Chapter 1856 — The Supreme Sword Dao

Lan Yutian sat within the well and saw the Heaven-Piercing Well still locked against that oil lamp, while the Hall Masters and Attainers of Miluo Palace kept urging the well on, striving to drive the lamp bowl from its bottom. The lamp bowl lay clasped over the well's base and shook without cease, and for the moment the Heaven-Piercing Well could do nothing against it.

Yet Lan Yutian had only seized upon a flaw in the Heaven-Piercing Well for the time being; he had not broken it.

The lamp bowl suppressed the well's might, but it would also cause that might to gather ever stronger, until one day it would surpass the limit the lamp bowl could bear and grind it to pieces. "The foundation of Miluo Palace remains mighty. Had Nanxiang Yuanjun not warned us and told us of these seven strange treasures, Jingping would have been caught unprepared and would surely have been wiped out!

" Of Jingping, those of finest talent were he himself and Xu Shenghua, yet neither of them could refine a treasure to match the Young Masters' treasures. In the end, only the strange treasures of Miluo Palace could answer the strange treasures of Miluo Palace.

In such foundation, Jingping was still far behind. At the mouth of the well the battle of the Attainers still raged, and Lan Yutian roused his spirit and climbed outward. That the Heaven-Piercing Well would break the lamp bowl was only a matter of time.

He must now carry his useful body into slaughter against the Attainers and Hall Masters of Miluo Palace.

If he could not destroy them, then he must rely upon the mysteries of the Heaven-Piercing Well he had glimpsed in the final lamplight to devise a way to break it and remove this hidden peril. Only, without the lamp bowl, to remove that peril would likely take a very long time. "I wonder how my brother fares? " Before his eyes rose the figure of Shen Mu, and in his heart he spoke in silence.

Facing the treasures of the six Young Masters of Miluo Palace, the Attainers of Jingping had suffered grievous death and injury, while Shen Mu stood alone against two Young Masters of Miluo Palace.

The peril needed no telling.

Upon one of the sixteen Chaos Rivers circling Miluo Palace, Young Master Lingxiao stood grave of face upon the waters. In these days, from within the chaotic mist the divine powers of Young Master Zixiao had come ceaselessly against him, and more than one wound now marked his body.

But what weighed his heart was not his own wounds; it was the change in Young Master Zixiao's sword Dao divine powers. The might of Young Master Zixiao's sword Dao remained as strong as ever, yet Lingxiao had keenly sensed, within its shifting, a subtle change of mind. A change of mind will show in the finest grain of a power.

Though its force be undiminished, a tremor in the Dao heart will still mar the perfection of the Dao art.

Young Master Zixiao was in no way weaker than he, but his Dao heart was flawed, and Shen Mu was a monster skilled in mastering men's hearts. He could not help but fear for Young Master Zixiao.

"The Seventh has troubled the Fourth's Dao heart by some strange means, a working that seeps in unseen. From the very start of their clash it has been gnawing at the Fourth's Dao heart.

At first it did not show, but now it begins to appear. " His heart sank lower and lower.

Shen Mu must be using the Dao of Divine Consciousness or the Dao of Reincarnation to wear at Young Master Zixiao by degrees, striking at his Dao heart with formless spirit powers or reincarnation powers beyond the reach of visible powers. Such influence is exceeding slow at first, but as time passes it grows. "Moreover, the Seventh's strength cannot match the Fourth's.

By right the Seventh should have fallen swiftly, yet he has held on so long. That means his strength keeps advancing. He.

.

. " The corner of his eye twitched as he recalled the canon left by Young Master Hundun in the Dao Canon of Miluo Palace.

All in Miluo Palace, including its Master, had left their Dao arts and divine powers in the Canon, and Young Master Hundun had left his own book.

Many had turned its pages. After reading Young Master Hundun's book, the Master of Miluo Palace was silent for a long while, then told them that its depths had reached a degree even he could not wholly comprehend.

Young Master Lingxiao had also turned those pages, yet could make nothing of them at all. The Master told them the script was written in the Dao of Chaos, and that the runes of the Dao of Chaos were called Yuan, runes surpassing the runes of Hongmeng.

Should Young Master Hundun bring Yuan to full perfection, he would attain an achievement beyond even his own reach.

Yet that road was exceeding hard, and he did not believe any could reach its end. At the time, Young Master Lingxiao and the others had not grasped the terror of Yuan.

Each of them possessed singular attainment, attainment the Master of Miluo Palace himself could not reach. They took Young Master Hundun's Yuan to be akin to the Second Young Master's Dao of Guixu, or the Fourth's Sword Dao.

Seen now, their thought of those years was somewhat naive. The Master's praise of Yuan was surely praise for the Dao of Chaos wholly surpassing the Dao of Hongmeng! "The Seventh of today cannot be so strong, yet under the Fourth's grinding he is growing stronger by degrees!

" He blocked another wave of sword strokes and looked about, yet still could not find where Miluo Palace truly lay.

Within Miluo Palace, sword light flashed, and Young Master Zixiao's thrust found Shen Mu.

Abruptly at his ear came music, the music of his dead wife.

It was not that any played the Zixiao Attainment Melody.

It rang from within his own Dao heart, and though he would not listen, he could not shut out the sound. Shen Mu must possess some art or power aimed at the weakness of his Dao heart, piercing into it and waking his longing for his wife. In this decisive battle of life and death he strained to keep his Dao heart untouched, yet still he was touched.

He had attained the Dao by means of his wife's Zixiao Attainment Melody, and that melody was branded deep in his Dao heart and Dao arts. He could have cut away the flaw in his Dao heart, yet never could bring himself to strike.

Suddenly a bell rang.

Even as the melody sounded in his Dao heart, the Cosmic Bell struck his body. Young Master Zixiao grunted and fell back, flying out of Miluo Palace to land upon a Chaos River.

He would have killed his way back, when his heart shuddered. He lowered his head to look into the river, and there he saw his wife. This river was the Annihilation Calamity of the Tenth Era.

He saw within it himself drunk upon the sword and sunk in madness, heedless of his wife, while she stayed ever at his side and cared for him.

Body and soul he had poured into the study of the Twenty-three Sword Styles, and had even come to find his wife hateful as never before, a hindrance upon his road to attainment.

More than once he raised a rough hand to her, cursed her foully, sought to drive her off, even wished to kill her. Yet his wife never left him, still understanding him, loving him, striving to aid him to attainment.

He was too dull. Drunk upon the sword, he ignored her care for him, and ignored the drawing near of the Annihilation Calamity. But his wife had perceived it.

She judged he could not cross the Calamity and must die within it, and so in the years before it came she poured her own body and soul into helping him attain.

How she herself might cross the Calamity, she never once considered.

At last she created the Zixiao Attainment Melody. One melody of Dao sound became a final绝响 and helped Zixiao attain. Once Zixiao had attained, the Calamity descended, and only then did he know his wife's sacrifice.

His extremity of sword became extremity of feeling, and desperately he sought to shield his wife through that Calamity.

Yet it was too late.