Chapter 1848 — The Chaos Cauldron of the Ancestral Court

In the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court, Young Master Lingxiao and Young Master Zixiao saw that Wuji was already dead, and their faces changed drastically; they hurriedly brought the Jade Capital City to a halt and at once set the blood sacrifice in motion.

The Jade Capital City had come this time to seize the moment when Shen Mu was occupied with Wuji and sweep Jingping's forces clean away, yet what they had never expected was that Shen Mu would defeat and kill Wuji so swiftly, so neatly, so cleanly. "Push the blood sacrifice with all your strength!

" At the command of the two Young Masters, countless shards of Great Luo Heaven blazed with light; one hexagonal pillar after another thrust upward, growing ever thicker and more massive; countless runes kindled, and the whole Ancestral Court was wrapped in the radiance of the blood sacrifice.

But to their surprise, Shen Mu made no move to interfere with the blood sacrifice, letting them perform it as they pleased. "Can it be that he truly holds such absolute certainty that he can take us all in a single net?

" The faces of the two Young Masters were heavy.

From the manner in which Shen Mu had killed Wuya and slain Wuji, his strength had grown by leaps and bounds over these three and a half billion years, yet he was still a shade inferior to the standard of a Young Master.

To rely on his strength and Jingping's to wipe out the Jade Capital City was all but impossible! "The Seventh Young Master's spirit has already taken on something of our teacher's bearing.

But be that as it may, this battle must never be lost, and can never be lost!

" The blood sacrifice of the Jade Capital City unfolded in full, drawing on the vast and surging energies released by the deaths of Wuya and Wuji, exchanging with the mass-energy of the past; within the Jade Capital City, rays of light kindled one after another, and Dao-attainers and Hall Masters descended without cease!

At the same time, Young Master Zixiao and Young Master Lingxiao drew ever closer to their full descent. As though fearing that the energy for their descent might not be enough, the Dao-attainers of Shen Mu and Jingping went on wiping out the followers of Old Man Wuya, so that more of the Jade Capital City's Dao-attainers could descend into the Ancestral Court at their ease.

In the sky, the Sea of Chaos subsided.

Shen Mu stepped down and came into the midst of the battlefield. Beneath Old Man Wuya there had been countless mighty ones, among them beings to rival Hall Masters, but now they were leaderless.

Jingping had many mighty ones; of Hall Master rank alone there were more than ten, Xu Shenghua, Lan Yutian, Kaihuang Shen Ye, Taishi, Jiang Baigui, Xing'an, Shen Fengqing, Lord Youtian, Hua Xuanxiu, the Divine King Sishen and others. In this battle, the outcome was settled without Shen Mu needing to lift a hand.

Shen Mu waited quietly. The ferocity of this battle surpassed all imagining.

Old Man Wuya's followers did not fight to the death where they stood; they fled toward other parts of the Ancestral Court, spreading the battlefield across the whole of it, making this purge far more troublesome.

Even with Shen Fengqing, Tiangong, Lady Tianyin, Master Dan and the rest, Jingping's mighty ones could not avoid deaths and wounds.

Still Shen Mu did not intervene, letting them do as they would. More than ten years later, the purge finally came to a close.

The Golden Ship of Salvation bore them all back and came to hover outside the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court.

Shen Mu stood at the prow.

Within the Jade Capital City, the blood sacrifice had reached its end; the radiance of the sacrifice in the sky gradually dimmed, and the beams of Dao-light from the past cosmos grew fainter one by one.

At last, one ray after another vanished, and the final ray too slowly sank down and fell into the city. The Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court, as though washed clean by a pure rain, stood bright and new, wholly manifest within the Ancestral Court.

In this ancient divine city, Dao-light hung thick and hazy, Dao trees stood in groves, and from the Dao fruits of the Dao-attainers rolled the great and ordered sound of the Dao, reverberating without cease; how many kinds of Dao-sounds gathered together, like a hymn of the Great Dao, filling the whole Ancestral Court!

The Dao patterns and Dao chains that spilled from the Dao trees in the city interwove across the sky; though their number was immense, not one thread was disordered. The Dao patterns and Dao chains spread in every direction, as though to brand themselves upon the sky, upon the mountains and rivers; even around the Golden Ship of Salvation drifted arcane and profound Dao patterns and Dao chains, like dragons, like long rivers, like wandering phoenixes, floating past the ship on every side. Clang.

The gates of the Jade Capital City swung open, revealing the thousand palaces and ten thousand halls within, and the forest of Dao trees!

Before every palace stood a Dao tree, and beneath every Dao tree stood a Dao-attainer; they set their Dao weapons upon the altars in the halls, or hung them upon the Dao trees, nourishing them with Dao fruits and Dao flowers. They had no Great Luo Heaven, they had not attained the Dao in the seventeenth epoch; perhaps that was their only weakness.

Yet their cultivation was still incomparably deep and vigorous, and their numbers were greater, far greater than Jingping's three thousand Dao-attainers!

Shujun craned his neck out long, still counting the Dao trees in the city.

Beside him, Sishen, a Creator after all, stood tall and broad-shouldered, and said, "Old Divine King, there's no need to count. There are eighteen thousand Dao trees in the city.

" Shujun drew his neck back and muttered, "Don't call me Old Divine King.

I'm only a few tens of thousands of years older than you.

" Sishen asked curiously, "Does the Divine King wish to address me as a brother? " Shujun's face darkened, and he shook his head hurriedly; many of those present were Sishen's uncles and elders, and if he were to call Sishen brother, he would be the one to lose badly.

After all, by seniority he was the most ancient of all those present, and besides, Sishen's origins were murky and unclear; if he really was Shen Mu's child, he would lose even more.

He still remembered the look on Shen Mu's face not long ago, when Sishen came to the Ancestral Court and handed him that painting of the Divine King Langwo; there was surely some trick in it.

Jiang Baigui glanced at Sishen, and he too recalled Shen Mu's expression that day when he put the painting away; a thoughtful look came over his face.

Emperor Yanfeng leaned close to him and said in a low voice, "Imperial Teacher of Jingping, have you figured out who Sishen's birth father is? " Emperor Yanfeng was no longer the Heavenly Emperor, and Jiang Baigui no longer served as Jingping's Imperial Teacher, yet Emperor Yanfeng still often called him the Imperial Teacher of Jingping.

Jiang Baigui's eyes flickered; lowering his voice, he said, "I asked the Heavenly Chart Painting Sage to examine that painting.

" Emperor Yanfeng's spirits rose, and he was about to ask when Wei Suifeng came up and whispered, "What did the Heavenly Chart Painting Sage say?

" The Heavenly Chart Painting Sage was Shen Mu's teacher in the Dao of painting, the Deaf Elder of Yincan Village; compared with him, Shen Mu's painting Dao was still somewhat immature.

Yet Shen Mu wrote his feelings into the Dao of painting, with a breadth of spirit that the Painting Sage could not match.

The three old men crowded together, heads close, whispering.

Jiang Baigui pondered a moment, then repeated what the Heavenly Chart Painting Sage had said.

The Painting Sage had said that the painting was indeed painted by Shen Mu, that it was steeped in Shen Mu's feelings, and that when he painted it, Shen Mu's Dao of painting had already been beyond reproach.