamity and into the Destruction Calamity! Within the Destruction Calamity chaos stretched vast and boundless, and there, magnificent beyond compare, stood Yujing City of the Ancestral Court amid the chaos, baptized by the great calamity yet ever renewed and never broken.

Shen Mu's art raced through the string and rushed along it into Yujing City.

In Yujing City, beneath a dao tree, the Fourth Young Master Zixiao in brocaded robes sat beneath his own dao tree stroking his lute, forefinger pressed upon a single string.

Boom!

The might of the Tiandu Chapter of Opening Heaven burst from the string, and with a hiss a small joint of Fourth Young Master Zixiao's forefinger snapped off, and he could not hide his surprise!

To lose such a joint was no grave wound to him, and versed as he was in the art of creation he could soon regrow it, but that this art could invade along his own string and be perceived only when it reached his very presence, that was beyond belief!

"Seventh Brother, you have some skill!

" Fourth Young Master Zixiao regrew his severed finger, uttered his praise, then stroked his ancient lute with light plucks and slow glides, calm and at ease.

On the other side, Shen Mu had just unleashed the Tiandu Chapter of Opening Heaven to strike the Fourth Young Master unseen, when his two fingers burst apart with twin cracks. The Fourth Young Master's art had traveled back along the music to his fingers in the same instant, and even his Hongmeng body could not withstand it.

Shen Mu's burst fingers dissolved at once into chaos qi and reformed anew as two fingers, and his Dao of Taiyi trembled and turned into the Taiyi divine axe.

Emperor Haotian had just scrambled up when he saw Shen Mu swing a colossal axe down toward the back of his own head, its art so exquisite that even he could not read the axe-work, much less know how to dodge.

"Mu Tianzun hates me to the bone and means to kill me!

My life is done!

" He had just thought this when he saw Shen Mu's axe go wildly astray to cleave empty air.

Emperor Haotian stared, for though the axe had plainly missed, it seemed to have struck something, and the Taiyi divine axe formed of the Dao of Taiyi shattered from the shock, leaving even Shen Mu's palm streaming with blood. The Taiyi divine axe broke, yet fresh Dao of Taiyi at once reformed into the Taiyi divine axe again, and Shen Mu circled Emperor Haotian in swift flight, raining move after move of the great Taiyi tree-felling art down upon the back of his head.

Emperor Haotian dared not move a muscle and stood sweating like rain: "He is fighting the Fourth Young Master across empty space!

" Long ago the Master of the Lingguan Palace had told him that in Shen Mu's hands he would not survive ten moves before defeat and death, but that had been more than ten years past.

Now he felt that if Shen Mu meant to kill him, he would likely not survive even one move, but die the instant a blow was struck! Fortunately Shen Mu now bent heart and soul to countering the art sent through the string by the Fourth Young Master, the two clashing across six billion years with the battlefield set in the present, and Fourth Young Master Zixiao, unable to see Shen Mu's art and hampered besides by the Destruction Calamity, proved inferior to Shen Mu in shift and response.

His earlier stroke had torn the Heavenly Court asunder and slain countless mighty treasures and prehistoric powerhouses, and even Feng Hualian, an elder who had long attained Dao, had died beneath his string. Yet that stroke had been long stored up, and in crossing blades with Shen Mu, Shen Mu would give him no time to store power.

Shen Mu's Taiyi divine axe hacked at the string, seeking to sever it and bar his meddling in the Seventeenth Era.

And he must keep the string, guarding it with his art lest Shen Mu cut it asunder.

If Shen Mu severed the string and broke his link to the Seventeenth Era, then in the next instant Shen Mu could fell Emperor Haotian with one axe, wiping out body and Dao of the agent he had nurtured!

The descent of Miluo Palace would then recede beyond hope. Moreover he must block Shen Mu's art from traveling by the string to Yujing City, for Shen Mu's earlier blow that had wounded his finger had taken him unawares and already cost him face, and to be caught a second time would disgrace him utterly.

The two traded swiftness for swiftness, and Emperor Haotian stood chilled to the marrow as Shen Mu's axe broke and regathered without pause, flashing above and about his head so that he could not stir.

"If I strike Mu Tianzun from behind now, could I wound him gravely and let the Fourth Young Master prevail?

" A bold thought sprang suddenly in Emperor Haotian's heart, stirring and ungovernable.

Just then the Fourth Elder Yan Xiuge came killing toward them and dealt a murderous blow at Shen Mu!

Shen Mu frowned, for all his strength was spent countering the art sent through the string by Fourth Young Master Zixiao, leaving him no leisure to meet Yan Xiuge's art and Dao-attainment treasure.

Yan Xiuge's cultivation ran deep, and though in Dao and art she fell short of him, in cultivation she stood far above him.

In open duel Shen Mu could defeat her by his Dao and art, though defeating her would be no easy task. Now Shen Mu had no spare strength to answer her assault.

Suddenly music rang out as Yue Tianzun's Zixiao Melody of Attaining Dao sounded anew, and at once no art came through the Fourth Young Master's string, and Shen Mu drew a long breath and turned the Taiyi divine axe in his hand to cut at Yan Xiuge!

Emperor Haotian saw his advantage and at once urged the Myriad Dao Heaven-Wheel Seal, vital energy bursting from both hands to form two Myriad Dao Heaven-Wheels that slammed hard into Shen Mu's back!

Boom upon boom!

Within his Heaven-Wheels his dao realm ran thirty-two heavens deep, erupting in sixty-four successive peals as the full might of the Myriad Dao Heaven-Wheel Seal burst forth.

Shen Mu's back swelled suddenly high, the muscles of his back writhing like great dragons beneath the skin, quaking sixty-four times in succession, and Emperor Haotian staggered back.

At the same time Shen Mu's tree-felling axe fell and clashed with Yan Xiuge's Three-Incense Pavilion.