Chapter 1857 — The Skull of the Third-Ranked One

"Third Senior Brother, if you cannot withstand the Calamity of Creation, then your countless futures will all be destroyed by it, and you will naturally cease to exist. The Calamity of Creation will erase you completely!"

Shen Mu said unhurriedly, "Your countless futures will all become nourishment for the Seventeenth Epoch universe. This is why even those who have attained the Dao cannot survive the Calamity of Creation. But you have a single thread of life: to gather countless futures into one body, as the Master did, as Taishang did. Only thus can you preserve your life within the Calamity of Creation."

Young Master Lingxiao heard countless selves shouting in fury, questioning; he saw countless selves attacking, yet never able to harm Shen Mu in the slightest.

"Is this the scene the Master encountered in the First Epoch, when he forged the Golden Ship of Salvation to ferry all living beings?" He raised his own question amid the clamor.

Yet Shen Mu seemed to have clearly caught this question of his from among the questions of countless hims. "The Master of that time could only pass through the Calamity of Destruction; he should never have led living beings into the Calamity of Creation. Within the Calamity of Destruction, the living beings of the First Epoch were already reduced to ashes. Had he encountered the Calamity of Creation, he would have been all the more in despair. Still, I think that after the living beings were destroyed, the Master did encounter the Calamity of Creation, and yet he survived. In that brief moment, he should have been able to see the future."

Young Master Lingxiao let out a long breath. The Master of Miluo Palace at that time, though profound in strength, was still no match for him as he was now.

If the Master of that time could pass through the Calamity of Creation, then surely he could as well!

"Whether you can pass through the Calamity of Creation does not depend on strength, but on whether you can gather the future into one body."

Shen Mu seemed to have heard his heart's voice. "Senior Brother, if you were me, you could even leap out of the Calamity of Creation and come directly to the time after the calamity. This is the Dao of Chaos. If I am not mistaken, the reason the Master's dao heart died and he returned to the First Epoch to transform into the Dao is that, before the destruction of the Sixteenth Epoch and the coming of the Seventeenth Epoch's Calamity of Creation, he saw the entire future of the Seventeenth Epoch. A future that filled him with utter despair."

Young Master Lingxiao's pupils abruptly constricted.

Just now, in that fleeting glimpse, he had seen every future cross-section of the Seventeenth Epoch, but there were far too many cross-sections of the future; he could not see through to the end of the Seventeenth Epoch!

Yet the Master of Miluo Palace should have been able to.

"This is my first time entering the Calamity of Creation, and also my first time encountering such a bizarre sight. As for the future of the Seventeenth Epoch within the Calamity of Creation, I did not have time to see it clearly either."

Shen Mu said bleakly, "But the Master said that the future of the Seventeenth Epoch is ultimate cold silence: after eight hundred billion years it becomes a wholly frozen void, with no life of any kind, and no next universe. I imagine he saw the future of the Seventeenth Epoch, and so despaired."

"Are you not in despair?" Young Master Lingxiao asked.

Shen Mu shook his head. "I am not. I do not believe the future of the Seventeenth Epoch is already fated. Even if it is fated, I mean to change it! Senior Brother, the Master's road was the wrong one. Will you still keep walking along his road?"

Young Master Lingxiao fell silent, gripping the dao spear in his hand, gripping it tighter and tighter.

"Junior Brother, you say my only way to live is to gather all futures into one body, as First Senior Brother and the Master did. This I do not accept."

He pressed his lips together and revealed a faint smile. "Besides that, there is still one thread of life — the Filthy Place of the ultimate void, that abandoned land!"

Shen Mu's expression darkened, and his pupils abruptly constricted.

The Calamity of Creation erupted!

Suddenly, countless Young Master Lingxiaos rose to their feet, their dao spears thrusting forward as one, charging toward the abandoned land that the Calamity of Destruction had never destroyed!

Shen Mu flicked his sleeve, and at the moment the Calamity of Creation erupted, he vanished from within it!

Whoosh —

Above the Jade Capital City of the Ancestral Court, Shen Mu's figure appeared. His wide robe and great sleeves shook with a sudden jolt, and he plunged into the ultimate void!

In the Filthy Place of the ultimate void, a massive skull was blown by the wind of cold silence, struck against a broken ship, and hung by its head upon a battered, ruined spear.

That strange head was the very one Shen Mu had encountered long ago, when he first entered the Filthy Place. The skull had obtained a trace of flesh and blood, and as the years passed, more flesh and blood had begun to grow upon its surface.

It had grown eyes, and its features could vaguely be made out.

The Third Young Master, Lingxiao — Lingxiao, who had escaped from the Calamity of Creation and had all along remained in a state of muddled confusion!

At this moment, the Third Young Master Lingxiao vanished from the Jade Capital City, and at last he remembered his own name and identity; all manner of divine powers and dao arts came surging into his mind.