Chapter 1790 — The Adept Wades Through the Water

The host of Miluo Palace gazed upon that Chaos Sea, where the Guixu lotus swelled and shrank by turns, shifting beyond all measure, while its leaves trembled without cease and changed their bearings. Plainly Shen Mu's duel with Old Man Wuya was being fought with extreme ferocity.

Yet as time wore on, all could gradually see Shen Mu failing; though he borrowed the Guixu lotus to join the annihilation tribulations and steal their energy, he could hardly hold his ground.

The Guixu lotus grew ever smaller, and the turmoil it could raise in Chaos grew ever fainter. "Why does Taiyi still not strike?

" all could not help but wonder.

"Can he mean to sit and watch the Seventh Young Master be beaten back into the past by Old Man Wuya?

" By now two months had passed since Xing An promised to undo the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin.

On this day Xing An made his preparations complete, stowed half the body of Hall Master Chuge into his box, and only then bent himself to a careful study of the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin.

"What a fine coffin!

" he could not help but praise.

"A pity it was shaved by a young master of Miluo Palace. And lucky too that it was shaved, else to crack it would truly have taken half a year.

" He was in no hurry, for he himself knew how to forge the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin, and every marvel of the divine coffin was perfectly clear to him. Even so he must still find the flaw within this sealing art before he could open the coffin.

The Dao-Burying Divine Coffin could be seen as an incomparably intricate lock, a lock of interlocking mechanisms, and more than that, possessed of a mighty power to wound in return any who forced it. Xing An did not have Shen Mu's overwhelming strength; Shen Mu could withstand the backlash of the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin head-on and live, but he could not.

Yet so long as he found the first mechanism of the lock, all the other mechanisms would unravel of themselves.

His countless brains calculated madly, seeking that first mechanism.

Day by day time passed, and soon another two months were gone, yet Xing An still had not found where the first mechanism lay.

Within the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin were hidden runes beyond counting, and the runes of the coffin and those of the Dao-Slaying Divine Nails were mortised together, moreover in constant flux.

This flux was like tenon and mortise: every rune upon the divine nails was as a tenon, every rune upon the coffin as a mortise, the tenon thrust into the mortise and clasped fast, forming a mechanism. Once the mechanism was formed, tenon and mortise would exchange a portion of their rune lore.

The tenons upon the nails moved without ever stopping, exchanging lore with the mortises and altering their own structure, and the mortises within the coffin likewise moved without ever stopping, exchanging lore with the tenons and altering their own structure. The first tenon slipping from its mortise would change its own form, come before the second mortise, and join with it, and after the two exchanged lore their forms would change anew, each joining with a third tenon and mortise in turn.

The joinings of tenon and mortise and the exchanges of lore occurring in the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin numbered in the hundreds of millions in every instant, and thus formed a lock of incomparable intricacy!

For Xing An to seek out the most primal tenon-and-mortise structure amid hundreds of millions of changes in every instant was indeed无比 difficult. Yet it was possible.

He had ever been Jingping's mightiest monster of calculation, and had long since reckoned that about once every two months a primal tenon-and-mortise structure would appear, and that would be the finest hour to crack it. To crack the primal tenon-and-mortise structure would cause the lore of all other tenon-and-mortise structures to deviate.

A miss by a hair's breadth leads astray by a thousand leagues, and this single thread of change could throw the entire sealing system of the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin into disorder and collapse! The reason he had pledged to Shen Mu that in six months he could perfectly undo the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin was that he needed time to calculate the changes of the tenon-and-mortise structures and deduce the form of the primal structure, and needed time to watch and record the moment of its appearance.

Time hurried swiftly by.

The Box circled round Xing An and the coffin, now and then halting to study its own shadow.

Now the half-year term was very near; the sun slowly rose, and when it reached the crown of the sky the appointed hour with Shen Mu would come. Xing An had ever been punctual and true to his word, and the Box had taken on the same habit.

Yet Xing An still stared fixedly at the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin, motionless.

About the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin, holy eyes great and small floated in the air, also staring fixedly at the coffin.

He had long since ceased to calculate; for these two months he had only stared fixedly at the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin, watching the shifting of its runes. At this moment Xing An's eyes were wide; for two months he had never blinked, keeping them open all the while, his eyes filled with bloodshot veins. The sun climbed higher and higher.

The Box took out a straight thighbone, thrust it into the earth, and watched the shadow of the bone.

The shadow crept by degrees, and the sun was about to stand overhead.

At that very instant Xing An abruptly urged his vital qi, shaping it into an exceedingly minute rune, and with a flick of his finger stamped the rune upon one of the Dao-Slaying Divine Nails of the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin.

He breathed out, rose to his feet, and began to pack his things, gathering those holy eyes into the Box.

The lid of the Box opened, yet it still kept staring at the shadow of the thighbone, quite solemn.

The shadow still moved little by little, until at last, when Xing An had packed all in order, the sun also came to high noon.

Snap.

The Box shut its lid and looked toward the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin, within which there was not the least stir.

The Box grew doubtful and was about to step forward, when suddenly from within the divine coffin came a creaking, and those Dao-Slaying Divine Nails were seen to turn of themselves, withdrawing outward little by little!

The nails spun ever faster, more and more urgently!

This was because the primal tenon-and-mortise structure had been broken, so that thereafter whenever each tenon-and-mortise structure exchanged its rune lore, the lore it received in exchange was wrong.

Thus no tenon and mortise could clasp perfectly together! Like a plague it swiftly infected every tenon-and-mortise structure, until at last the Dao-Slaying Divine Nails could no longer join with the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin; instead the two repelled each other, and so the nails spun swiftly and backed out of the coffin!

Clang, clang, clang.

One by one the Dao-Slaying Divine Nails fell to the ground, and Xing An raised his brows, a trace of joy showing between them.

After months of study, his triumph had required but a single exceedingly minute rune to crack the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin that had suppressed Taiyi!

To him this too was a vast achievement.

Suddenly the Dao-Burying Divine Coffin burst open with a bang; within, chaotic mist churned, the qi of Chaos abruptly scattered, and a youth sat bolt upright from the coffin, his neck twisting to face Xing An.

This was a youthful Taiyi. Xing An eyed him twice, then bent to pick up the nails.

The youthful Taiyi lay back down, and when he rose again, a giant strode forth from the coffin, saying in a muffled rumble, "Where is Lord Mu?

" Xing An shook his head. "I do not know.

" That giant Taiyi reached out to seize the divine coffin, and Xing An's face changed slightly as he said earnestly, "It is mine.