Chapter 1785 — World-Shaking Giants

Xing'an put away the Dao-Burial Divine Coffin and the lower half of the Chu Ge Hall Master, and departed with the chest. Shen Mu and Yue Tianzun watched him vanish into the vast, hazy ranges of the Ancestral Court. Yue Tianzun praised him: "A truly remarkable man. Just now, Xing'an's gaze toward you was not right; when he looked at you, he kept staring at your neck, and at times at your skull. His eyes never once met yours.

" "He wants my head.

" Shen Mu did not mind.

He smiled. "It is only that he lacks the ability. " He set off walking toward the World Tree. "Yue, since we have come, let us go and take a look beneath the World Tree. The Five Elders of Fengshu leaving the World Tree gives me an uneasy feeling.

By the Master of the Hall of Joy's account, those five Elders had always nestled beneath the World Tree; this time, leaving it to seize the Heavenly Court does not look like a departure of their own will, but rather as though they were driven out.

. .

" Yue Tianzun knitted her brows and followed him.

Their steps were not swift, yet their speed was frightening.

Just then, from deep within time and space, a lute note suddenly rang out. Shen Mu started in alarm and hastily pulled Yue Tianzun downward. The Heavenly Court abruptly split a second time, sheared cleanly apart by the lute note. Then the lute notes suddenly turned clamorous, urgent and swift, pearls falling upon a jade plate, and the Heavenly Court in an instant shattered into quarters!

Shen Mu looked back.

The vast Heavenly Court was being parted and dismantled by invisible blades; amid the lute music, the four Elders of Fengshu darted and flew this way and that, trying to evade those formless blades, yet one of them still failed to escape, beheaded by the lute note, and which of the four it was, none could say! "The Fourth Young Master is enraged.

" Scarcely had Shen Mu thought this when a ray of light flew out from beneath the World Tree, like the scissor-tail of a swallow, streaking to the collapsing Heavenly Court, and with a single snip, snap, the lute notes broke off. Shen Mu looked with his vertical-brow eye, and saw the two severed lute strings dancing and coiling in time and space, then abruptly coiling toward the World Tree.

Those two strings were invisible to the naked eye, silent and soundless as they swept along; as they came curling toward the World Tree they passed through six or seven divine cities built by prehistoric powerhouses. As they passed, those divine cities showed no sign of anything amiss; but once the lute strings had flown far away, city after city split open without a sound.

The prehistoric divinities within those cities were all Tianzun-level beings, mighty in strength, yet they never knew what had happened before their bodies perished and their dao melted away! Beneath the World Tree, two leaves flew out; the World Tree's leaves grew larger and larger, and meeting those two lute strings, swish-swish-swish, they coiled and wrapped the strings tight.

Suddenly the leaves burned, and the lute strings burned with them; the two trails of fire followed the strings and vanished into the depths of time and space, and should soon burn all the way into the great cataclysm that destroyed the Sixteenth Era. Shen Mu's heart was shaken; he halted his steps and said in a low voice, "Yue, go back.

I will go to the World Tree alone. " Yue Tianzun hesitated.

She had not seen the clash between the lute strings and the World Tree's leaves; she had seen only the divine cities suddenly splitting open, then two leaves flying over, abruptly curling, and then burning. That conflict of effortless mastery, she had not seen.

"How powerful is the one beneath the World Tree?

" she asked. Shen Mu's face was grave.

"No less than a young master of Miluo Palace!

" "Take care of yourself!

" Yue Tianzun shouldered her ancient lute and left, her figure vanishing from sight.

Shen Mu steadied himself and walked toward the World Tree.

Behind him the Heavenly Court collapsed; the surviving three Elders of Fengshu, drenched in blood, hurled themselves with frenzy at the Master of the Hall of Joy and Emperor Haotian. The Master of the Hall of Joy fled with Emperor Haotian, taking any road that offered escape, making straight for the Heavenly Court's armies led by the Empress. Shen Mu came to Mount Dahei. There the World Tree stood taller and more majestic than ever, holding up the firmament of the Ancestral Court and making the sky above the Ancestral Court higher than before; standing here and gazing up, it seemed the heavens and myriad worlds had all drawn much nearer.

But Shen Mu knew this was only an illusion. In truth, the heavens and myriad worlds were drawing away from the Ancestral Court at every moment. As the World Tree grew, the Ultimate Void expanded without cease, pushing the heavens and myriad worlds ever farther apart from one another.

By the reckoning of the Master of Miluo Palace, eighty billion years hence the entire universe would be utterly voided and become a void membrane. Behind Shen Mu all was a vast blur of chaos; the Chaos Hall sat upon the breath of chaos. He stepped into Mount Dahei and called out in a clear voice, "Which daoist brother has taken up lodging in my territory?

" "Your territory? The Seventh Young Master, Chaos, since when did you become the landlord here?

" Beneath the World Tree, an aged voice said, "I have dwelt here for more than ten chaos years. When you came beneath the World Tree in those years to pay your respects to me, that was not what you said.

"