Chapter 1809 — Unrivaled Upon the Sea of Ruins

As Shen Mu rose to his feet, the surface of the Sea of Chaos warped at once; behind him the sea gathered into a vast Chaos Wheel, churning up the chaos within it.

The spinning Chaos Wheel scooped up the Golden Ship of Salvation; the vast golden ship slid sideways across the face of the Sea of Chaos, creaking and groaning, and fell into the Chaos Wheel.

The chaos seawater flung into the air came cascading down in a flurry, only to be swept up again by the turning giant wheel — a spectacle of immense grandeur, breathtaking to behold!

Boom!

Suddenly every Dao Tree burst into violent flame. The three Palace Masters — Hehuan, Zengcheng and Phoenix — were startled, and each set about fighting the fire; the five Dao-attainers of Miluo Palace likewise hurriedly roused their divine abilities and tried to smother the flames upon their Dao Trees. But that fire had been kindled by the heat-death wind of the Ruins, and could not be put out at all.

Theirs was the orthodox Dao realm system of attaining the Dao: once one's own Dao realm was cultivated to the thirty-sixth heaven and entrusted to the void, a Great Luo Heaven would come into being, a Dao Tree would be born, and Dao Fruits would be produced.

Yet the Ruins were precisely what countered the Ultimate Void. Once their Dao Trees entered the Great Abyss of the Ruins, they were suppressed utterly; if they could not leave this place, they feared every shred of their cultivation would be dissolved away clean by this uncanny realm.

Worse still, they could feel the heavens of their own Dao realms being invaded by heat death, collapsing one after another!

"Sacrifice!"

The three Palace Masters each bellowed the word, rousing their own treasure halls; the three great halls descended in suppression, crushing out the flames upon their Dao Trees, and each of the three breathed a sigh of relief.

Huang Tang's Great Luo Heaven now began to burn as well; the fire of heat death blazed, setting both Dao Tree and Dao Fruits alight!

Huang Tang roared in fury and roused the branch of the World Tree. That branch had been forged by Elder Wuya; in an instant it pierced through the Chaos Wheel, stirred the Sea of Chaos, took root and sprouted upon the sea's surface, and swiftly became a smaller World Tree, propping up one stretch of void after another to withstand the power of the Ruins.

At once the flames upon his Great Luo Heaven, his Dao Tree and his Dao Fruits died down.

Only the Great Luo Heaven and Dao Tree of Kaihuang Shen Ye were never kindled by heat death, and suffered not the slightest harm.

Everyone looked up, and at the sight of the faces of Shen Mu and Ling Yuxiu their expressions changed drastically — though Kaihuang and the others broke into looks of delight.

"The Seventh Young Master!"

By now the golden ship had been caught by a Chaos Wheel and fallen into it. Aboard were Kaihuang Shen Ye, Yue Tianzun, Lan Yutian and others, as well as Palace Master Zengcheng and five other Dao-attainers.

Palace Master Zengcheng, seeing Shen Mu's face clearly, felt a chill in his heart; at once he led the other five in retreat, leaping from the golden ship and breaking free of that Chaos Wheel.

Then it struck him that his Dao Tree was still aboard the ship.

Palace Master Zengcheng immediately roused his magic power and tried to reclaim his Dao Tree, but his Dao Tree was bound fast to the golden ship, its roots suppressed by Lan Yutian and Xu Shenghua within one golden hall after another; there was no reclaiming it in so short a time.

When Lan Yutian and Xu Shenghua had first suppressed the roots of his Dao Tree, Palace Master Zengcheng had paid it no mind at all; only now did he curse inwardly, too wretched even to weep.

To abandon his Dao Tree was beyond him — and besides, his Dao Fruits were still upon it.

Knowing he could not reclaim the Dao Tree, Palace Master Zengcheng made his decision on the spot, and one Dao Fruit after another flew from the tree.

If the Dao Tree could not be recovered, then he would recover the Dao Fruits first, and preserve at least a portion of his cultivation.

In the very instant his Dao Fruits came loose from the tree, Kaihuang's sword light arrived, and a single stroke pierced one of his Dao Fruits through!

At this moment, Shen Mu finally rose fully to his feet.

A vast shadow appeared before the Golden Ship of Salvation, falling over Palace Master Zengcheng and the five other mighty ones of Miluo Palace.

Palace Master Zengcheng gritted his teeth, fought his way back to the golden ship, and roused the Zengcheng Treasure Hall to meet Kaihuang head-on, force against force!

The Zengcheng Treasure Hall spun swiftly around him, clashing again and again with Kaihuang's sword Dao. Now it shrank, now it swelled: at its smallest it was like a grain of sand, at its largest it became a resplendent divine city. Kaihuang's sword light wove to and fro within the city as though lost in a labyrinth, unable to pierce through and reach his true body.

His Dao Tree being left aboard the golden ship was one thing; but if his Dao Fruits were lost, the damage to his strength would be immense.

Xu Shenghua's gaze flickered; sensing that Kaihuang could not prevail, he at once began to deduce and calculate the inner structure of the Zengcheng.

Palace Master Zengcheng was plainly a master of the arts of calculation; his Zengcheng concealed problems of calculation within it, and only by solving them could one wound him.

"A pity Dao Master Lin Xuan is not here. Were he present, breaking the Zengcheng would not be so laborious."

Xu Shenghua gave himself wholly to the task, striving to unravel the structure of the Zengcheng, while Lan Yutian was utterly in the dark, knowing nothing at all of the labyrinthine layout of the Zengcheng Hall.

Of the arts of calculation he had, indeed, little mastery.

In the very instant Palace Master Zengcheng returned to the Golden Ship of Salvation, the sea's surface boiled and burst apart, and one vast Chaos Wheel after another rose ceaselessly from the deep, six of them encircling, twisting space and time.

The five Dao-attainers of Miluo Palace who followed Palace Master Zengcheng also meant to turn back to the golden ship. One of them, careless for a moment, passed through a vast Chaos Wheel and vanished without a trace.

The other four Dao-attainers of Miluo Palace were startled, and exchanged glances; two of them passed through the Chaos Wheel that had just risen, searching for their companion, while the other two rushed aboard the golden ship to help Palace Master Zengcheng hold off Kaihuang Shen Ye.

The two who plunged into the Chaos Wheel were suddenly met with blinding light; when their eyes had adjusted, they discovered to their horror that their very bodies had become two Crested Fire Pheasant Dragons!

And their original bodies had vanished entirely!

Nor was that all: their primordial spirits had changed as well, becoming the primordial spirits of Crested Fire Pheasant Dragons!

"Do not panic!"

One of the Miluo Palace Dao-attainers opened his mouth, but what came out was a crowing cry; he hastily switched to the Dao tongue and called out: "This is the Seventh Young Master's Dao of Reincarnation, the art he commands best! He can alter the structure of our bodies and our primordial spirits, but he cannot alter our comprehension of the Dao and its divine abilities! Our Dao Trees and Dao Fruits remain!"

The two Crested Fire Pheasant Dragons at once sensed their own great Dao divine abilities, and finding them still intact, were somewhat reassured.

The two Crested Fire Pheasant Dragons looked about them, and saw that this world within the Chaos Wheel was filled with floating bubbles great and small, in all the colors of the rainbow, as strange and uncanny as a dream.